Allie Potts's Blog, page 35
March 13, 2014
Cleaning out the closet and other personal pruning
The weatherseemed to befinally on the upswing again which meant it was time once again to revisit my closet to ensure that my warmer weather garments were within easy access.
As I looked through the hangers it suddenly hit me that there were still items I had owned years before I had ever met my husband. We celebrated our tenth anniversary last year and didn’t exactly rush through the dating process, so these items could almost be described as vintage!
My husband complains about our closet size...
March 10, 2014
Nothing is impossible for those who reject the word can’t
Master Cheng Yen There is nothing we cannot achieve if we are willing to think, cultivate and take mindful action (Photo credit: symphony of love)
After weeks of snow and/or rain, a recent weekend’s blue skies and warm weather sent my family outside to jump start a bit of springcleaning and yard maintenance.While the husband was busy reorganizing the garage, our eldest son decided that our house needed other improvements – specifically a large watch tower in the backyard.
He took a sheet of pap...
March 6, 2014
Applying the flywheel and avoiding the doom loop beyond business
Several years ago, I picked up a copy of Jim Collins’ Good to Great, a business reference on why some companies thrive while other companies fail. In it, he made a number of great observations supporting the premises that the enemy of great is not bad, no”Good is the enemy of Great.” He speculates thatbecause wepreceive ourselves asbeing good at something, we can be lulled into acceptance of the status quo rather than incentivized to improve to the point ofgreatness. At least when we recogniz...
March 3, 2014
Elaboration on my dedication
Our first-bornfound us in March of 2004. Actually, my in-laws were the ones todiscover him abandoned off the side of a country road, only a few weeks old,near the body of his sister. They brought him home and showed us a picture. For my husband and I it was love at first sight.
Before you begin to wonder where social services was in all of this, I willmention that our first-born was of the canine variety. He was a little ball of dark fur missing part ofhistail. He wasfull ofenergy and sharp po...
February 27, 2014
How Twitter is helping to teach geography in my home
Zen (Photo credit: Josefeaka Hipnosapo)
My husband subscribes to a minimalist blog thatprovides tips forhow the authorhas been able toeschew the material andachieve a Zen like state in the internet age. For the full list of how he conducts his business (successfully I might add), feel free to visit Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits blog. I can get behind most of the other tips such as not cluttering my blog with affiliate advertising, however I am not able to completely ignore my blog stats.
And why sho...
February 24, 2014
Don’t discount the power of a name
The tag pile (Photo credit: nightthree)
I came across a discussion in one of my Goodreads groups on how authors select names for their characters and I found it to be a rather interesting discussion.I happen to fall into the category of people who think that the meaning behind a name is an important consideration. Not just when creating fictitious characters for a story, but in all things.
For example, one of my sisters met a woman who was joyfully describing how she had selected a very unique...
February 20, 2014
Wait…haven’t I been here before?
When I began to research self-publishing channels I of course had heard about Kindle Direct Publishing. The success stories from that platform alone made me believe that nothing could be more simple. Obviously I was more than a little naïve.
I mentioned my aspirations about writing to a formercolleague who just happened to play tennis occasionally with a New York Times Best Seller. I did not have a completed manuscript, nor did I have a ton of materials which would help support my credibility,...
February 17, 2014
Distractions do not have to be the enemy of progress
Cover of Are We There Yet (Backseat Books)
Growing up my family regularly took road trips up north to visit our relatives. Now that I am grown with two small children of my own, Idon’t quite know how my parents managed to maintain their sanity with three children in the back seat prior to the invention of in-car entertainment systems.
I do recall a number of trips that either began or ended in the wee hours of the morning, but the evening just wasn’t quite long enough to get us all the way ther...
February 15, 2014
Commitment is the Cure–From “Aspiring” Writer to Professional Author
Perhaps it is because my youngest just threw his copy of the Little Engine That Could at me, but I keep thinking, I think I can… I think I can…
Originally posted on Kristen Lamb's Blog:
Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Tim Simpson.
It’s been amazing and terrifying to watch the changes in our industry just over the past six years. For generations, there was only a handful of items a writer needed to do. Write a book. Query. Get an agent. Land a deal. Hopefully continue writ...
February 13, 2014
Know yourself and your audience
Earlierthis week I allowed my toddler to take over my blog for a few reasons. 1) He is a master manipulator 2)I’d mentioned my other son a few times and decided he deserved some spot light time and 3) His methods may be somewhat Machiavellian, but he instinctively knows how to conduct a basicpersonalSWOTanalysis.
By SWOT I mean the business process of analyzing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats and then figuring outa way to turn weaknesses into strengths and threats into opport...
