D.G. Kaye's Blog, page 160
December 30, 2015
Happy New Year to All of You
Another year has come to a close. I’ve heard so many questioning, ‘Where did this year go?’ I ask myself the same question as I reflect on my hurdles and accomplishments. And although I can account for all that has transpired, I’m still in disbelief of how the clock has ticked in such haste.
The winter escape I took last February seems like a distant memory when I look back at all that came after. The first 5 months of the year, I spent visiting my dying aunt intermittently between finishing my latest book, Have Bags, Will Travel. The summer and fall were spent dealing with government income tax issues and digging up 6 years of audit receipts, while revising and preparing to publish Have Bags. And as if every week didn’t bring another challenge into my life these past few months, that darned rascal ‘Murphy’, (yes that’s right, I’m on a first name basis with Mr. Murphy’s Law), had to give me a few more jabs two days before I leave.
My hip went out once again, which makes it very difficult to run around here and pack up while wrapped up in my trusted heat bands like a mummy. This shall present a few challenges as we set off to travel to Arizona with 4 large suitcases and 3 carry on bags, (have you read my latest book?). And my friggin’ laptop crashed for the 3rd time in 18 months, 2 days ago. I’m fit to be tied…literally. As the 2 year warranty expires, conveniently in 2 weeks, I dropped it off at the geeks once again today and told them they can hold it for 2 months. I can’t wait to have to start from scratch once again reloading programs and files when I return…Said Nobody Ever! Thankfully Santa brought this new 12″ Windows Surface Pro for an early Christmas gift 2 months ago, which I’m typing on now.
Now with all that crap said, I was also fortunate enough to have to prepare for several interviews I was invited to do with various authors and bloggers. Before I knew it, it was Thanksgiving, and nearing Christmas. And now it’s time for me to go to Arizona – the one good thought that kept me going all year as I muddled through some hurdles. I’ll be going for 2 glorious months.
Oh, no worries, I’ll still be writing and grinding, but at least I’ll be surrounded by mountains, desert and beautiful sunsets. I hope to be writing for my next 2 books, but I do know I’m going to be taking some real time out to take in some living and exploring.
We’ll be having some guests off and on, and I have plans to meet up with a few of my new author friends who reside in the Phoenix area. Oh, and my hub is looking forward to spending some real time with his wife too.
I’ve always tried hard to keep up with everything: write, blog, visit blogs, and social media, despite whatever life was throwing at me. And I always felt that if I missed a day or two doing so, I’d fall so far behind that the catch up would be overwhelming. But I’ve learned from some friends here that everyone needs a time out, a time to regroup and take in some real life living, and so I’m surrendering to that. If some of my avid blogging friends can do it, then certainly I can too. Now this doesn’t mean I won’t be around, but possibly, not as much as you may be used to seeing my ‘likes’ or avatar and comments as often for awhile. And I may miss a few posts here and there, but I’m not going to beat myself up struggling to catch up for hours while I have some desert living to do.
I will still be posting, and it may take a little longer for me to respond to your comments, which I always welcome, but do know that I’m not abandoning ship here – just taking some well needed pauses. What you will see though, will be lots of beautiful pictures and snippets of my adventures.
I’m looking forward to meeting up with a few new friends I’ve made here who just happen to live in that neck of the woods. And I will be endeavoring into doing some author-ly things there too.
One thing I have planned already is meeting up with my friend Heather. Some of you may recall the interview I did on audio last winter with Heather Debreceni, the divorce coach who seeked me out on the web after finding my book Conflicted Hearts. The interview was about children of divorce. The day Heather and I did that interview, we had formed an instant friendship and have been gabbing on Facebook ever since.
I’m extremely excited that Heather, my soon to be PODCAST partner, will be coming to visit me all the way from Colorado so we can put together our new weekly video show we’ve been working on, for Empowering Women, which will begin in April!
