Balancing Time to Help Others and Time to Write! by DL Larson

I've done it again. I've over-extended my capabilities to complete my tasks in a timely fashion. Below is my commitments for several areas. I call it my To Do List.

TO DO LIST
1. edit a nonfiction book - a paying gig - deadline mid April
2. read and judge 3 romance genre competition entries - deadline mid April
3. read and judge 2 books in a romance genre competition - deadline end of April
4. edit my completed manuscript as my editor's suggests - deadline mid April
5. re-arrange/refurbish my office - no deadline - must install new printer before I go bonkers!
6. Take down my Christmas village in our entry - before I'm blamed for our extended winter in Illinois!
7. Get ready for Easter at my house - clean, decorate, prepare food, prepare an egg hunt, - deadline mid April
8. I'm in charge of the altar duties in my church - I need to turn the Lenten season into the Easter season - deadline mid April. I don't want to think about the commitment for Holy Week (the 3rd week in April)or the church-wide Easter Egg Hunt or that I'm in charge of Sunday School Choir preparing to sing on Easter morning.
9. I can't bare to add another item to this list ...

Now, in my defense, the paying gig was supposed to have started in January. I edited a few pages for free as I usually do, and then the author takes that info and applies it to the rest of his work. Once that is completed, then I will take on the rest of the manuscript. So January turned into late March, which would have been fine, except then the judging commitments that I agreed to a long time ago, came up.

Then my editor ran into a time issue and my manuscript was delayed until now. It should have been finished by now and on to a publisher. So I'm months behind on that target and don't want to slow up now.

As for refurbishing my office ... long story short ... my husband has a new office outside of our home and we are now going to re-arrange/refurnish my office so he can have a corner of it too when he needs office space. My office is big enough to do this, it's just the time factor of getting it done sooner rather than later so his 'stuff' doesn't end up all over the house. As for my printer - it has had a wonderful, long life and it is time to say good-bye. The new printer sits in my basement waiting for installment.

The Christmas village decorating my entry was beautiful a few months ago. Now it depresses me. It takes f o r e v e r to take it down and pack it away. I have to stand on a 8 foot ladder to reach the items, climb down with object(s) and repeat the process at least 20 times. It goes much faster to have a helper ... wonder who I can sweet talk into helping me ...

Church will take care of itself. Many hands will make the work light. It's just that somebody needs to start the ball rolling and that somebody is me. The ironic thing is, I could do it myself much faster and easier, but that doesn't make it right that I should do so. So calls and texts will be made and arrangements set to prepare our church for Easter. Many will help and I am blessed in knowing this!

Everyone has the same amount of time given to them each day. We can make plans, but that doesn't mean we will carry them out. Things come up, priorities change. I guess the important thing is to be flexible, keep a good attitude and keep moving forward, no matter how slow and cumbersome the road becomes.

My challenge, as always, is to chisel out time to work on my next writing project. I'll steal the time from somewhere. I always do.

Til next time ~

DL Larson
www.DLLARSON.com
find my historical family sagas on Amazon.com

Book Groups to Join

For those who enjoy reading or writing books, here are some free groups you may wish to join:

The newest is Mystery Buffs, a Yahoo group at https://groups.yahoo.com/group/mysterybuffs

Make Mine Mystery is a Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/makeminemystery/

Books Gone Viral, a Facebook group, which has over 10,000 members, is at
http://www.facebook.com/groups/booksgoneviral

Book Place, another Facebook group with over 10,000 members is at
http://www.facebook.com/groups/bookplace


Those are just a start. There are many more I could mention, but I don't want to overwhelm you.
If you wish to add more in the comment section, please do.

Morgan Mandel

Find all of Morgan Mandel's romances
and mysteries at
http://morgansbooklinks.blogspot.com

as well as at
http://amazon.com/author/morganmandel

Twitter: @MorganMandel

E-books by Margot Justes Redux

I wrote this blog in 2010, it would seem that as much as e-books have revolutionized the publishing world, some things are still largely a work in progress.

It would seem that even the Wall Street Journal is paying attention to the explosion of the digital books and the resourceful authors that navigate the complex and timely world of e-book publication.

A recent article in the Journal, 'Vanity' Press Goes Digital mentioned authors who either can't get published, as in an example of  author Karen McQuestion, who was rejected, self published, sold well and even has a film option with a Hollywood director. Not bad a way to start your career.

The Journal went on to mention authors like Joe Konrath. Joe is already a very well established (check out his Jackie Daniels series) author who took his work directly to the reader via Amazon and is succeeding admirably. Joe is selling like the proverbial hotcakes, he is also a master of marketing and a personality with a goofy, funny sense of humor, his books are a scary, spooky good read. He is in fact the complete package to sell well.

For mid-list authors, the e-book avenue or any avenue for that matter, is not an easy one to manage. You have to let your readers know you're out there. But first, you have to figure out if you even have any readers. If you're lucky enough to have established a following, albeit a small one, you now need to grow that readership, and  somehow let them know you're out there.

The social networks are always a good idea, in fact a great idea, but how to tell all your friends out in the nebulous land of the internet that you're out there, without hitting them over the head and becoming a nuisance. That is my question? Does anyone have a few answers?

I regained my rights to two short stories, and this weekend I plan to go to the Amazon site and learn how to download and sell them. Amazon, it would appear actually helps the author promote the work, and they have vast resources at their fingertips. We'll see how it all works out.

On that note, I’m delighted, and exceedingly happy to report that A Hotel in Bath was nominated for the In'Dtale Magazine "RONE" Award.

Cheers,

Margot  Justes

A Hotel in Paris

A Hotel in Bath

A Fire Within

Blood Art

Hot Crimes Cool Chicks

www.mjustes.com

Oh, this is so cool!

