text:
View gallery
Below are pictures and videos. Select what you want to view below.
Popular Hotels
Linda Vista Motel
The Jackson Lodge
Jackson Rancheria Casino Hotel
Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites Jackson
Wedgewood Inn
BEST WESTERN Amador Inn
El Campo Casa Resort Motel
National Hotel
Villa Buscaglia
Gate House Inn
Popular Attractions
Kennedy Mine
Popular Cities
Sacramento, CA
Napa, CA
Yosemite National Park, CA
Berkeley, CA
South Lake Tahoe, CA
Reno, NV
San Jose, CA
Carson City, NV
Oakland, CA
Tahoe City, CA
Sunnyvale, CA


text:
Anthony Welters is the Executive Vice President of United Health Group, which serves more than 70 million Americans through its health and well-being companies.
Tags: Companies, Ethics, Ethics Centers, Speakers
Kirk Cordill is the Managing Director, CEO of BMW Group Financial Services China and a Vice-President within the global BMW Group.
Tags: Companies, Jobs, Leadership, Speakers
Roxanne Spillett, who served as the Chief Executive Officer and President of Boys & Girls Clubs Of America for 16 years, is the inaugural Fellow in Residence for the Notre Dame Master of Nonprofit Administration program.
Tags: Leadership, Nonprofit Professional Development, Social Responsibility
Elizabeth Saunders is the Chairman of Strategic Communications at FTI Consulting. She specializes in building best practices investor relations programs across a wide spectrum of clients.
Tags: Careers, Consulting, Speakers
Rishi Jaitly is a renowned global expert in digital innovation, public leadership and social entrepreneurship.
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Gigot Center
NBC "What Would You Fight For?" halftime spot features the ND MBA signature course, Business on the Frontlines.
Tags: Alumni, Economy, Entrepreneurship, Faculty, Global Business, Jobs, MBA, Social Responsibility, Students
Michael Hastings, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick, Global Head of Citizenship and Diversity, KPMG presents Deficits, Dilemmas, Purposes and Profits -- Is it time that Business leads for the Poor?
Tags: Ethics, Ethics Centers, Social Responsibility, Speakers
The Costco Story was presented by James Sinegal, Co-Founder and Director of Costco Corporation, as part of the Berges Lecture Series.
Tags: Careers, Companies, Consumer, Leadership, Speakers
Ann Rhoades is the president of People Link, a human resources consulting company, and the Executive Vice President of People for JetBlue Airways where she currently remains as a Board Member.
Tags: Companies, Ethics, Ethics Centers, Leadership, Speakers
Jimmy Rayford, president of the Thermax division of Belden, used the leadership and strategic skills he developed in the Executive MBA program to drive needed change.
Tags: Alumni, Careers, Executive Education

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Role of Thought Vibrations in Making or Breaking Relationships
We often hear about the power of words, chants, affirmations or visualizations in transforming our l…Playing in the New World
Kara Schallock It is true. We are in the New World. Or I should say, the New World is in us.…ALL Earth Entities Have Decided to Ascend
Dear Ones, Some believe ascension means to leave earth and live the remainder of this life on…Vegetable Gardening is Easy. How to Have a Green Thumb in a Minute
John from http://www.growingyourgreens.com/ shares with you why growing…Energy Report for March 2014
Kate Ann Spreckley 'A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others,…Turning The Corner After The Big Shift of Febraury 2014
Celia Fenn It has truly been a dramatic month on Planet Earth, and it's not over yet! When I…Past Life Relationships: 5 Signs
Of all the questions people ask me, determining if there are past life connections with current rela…Shifting Seasons And Time…..
Music to read by below: As the deep freeze of winter's grip begins to slowly thaw and spring…Planning This Year's Garden
We're approaching garden time in the Northern Hemisphere! I just bought an indoor grow light system…7 Tips to End Your Money Worries and Stop Struggling Instantly
Evelyn Lim Worrying over money is like a crippling disease. You are in a perpetual state of a…How to Overcome Your Money Gremlin
Evelyn Lim What is a Money Gremlin? The Money Gremlin is the critical voice that goes…Your Guide to Planetary Energies: March 10 to 16, 2014
Pam Younghans Highlighted Aspects this Week MON: Saturn square Mercury; THU: Jupiter…Montague's Message for Sunday, 9th March 2014
Montague's Messages Every Sunday, Montague brings through a message of hope and support for all w…Message from Hilarion: March 9-16, 2014
Marlene Swetlishoff Upon the face of the planet, many changes are taking place. The weather p…Weekly Forecast: March 9 - 15, 2014
Kelly M. Beard 3/11 ~ Mercury (communication) ~square~ Saturn (reality): (1 of 3: 1/25 ~…The God Field
by Owen K Waters Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but curiosity gets you even closer. We…What Is Vipassana Meditation? – Learn How To Liberate Yourself From Suffering
The word Vipassana means insight into how things actually are. It comes originally from Sanskrit and…The Benefits of Medical Cannabis
By Dr. Mercola Marijuana has been legalized in a number of US states; 20 states have legalize…Run For Your Life – My Flight From the Modern Medical Establishment
Learning to find your own way in this backward world is no easy task. Our indoctrination into this c…An Apple a Day...? Not Anymore
Remember the saying "An apple a day keeps the doctor away"? It was generally taken to mean that if y…Frankincense Found to Trump Chemo in Eliminating Ovarian Cancer
Elizabeth Renter Many individuals don't know more about frankincense than the story of three M…Aromatherapy Can Help Reduce Anxiety
By Dr. Mercola Aromatherapy is the use of essential oils to support physical health and well-be…
Latest News
Health Yourself NEWS!
Grading & Pricing Cr…
Strange Artifacts - Crys…
Three Steps to Crystal H…
How to Clean Quartz Crys…
Quick Reference List of …
Gemstones For Your Light…
Crystal Gem Grid's
The Crystal Skull Enigma
Crystal Healing Bed
Naica Crystal Cave
Gem Elixir Properties
Famous Crystal Skulls
Legend of the 13 Crystal…
Crystal Singing Bowls
Smoky Quartz
The Lemurian Seed Crysta…
General Guide to the Hea…
Garnet (Almandine)
Chrysocolla: The Peace C…
Rutilated Quartz
Black Tourmaline(Schorl)
Iron Pyrite: Fools Gold
Lapis Lazuli
The Vogel® Crystal Heali…
Hematite (Iron Oxide)
Top Crystal Books (Refer…
Shungite: Ancient Healin…
Creating a Gemstone Elix…
Moldavite: Stone of Tran…
Abalone Shell
Rose Quartz
The Abundance Stone aka …
A New Ancient Crystal Sk…
Strawberry Lemurian Seed…
Spirit Quartz
Tiger's Eye
"OM" Vibration Tibetan Q…
Garnet - Stone of the Cr…
Zebra Stone: The Yin/Yan…
Is that Citrine of Yours…
Moonstone: The Stone of …
Iolite: The Vikings Comp…
Guide To Making Gem Elix…
Gemstone and Crystal Hea…
Finding Past Lives Using…
Why Crystals Have Healin…
Crystal Therapy: The Hea…
Crystal Gridding
Stones / Crystal Chakra …
Topaz: Divine Light
Watermelon Tourmaline
Starbrary Quartz – Forti…
How to Clean, Cleanse, C…
Quartz Crystal Basics
Devic Crystals
Crystal Healing Question…
Origin and Symbolism of …
Peridot: The Healer's St…
Legend of the Crystal Sk…
Healing Paths
The Miracle of Tea Tree Oil: 80 Amazing Uses for Survival
Six Ways Ayurvedic Medicine Can Change Your Life
The Miracle of Cloves and Clove Oil
The Effect of Drumming and Shamanism on Health
The 7 Auric Levels
Protect Your Aura
Working with Chakras
Chakra Balancing
How To Read The Aura
The Aura - Your Energy Skin
Auras: The Energy of Life
Aura Colors
Reiki, Chakras & Energy Healing
What is Reiki?
The Feldenkrais Method - FAQs
The Feldenkrais Method
What Happens During an Alexander Technique Lesson or Class
Posture and the Alexander Technique
The F.M. Alexander Technique
Alexander Technique - Marjorie Barstow
The Ayurvedic Approach to Heart Disease
Herbs Used in Ayurveda
The Ayurvedic Concept of Immunity
Massage Methods and Therapies
Thai Massage
Deep Tissue Massage
Trigger Point Therapy
Swedish Massage
Structural Integration (Rolfing)
Postural Integration (PI)
Postural Integration - From a Practitioner
Myofascial Release
Lomi Lomi
Bowen Technique
Champissage™ - Indian Head Massage
Koho Anma
Esalen® Massage
Polarity Therapy - Videos
Massage Demonstration Cranial Sacral Therapy - Video
The Purpose of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy
The History and Development of Craniosacral Work
Craniosacral Therapy - An Introduction
Craniosacral Therapy - A Primer
Craniosacral Therapy for Mind and Body
Polarity Therapy For the Lightbody
Polarity Therapy - An Introduction
Polarity Therapy - The Unique Geinus of Dr. Randolph Stone
Polarity Therapy - A Primer
10 Most Popular Types Of Massage Therapy
The Original 38 Bach Flower Essences
Solfeggio Harmonics
Chakra Prayer for Service
What is a Merkaba?
What is EFT?
Fundamentals of Sound Healing
Sound As A Healing Vehicle
Bach Flower Groups
Sound Wave Energy
Introduction to Chakras in Healing
The Seven Chakras and their Meanings
Pure Essential Oils and Bio-Frequency
Essential Oil Background
Five Secret Tibetan Rejuvenation Rites Programme
The Aura and Psychic Centers
An Easy Guide To A Healthy Aura
Perceiving and Receiving Auras
About The Aura
Colour Sound Therapy®
About Sound Therapy
Bio-Resonance Sound Therapy
Ear Candling
Colour and Vibrational Therapy
Sound Healing Acutonics and Sacred Geometry - Video
Polarity Therapy For Daily Living
Toning and Sacred Sounds
Sounds Associated with the Chakras
Aromatherapy History and Origin
Magnetic Field Therapy
Ayurveda - Elements, Doshas and Tastes
Characteristics of Kapha Types
Characteristics of Pitta Types
Characteristics of Vata Types
Chelation Therapy
Massage Cupping
Massage Cupping Therapy
Moxibustion Applications
Tui Na - Chinese Massage
Acupressure - The 12 Meridians
Cosmic Stargate
Aliens Exist: 9 Signs of Alien Existence
Aadil Ikram Do you believe in Aliens??? It's complicated to answer. Aliens, Extraterrestrials, Space Men wha... Read more
Black Holes Are Portals to Other Univers…
Many theories about black holes that exist in space were developed over time. The prevailing opinion says that whatever ... Read more
Astronomers Discover 'Accidental' Giant …
A giant planet that has been found orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance has stirred immense confusion in ... Read more
Gliese 667c Reexamined
Science News ... from universities, journals, and other research organizations Three Planets in Habitable Zone of N... Read more
Gliese 667C: Three Potentially Habitable…
Three Potentially Habitable Planets Found Orbiting Gliese 667C by Nancy Atkinson on June 25, 2013 Nearby sta... Read more
Comet ISON: November Tracking
Nov 16 COMET ISON UPDATE: Reports of naked-eye sightings of Comet ISON are coming in from around the world. Experienced observers put... Read more
Once In A Lifetime Galactic Fireworks Di…
Comet Ison, first spotted a year ago, is now visible to the naked eye and will continue to brighten as it hurtles toward the sun ... Read more
The Sun's Magnetic Field Is About to Rev…
Sometime in the next two or three months, something special will happen: the magnetic field that emanates from the Sun and extends... Read more
Debunking Comet ISON Conspiracy Theories
Debunking Comet ISON Conspiracy Theories (No, ISON is Not Nibiru) by David Dickinson on April 29, 2013 ISON as seen from Hubble. (... Read more
Comet ISON: Incoming Sungrazer
by Elizabeth Howell, SPACE.com Contributor November 07, 2013 02:00pm ET Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) The comet that may put on a spect... Read more
Nibiru Update - August 2013
Jelaila Star Nibiru is back in the news again. There's an interview circulating through the Internet from a former NASA employee no... Read more
The 2013 Perseid Meteor Shower
David Dickinson Get set for the meteoritic grand finale of summer. Northern hemisphere summer that is. As we head into August, o... Read more
What Do Reptoids Look Like?