It’s truly amazing the friendships we make here. As writers and readers, we spend most of our waking hours on the web. We meet people and their personalities exude through the internet with mere words.
I feel so blessed to have made so many wonderful friends here, especially in this last year alone. It’s been a tough year around here, but as long as my optimism and determination prevail, I keep on going. And I’d like to thank all of you for being such wonderful, supportive friends here.
I’d like to take a moment here to remind all of you to take a moment in reflection and look at your challenges of this past year, but don’t dwell on them. Now look at your accomplishments, and focus on the good bits of your years. Life will always be throwing us curve balls, we just have to find the mitt that fits best to catch.
Let us all remember kindness and compassion, and remember that everyone has obstacles in their lives, don’t always let the smiles fool you, nobody’s life is perfect. But life is about paying it forward and being grateful for all that we do have. The universe tells us, what we give out, we receive. So let’s all keep that at the back of our minds and let the goodness and positivity in all of us shine through.
I wish you all a happy, healthy new year, and may we all find peace in the year to come.
(My next weekend post will be a helpful reblog on How to Move Your WordPress.com to Your Own Self-Hosted WordPress.org site.)
See you next post, live from Arizona!
DGKaye©2015
December 27, 2015
Is Your #Blog Under Attack? – Hugh Roberts
You followers of great blogs may have come across this excellent post by Hugh Roberts on how to protect your blog sites with this article, Is Your Blog Under Attack?
I thought with the year ending, it was an appropriate post to reblog for us all to do some ‘housecleaning’ and make sure everything is running smooth for the new year.
Hugh has some important info in this blog about protecting our works. He shares in this detailed post about having copyright and disclaimers on our work to help protect us from infringements and plagiarism. You may want to have a look in the link below:
“Yes it is and it’s happening every single minute of the day. However, don’t be alarmed as there are a few simple steps you can put in place to make sure your blog is safe.
Everyday our blogs come under attack from various elements, most are invisible to the eye. Just like protecting our families, pets, and anything else we value, we should also do all we can to protect our blogs from these threats.
Threats come in all sorts of forms and I have listed below what I do to make sure some of these threats don’t hurt me or my blog…..” Continue Reading
DGKaye©2015
December 24, 2015
New Book Promotion 2016 – A celebration of Short Stories, Novellas and Anthologies | Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life
The wonderful Sally Cronin will be promoting our works next year on her blog where she shares her place with so many, and is always eager to help promote writers. Sally will also be promoting books in series and children’s books, come 2016. Have a look at her posts for submission guidelines:
Smorgasbord promoting Short Stories, Novellas and Anthologies.
Smorgasbord promoting books in series.
Have a read through Sally’s post below, where she introduces the promotion:
“In 2016 I would like to celebrate the short stories, novellas and anthologies that are published.
Like many of us, I began by writing short stories. I recently found a scribbled tale from 30 years ago at a time when I was busy working 12 hour days and falling into bed exhausted. Just goes to show the power of that craving to write will be satisfied, whatever the circumstances.
It was clear in the last year that short stories are still a strong sector of publishin; as is the novella. However, I don’t believe that they and the anthologies that are published are getting as much promotion as they should. That seems to be particularly true of community anthologies which contain amazing stories by fabulous writers.
The short story is a very important part of our writing culture and if we look back to our childhood it was fairy tales and bedtime stories that introduced us to reading and writing. For thousands of years storytellers have travelled the globe carrying verbal history of our existence, delighting their audiences as they went. Novels are a relatively new invention! . . .” Continue Reading
New Book Promotion 2016 – A celebration of Short Stories, Novellas and Anthologies
DGKaye©2015
December 22, 2015
#Christmas #Book #Promotions
I wanted to let everyone know that in the spirit of Christmas, I will be putting 2 of my books on SALE starting December 23rd!
“I have been a great critic of myself for most of my life, and I was darned good at it, deflating my own ego without the help of anyone else.”
