This is great reading!: How to turn your blog into a book.
Posted: Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 at 3:40 pm. Filed in WordPress, WordPress.com, Writing.
By Scott Berkun
I truly loved this page on Chief of the Least’s WordPress Blog! Awesome content throughout! I’ll be back to read more of these enlightning posts!
Image via Wikipedia
C. S. Lewis said, “Safety and happiness can only come from individuals, classes and nations being honest and fair and kind to each other.”
My daughter found and brought my middle-school year book to me the other day. The pages crammed with signatures from my school-mates listing sentiments in a loopy scrawl on two blank pages, then front and back covers, and in the margins on pages with little thumbnail size photos – and every single entry, were words like: nice, kind, sweet.
Now you may think, “How wonderful your friends thought of you this way.”
I do try to treat others as I would like to be treated, the Golden Rule is a rule of thumb in my life. It always has been, and always will be the way I handle meeting new people, and how I treat all people initially in general.
I tend to lend my trust to all, and all may keep it until they revoke the priviledge themselves. At these times, I quietly take it back, and then extend it again when visible and heartfelt effort shows to lend it out again.
“To err is human, to forgive, divine.” ~Benjamin Franklin~
From an email I just received:
Kathryn Johnson
Now that Congress has had time to process last week’s internet blackout, a consensus has emerged: SOPA and PIPA are toxic for politicians, and going anywhere near them could cost them their re-election.
Freedom is winning.
Together, we’ve done something amazing– never have so many people stood up to defend a free and open internet. Here’s a San Francisco Chronicle article about how it all came together: The Largest Online Protest in History Started Here.
And here’s Carl Franzen at Talking Points Memo:
“Behind the scenes, Hill staffers from both sides of the aisle confirmed to TPM that the entire piracy debate had become so ‘toxic’ that virtually no lawmakers were likely to be ready to re-engage it anytime soon.”
Experienced Congress-watchers are telling us they’ve never seen anything like this.
Internet users, tech companies, and non-profits joined together to defend fundamental rights on the internet. To a lot of elites in Congress and the corporate world, the internet is just something that lazy teenagers use to spam people with pictures of photoshopped unicorns. The blackout showed that the peer-to-peer internet is about empowerment, and that when we work together we can defeat the corrupt politics of Washington D.C.
The New York Times and Talking Points Memo have both published good articles on how the web blackout was organized.
For months, four senators were the only force blocking passage of PIPA/SOPA. They even promised to filibuster the bill back when most politicians were against them. We need to make sure we support and vote for leaders like them who are willing to going to go out on a limb and oppose SOPA before it was popular to do so. It’s great that we pressured all those other shlubs into opposing web censorship, but these guys deserve the real cred and our support: Click here to donate (scroll down).
What’s next? The Fight is not over, already new threats to web freedom are starting to emerge (particularly in Europe) and we’re getting ready. Stay tuned, and for more updates, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Thank you again for standing up for a free and open internet!
- Donny and Fight for the Future
Image by CC Chapman via Flickr
Review of “Engagement From Scratch,” by Author Danny Iny 
As I started reading the 30+ articles in this book, I wasn’t sure it would give me the information I was looking for, but I was mistaken. As a writer, blogger, and aspiring novelist I have started trying to build a platform that will gain attention of an audience for my work. Each of the articles and essays presented in this book contain wonderful gems of information. You will find the word “audience” in each one of these essays. Not every tip may apply or appeal to you, but for me, this is one of the best aspects of the many articles; I can pick, and go back and find something I have not tried and give it a go. I wholeheartedly believe every person who reads Engagement From Scratch will find something they can use. I read Engagement from Scratch from the beginning to the end in linear fashion, but you can skim the titles, and read this book in any order you like, another feature I think is wonderfully convenient. From what to do, what not to do, and how you go about doing it, this book is a winner. I made tons of notes in the margins, and have a few Post-It® markers on pages I want to go back and read again. You’ll also find a link for complimentary material to put these tips to use.
http://www.amazon.com/review/RRGGO8REV55JO/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
I was reading the article on the Writer’s Relief web site tonight, “Never Too Old To Write?” By Writers Relief Staff on January 12, 2012, leading me to read this great article by Writer’s Relief on the Huffington Post website: Seven Authors Who Prove It’s Never Too Late To Start. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/11/writing-career-late_n_1196625.html#s600517&title=Laura_Ingalls_Wilder
I began a blog post about her nearly two weeks ago, and when I saw this article, I immediately remembered the unfinished post., this post. I am one whom on occasion laments my writing years have passed.