Various types of bipedal, upright walking reptoids have been reported. The three most common types are: Reptoids (Reptilian-Hum... Read more
Rare Cosmic Event: "Dance of the Planets…
Larry Rotolo From the latter part of May and continuing for a month, an amazing display of planets will play itself out near the ... Read more
Massive, Black and Sooty ELE Type Astero…
It's 1.7 miles long. Its surface is covered in a sticky black substance similar to the gunk at the bottom of a barbecue. If it imp... Read more
Annular Solar Eclipse on May 9/10, 2013
An annular solar eclipse will take place on May 9/10, 2013, with a magnitude of 0.9544. A solar eclipse occurs... Read more
New Comet Discovered By Schoolchildren: …
Astronomy students at Wakefield's Horbury Academy were in Hawaii and Australia for two nights to stargaze through the remote Faulk... Read more
Comet in 2013 Could Outshine the Full Moon
Reptoids of the Inner Earth - The Lacerta File Two - Part 2 of 2
Reptoids of the Inner Earth - The Lacerta File One - Part 1 of 2
Reptoids of the Inner Earth - The Lacerta File One - Part 2 of 2
Reptoids of the Inner Earth - The Lacerta File Two - Part 1 of 2
5th Density
Turquoise Energy
Alien Secret Earth History ~ Alex Collier - Video
The Return of Planet "X" (Niburu)
Does Our Sun Have A Doomsday Twin? Nemesis: The Proof
The Sun's Brown Dwarf Companion - Is Nemesis Real?
Deadly Time Vortex Appears Over Antarctica
Peace and Aloha
A Message from Orion (Heros)
A Message from Cyclopea
Cyclopea and Virginia
Purity and Astrea
The Creation of the World
Heros and Amora
Hercules and Amazonia
Arcturus and Victoria
Apollo and Lumina
A 12 Dimensional Overview
History of Civilizations - Lyrans and Vegans
A Message from the Elohim
Planetary Origin Series by Jo Amidon: Andromeda
Planetary Origin Series by Jo Amidon: Apollonians
Planetary Origin Series by Jo Amidon: Arcturus
Planetary Origin Series by Jo Amidon: Maldeck
Planetary Origin Series by Jo Amidon: Orion
Planetary Origin Series by Jo Amidon: Pleiades
Planetary Origin Series by Jo Amidon: Sirius
Planetary Origin Series by Jo Amidon: Vega
Planetary Origin Series by Jo Amidon: Intro and Pvila
A Brief History of Creation by Jo Amidon
Family of Light
Starseed Series by akemi: Parallels and Earth Souls
Starseed Series by akemi: Spicans
Pleiadians on Sexuality
Starseed Series by akemi: Alpha Centaurians
Starseed Series by akemi: Polarians
Starseed Series by akemi: Arcturians
Starseed Series by akemi: Nihals (Indigos)
Starseed Series by akemi: Hadarians
Starseed Series by akemi: Sirians
Starseed Series by akemi: Angelic Realm
Starseed Series by akemi: Pleiadians
Starseed Series by akemi: Blueprinters 1, Originators And Designers
Starseed Series by akemi: Blueprinters 2, Blueprint Technicians
Starseed Series by akemi: Blueprinters 3, Blueprint Deliverers And Changers
Starseed Series by akemi: Procyans
Starseed Series by akemi: Starseeds, Walk-Ins And Lightworkers
Starseed Series by akemi: Darkworkers
Starseed Series by akemi: Mintakans (Orion)
Overview of Galactic History
Starseeds - Video's
What Are Starseeds?
Spanish Astronomers Claim Dwarf Sun Beyond Pluto
Galactic History according to Alex Collier and the Andromedans
Lyrans - Our Cosmic Forefathers
Are Spacecrafts and ETs Coming?
Density and Dimension Scale
Where Did We Come From?
Ashtar Command and Pleiadians Community
Lyran Beginnings Part 1
Lyran Beginnings Part 2
UFO Contactee - Alex Collier - Video
Galactic History - Ancient Earth History - Recent History
Royal Stars
Elohim: Builders of Form
The Ray of Creation
Star Beings and the Story of the Elohim
Your Star Connections
Cosmic Event - Comet Lulin : February 2009
Higher Light Central Sun - Video
Akashic Records
Lost Human History According to Sheldon Nidel
A Brief History of Creation
Are You Pleiadeans?
Pleiades : Past, Present & Future
Extraterrestrial Civilizations - Video
Annunaki are not the Nephilim or the Fallen Angels - Video
Pleiadians : The Truth About the Pleiadians
Higher Consciousness
Role of Thought Vibrations in Making or …
We often hear about the power of words, chants, affirmations or visualizations in transforming our life. But how many of... Read more
Turning The Corner After The Big Shift o…
Celia Fenn It has truly been a dramatic month on Planet Earth, and it's not over yet! When I was thinking abou... Read more
Shifting Seasons And Time…..
Music to read by below: As the deep freeze of winter's grip begins to slowly thaw and springs first br... Read more
7 Tips to End Your Money Worries and Sto…
Evelyn Lim Worrying over money is like a crippling disease. You are in a perpetual state of anxiety. From the mome... Read more
How to Overcome Your Money Gremlin
Evelyn Lim What is a Money Gremlin? The Money Gremlin is the critical voice that goes inside your head on ma... Read more
Marching Forward
As we plunge toward what might be the most powerful full moon of the year, the first complete lunar cycle of 2014, which... Read more
What Is Vipassana Meditation? – Learn Ho…
The word Vipassana means insight into how things actually are. It comes originally from Sanskrit and refers to a form of... Read more
How to Feel Good: This Post Will Change …
We can drive ourselves crazy trying to plan, decide, analyze, and apply logic to every situation. The rational brain tha... Read more
You Don't Solve Your Problems, You Outgr…
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." ~ Einstein We... Read more
March Inspirations – Clarity, Courage …
Tania Marie The year keeps rolling along and we find ourselves fast approaching a new Season. I don't know abo... Read more
How To Remain Stress Free, Peaceful And …
It would not be an overstatement to say that almost every one of us remains stressed for one or the other reason. ... Read more
Stanford Physicist: Vast, Powerful Realm…
Tara MacIsaac Stanford University Professor Emeritus William A. Tiller has been researching a level of physical reality h... Read more
Step into the New....Literally
Dana Mrkich For the last year or two, particularly since the beginning of our new cycle, a lot of us have felt a strange sense of... Read more
How Your Intuition Speaks to You
Sallie Keys Your intuition can speak to you in many ways. It's not just pictures in your mind or ideas popping into your head. Wh... Read more
We Are Living In The Most Important Time…
Jeff Roberts Dolores Cannon's career has spanned over 4 decades, during which she has worked with thousands ... Read more
On Creating Positive Habits for a Happie…
"Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your w... Read more
Creating A Path Where There Is None
Tania Marie Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. ~Ralph Waldo E... Read more
The 10 Lies We Tell Ourselves
Stop the planet, I (sometimes) Want To Get Off!
26 Powerful Lessons to Learn from Nature
This Short and Simple Meditation Technique Will Fill Your Life With Abundance (+Video)
Why You Are Enough
February Update
Taming the Monkey Mind—How Meditation Affects Your Health and Wellbeing (+Video)
Why the Greatest Gift You Can Give Someone Is Your Time
Finding Direction When You Feel Lost
The Art of Letting Go!
How Our Narratives Inform Our Hopes for Change
Electromagnetic and Radio Frequency Mitigation
The Alchemy of Responsible Reflection
50 Do's and Don'ts That Can Make You Happy
The Song of Christos Sophia
How You Attract Information In A Vibrational Universe
Quick Tips for Interacting with Faeries
Healing the Mind with Soul Clearing
Vibe Report – February 13, 2014
Ascension Symptoms, or "What is Happening to Me?"
Starting Your Day Stress Free
The Love Connection
7 Beautiful Ways to Build the Friendship with Your Self
15 Things You Should Start Doing Today
My Experience With A Homeless Man
'You shall not pass!' Native American groups vow to block Keystone XL pipeline
Do you ever wonder where your life is going?
Activating a New Time/Space Harmonic in a Song of Fire and Ice Celia Fenn
Architecture of the Light
For the Love of Money
Meeting Our Past Selves Outside Of Time
The Only Two Ways to Live Your Life (+Video)
Venus Direct, Farewell Snake and Welcome Horse!
Overcoming Motivation Killers
Letting Go of Things That No Longer Serve You
Journey to the Enchanted Forest – Your New Moon & New Year Power Animal Awaits
10 Reasons Why Gratitude is Good for You
Year of the Horse is Upon Us – Ready, Set, Go!
Out Of Body Experiences Validated By Scientific Study (+Video)
Study: Reading Books Triggers Lasting Changes in the Brain
Getting Beyond Confusion and Overwhelm
Co-Creating The New Earth ~ Tomorrow Is In Our Hands
How to Turn Your Big Dream Into a Joyful Reality
Vibe Report for January 2014
9 Truths You Should Know by Now
The Bridge......Crossing to a New Reality.
2014: From the Mud comes the Lotus Flower
How You Create Brilliant Business Ideas w/ The Law of Attraction
The 118 Days of Creation
How Much Are You Filtering Your Truth? – Image Alterations Aren't Just For Big Media Anymore
Eight Signs You May Be Experiencing a Spiritual Awakening
The Solar Sacrum
Looking Toward 2014
13 Signs You're a Witch
How To Tell If You Had A Past Life In Atlantis
How Do I Know If It's My Soul or My Ego Talking?