What do our shopping habits, high-heeled shoes, and big hair have to do with how we perceive ourselves? Do the slights we endured when we were young affect how we choose our relationships now?
D.G. takes us on a journey, unlocking the hurts of the past by identifying situations that hindered her own self-esteem. Her anecdotes and confessions demonstrate how the hurtful events in our lives linger and set the tone for how we value our own self-worth.
Words We Carry is a raw, personal accounting of how the author overcame the demons of low self-esteem with the determination to learn to love herself.
Words We Carry will be on kindle countdown from December 23, ending December 28th on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. The first 2 1/2 days at .99 cents and the remaining days at 1.99 US (Sorry, I have no clue what the UK prices are). So get on it early for the best price!
“Somehow I believed it was my obligation to try to do the right thing by her because she had given birth to me.”
Burdened with constant worry for her father and the guilt caused by her mother’s narcissism, D.G. Kaye had a short childhood. When she moved away from home at age eighteen, she began to grow into herself, overcoming her lack of guidance and her insecurities. Her life experiences became her teachers, and she learned from the mistakes and choices she made along the way, plagued by the guilt she carried for her mother.
Conflicted Hearts is a heartfelt journey of self-discovery and acceptance, an exploration of the quest for solace from emotional guilt.
My memoir, Conflicted Hearts will be FREE starting December 24th through December 28th. Take advantage of my gift to you all for the holidays.
And if you enjoyed my books or any other author’s books you’ve read, please help out an author and leave a review.
Wishing you all the happiness and health for this holiday season.
DGKaye©2015
December 21, 2015
How to Turn a Classroom Into A Tea Parlor – #BuildingLocalReadership | The Write Stuff
Today I’m reblogging a post from The Write Stuff, by author/blogger Marcia Meara. Marcia is a feisty go-getter in all senses of the word. She is a wonderful writer, but besides her wonderful books, Marcia is a great sharer in the blogging community. Her site offers authors and writers an opportunity to post reviews, blog shares, and interesting articles pertaining to writing. Marcia also posts articles to share helpful information with other writers in her great efforts to support others.
I was lucky enough to befriend Marcia and learn so much more about her. Personally, I think she’s missed a calling to be a stand up comedian. But she has so many other wonderful attributes that she always finds an opportunity to sneak in her humor.
In this post, Marcia shares with us, how to get our books some exposure in real time. She is always busy promoting her books and other’s, it’s a wonder how she finds time to write great books and run her blog.
Read Marcia’s post below, and find out about some of the avenues she uses to promote her books.
“I’ve talked before about the wonderful (and profitable) time I’m having building a local readership here in central Florida, so some of you are familiar with how I’ve done so far. For those who aren’t, let me say that my second novel, Swamp Ghosts, is set in an imaginary small town along the St. Johns River, and many of the places in the book are very familiar to folks in this area.
With the help of Captain Jeanne Bell and her hubby, photographer Doug Little, of St. Johns River Eco Tours, I have met some fantastic folks who’ve been taken by the book, and who invited me to speak at several venues. Jeanne and Doug started it by promoting my book on their Eco Tour boat cruises. (It was a natural fit for them, since, as I acknowledge in the book, they inspired my main characters.) . . .” Continue Reading
Source: How to Turn a Classroom Into A Tea Parlor – #BuildingLocalReadership | The Write Stuff
D.G. Kaye ©2015
December 20, 2015
2015 Best NonFiction Excellence Awards by Christoph Fischer
I know I’ve put out more posts than usual this week. But it has been a most unusual and exciting week for me here around the blogosphere with getting enormous response to my copyright post, and then with all your heartfelt comments you’ve left me on my interview with Dan Alatorre. But just when you think it can’t get any better. I woke up to this post today by Christoph Fischer.