Even if you don’t like to read Henry David Thoreau, or heaven forbid you don’t even know who he is – and every writer should know who he is – you will want to watch this video:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2014/03/18/thoreau-walden-digital-project/6569721/

So, Mr. Thoreau wrote a marvel of a work simply titled, Walden.  It is a classic and taught in most schools somewhere along a student’s journey, or at least it used to be.  Just in case you aren’t familiar with the book Walden, Mr. Thoreau wrote the book in the mid 1800’s after he had spent some time living on land that his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, owned.  Mr. Emerson was a leading American essayist at the time and is also (or should be) well-read in schools throughout the world.

So, Mr. Thoreau apparently lived in a cabin on the property for two years, two months, and two days and from that experience and the observations he made during that time he produced the book Walden, a book which is a kind of cult classic among naturalists.

But the book itself is not what I’m so excited about.  What I’m excited about is a digital reformatting project put together by the State University of New York at Geneseo.  A brilliant and highly motivated team of professors, students and librarians at SUNY Geneseo have made not only the book but the author himself – or at least part of his writing process – available digitally in all its complexities.

The project, Digital Thoreau allows us to see the process of how Mr. Thoreau wrote over seven different manuscript versions of his book and how he was changing the book and how he wrote between 1846 and 1854. 

At writer's conferences a familiar topic and question for writers is, “What is your writing process?”  Well, through this amazing effort of digitizing Thoreau, we can get at least a glimpse into this important writer’s process.  Do note that there are many, many different versions of illustrated and annotated copies of Walden on the market today because it has been required reading for so many years and for so many students, but if you want to connect with Mr. Thoreau’s many versions and his processes along the way, then the SUNY Geneseo’s project is the place to start.  Here’s the link:

http://www.digitalthoreau.org/

But do take a moment to watch this video at the site:

http://vimeo.com/57615040

Who knows – you just might get inspired to write your own marvel that someday scholars will want to study in a way that this work is being studied.

'Soon To Be Famous Illinois Authors: Top Three Pick!'

The top three authors selected for the 'Soon To Be Famous Illinois Authors' project has been announced. Sadly, I am not one of them. But I do want to cheer on the final three. No, I do not know any of them, but once I start a project, I like to see it through. Below is a bit about each author chosen and their self-pubbed book. I have not read any of the books yet, but they all sound intriguing.

In no particular order:

Rick Polad, author of 'Change of Address.' Mr. Polad was nominated by the Phillips Library, Aurora University.
Mr. Polad is a teacher of Earth Science. 'Change of Address' is a Private Investigator mystery/murder with a Chicago setting.

Mary Hutchins Reed, author of 'Warming Up.' Ms. Reed was nominated by Mr. Prospect Library. Ms. Reed practices law in Chicago. 'Warming Up' is story about a depressed musical actress who enters therapy to unravel her problems. Then a runaway teen enters her life and changes everything.

Joanne Zienty, author of 'The Things We Save.' Ms. Zienty was nominated by CCDS62 Forest School, Des Plaines, IL
Ms. Zienty is a Library Director for an elementary school in the Chicago land area. 'The Things We Save,' is a woman's journey into her past and childhood in Chicago.

The winners will be announced sometime in early April. In the meantime, check these books out at your local library or on Amazon.com. All are available in e-book format.

Best of luck to all entries!

Til next time ~

DL Larson
Promises My Love also available on Amazon.com

Dropbox is My Friend

Some of you may already know that Google is my friend. I've also found another one, and that's called Dropbox.

I absolutely love Dropbox, because it's so easy and handy to use. After I got my new Samsung Galaxy S4 phone, I was dithering around deciding what to use to get my pictures on my computer. I kind of liked their Kies program, which I'd connect with my usb cord and download stuff onto my computer.

Then, I discovered Dropbox. Not only could I install the program on my desktop and laptop and share stuff in my Dropbox.com folder, but also I could install the app on my phone. Then, get this, if I took a photo on my phone, it automatically appeared in the Dropbox folder on my computers. Then, I could decide if I wanted it to remain on a computer and where to put it, or just delete the photo.

How cool is that! No more spending time plugging in. The photos are already on the computer!

And, as long as I occasionally check the Dropbox and move the photos or delete them, I can use this program for free! Free is good!

There are other ways to use the program for sharing emails, Facebook, and with friends, but so far I haven't delved into them. When the need arises, I have a feeling, I'll become even more adventuresome!

And, for every person I refer to Dropbox, I get 500 more MB of space free. There are other ways to get extra space as well, such as doing tweets and following Dropbox on Twitter, to name some.

If you decide to use Dropbox, tell them that Morgan Mandel sent you (morgan@morganmandel.com)
Here's the special link: https://db.tt/6atkPUUI  for Dropbox.com

Then, go ahead and tell a family member or friend, and get extra space as well!

Morgan Mandel
http://morgansbooklinks.blogspot.com
Facebook://www.facebook.com/morgan.mandel
Twitter: @MorganMandel

Coming Soon:  A Perfect Angel 
The sequel to Her Handyman

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Fitting fiction...

For a change of pace, I thought I'd share a reprint of a little St. Patrick's story I wrote a while back...

What's better than wishin' someone "The Luck O' The Irish?"....

I reprinted the story (originally published in Mysterical-e) on my website blog...

Here's the beginning:

  The Luck O' The Irish
By Christine Verstraete

The car lurched into another pothole, prompting Robert O'Flannery to check the address his wife Margie had written down and tossed wordlessly at him earlier that morning. 

He hadn't turned wrong. Three twenty-was that a zero, a six? Anyway it was Sycamore. He was going the right way. The house numbers were getting smaller, just as the houses themselves and the lots they sat on were getting larger the nearer he came to the lake.... Finish reading...