Are You Feeling Depressed? Take An Exercise Or Go For A Run--Scientifically Proven Truth
The Baby and the Bath Water
Moving From Vulnerability To Confidence
Conscious Evolution!!
The 5 Root Causes of Self Sabotage and How to Untangle Them
8 Tips to Change the Way You Deal with Stress
The Foundation for All Healing
How to Let Go of People Who No Longer Need, or Want, to Be in Your Life
6 Things You Should Know About True Love
10 Magical Things That Start to Happen as You Begin to Love Yourself
Activate Your Creative Power With Conscious Intention
Riding the Train of Life – Symbolism to Navigate the Tracks of Your Journey
The Tree of Life
Enough Already
7 Ways to Give up the Victim Mentality and Live with Confidence
Are We the Makers of Our Own Fate?
Lighting Your Truth to Freedom, Passion & Inspired Leadership – Closing Chapter 2013 to Write Chapter 2014′s Lively & Instinctual Year of the Horse
Rationalizing Usury: The Time Value Hoax
When To Know When Someone Is A Mirror To You, And When You Are A Mirror To Others
The Power of a Poor Night's Sleep
Why Entrepreneurship Is A Spiritual Expression Of Freedom
Death and Dying from a Shamanic Perspective
Study: Meditation Changes Your Genes for the Better
Truth Apnea
5 Ways to Let Go of Your Inner Critic and Let the Real You Shine
You're Only As Strong As Your Weakest Link But As Wise As Your Strongest
The Importance of Flexibility… and Not Just in the Body!
The Speed of Infinity
Spiritual Work in the 5th Dimension
A Time Of Vigilance And The Gift From The Comet ISON
The Courage To Live Box Less -- Getting Outside The Label Labyrinth
The Quantum Leap Ascension Process
10 Ways To Build Your Self-Esteem Forgive Yourself and Let Go of the Past
Toronto Named Most Youth Friendly City
Stop Looking And See
Getting the Doomsday Hunger?
8 Signs You're Meant for Something Bigger on This Planet
What I Hope to Be Next Year
The 5th Dimensional Chakras
At The Point of No Return
Astrology News
Your Guide to Planetary Energies: March …
Pam Younghans Highlighted Aspects this Week MON: Saturn square Mercury; THU: Jupiter sesquisquare ... Read more
Weekly Forecast: March 9 - 15, 2014
Kelly M. Beard 3/11 ~ Mercury (communication) ~square~ Saturn (reality): (1 of 3: 1/25 ~ 2/19 ~ 3/11) This ener... Read more
Planet Alert March 2014
Mahala Gayle I woke up the morning of February 11 with the words of a song running through my head called 'Let It Go'. It kept ru... Read more
Monthly Astro-Forecasts March 2014
Sarah-Jane Grace Message for March 2014 Welcome back! March looks set to be a month for taking s... Read more
Your Guide to Planetary Energies: March …
Pam Younghans Highlighted Aspects this Week MON: Pluto sextile Sun, Chiron semisquare Venus, Chiron con... Read more
Mercury Direct
Maria DeSimone Kiss retrograde goodbye! Planet Mercury is moving direct! If you've spent the last three weeks o... Read more
Weekly Forecast: March 2 - 8, 2014
Kelly M. Beard 3/2 ~ Saturn Retrograde at 23* Scorpio 3/2 ~ Venus (relationships) ~square~ Mars (passion): (2 o... Read more
2014 Pisces New Moon
Dale Osadchuk 01 March 2014 at 3.00am EST 12.00pm PST and 8.00pm GMT Here in the North Country even thoug... Read more
New Moon Update 3-1-14
Lena Stevens The New Moon is Saturday, March 1 at 1:00AM Mountain Time, Midnight on Friday, February 28/March 1, P... Read more
Pisces New Moon – Set Sail for the Inner…
We've come to the end of the astrological year, diving into the deep ocean of Pisces from the starry heights of Aq... Read more
Your Guide to Planetary Energies: Februa…
Pam Younghans Highlighted Aspects this Week MON: Saturn sextile Venus; TUE: Pluto sextile Chiron, ... Read more
Weekly Forecast: February 23 - March 1, …
Kelly M. Beard 2/23 ~ Sun (Self) ~conjunct~ Neptune (illusions): This energy is known for producing two distinc... Read more
March 2014
Michelle Karen Kindly note that the days and times given below are in PST (Pacific Standard Time) until March ... Read more
2014 Leo Full Moon
Dale Osadchuk 14 February 2014 at 6.54pm EST 3.54pm PST and 11.54pm GMT As Snowy Owl and Shooting Star cl... Read more
Full Moon Report: Hearts, Stars & So…
Rev. Irma Kaye Sawyer We invite you to drop all fear of your brilliance and radiantly shine as you were born ... Read more
14th February 2014: Full Moon in Leo @ 2…
Valentine Moon by Sarah Varcas This Full Moon in Leo may feel pretty intense. If you like intense, y... Read more
Full Moon in Leo: Center Stage!
Mary Pat Lynch Full Moon in Leo February 14, 2014 6:53 pm EST / 11:53 pm GMT Oh, the Full Moon in Leo!... Read more
Leo Full Moon is Happy Valentine's Day! …
Kelley Rosano The Leo Full on February 14 is Happy Valentine's Day! This is an action packed Full Moon. The Sun is in Aquari... Read more
The Truth About Mercury Retrograde
Sarah Varcas To set the scene……… There's always much talk (and a fair amount of h... Read more
Living the Symbolic Life: The World Need…
Cathy Lynn Pagano, M.A. You see, man is in need of a symbolic life - badly in need. We only live banal, ordinary, ... Read more
2014 Aquarius Super New Moon and Blue Mo…
Dale Osadchuk 30 January 2014 at 4.39pm EST 1.39pm PST and 9.39pm GMT It was early afternoon when Snowy Owl and Shooting S... Read more
30th January 2014: New Moon in Aquarius …
Pandora's Hopeby Sarah Varcas Today's New Moon offers creativity of thought and an opportunity to view a familiar scenario ... Read more
Some Further Exploration of the Pluto/Black Sun Opposition Throughout 2014
New Moon Update 1-30-14
Lively Aquarius New Moon is a Super Moon
Gallop Faster in the Year of the Horse
Pluto, the Black Sun and 2014
2014 Cancer Full Moon
Full Moon Update 1-15-14
Cancer Full Moon, Balance Male & Female Energy
11th January to 9th April 2014: On Ego Discernment
Yearly Astro-Forecast For 2014
2014 Capricorn Super New Moon
2013 Gemini Full Moon
Year of the Horse 2014
Major Astrological Power Dates for 2014
2014 Overview
The Year Of The Wood Horse 2014
Full Moon Balancing Process
The Four Royal Stars
Mercury Retrograde
Mercury Madness
2013 - Year of the Snake!
Lunar & Solar Eclipses for Beginners
The Ogham Astrology
November 25 - December 22 - The Elder Tree
October 28th - November 24th - The Reed
September 30th - October 27th - The Ivy
September 2nd - September 29th - The Vine
August 5 - September 1 - The Hazel Tree
July 8th - August 4th - The Holly Tree
June 10th - July 7th - The Oak Tree
May 13 - June 9 - The Hawthorn Tree
April 15th - May 12th - The Willow Tree
March 18 - April 14 - The Alder Tree
February 18 - March 17 - The Ash Tree
January 21st - February 17th - The Rowan Tree
December 24 - January 20 - The Birch Tree
Celtic Astrology
Libra Gal, Scorpio Guy
The Planets and Their Meaning in Astrology
The 12 Astrological Houses: their Meaning
Moon Void of Course
Retrograde Motion
The Meaning of the Venus Transit in June 2012
Sun in Scorpio
Sun in Gemini
Sun in Taurus
Sun in Aries
Sun in Pisces
Astrological Attributes of Ophiuchus
Sabian Symbols
The Ecliptic and Sidereal Astrology
Sun in Aquarius
Sun in Libra
Sun in Virgo
Sun in Leo
Sun in Capricorn
Sun in Sagittarius
Goddess Guidance and Wisdom
Men And The God Archetypes
The New Moon in Virgo
Meditation for the New Moon in Virgo
Meditation for the New Moon in Leo
The New Moon in Leo
The New Moon in Libra
The New Moon in Scorpio
The New Moon in Sagittarius
The New Moon in Capricorn
The New Moon in Aquarius
The New Moon in Cancer
Meditation for the New Moon in Cancer
Sun in Cancer
The New Moon in Gemini
Meditation for the New Moon in Gemini
The New Moon in Aries
The New Moon in Taurus
Meditation for the New Moon in Taurus
Meditation for the New Moon in Scorpio
Meditation for the New Moon in Sagittarius
Meditation for the New Moon in Pisces
Meditation for the New Moon in Libra
Meditation for the New Moon in Capricorn
Meditation for the New Moon in Aries
Meditation for the New Moon in Aquarius
Full Moon Meditation Series - Pisces
Full Moon Meditation Series - Aquarius
Full Moon Meditation Series - Capricorn
Full Moon Meditation Series - Sagittarius
Welcome To Today
Blessings! ❤
Featured This Month
Birth Totem - Wolf
Birth Totem Wolf Birth dates: February 19 - March 20 Birth Totem: Wolf Clan... Read more
February 18 - March 17 - The Ash Tree
Celtic Symbol : The Trident Or Sea - Horse Zodiac Degrees : ... Read more


text:
CHICAGO — Among the wildflowers and native grasses in the garden atop Chicago's city hall stand two beehives where more than 100,000 bees come and go in patterns more graceful, but just as busy, as the traffic on the street 11 stories below.
Amid bee die-off, healthy hives thrive in cities
Friday, July 29, 2011 | 1:57 p.m. CDT
To read the full article, please sign up or login.
Get full access to the Columbia Missourian on your computer, phone, and tablet for just $5.95 per month.
* Unlimited access on your iPhone, iPad, Android phone and Android tablet
* All the high-quality, in-depth journalism of the Columbia Missourian and Vox Magazine, updated 24/7
* Your news. Your device. Your time.
If you'd like to read more about the value of being a member, read this column from the Missourian's executive editor, Tom Warhover.


text:
Mr Louis Wain - the artist - is seen at home.
Intertitle reads: "There's hardly a child - or grown up - who doesn't know Mr Wain's friends - ". C/U of cat with a framing device of a black circular frame. We then see Mr Wain holding the cat. Mr Wain then draws a cartoon cat on a piece of blank...
We always welcome comments and more information about our films.
All posts are reactively checked. Libellous and abusive comments are forbidden.


text:
Anyone who thinks that craft beer is just for the boys could certainly benefit from attending tomorrow night's event at JD's Smokehouse in Canton. Flying Dog Brewery will be a hosting a ladies craft beer tasting, called "Yes We Craft!" from 7-9 p.m.
Apparently, some female regulars told the staff at JD's that they'd like to learn more about craft beer, and Flying Dog heard about the idea and decided to turn it into a full-fledged event.