Christoph has included my book Have Bags, Will Travel in his 2016 Excellence Choice Awards for nonfiction, amongst some other esteemed authors and their books. So naturally, I have to share it here. Thank you again Christoph for choosing my book to add to this prestigious award! 2015 Christoph Fischer Best Non Fiction Award | writerchristophfischer
Source: 2015 Christoph Fischer Best Non Fiction Award | writerchristophfischer
“It’s been a busy year for Indie writers with many challenges and setbacks, not least due to Amazon deleting reviews and decreasing our visibility. So I decided to give out some Awards for the Best I have read this year. It was tough and I’m aware of a lot of fantastic books that didn’t make it to the final shortlist.
I’ll start with the Best of Non-Fiction for 2015. Four excellence Awards and one winner for outstanding Non-Fiction:
Have Bags Will Travel by DG Kaye is an outstanding and hilarious 
travel memoir. You can’t help loving this author with her honest and witty approach to anything she writes about. This is a great read.”
Continue reading here for more of Christoph’s excellent choices.
DGKaye©2015
December 19, 2015
#Christmas Holiday Wishes
I’d like to take this time to wish all of my friends here a very Merry Christmas and happy holiday season. Yes, I love saying Merry Christmas, and with the world full of political correctness, just about everything that’s said seems to be getting some sort of scrutinizing, but there are just some phrases that remain a part of us.
I’m not of the Catholic or Christian faith, but since childhood, I was smitten with the magic of Christmas. Sure, I was captivated by the glistening of Christmas lights on the city streets, and I yearned for a Christmas tree to have in my home in all its shining glory, but Christmas time is so much more than lights and presents.
Christmas for me is a time to remember the importance of friends and family, a time to reflect on the year about to pass. It’s also a time where I miss loved ones who have passed, just a little bit more, and most of all, a time to remember gratitude.
The world seems to be in such a volatile state these days. There is much doubt, many questions unanswered, too much violence, and greed. My wish is that mankind could revisit goodness, kindness, and compassion, and remember to be grateful for some of life’s most mundane things we so often take for granted.
I’m remembering my loss of my loved ones, and with that in mind, it serves to remind me just how precious life is. I’ve watched suffering, and I’ve been stunned at the way someone could be snatched from our lives in an instant, without warning, without a sign of illness. These types of reminders show us how quickly life can turn on a dime.
Let us remember our lost loved ones by holding them dear in our hearts, and remember the love we hold for those who are all here with us now. Let us find joy in our hearts for every little thing we have, and be grateful for every single day we are gifted with, another day of living.
If we can all learn to let go of some of the hurt and uncertainties that dwell within us and turn that into forgiveness and hope, maybe as a unified chain of positivity, we can help to make the world a better place. This is my Christmas wish.
In closing, I will sign off here like I sign every Christmas card:
Wishing you all happiness and health and peace for now, and for all the years to come.
DGKaye©December 2015
December 16, 2015
#Author Profile: D.G. Kaye, Boldly Going! | Dan Alatorre – AUTHOR
About a month ago, I was invited to be interviewed by author Dan Alatorre to share my answers to his many questions about my experience as a writer (amongst some other silly personal stuff, because that is just what Dan is all about).
Dan has quite a popular blog full of great info, writer challenges and always filled with lots of humor. I was actually quite honored to be chosen as one of his guest, author interviews. If you’d like to learn some of the tips I’ve learned along the way to becoming an author, and how some of my books came to fruition, have a read of this post.
Author Profile: D.G. Kaye, Boldly Going!
December 15, 2015December 15, 2015 Dan Alatorre AUTHOR
Your humble host.
My friend Debby is a witty, bold writer who – in her own words – takes no shit, but who is also the same as you in many respects. Her writing is often deeply personal, so it strikes a chord with her fans (a lesson for us all).
Enjoy my chat with D.G. Kaye, also know here as Debby
DAN: Let’s start with the easy stuff. What’s the working title of your next book?