I put my dreams, wants, and needs aside to raise two children, become entwined in the lives of three beautiful granddaughters, which is, and always will be a huge part of life. I was there through the cancers and remissions endured by my mom, and then my older sister. At 40, my next-to-youngest brother suffered a major heart attack. I divorced an alcoholic husband of twenty-two years, married again (a three month nightmare), and always, always in the back of my mind I was thinking, “I will have the time – later.”
My father, an all-time champion (and only champion) of my desire to write, died in 2007. It is painful to think that all those years when I thought I had all the time in the world, and plenty of time to wait it out, has left me now with time to write and no father to read my words in print. I have to say, this is definitely the one thought which pains me the most.
I am plagued by illness. It is my turn. I retired from the workforce at the age of 50, kicking and screaming to no avail at my doctor’s orders in September, 2011. I have the time, but not the fortitude to sit for long periods of time, but inside the desire is as strong as it was as I checked out all the ”Little House” books over and over again. I know I have read those particular books at least with a three digit number in mind. Here I am,, at home, with the luxury of all day at my disposal, and I find I cannot do what my brain is telling me to do. While I’m looking for answers in the form of daily conversations with God, I may get a sentence out, and maybe several pages. Each day is different, and I see my current life as “The Long Winter” and I know spring will come sooner or later, even if it comes differently for me than other writers.
A close family, though spread out and about in many different directions, a new life with a man whom only God could have hand-picked for me, hard times, hardships, but in the midst of it all, in the center of it all, there is faith, and there is family. I believe there is nothing in the world so hauntingly beautiful, than life itself complete with all its trials and tribulations. These things come, we somehow make it through one day, and then the next day, and the next, and whether the outcomes are superb, or mired in mud, we make it to see the next day, and life continues.
So, am I back at the beginnig of my laments? Absolutely not! I’m planning to pull my set of books off the shelf, those wonderful books which made me wish I was Laura, and I wrote those very books, and become inspired all over again.
All the following information on my favorite author, Laura Ingalls Wilder is courtesy of Wikipedia, and the goodreads website. Enjoy the photographs.
Image via Wikipedia01/06/2012 Growing up, Susan, a local Mennonite girl and I became the best of friends. We went to school together until she and I were separated by the necessity of going to different schools for our Middle School years. At the time I went to school, elementary grades one to six were still part of elementary school, and housed in the same building. Image by Kurt Magoon via Flickr
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
“As you read my stories of long ago I hope you will remember that the things that are truly worthwhile and that will give you happiness are the same now as they were then. Courage and kindness, loyalty, truth, and helpfulness are always the same and always needed.” ― Laura Ingalls Wilder
Thanks to Goodread.com for the following information:
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/search?q=Laura+Ingalls+Wilder&commit=Search
Author profile - Laura Ingalls Wilder -
born – February 07, 1867 in near Pepin, Wisconsin, The United States
died February 10, 1957
gender – female
website: http://www.lauraingallswilder.com/
genre – Children’s Books
influences – own experience, her daugher Rose Wilder Lane
Where love blooms, peace lives.
My husband and I purchased and planted this rose on our wedding day, May 1, 2009. Each year, we buy another rose to plant in honor of our love.
I attended Writer’s Digest University’s webinar, “Seven Secrets of Successful Self Published Authors, “01/10/12, and was pleased beyond pleased for a change. The speaker, Keith Ogorek, gave a superb overview of developing a marketing plan for the writer considering self-publishing. I signed up for this course hoping to gain an insight into self-publishing, and I was not disappointed. I’ve been reading and studying the writing market for more than twenty-five years, writing for myself, and not for publication. Over the years,I have attended a myriad of writing courses, seminars, webinars, conferences, and teleconferences to keep up with trends, genres, publishing tips, writing tips, and more. I have a library of books, magazines, and newsletters on writing. This is the best webinar I’ve had the pleasure to attend in a long time. I am only now beginning to produce writing I hope will reach an audience,when completed, and it is good to know how many options there are, in addition to the “old school, but still great school” route for getting material out there, and most of all, bringing attention to the writer/author, and the book!
A very enlightening seminar!