For $15, guests can experience a ladies-led tasting of craft-beer samples including Tire Bite Golden Ale, In-Heat Wheat Hefeweizen, Old Scratch Amber Lager, Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale, Road Dog Porter, Snake Dog IPA, and Raging Bitch Belgian-Style IPA.
There will also be passed hors d'oeuvres and a commemorative tasting class. Judging from the twisted version of the Rosie the Riveter flier, the event will be filled with the eccentric fun Flying Dog is known for.
Tickets are still available and can be purchased here via MissionTix.
[Image: courtesy of Flying Dog Brewery]


text:
Constantine #1 Review
Jeff Lemire and Ray Fawkes have given me a little hope.
Being a fan of the Vertigo run Hellblazer series I was more then a little wary that DC was taking Constantine into their own realm rather then leaving him in Dark Justice League and Hellblazer. There are still a lot of fans of John Constantine out there that feel the new 52 book won't give him even close to the same edge that he had in the Hellblazer books, and to them I say probably not. The thing with this type of move is that it will either give you the same character in a different light, or you will ruin the character for every fan they have, but the same goes with fans. We will look for every problem there is within the book rather than giving it its fair shake.
Constantine opens with him coming out of somewhere dark and seedy and it just gets darker from there. Constantine has never been the outright hero, just a guy who knows some tricks and does whatever he has to to keep from winding up dead. A good start to a character with a lot of history in the DC Comics realm, he is a hero of sorts, but he is also a liar, a cheater, and a manipulator. doing what he needs to do John Constantine embarks on new adventures in a new title, but he seems to be the same anti-hero you either love or hate.
I have faith in Lemire though, and just from the first book it looks like at the very least the first story arc will be a good one. A new Constatine? Not really, just a new home and some good writing. For all the disbelievers and die hard Hellblazer fans I don't expect much, but if you at least pick up the first issue you did yourself a service and might actually enjoy what they have to offer.


text:
National Guard Units On Alert
Updated: Monday, January 7 2013, 09:56 PM EST
The National Guard notifies mountain soldiers they could be called for active duty. That means members of the 210th and 211th military police are preparing for a call-up that could come at any time.
The army won't say when or where the deployment could be, or whether troops would be mobilized at all. During the alert, soldiers must get their family affairs in order and increase their training. The military police in the mountains last deployed in 2003. There have been big changes in equipment used in that time.
The National Guard has a Family Readiness Program that assists husbands, wives and children left behind. Volunteers also provide community support for military families.
Follow Sherrill Barber on Twitter @SherrillBarber


text:
Here is the ideal diamond sharpener for your tool box, tackle box, pocket or kitchen drawer. Just flip it open for a handheld sharpening station. With dual abrasive surfaces - fine grit on one side, extra-fine on the other - it will bring your tools, router bits and knives to a truly polished, razor sharp edge. The unique folding handle encases and protects the sharpening surfaces from other tools, no matter how cluttered your tool box might become. It sharpens in a fraction of the time required by conventional stones. No flattening, and no messy oils required - sharpen dry or with water.
Technical Details:
Technical Details:
- Fine diamond sharpening surface is 25 micron/600 mesh.
- Extra-fine sharpening surface is 9 micron/1200 mesh.
- Sharpening surface measures 4-3/8"" L x 7/8" W.
- When folded, the Diafold Sharpener measures 5" L x 1-1/8" W x 7/16" thick.
- When open, the sharpener measures 9-1/2" long.
- Dotted sharpening pattern helps flush away particles, and prevents the whetstone from clogging.
Tech Spec
Manufacturer Part Number | FWEF |
Weight (lbs) | 0.3800 |
What's included:
(1) DMT Double-Sided Diafold Sharpener, Fine and Extra-Fine Grits


text:
Then, first thing in the morning, I'll either jot something on the pad, or get my coffee and start typing the things that come to me.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
So She Comes Out Laughing
Then, first thing in the morning, I'll either jot something on the pad, or get my coffee and start typing the things that come to me.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
A Wonderful Time To Live
It is snowing outside and I spent the day getting the old place prepared for the storm by cutting kindling, stacking logs on the porch, covering woodpiles and steps with tarps, gassing up my SUV and making room under the carport for it, making sure the chickens had plenty of water and food, putting a cover over their heated container, putting covers on the faucets outdoors, building a fire in the wood burning fireplace, and all while babysitting my granddaughter who was out here sick from school while her parents worked. I have a motorized wheelbarrow and I was making trips back and forth while she stood in the window waving at me. When she is well she rides in it.
Lately Sasha is preoccupied with her grandmother and me being soooo old. This afternoon she told me that I was getting too many sparkles on my face and hands. I said, "Sparkles?"
"No, that isn't the word," she said.
"Wrinkles?" I asked.
"Yep, wrinkles. Too many wrinkles. CAuse you're old."
On the way home she said, "Look, Dotz, it's a graveyard."
"Yes, that's a graveyard," I agreed.
"Is that where you and grandma are going to sleep when you die?"
"Well, no," I said. "We're going to a much nicer graveyard where they have cable TV and Wi-Fi for our computers."
My grandsons are more interested in what they can have when we die. They have asked for very little but are very specific about it.
Like Gilstrap wrote on his blog, I also think and write about death and destruction and it's a subject I know better than I'd like. I have seen death and the destruction guns and knives and cars can do to human beings and it made quite an impression on me starting at an early age. We lived across the street from a funeral home when I was ten or so, and that was where my experience began. Our neighborhood kids used to lie on our stomachs and watch Mr. Barry embalm people in the basement. He always had the louvered-glass windows open and he never saw us as his back was usually to us. It was like watching horror movies. We used to run when we heard the ambulances heading for the hospital and we'd stand, an audience of innocents, watching as some unfortunate victim was wheeled in on a gurney. Often the ambulance (again Mr. Barry) would often make a quick stop before putting the vic back into the ambulance (it doubled as the hearse for black funerals at the other Barry home in another part of town) and it had red lights in the grill and a howling siren. The lights were covered with black cloth baggies for funerals. It showed me a side of death I've carried with me since.
I have a problem in that I never know what to tell kids about death, how to explain it without instill fear and worry in them. I told Sasha that the old moves aside so the young can have room to grow up, that it was true with every living thing. I told her that dying was just like being born into this world but in another place. I'm not sure about that but I don't mind lying to children about that.
Before my funeral home days in Starkville, Mississippi, when I was five or six, my eighty-four-year old grandfather died, and I remember how empty I felt and how sad it made me. I took little consolation in people telling me he was in heaven. I only knew he was never coming back and that I'd never sit in his lap and use his pocket knife to carefully cut cubes of tobacco for him to chew. I'd never hear him tell me stories about his life as a cattleman, about gunfights in downtown Hazzlehurst, about driving cattle in storms, of lean times, of being gored by a bull and thrown by horses into bad places. Although I took no consolation in the idea of Papa in heaven, I did in the fact that he died of a stroke while cheering the Friday Night Fights on TV in the nursing home. I am so glad that I knew him for the years I did, and how he called my mama, "baby" and I thought she was truly old.
As I've grown older I've seen a lot of people I knew and loved die, and it's never easy. Never. But it has given me feelings to run my fingers over and to put into my words.
Sasha told me she liked graveyards with rocks in them, not just lots of vases with flowers in them. I agree, those graveyards with flat plaques are pastoral but bleak, and if I intended to end up in one, I'd want to be in an interesting one where people come and walk around and read inscriptions, and maybe even sat lean against a tombstone to read a book on a warm summer day.
After we passed by that bleak country graveyard, I also told her that although I seemed old to her, I was going to live a long, long time and that I planned to be there when she was older and maybe I'd even drool into my lap at her wedding. And I told her I'd be there to hold her babies just like I held her when she was one. I don't know if I'll be true to my word, but I plan to try.
Friday, January 29, 2010
The Violence Threshold
The first corpse I ever saw outside of a funeral home was that of a twenty-something newly-wed who'd been given a terminal diagnosis by his physician earlier in the day. Unwilling to face death in slow motion, he decided to die on his own terms. He stripped naked, sat Indian-style on his bed and rested his forehead on the muzzle of a .357 magnum revolver, his thumb on the trigger. His wife heard the shot from downstairs and rushed up to find the resultant horror show.
I got involved as a rookie firefighter riding as "third aid" on the ambulance. (That means I got to carry the heavy stuff and do my best to stay out of the way.) "Horror show" didn't touch the reality. The panic-stricken wife, streaked red from her efforts to revive her husband. The anatomical eruption that was the bullet's path. One of the most vivid memories for me is the fineness of the blood spatter, and how it settled on everything. To this day, I wonder how anyone can live in a house where a shooting has occurred. I guess you just have to replace everything.
Subsequent to that first fatality, over the course of fifteen years in the fire and rescue service, I witnessed hundreds more fatalities, more than a few the result of violence. Unless you've experienced it, I'm not sure you can understand how it changes you; how it molds you into the person you ultimately become.
Now I'm a thriller writer. People die in my books, and every now and then I get slammed by a critic for over-the-top violence, and every time I read that, I am shocked. Certainly, the violence is vivid, true to my memories of what bullets and knives and baseball bats do to people, but to my mind, I never cross over into what I think of as violence-as-pornography. The violence in my books has consequence. Every time my protagonists are forced to take a life, they become damaged goods. The violence evolves them, shapes them into more interesting, darker people. Consider those creative values against the consequence-free pornographic bloodfest that is The Matrix and its ilk.
In movies, books and television, I wonder sometimes if the downplayed violence--the off-screen murder that drives the meat of the plot--isn't more of a disservice to society than their couterparts which take you and your senses into the true horror that violent crime inflicts. The dead butler in the library didn't just arrive there to provide a puzzle for our sleuth to solve. He was a person whose last moments were anguished and wracked with agony. I'm not sure it's good that the likes of Miss Marple, Jessica and Hercule are so able to push that aside.
Obviously, tastes vary. I respect that different forms of suspense attract different readers, but when it comes to desensitizing people to violence, I do wonder which form erodes the social fabric more. Or, as an alternative, does fiction have a measurable impact at all on such real-life sensitivities? What do you think? What are your violence thresholds?
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Music to My Ears
by Kelli Stanley
First, I gotta thank my hostess, thriller author extraordinaire Michelle Gagnon, and the rest of the fiercely fabulous Kill Zone team.
Of course, the irony with all this personal cocooning is that people now have an even greater need to socialize and share ... but instead of playing a boom box, you can post an iTunes play list or even pretend to be a DJ on Blip.FM.
And, of course, if you write books, you can share what you listen to through your writing.
Quick poll for authors—raise your hand if you're influenced by music when you write. Do you listen while you type? Does it set the mood, the tone, the pace for your scene? Do you channel Bernard Herrmann's score for Psycho for your serial killer segments and switch to Bach for your upbeat ending?
This is one way to use music, and I've heard other authors claim that they like writing with the volume up. Me, I've never been able to hear my words and Gershwin at the same time, so I don't actually listen when I write. But to sort of set the stage, to get in the mood … that I can do. I've always been a fan of jazz and the Great American Songbook, an affinity that served me well with my latest novel.