D.G. Kaye: I’ve been working on the sequel to my first book, Conflicted Hearts for the past year on and off while working on my latest book release, Have Bags, Will Travel . The sequel is a grueling emotional write, and won’t be published until late next year. The working title is, Broken Legacy.
Dan: Your stuff is often deeply personal. Where did the idea come from for the latest work in progress (WIP)?
Author D. G. Kaye
D.G. Kaye: This WIP was a book I knew I would write after my mother’s passing; after I could assess my conflicted feelings for her. I didn’t want to begin writing it until I experienced what I would feel after she died; having not spoken to her for the last eight years of her life. I left Conflicted Hearts with a door open, so to speak, being that it was a memoir about my struggle with living under her narcissistic, imposed guilt trips my whole life, even when I wasn’t speaking to her. When I published that book, my mother was still alive, and my fear of her didn’t allow me to write certain incidents, or express my deepest opinions regarding certain matters without feeling discomfort in the thought that she may be reading the book. It took a lot of hesitation and guts for me to publish that book while she was still living.
Dan: Writing takes guts, but that takes even more. Very brave of you. Let’s lighten it up now. Which is the more important of these two: write drunk, edit sober? . . .
Continue Reading
Source: Author Profile: D.G. Kaye, Boldly Going! | Dan Alatorre – AUTHOR
DGKaye©2015
December 15, 2015
Listen Up! – #5 Tips to Protect Yourself from #Copyright #Infringement
Do you know where all the photos come from that you use to spice up your blogs?
Some of you may have noticed my sparse visits around blogtown and social media these past few days. That was because I’ve been a busy beaver, trying to protect myself from FURTHER copyright infringement. Yes, you read correctly – further.
We’ve all read enough articles on the perils of copyright infringement, but do we understand the rules completely when it comes to adding photos to our blogs?
Apparently, I thought I was adhering to the rules, but Thursday morning I woke up to an email sent to me from Creative Commons, telling me that I was being fined for unlawfully having used a photo which was posted on one of my blogs.
At first I was shocked at the email, but after discovering what the photo was that caused the fine, I was even more shocked. It wasn’t a photo that I had chosen myself to post, it was a reblog I posted, and as I always like to write a little bit about what I’m reblogging about as an intro to the reblog, I had chosen to copy and add the photo pertaining to the reblogged post, to highlight the post. I unknowingly trusted that the photo on the reblog was safe to use because it was used on the original post. Had I just wrote the intro and only linked to the reblog itself, without adding the photo from the post on my page, I wouldn’t have been incriminated. By including his photo on my page direct, I was displaying his illegally obtained photo.
Incidentally, the post in question was written 2 years ago, which brings me to another important fact; many free photos have stipulations. Some are free only for a certain amount of years – usually 1 or 2. It’s possible someone used that photo thinking it was free and the free part expired in 2 years, because ironically, the post in question was posted in December of 2013. So never assume a photo is free to use unless you’ve checked the licence rights on the little blurb that always accompanies a photo from the site you’re on when you click on it to download.
What you should be looking for is CC0 – Creative Commons Zero, which is public domain.
If you aren’t sure about where a photo originated from, use the site Tineye.com to upload the photo in question, and it will show you where the photo came from and where it’s been used and it’s licence permissions. (No doubt, this is where the person checked his photos to find the one on my site.) Here is a link to a post I wrote about this last year http://dgkayewriter.com/clean-illegal-images-blog-its-late/
Naturally, I called the number listed on the email notice, and asked them a lot of questions to be armed against future fines, and of course, to share here with all of you. It hurt to have to pay $130 for a photo used that I wasn’t even aware was copyrighted material. And even though I removed it immediately, I still had to pay the fine.
The woman I spoke with told me I was lucky it was only $130. She said there are photos that incur thousands of dollars in fines. She also told me (when I asked), that they send out plenty of fines all the time.
Now, you may all be left wondering, what about posting cute little memes off Facebook and other social media sites?