Y' see, listening is particularly helpful when you're trying to lose yourself in time. Because City of Dragons is set in 1940, I immersed myself in a lot of music from the era—and had to be very careful to not access something anachronistic. I wanted to hear what my characters did, and I was writing about a period in American culture when music was truly a mass medium of popular entertainment … and when our entertainment—thanks to radio drama—was more audio than visual.
The music was key to me feeling like I could capture the past. And then it became about character, too, about my protagonist reacting to that world, particularly the irony of achingly romantic big band swing juxtaposed to the atrocities of war.
So I found myself becoming immersed in the music, actually using it in the book. And I felt confident about being able to, since some writers I greatly admire—like George Pelecanos and Ken Bruen—reference music and lyrics in their works.
The rub, of course, is the permissions phase … something I didn't know much about. But warning, all you Springsteen fans who want to include "The River" in your latest novel … the author is responsible for either acquiring permission or rewriting the scene.
In my case, I found out too late and had to rewrite certain scenes, retaining a line of lyric and hopefully the flow and rhythm and emotion of the original draft. But—like a DVD director's cut—I was able to link up a City of Dragons playlist on my website, so that, whenever possible, you can listen to the music my characters do.
It's a cool way of sharing not just what I like to listen to, but what became an intrinsic element of the book, and a kind of instant time machine back to February, 1940.
So … how do you respond to music in books? And what's on your playlist today?
Kelli Stanley's second novel, City of Dragons, has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and Booklist, is an RT Book Reviews Top Pick, and an Indie Next Book for February. Kelli's debut novel, Nox Dormienda, won the Bruce Alexander Award and was nominated for a Macavity. She lives in San Francisco, and frequents old movie palaces, speakeasies and bookstores. You can find out more about her and her books at her website: http://www.kellistanley.com.Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Threshold of Pain
There's been a great deal of discussion here at TKZ as well as on other blogs and forums about the changes taking place in the publishing industry. Most of it revolves around the rapid emergence and popularity of e-books and electronic publishing, and how it's affecting traditional publishing. The industry as a whole appears liquid and seems to be changing almost by the day. Many of us are trying to find a stable place to stand as the ground shakes around us.
I don't have any solutions to present here today. If I did, they would probably be outdated by the time I post my next blog. But I do have some observations.
For over 20 years, I worked in the video postproduction industry. During that time, one of the biggest advances in television and motion picture production was the advent of digital technology. Before high definition digital video, the only way to capture high quality images was on film. Even for personal home use, there was nothing better than standard 35mm film (some formats in the professional arena were larger sizes). For decades, no one envisioned that high quality images could be captured and delivered on any other format than film. (Note that film is still far greater resolution than high definition video). Even with its inherent grain, its ability to attract dirt, its somewhat fragile, easily damaged surface, and its constant weave and jitter through the projection system's gate, it was as good as it can get. No other image delivery method could match film.
Today, most major motion pictures are still shot on film due mainly to the fact that film, unlike video, has much wider latitude and dynamic range, and still has the highest resolution available. But the image delivery system is changing. Now, original negative is transferred from film to video and color corrected within the digital domain. It is then projected in digital format rather than analog. Instead of individual frames passing through the gate of a projector, the images are retrieved from a hard drive or transmitted via satellite and projected electronically in resolutions up to 4k. It's called digital cinema. No more scratches and weave, no more prints wearing out or film breaking. The thousandth time the movie is projected, it looks exactly like the first time.
Has the movie-going experience been hurt by digital cinema? No. In fact, it's been enhanced beyond what the audience even realizes. The image is rock solid, crystal clear, and comes with multiple channels of digital audio for a totally entertaining experience. In most viewers eyes, it's better than film.
How does this relate to analog vs. digital books? We must remember that what readers get when they purchase a book is a container holding our writing. Just like film and digital files can contain the same images, analog and digital books can hold the same words. An analog or printed book is simply a delivery vessel—something that contains our words and delivers them to our readers.
Remember Kodachrome film? It was first manufactured in 1935 and quickly became the most popular method of capturing and delivering images to the casual photographer. Eastman Kodak canceled production in 2009. Why? Because digital cameras had finally surpassed film as the most popular method of taking pictures. No one was buying Kodachrome anymore. But pictures were still being taken. Only now, the delivery system—the container—is digital files.
Could that happen to books? Maybe. And if it does, it probably will take a long time. After all, it took Kodachrome 74 years to die. But I hold to the theory of the "threshold of pain". When something new comes along—let's call it a widget—the first adapters must experience a certain amount of pain in order to try it. As the widget is further developed, refined and perfected, the pain starts to diminish. As the pain continues to decrease, more customers migrate to the widget because they learn of its pleasures and are willing to tolerate or ignore any remaining pain. At some point, the negatives along with the price dips below the threshold of pain, and the widget is embraced by the majority of the audience.
Here's an example. Six years ago, I bought a 60" Sony HD TV. They were mostly available in high-end electronics boutiques. Top resolution was 720p. It cost me over $5k. There was a lot of pain in my wallet and the fact that it took months to get any kind of HD into my home. Today, I can get the same size screen at 1080p resolution at Wal-Mart for less than half the price. Hardly any pain. A whole lot of pleasure. And HD TV's are as common as toaster ovens. The TV is a delivery system. What it delivers is images—or more specific, entertainment.
I believe that as a delivery system, analog books can be replaced if the replacement brings the user more pleasure than pain. If the reading experience is as good or better than analog. If they are reasonably priced. Easy to read from. Easy to use. Massive storage. Unlimited battery life. Unlimited selection of books. Scratch-'n-sniff paper smell. OK, that last pleasure is future-ware.
Are e-books the answer? I don't know. But what has happened is that due to the economy, competition, and a shifting marketplace, the electronic publishing flood gates have begun to open. A lot of new widgets are flowing out. The one thing they all have in common is that they are delivery systems. But what they deliver will never change. Our words. Our art.
Are you an early adaptor who likes living on the bleeding edge of technology? Or do you sit back and let others be the lab rats before you pull out your wallet and head over to Wal-Mart?
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The benefits of traveling with a herd
Writing can be a lonely business. Social networking can help us break a sense of isolation, but only in a virtual way. One of the best ways for writers to connect is to become active in professional writer's organizations. These groups, such as ITW (International Thriller Writers), MWA (Mystery Writers of America), and SiC (Sisters in Crime), have national and local chapter meetings and events that serve many useful purposes, including networking, advice, and support.
To get full benefit from the organizations, it's important to become active, not just attend meetings. Several writers on this blog are active in national and local writer's organizations. I've been a member of the board of the Southern California Chapter of MWA for the past year, and I recently became the Program Chair. Our first program of 2010 was "Tales from the Publishing Trenches." It featured Kristen Weber, a former Senior Editor at Penguin Group (and my former editor), who regaled a packed house with stories and advice about the real world of NY editing. Kristen was interviewed by bestselling author Patricia Smiley (Kristen is pictured on the left, below. Patricia is on the right).
When you become actively involved with your writing organization, you contribute, make contacts and get your name out in the public. As a writer, I am capable of going long periods of time with little human contact except for my family and cats (who think they're human). If nothing else, attending the meetings makes me drag my butt out of the house.
I'd be interested to hear about your experiences with professional writers' organizations. How active have you been, and have you found the groups to be helpful or enjoyable?
Monday, January 25, 2010
Ghostwriters, Co-authors and The Great Oz
Sunday, January 24, 2010
What the New Kindle Deal Means for Writers
You've no doubt read up on amazon.com's bold play this week to shore up its Kindle market share (estimated already to be 90% of all e-readers). They announced a new program, taking effect June 30, which offers a 70% royalty on Kindle editions priced between $2.99 and $8.99. That's double what they have granted before (and was timed to come just before Apple's announcement of a similar plan for their new iTablet. For more on the coming "price wars," see this article in Fortune).
This represents quite a nice chunk of the pie, even though the price point is low. For authors, it works out to be a very good deal, when 10% of list is not an uncommon number, especially in mass market.
Which is the point I want to make, one I have been pondering ever since the Kindle broke out wide: we authors may be entering an era that is very much like the mass market explosion post World War II.
What that ushered in was a golden age of paperback fiction in the 50's. Names like Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Ross Macdonald, Jim Thompson. Some of the old pulp writers, like Erle Stanley Gardner, found new life and sales. While the old pulp magazines dried up, there was a market for good stories among the slicks—e.g., Collier's, Saturday Evening Post. The better writers got stories published there and made some extra scratch.
So what do we see now? Another mass market platform, this time electronic. The price points are equivalent to what people in the 50's would have paid in the drug store. True, publishers could actually get into the drugstores, on racks and spinners. But we have that analogue in the e-world. Buyers on amazon, for example, are directed to other titles they might be interested in, and so forth.
For authors, especially commercial authors—those who deliver an entertaining read—the prospects are intriguing. If they write great stories, word of mouth will spread, just like it does in traditional publishing. But now there's a 70% royalty, which is a whole lot better than the pittance the paperback writers of the 50's got.
But there's more good news, especially for writers like myself who have a ton of stories and concepts we'd like to write. We will be able to write different varieties of fiction––short form, novella and novel length, and see them brought to market in a fraction of the time it now takes to get one book out the traditional way.
I can see nice prospects for publishers and writers teaming up to take advantage of this new platform, even if it's just to supplement the traditional print model.
The short story especially interests me. I love doing them, but the short story market has long been a dead letter. Suddenly, there's new life. In fact, my colleagues and I here at Kill Zone are going to soon release our own anthology: Fresh Kills. It's been a matter of only a few months, from idea generation to writing to editing to e-publishing. And we don't have to print or warehouse the book.
Now, the temptation, especially for new writers who are thinking in terms of self-publishing, is to start throwing up (and I use that term purposely) their stuff before it's ready. We're going to see a lot of that. But a kind of Darwinism will take over, where the weak will be weeded out. The idea is to become one of the fittest and survive, even thrive. I would therefore advise new writers to hire a good freelance editor. You will only hurt your long term prospects if what you offer is junk.
How are traditional publishers going to react to all this? I don't know. Random House has entered an agreement with Apple, and that will change the landscape. The landscape will keep changing. We're in a whole new ballgame here, and the rules get updated almost daily. But as I said, I think there is a great chance for publishers and authors to partner up and make the best of this situation. I don't know that we're ever going to go back to hardcover prices. The production costs are too great, and consumers are rapidly being taught they don't have to pay hardcover prices, even for a new book by a celebrity author.
What that means for you, writer, is to keep concentrating on doing what you do, making your stuff the best it can be, then going to market. If you can write short stories (which are, in my mind, the hardest form of fiction), so much the better. Bottom line: if your stuff is killer, people will find it. If you write it, they will come.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Last week I mentioned I'd tell you about my experience felling a tree, so I'll make good but warn you, dear reader, that this is not directly connected to my writing, but what I do between the pages. It's also an explanation as to how I find the material for writing my incompetent characters.
I have a wood-burning fireplace in my living room that opens to play fireplace for our grandkids to roast marshmellows in when they stay over in the winter. When it's got a bunch of logs burning in it, it will flat run you out of the house and into the yard. We have several acres of trees on the place and we only buy wood to supplement what I cut that is standing dead on the farm.
Okay, maybe I've seen too many segments of Ax Men on TV. Those guys drop monumental trees exactly where they want them to hit, and they do it with amazing ease. I love the smell of a fresh cut trees. I have been using a chainsaw most of my adult life, and so I'm not without some experience at it. Two weeks ago I dropped several trees on a nearby farm to help a neighbor lady cut, split and stack firewood. Susie and I joined several of her friends in sub-zero weather to cut dead-standing trees of decent size one recent Saturday. We cut a couple of cords (for you non-woodsman types that is a stack four feet wide, four tall and eight feet long). A cord, while seeming enormous doesn't last very long if you heat with logs like she does since it's her only source of fuel. Did I tell you I live out in the woods with my wife, 70 chickens and two dogs?
I've had this sixteen-inch-diameter-dead tree standing beside my shop/shed since we moved in and over the three years it has shed rotten limbs like a drunk carrying a four foot tall stack of boxes of chocolates up a flight of stairs in the dark––each barely missing the shed's tin roof. I hadn't cut it down previously because due to lean it needed to be tied off near the top and to have increasing winch tension-(I have one of those on my four-wheeler that was in the shop with a blown motor)-put on it to make it fall in a direction it was not inclined by design, physics, and the non-flexible principles of weight distribution and balance to take. When the most major limb fell off a few weeks ago and left it looking like a pole, I decided that, although it was leaning ever so slightly toward a collision with my shed roof, that like the Ax Men, I could cut it so it would have no choice but to buck nature and fall where I desired it to drop.
Taking out my Echo ES 440, with a newly sharpened chain, I stood and peered up studying the fifty odd feet of tree for several long minutes. It was cold, but there was no wind to help or hurt my enterprise, and so I cranked the saw and after revving the hell out of it for Ax-Man effect I carefully cut a perfect and deep watermelon slice out of the debarked trunk. She (we farmers call any inanimate object of substance "she") was not as rotten through the base as I'd imagined, which was good as it would make nice firewood, and firm centers reduce the danger that it might twist as it was cut through. From slightly above the center of the wedge I started the blade on a downward angle in her backside as to hit the apex of the missing wedge. [Think of the missing wedge as being a wide-open mouth.] Also to make sure I was being an Ax Man I cut in about ten inches and inserted a wedge behind the blade to induce her to fall forward. As I cut I used a small two-pound sledgehammer to drive the shim deeper to nudge the tree so it would more definitely fall where the nose would be pointing if there had been a tree nose above the open mouth.
All went as planned until the cut was almost through to the apex. Unlike the show, my tree defied everything I believed and pinched my saw blade as I was pulling it upward and free. The tree headed backward bound for my shed …and time stood still.
It hit the tin roof under which I normally park my four-wheeler when the engine isn't blown, my motorized wheelbarrow, and the zero-turn radius mower, which I had moved, just in case. The old gal, despite my efforts at pushing, fell backward the corner of the open structure and she landed on the roof like she had been punched out by a giant. I noticed that my chainsaw was missing its handle, which is never a good thing, so I couldn't even cut up the tree to get it down in sections. For several minutes I felt almost as let down as I do when I receive a rejection notice from an editor.
I have a shirt that says, "Professional Author. Don't try this at home." I should have one printed that says, "Amateur Ax Man…."
Taught me a valuable life lesson. "Life teaches you lessons–boy does it ever!" Just because someone else can do it doesn't mean I can. Writing isn't cutting trees, thank God. I don't know anybody who's ever harmed more than the English language doing it either. Oh well, like writing, you'll never know unless you try.
Friday, January 22, 2010
In my non-writing life, I am a safety engineer. My job--my nature, actually--forces me to look at any given situation at any given time, and project what can go wrong. We don't burn a lot of candles in our home because open flames are essentially nacent conflagrations. We have an artificial Christmas tree because I know from my fire service experience how explosively combustible live (actually dead) evergreens are. I am all about controlling risk.
It shouldn't be a surprise, then, that I am paranoid about losing data. Think about it. As an author, I create people and places out of my imagination, and the only place where they exist is on the page. If the pages burn up, everything goes away. Even the DNA is gone, because no DNA ever existed outside of the controlled psychosis that is writing.
It's worse than that, though, because in this day of the computer, the characters that exist only on the page aren't really ever on the page until very late in the process. They exist exclusively on a disk--magnetic media that I don't begin to understand. If the computer drive fails, everything on it fails with it. I can't imagine the emotional trauma of losing 100,000 words and many months' work to a power surge. It's the stuff of nightmares.
My hedge against the nightmare is my flash drive. I bought this USB storage device five or six years ago, and it literally contains every word I've ever written professionally. All seven books, plus the first twenty pages of Book Eight--the untitled third book in my Jonathan Grave thriller series. When I settle in for a writing session, I call up the version of the manuscript that is stored on the flash drive, and I write away, saving frequently. When that writing session is finished, I save that version to the hard drive of whatever computer I'm working on (home, work or laptop). That way, if a disaster happens, a current copy exists on at least two points of storage. The flash drive remains in my right front pocket all the time. All. The. Time. My flash drive has seen every corner of the world.
Last week, I lost the flash drive. I wore a new pair of slacks that happened to have shallow pockets, and when I got home, the flash drive was gone. I called the hostess of the party, but no, she couldn't find it. Crap.
And wouldn't you know it? I had violated my own long-standing personal rule to always back up to the hard drive, and thus, the entire first chapter of my new book was gone. No back-up anywhere. Okay, it was only 20 pages, but they were a really good 20 pages. Damn.
Title of this blog entry notwithstanding, I'm not one to panic over anything. I truly am the person you want to be with in an emergency. I am, however, one to cuss and kick at the floor when I get caught doing something stupid. What the hell was I thinking, not backing up the beginning of a new story? Sometimes, God gobsmacks the guy who takes his eye off the ball. It's what you call one of life's sobering moments.
I'll certainly never do that again.
Good news: three or four days after I'd lost my flash drive, the hostess of the party called and told me she'd found it. I'd dodged a bullet, but the lesson was learned.
So, what about you? Share your paranoia with us. What do you do to protect your data as you write a new story? If, God forbid, your house burned to the ground, would you be able to continue on with your book?
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Marketing Recap
So the smoke has finally cleared from my latest marketing efforts for THE GATEKEEPER, and I thought I'd share a bit of what I learned.
First of all, Google Analytics is vastly superior to other stat counters. With my older one, ninety percent of the traffic sources were listed as undetermined. Not so with Google Analytics-finally I have clear information as to which links brought visitors to my site, and which didn't.
And here's the funny thing: I spent a significant chunk of money on blog ads, Facebook ads, and Goodreads ads this time around. Each of these generated a fair amount of clicks- but nothing even came close to what I received from random sweepstakes sites. Because I was offering a big ticket item as a prize (a MacBook Laptop computer), a lot of contest sites picked up the link. And I received hundred of hits a day from those sites, significantly more than from any other source.
The question is, are the newsletter subscribers elicited by those sites actually interested in reading the book? Although I received fewer hits from the other sites, they were geared toward a more targeted readership. So it's tough to say which worked better. But in terms of getting the word out there about a new book, offering a major prize definitely didn't hurt. Next time around I'll probably stick to a shorter time frame for the ads I'm paying for, and will count on the sweepstakes sites to balance things out.
I've also decided to more or less avoid touring next November when RACING THE DEVIL is released. Mind you, I love meeting booksellers, and had a wonderful time visiting Seattle, Phoenix, San Diego, and LA, among other cities.
However with a mass market paperback, the reality is that most of my sales occur in big box stores, supermarkets, drugstores, airports, and newsstands. The touring is always grueling, expensive (since most of it is on my own dime), and it doesn't have much of an impact on my overall sales. I'll still visit a few local stores, but after seeing the results of marketing three books this way, I simply can't justify the cost in both money and time anymore. I won't be attending as many conferences, either, for the same reason.
Social networking: I primarily logged on to FaceBook and Twitter this time around. That investment definitely produced some sales, and based on my experience the fans those efforts yielded tended to be much more enthusiastic about me and my books. I also did an exchange with some other authors, promoting THE GATEKEEPER on their pages the days of its release. That generated a few sales, but not a significant number as far as I could determine. However it was fantastic for prompting people to attend events.
I find it frustrating that there's no way to get ebook sales totals yet (at least according to my publisher). I suspect that those have jumped considerably now that there are more eReaders out there, especially after Amazon's report that for the first time on Christmas Day eBook sales trumped physical books. Once again, I'll have to wait months for my royalty statements to arrive before I have a completely accurate picture of my sales this time around. It seems a little silly to me that in a computerized age this information isn't more widely available.
So to recap:
Google Analytics: great
Touring: not so great
Social networking: moderately helpful
Big ticket prize: definitely worth it
I'm curious to hear if other authors have a similar rundown. Or if you have any marketing questions, feel free to fire away...
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
ISHTAR II and the Slush Pile
Almost from the beginning of words chiseled in stone, there has been a slush pile—literally the mountain of unsolicited manuscripts that accumulate in the offices of publishers. And for decades, it was the hope and dream of unknown writers to have their hidden gem plucked from the pile and go on to be a bestseller. Despite the odds, which are slightly worse than Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty remaking ISHTAR, there have been a few slush-pile hits, or at least career starts. My friend Kris Montee tells me that she got her first break in 1984 when her manuscript THE DANCER was plucked from the Ballantine slush pile. Kris and her sister Kelly went on to become NYT bestselling authors as P.J. Parrish.
In a recent WSJ article by Katherine Rosman, she noted that CARPOOL by Mary Cahill was the last book published by Random House that originated from their slush pile. That was back in 1991. Today, most major publishers have a strict policy of not accepting unsolicited manuscripts.
There are a number of reasons for the death of the slush pile, the biggest being shrinking budgets. Now you'd think that having an unending supply of material at your disposal without even asking for it would be a plus, right? No. First of all, the publisher has to pay employees to weed through the slush. They simply can't afford it anymore. The rare chance of finding a winner is greatly exceeded by the waste of time reviewing unpublishable work. Let's face it, there's usually a good reason why unsolicited work goes unpublished.
Another reason for the demise of the slush pile is the fear of being accused of and having to defend against allegations of stealing someone's work. Again, it's all about money. Why even take the chance.
And believe it or not, the anthrax scare after 9/11 became a major reason no one wants tons of unsolicited mail sitting around their offices. Even with no shrinking budgets, money can't defend you against toxic death.
So how can a new writer hope to get their toe in the door? Get an agent. Next to writing the best book you can, it's crucial that you find a literary agent. With few exceptions, publishers will only consider material sent to them by an agent. The agent is the primary filter and first line of defense for the publisher. And in some cases, it not only has to be an agent, but one they already know and have an established relationship. Today, there's much more responsibility placed on the writer/agent than ever before.