Rest assured, I didn’t forget to inquire about the rules of sharing social photos we copy and paste from social sites. The woman told me that because social media is all about sharing everywhere, there’s no way of controlling all the shares. BUT APPARENTLY, if you share something off social media on YOUR BLOG, there is always a possibility you can be fined, if caught.
Needless to say, I had almost 500 blog posts since I began blogging in 2013. If you go through all your posts in your dashboards, you’ll find there are about 20 per page. Each page took me about 45 minutes to an hour to go through and check on photos I’ve used. If I didn’t know where they came from, I deleted them. Due to time constraints (as this is a daunting process), some photos I replaced and some remain photo-less, as my main objective was to delete unknown photos from further penalizations down the road.
This process took me well over 30 hours to clean up my posts. Certainly, this was a grueling exercise, very time consuming, but I never want to wake up to another scary email from Creative Commons.
RECAP: 5 TIPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM USING PHOTOS WITHOUT LICENCE:
Use only your own photos or check licence for all photos copied from the web.
Use Tineye.com to check any photos in question.
READ THE FINE PRINT
Be careful when reblogging and including the photos of other’s on your page.
Go through old posts to make sure you haven’t used any photos unlawfully.
Coincidentally, I came across 3 articles this week that cited some excellent photos sites to use FREE on our blogs. There is also some excellent information about paying attention to the licence usage. The new photos I’ve added to this post were obtained from Pixabay.com Just remember that FREE doesn’t always mean there’s not an expiry on the licence. CHECK THE FINE PRINT!
https://blog.bufferapp.com/free-image-sources-list
http://viralsweep.com/blog/free-stock-images-for-commercial-use/
D.G.Kaye ©2015
December 13, 2015
#Book #Review — The Healer – Christoph Fischer
Today I’m sharing my review on a book, The Healer , I recently read by Christoph Fischer.
Christoph is a talented and diverse author. I sometimes refer to him as a machine the way he can pump out great books, write interviews, advocate for the needy, and circulate around social media.
Christoph has several books published, including his latest book, Ludwicka – A Polish woman’s struggle to survive in Nazi Germany. Please visit his book page HERE and take a look at all the books he’s penned from his Conditioned series, which deals with mental health and drama issues, to other books on political and family issues, to historical fiction – In Search of a Revolution , which has garnered much praise.
Next on my reading list by Fischer will be The Luck of the Weissensteiners and The Gamblers , before I get to his Conditions series. I look forward to getting to those books on my overwhelming TBR. But for now, here is my review of The Healer :
5 Stars – Multi-Layered and Intrigue – D.G. Kaye
This story revolves around Erica, a woman diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, and the man they call The Healer, whom she seeks out in a final attempt to save her own life. The Healer works holistically with meditation, hands on healing, and with an elixir. The story proceeds with Erica’s quest for a cure, and gradually into a cat and mouse, hide and seek mission. While Erica is being treated, The Healer is battling Big Pharma, who are seeking to destroy his reputation by blackmailing him for his elixir so they can capitalize on his ‘cure’. He finds himself bargaining with the devil as his conscience has him worrying about the many people he, himself, can save. The story contains cover up schemes, spying, and false documentation in medical records, all courtesy of the Big Pharma while trying to get their hands on the precious elixir. Without giving away spoilers, the question remains in the reader’s mind, “Will this elixir be a great cure, or does it have any positive value without the administration of the healer?” This story will keep you eager to find out right until the very last sentence.
You can find and follow Christoph at the links below:
Website: http://www.christophfischerbooks.com/
Blog: http://writerchristophfischer.wordpress.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6590171.Christoph_Fischer
Amazon: http://ow.ly/BtveY
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CFFBooks
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/christophffisch/
Google +: https://plus.google.com/u/0/106213860775307052243
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=241333846
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WriterChristophFischer?ref=hl
D.G.Kaye ©December 2015