A bit of good news: despite all the drawbacks to the slush pile, publishers are of a belief that a diamond might still be hidden among the mountain of coal. As long as there's even a slight chance, there needs to be a way to find it. So some publishers are creating virtual slush piles. For instance, HarperCollins introduced a website called Authonomy that allows writers to upload a manuscript. Visitors can read the work and vote on their favorites. The HC editors will then review the five highest scoring submissions each month with an eye for publication. How are your chances? Over 10,000 manuscripts have been uploaded so far with 4 bought.
We should be seeing more of these virtual slush piles popping up as time go on, especially with the public doing all the work and only the overhead of the site being the primary cost.
So how did you get your start? Did you submit cold or acquire an agent first. If you aren't published yet, have you ever sent in an unsolicited manuscript? What was the result?
BTW, anyone know when ISHTAR II will be released?
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Happy Birthday, Edgar! And welcome "home"
Today is the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe, who is one of my literary heroes. He would have been 201 years old (no spring raven), and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre.
According to AP and other media reports this week, Poe's descendants have decided that the author's official "home" city will continue to be Baltimore, where Poe died in 1849. Other cities that were competing for the title of Poe's hometown include Boston, where Poe was born in 1809, and London, where Poe lived as a youth. While living in London, Poe was reportedly inspired by the ravens at the Tower of London.
We tend to think of Poe as cadaverous and depressed-looking, based on daguerreotypes of the author. But a new watercolor image of Poe unveiled this week shows the author as a vibrant--even happy-looking--young man.
Oh, and not to bury the lead, but Joe reminded me that MWA has just announced its list of Edgar nominees for 2010. Good luck to all!
On a sad note, the mysterious visitor who has been delivering roses and cognac to Poe's grave on his birthday for 60 years, failed to appear this year. We hope this doesn't mean that any ill fate befell the mystery visitor.
My favorite story by Poe remains The Tell-Tale Heart, which was inspired by a superstition known as the Evil Eye. The plot was based on a true crime that took place during Poe's lifetime. This story was the first one that introduced me to the concept of an unreliable narrator--you don't know whether he is insane, or whether supernatural forces are actually at work. This type of narrator is still my favorite in paranormal stories (I don't have much use for in-your-face paranormal characters: werewolves and vampires, oh my!)
What's your favorite work by Poe?
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Midnight Hour
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Dreams, Schemes & Chicken Wings
In a dream I had the other night I was teaching a creative writing course and in class we were having a round robin and each student proposed a character and a setting. I chose three characters (the maximum number allowable by my rules) and I chose the time and place. Each student used those elements and came up with a plot. The short stories were written and I was going to put them all together in booklets without the author's name being included and the students would vote on their favorite. I thought the only problem would be a perfectly split vote, but I was wrong as all of the students turned in the same story, which meant that all but one had cheated.
I think I remembered the dream correctly, but looking back I doubt that the dream could have lasted long enough for all for the segments I just wrote to be faithful to what I dreamed. So I probably perked the dream over the past few days, which brings me to the point of my blog. We get ideas from sparks we catch in our everyday lives, and those sparks grow into flames over time. It doesn't take much to trigger our imaginations, and to give us the basis for a story. The same idea tossed out to a group of individuals would become a group of stories that would be entirely different. There really are no new ideas, just variations in execution of those ideas.
I have never been afraid of anyone taking my big idea and writing the book I was going to write. They could write a book, as can I, but they would be as different as scotch and grape juice.
I don't mind telling people what I'm working on, but not for fear that they will steal the concept and beat me to the punch. I don't talk much about what I'm working on because in my case I think it robs the project of crucial energy. When authors (let's say aspiring authors) ask me about the safety of sending their golden pages off to an agent or to publishers and fearing someone will loot their MS for their great ideas, I assure them that there is no shortage of ideas, just a shortfall of quality executions of ideas. What publishers want is decent-selling authors who can deliver a well-executed book at regular intervals. Oh, yeah, they want each book to sell enough to make up for the ones that don't sell, but that's a different story.
We all see the world differently. Each of us filters what we write through our experiences just as we write in our own personal styles and we more or less can't help but do it that way. Someone asked me recently what my style was, and I replied that I wrote like I talk, like I think, then tried to cut out 75% of the words on the draft pages.
This week my wife wrote a story for www.Goodnewsgirlz.com, which is a great lifestyle site her sister coproduces. I read the first paragraph and thought it was something I had written about our chickens. I made a few minor tweaks for her, but truthfully it was every bit as well written as what I write, maybe better than what I had written on the same two incidents. It was clear, clean, concise and humorous She said, "writing is fun." She'd discovered my secret––one I'd managed to hide from her for 34 years.
My editor once told me that writing was only hard if you do it right and I agree. I think most things are that way, especially building model cars.
I watch AX MEN, but I'm not sure I should. Next week I'll tell you about dropping a dead tree that I feared would fall on my shed, and felling it directly onto my shed.
So long, and good writing.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Solid Structure
I love to teach structure, and Joe's post on Wednesday brought up a tremendously important question. Someone in another writing forum wanted to know how you figure out where to end Act 2, and go into Act 3.
The question of where the act breaks go, and what they entail, may be the most crucial in all of dramatic structure, because if they are weak, the entire edifice of the story will be unsound. Knowing how to fix them will go a long way toward making your novel more readable.
Think of novel structure as a suspension bridge.
As is obvious from the picture above, the suspension bridge is held up primarily by the two supporting pylons, one near the beginning of the bridge and one near the end. Without these pylons in those exact spots, the bridge will not be stable.
Now looking at the picture you can see that it perfectly represents the 3 act structure. A solidly constructed novel will look just like a solidly constructed suspension bridge. If that first pylon is placed too far out from the beginning, the first "act" of the bridge will sag and sway. In a book or movie, it means the first act is starting to drag.
Similarly, if the second pylon is misplaced, you'll end up either with anti-climax (the pylon too far away from the shore) or a feeling of deus ex machina (the pylon too close).
In my book, Plot & Structure, I refer to these pylons as "doorways of no return." I wanted to convey the idea of being forced through doorways, and once that's done, you can't go back again. Life will never be the same for the Lead. If you don't have that feeling in your story, the stakes aren't high enough.
Now, the first doorway is an event that thrusts the Lead into the conflict of Act 2. It is not, and this is crucial, just a decision to go looking around in the "dark world" (to use mythic terms). That's weak. That's not being forced.
A good example of a first doorway is when Luke Skywalker's aunt and uncle are murdered by the forces of the Empire in Star Wars. That compels Luke to leave his home planet and seek to become a Jedi, to fight the evil forces. If the murders didn't happen, Luke would have stayed on his planet as a farmer. He had to be forced out.
In Gone With the Wind it's the outbreak of the Civil War. Hard to miss that one. No one can go back again to the way things were. Scarlett O'Hara is going to be forced to deal with life in a way she never wanted or anticipated.
In The Wizard of Oz, it's the twister (hint: if a movie changed from black and white to color, odds are you've passed through the first doorway of no return).
In The Fugitive, the first doorway is the train wreck that enables Richard Kimble to escape, a long sequence that ends at the 30 minute mark (perfect structure) and has U. S. Marshal Sam Gerard declaring, "Your fugitive's name is Dr. Richard Kimble. Go get him!"
The second doorway, the one that closes Act 2 and leads to Act 3, is a bit more malleable, but just as critical. It is a clue or discovery, or set-back or crisis, one which makes inevitable the final battle of Act 3. It is the doorway that makes an ending possible. Without this, the novel could go on forever (and some seem to for lack of this act break).
In The Fugitive, at the 90 minute mark (the right placement for a film of just over two hours), Kimble breaks into the one-armed man's house and finds the key evidence linking him with the pharmaceutical company. This clue leads to the inevitable showdown with the "behind the scenes" villain.
In High Noon, the town marshal reaches the major crisis: he finally realizes no one in the town is going to help him fight the bad guys. That forces him into the final battle of Act 3, the showdown with the four killers.
By the way, this structure works for both "plot driven" and "character driven" stories. It's just that the former is mainly about outside events, and the latter about the inner journey. But that's beyond the scope of this post.
Now, there is always some well meaning literary genius howling in protest at the idea of structure. Too rigid! I don't write by formula! I am a rule breaker, a rebel! An artist! Away with your blueprints and let me run free! The 3 act structure is dead!
Let me say, first, I understand this artistic impulse. A good writer is a rebel, someone out to make waves.
But let me also say that the literary waters are littered with the works of those who ignored the basic principles of the suspension bridge. Unreadable novels with pretty words that didn't sell.
You want to write an experimental novel? Go for it. Just be aware that not a whole lot of people are going to care.
What they care about are characters, dealing with trouble by fighting their way over a bridge—meaning, through a plot that matters and is laid out in the right way.
Structure is "translation software" for your imagination. You've got a great story in your head. The characters, the feeling, the tone, the gut appeal, the thing you want to say. But it means squat unless you can share it with other people, namely, readers.
Structure allows you to get your story out with the greatest possible impact.
"But that's formulaic!" Well guess what, Skippy: formulas are formulas because they work. Try making an omelet without eggs. What you, the writer, need to do is get people so caught up in the characters and stakes that they can't see the structure.
Many published authors know this instinctively. But if there are problems with their novels, they may not always know where to look for the fix.
Is the first act slow? Does the novel take too long to end? Does act 2 seem interminable? Is the ending anti-climactic?
Most likely, the problem is structural. Get a grip on it, and your writing will only get stronger.
Your novel, in other words, won't end up as a bridge to nowhere.


text:
What Does DogFriendly.com Offer? Select From Our Pull-Down Menu Dog-Friendly Hotels & Lodging Dog-Friendly City Guides ...Attractions, Restaurants & More Dog-Friendly Ski Resorts Dog-Friendly Camping/RV Parks Dog-Friendly Beach Guide Dog-Friendly Outdoor Dining Dog-Friendly Attraction Guide Dog-Friendly Park Guide Off-Leash Dog Parks Public Transportation & Dogs Dog Camps Dog-Friendly Events Dog Photo Gallery Dog & Pet Store Dog Travel Guide Books Top 10 Dog-Friendly Cities Top 10 Dog-Friendly Resorts DogFriendly.com's Newsletter Book Reseller Information Advertise with DogFriendly.com Online Press Kit About Us/Contact Us
U.S. Dog Travel Guides
Dog City Guides
Outdoor Dining
Dog Parks
Dog & Pet Store
Campgrounds & RV Parks
Dog Travel Books
Mobile Apps
Dog Photos
Best Western Rainbow Country Inn
Best Western Rainbow Country InnDog-Friendly Hotels43971 Industrial WayChilliwack,British Columbia V2R 3A4Call 866-676-3077 To Book This Hotel Get Map or Directions Other hotels in Chilliwack try to compete, but there can only be one cream of the crop when it comes to Chilliwack accommodations. Chilliwack BC lodging doesn't need to be expensive when you choose this Chilliwack hotel. Conveniently located, we offer easy access to Trans Canada #1 Highway. We're also the closest hotel to the Chilliwack Heritage Park, a 150,000 sq. ft. agriculture based Tradeshow and Convention facility. They host horse shows, dog shows, Mud Racing, BMX events and concerts. This full-service hotel features award-winning cuisine, a friendly and attentive staff and a tranquil tropical indoor garden. Outdoor activities are abundant here. Indulge in hiking, mountain biking, golfing, or a day of boating at Cultus Lake. Sport fishing at Fraser River is world-famous. White sturgeon and salmon are the big catches that novice and pro fishermen (and women) alike are angling for. Nothing beats retreating to your spacious Chilliwack hotel room after a day on the water. Minter Gardens Botanical Garden, Blue Heron Nature Reserve, and Agricultural Tours are also fantastic pastimes. Don't forget to pack your camera for the endless discoveries that await you. The Chilliwack Cultural Center is an Arts center with live theatre and concert productions. However, if you prefer a little more adrenaline, check out the Prospera Center for a Chilliwack Chief's hockey game. Business travelers from around the world flock to this Chilliwack hotel, complete with meeting facilities. We host employees of Hub International Barton Insurance, Ritchie Bros. Auctions, the Department of National Defense, and Soprema International on a regular basis. This Chilliwack hotel is conveniently located 25 minutes from the US border crossing at Sumas, Washington and the Abbotsford International Airport. This four-key green rated hotel boasts many environmental initiatives. Chilliwack is known as the "Great Outside" and is famous for activities like mountain biking, hiking, andDogs are allowed. There is a $10 per day per pet fee. Up to two dogs are allowed per room.
=indicates DogFriendly.com's dog-friendly advertisers!
Air Travel
Highway Guides
Books and Ebooks
List Your Property
About Us
Press Kit
Contact Us
Recommend Places


text:
Are you currently a subscriber?
Set up your digital access now.
7-Day Archives
Searching for articles older than 7 days? Search entire archives
Friday, January 25
- Monumental gray water measure has Fort Collins roots
- Roberts Ranch owner rescinds offer to donate land to Larimer County
- Open house focuses on downtown Fort Collins neighborhood character
- 3 arrested after marijuana mailed from Fort Collins to Tennessee, W.Virginia
- Johnstown man arrested in connection with missing girl
- Elway questions need for military-style rifles
- Catholic hospital argues fetus not legally a person
- Montezuma County wildfire assault case resolved
- Judge weighs in on Aurora theater shooting suits
- CSU urges sick students, employees to stay home
- Larimer sheriff patrol cars increase public visibility with safety stripes
- McCarthy to speak at writers forum
- County offers online map on prescribed fires
- Neighbors complain about noise at Woodward in Fort Collins
Searching for articles older than 7 days? Search entire archives
1Residents seek removal of Taft Hill Road asphalt plant
2New school could bring changes to Windsor
3Team-by-team breakdown of why each school can win Mountain West basketball tournament
4Jury finds Fort Collins dog trainer not guilty in abuse trial
5Anheuser-Busch, county at odds over value of Fort Collins brewery
- 27 Soapbox: Public support for stadium not that impressive
- 25 Residents seek removal of Taft Hill Road asphalt plant
- 8 Jury finds Fort Collins dog trainer not guilty in abuse trial
- 8 Knezovich: Council, its members take on pot, stadium topics
- 5 Pulcinella: East Coast-style pizza in the heart of Fort Collins
Most Viewed
View the last seven days
- Yesterday, Mar. 11
- Monday, Mar. 10
- Sunday, Mar. 09
- Saturday, Mar. 08
- Friday, Mar. 07
- Thursday, Mar. 06
- Wednesday, Mar. 05
See our paid archives for news older than a week.
Most Commented
We hope you have enjoyed your complimentary access.
Become a subscriber today to enjoy these benefits:
- Unlimited access to our Web site
- iPad-optimized edition
- Mobile site & iPhone app
You now have full access.
Thank you for subscribing.
- View articles, videos, galleries and more – 24/7
- Access the tablet-optimized site, mobile site and iPhone app
- Share your access with any friend or family member
- Subscriber exclusive Top 5 daily email newsletter
You will automatically receive the Coloradoan.com Top 5 daily email newsletter. If you don't want to receive this newsletter, you can change your newsletter selections in your account preferences.
Account issue
We're sorry, this account no longer has full access. You can still look at a limited number of articles per month.
Your trial period has expired
Become a subscriber today to continue enjoying all of the products The Coloradoan has to offer


text:
Submit News
Verizon Funded US Government Survey Downplays Net Neutrality
Tuan Nguyen
September 20, 2006 11:36 AM
comment(s) - last by
Sep 25
Recipient E-mail
Sender E-mail
...And instead talks about the importance of cable TV access
In a recent survey conducted by The Glover Park Group and Public Opinion Strategies LLC, 90 percent of Americans said they preferred to have choices for video service providers over net neutrality. Interestingly, the survey did not appear to address the real issue of net neutrality, which is whether or not network service providers should create tiered networks based on application and client. Instead, survey takers were simply asked whether or not they were more concerned about cable TV choices or net neutrality.
has been
following the net neutrality topic since the beginning of 2006
. So far, the topic is still up in the air, but many content developers are saying that by allowing service providers to create tiered networks, it would impede on the development of Internet services and web applications. If things don't turn out well for net neutrality,
Google previously stated it would start filing anti-trust cases against major telcos
The questions in the survey conducted by The Glover Park Group also seemed to be one sided. For example, the questions about cable TV choices were easy to understand and well explained, but those concerning net neutrality were not. The survey explained that net neutrality as "enhancing Internet neutrality by barring high speed Internet providers from offering specialized services like faster speed and increased security for a fee." Technically, all service providers sell different packages that offer a variety of speeds and email options. From the explanation, the survey made it appear as though the questions were directed at the user,
when in fact the issue has to do a lot more with content providers
For example, we have Content Provider A, which sells books and music CDs online. We also have Content Provider B, which competes with A. We also have an "Internet service provider" that has a large customer base. If Content Provider A pays the "Internet service provider" a certain amount of money to allow users access to its site faster and easier than Content Provider B, herein we have the problem of net neutrality -- or the lack of. From the end user's standpoint, he or she would just be thinking "B seems to always be slow, I think I'll just shop at A."
Despite the obvious flaw in questioning,
The Glover Park Group found (PDF)
the following:
66 percent were more concerned with delivering TV and video services
19 percent were concerned with net neutrality
3 percent were concerned with both
8 percent were concerned with neither
4 percent didn't know or refused to answer
Interestingly, when asked how many people have even heard of net neutrality, 91 percent said no and only 7 percent said yes. The remaining 1 percent didn't know. In fact, the majority of the survey revolved around cable TV choices. The US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
contracted the survey and published the findings as authoritative, which can be read here
. From the release:
The survey found that very few registered voters are familiar with the issue of network neutrality. In some regions of the country, only 5 percent of likely voters had even heard of "Net Neutrality." The survey found broad support for a "Consumer Internet Bill of Rights," like that contained in the Senate's communications bill. The provision contained in the Senate bill prevents Internet service providers from blocking access to competitors or degrading a consumer's broadband service. According to the survey, when presented with a choice between video choice and additional net neutrality legislation, an overwhelming majority of voters supported video choice.
In other words, the US government is downplaying the importance of net neutrality for both consumers and content providers by introducing a much more well known everyday topic of cable TV. The
poll was funded by Verizon, which previously said that it disagreed
with the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE). The COPE act allows local governments to collect up to five percent of fees from Internet service providers to put towards developing high speed access in areas without it. The COPE act also will allow local governments to control what Internet service providers do and what they can charge customers if they are the only provider in a certain area -- i.e. monopoly.
remember me
This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
RE: Write your senator / congressman
"Pick your battles."...that's a theme I've heard pretty much my whole life mostly because its was one of the favorite "advice sayings" of a long ago ex-girlfriend and my folks say it a lot to.
There is so much wrong that that I disagree with today -- the war in Iraq, how we are handling the "war or Terra" (at least that's how it sounds the way Bush says it), the immigration issue (which is btw, possibly THE most important and significant domestic issue for the US that is so downplayed or ignored by most Americans), the economy, taxes, etc. etc....
All those things in my mind completely blow away the importance of Net Neutrality.
So if I'm gonna go through the hassle of researching to get my facts straight, heckling my senator, and then following up agencies or groups in support of an issue -- I'll devote that time and energy into something SIGNIFICANTLY more important than Net Neutrality.
"I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For [Paramount] to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks!" -- Movie Director Michael Bay
Related Articles
Google to File Antitrust Complaints Against Telcos If Necessary
July 4, 2006, 3:54 PM
Net Neutrality Receives a New Proposal
June 26, 2006, 12:20 PM
COPE'ing With Net Neutrality
June 19, 2006, 8:03 AM
Net Neutrality Shot Down in the US
April 27, 2006, 9:16 PM
Latest Headlines
IBM Workers Strike Over Terms of Deal That Will Have Them Working for Lenovo
March 6, 2014, 9:29 AM
Google Picking Up Artificial Intelligence Company "DeepMind" for $400 Million
January 27, 2014, 9:25 AM
Quick Note: Qualcomm Grabs up Palm, IPAQ, and Bitfone Patent Portfolio from HP
January 24, 2014, 9:18 AM
Verizon Buys Intel Media OnCue Cloud TV assets
January 21, 2014, 10:26 AM
Google's First Asian Data Centers Now Operational
December 11, 2013, 8:50 AM
IBM to Offer Watson Supercomputer as Cloud Development Platform
November 14, 2013, 12:00 PM
More Headlines
Most Popular Articles
Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 Made Wild Altitude Changes
March 14, 2014, 9:21 PM
Tesla Motors Calls New Jersey Out on New Rule Against Its Direct Sales Model
March 11, 2014, 12:01 PM
Hack Reveals Fallen Bitcoin CEO's Posh Tokyo Penthouse
March 10, 2014, 4:28 PM
HTC One Leaks: LED Smart Cover, Carrier Models, Google Play Ed.
March 11, 2014, 5:30 PM
Apple Authorized to Seek $40 Per Device Against Samsung
March 13, 2014, 4:31 PM
Latest Blog Posts
Tesla vs. BMW: Who Has the Safer EV?
Jason Mick
Feb 1, 2014, 2:56 PM
Justice Leaks Details of Next HTC One Two Flagship Phone
Jason Mick
Dec 5, 2013, 4:04 PM
Global Cyber Espionage Concerns Reveal Growing Cyber Armies
Michael Hatamoto
Nov 29, 2013, 11:04 AM
Is The Period Becoming an Expression of Anger?
Jason Mick
Nov 26, 2013, 2:02 PM
NSA and Congress -- You Will Never Kill the Constitution, It's an Idea
Jason Mick
Nov 10, 2013, 2:00 PM
More Blog Posts
Copyright 2014 DailyTech LLC. -
RSS Feed
About Us
Terms, Conditions & Privacy Information
Kristopher Kubicki