Showing posts with label Margaret Duarte. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Margaret Duarte. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

In the Eye of the Beholder


If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what about ugliness?


How do we define ugly? What repulses us? And why?
I posed these questions at Visionary Fiction Alliance in a review of Dean Koontz's latest release, Innocence, in which little by little, step by step, Koontz immerses us in ugly, until we are in ugly's head.


Ugly on my mind.

During my 3-mile walk today, ugly was on my mind.
I saw many sights that could easily be overlooked as too ordinary to deserve attention or dismissed as eyesores that should be destroyed, if not for lack of time and money.
But then I leaned in for a closer look.
I noticed the interplay of light and shadow, the tenacity of the weeds, and the way nature intertwined with the man-made.
 












Ugly or beautiful?


And then it hit me, as it did in my review of Innocence.

Ugliness depends upon the eye of the beholder. Sometimes we don't go deep enough to find the beauty in something ugly or the ugly in something beautiful.

Sometimes we are wrong.

Take a look at the objects around you, especially when you're in the midst of nature. Then lean in as if using the zoom feature of your camera.

You may be surprised at how something that at first glance appears ugly becomes beautiful upon closer examination.

As always, thanks for stopping by.



 

Friday, October 4, 2013

Visionary Novel Between Now and Forever is Published!

Finally, the day has arrived.

Between Now and Forever, the first novel in my Enter the Between series, is published.

If you'd like to purchase a copy for your Kindle, click here.

It's only $2.99, less than the cost of a cup of coffee. In fact, why not grab your drink of choice and settle down with Marjorie Veil, my protagonist, in her journey through The Between, which in this case happens to be in the direction of the North on the Native American Medicine Wheel, the place of knowledge and receiving.

Here's a brief synopsis:

Medicate or nurture; reform or set free? These are quandaries rookie teacher Marjorie Veil faces when she takes on an after-school class for thirteen-year-olds labeled as troublemakers, non-teachable, and hopeless. Faculty skeptics warn that all these kids need is prescribed medication for focus and impulse control. “Bring them into line,” they say. “Show them who’s boss.” But, as Marjorie quickly discovers, behind their anti-conformist exteriors are gifted teens, who are sensitive, empathetic, and wise beyond their youth. They also happen to have psychic abilities, which they have kept hidden until now. Can Marjorie help them do what she has been unable to do for herself: fight for their spiritual and emotional freedom?

Click here to read the entire first chapter.

My publisher is Philophrosyne Publishing, which specializes in Visionary Fiction.

The print version of Between Now and Forever will be available at Amazon soon.

Thanks so much, my friends, for your support. It feels so good to finally be an AUTHOR, as well as a writer.



Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Oat Harvest 2013, What Goes Around Comes Around

 

The phrase, "What goes around comes around," rings especially true on a farm.

So does, "You reap what you sow."
 
When we began our oat harvest in April, my first thought was, Here we go again.

My second thought was, Finally a return on our investment.
 
 
Oat Harvest 2013

Harvesting is a family affair. My husband and sons work the equipment, along with two employee truck drivers, while my daughter-in-law and I provide lunch and a steady flow of cold beverages for the crew.

First my husband cuts the crop and places it into rows with the swather.

Oat Harvest

The rows are held together by interlaced straws and supported above the ground by the remaining stubble.


Oat Harvest

Next, son number one chops the oats into smaller pieces and blows it out of a chute into silage trucks with the chopper/harvester.

.
Oat Crop 2013



Oat Harvest 2013

The silage trucks dump the oats into a silage pit.

In the background is corn silage left from last harvest. It will serve as a retaining wall for the incoming crop.
.
Oat Harvest 2013



IMG_2338

Son number two pushes up and packs the chopped oats with the dozer/tractor.


Oat Harvest 2013

Soon the pile takes shape.


Oat Harvest 2013

Finally, the silage is covered with white polyethylene plastic and secured with tires for a tight seal. The cover serves as an oxygen barrier as well as protection from the elements.

The silage then undergoes anaerobic fermentation, which starts 48 hours after the silo is filled, and converts sugar into acid. Fermentation is complete after two weeks.


Now it's time to disk the stubble into the soil and prepare the ground for the fall corn crop.


Oat Harvest 2013


The tractor and disk head for the field.
 
Oat Harvest 2013

 

Soon after, the planting of corn seed begins.
 
Here we go again.

In a never ending cycle.

My writing also continues in what seems a never-ending cycle.

So does life.
 
As always, thanks for stopping by.
  
 

Monday, February 11, 2013

Marketing and Blogging Tips from Shawn Hansen, The Indie Book Marketer


Sometimes, out of the blue, someone comes along at the perfect moment to point you in the right direction when you come to a fork in the road.

For me, that someone was Shawn Hansen, The Indie Book Marketer. 

A friend told me about Shawn's weekly Teleseminar Tuesday, and after only one session, I was hooked.  Eleven one-hour, information packed classes later, I had gained the confidence to:

  1. Self-host my website/blog with WordPress.org.
  2. Experiment with WordPress "plugins," small miracles to make my website distinctly my own.
  3. Download, activate, and update plugins.
  4. Backup my website's database and content.
  5. Maintain my website/blog.
  6. Optimize my Twitter account (profile page, hash tags, retweets, keywords, and lists).
  7. Optimize my LinkedIn account (how to update my profile, target areas of interest)
  8. Become a Squidoo member.
  9. Look into forms of visual media, such as creating short little trailers.
  10. Download and listen to Podcasts on iTunes (Yep, I'd never done that before).
  11. Make use of Google Reader.
  12. Begin building buzz about my books BEFORE PUBLICATION.
  13. Look into Kindle Publishing for blogs.
  14. Examine my target markets.
  15. Experiment with blog trigger phrases.
  16. Become a content curator.
And all for FREE.

If you are interested in more details about Shawn's informative weekly seminars, go to Teleseminar Tuesday sessions. And be sure to sign up for the notifications list so you get reminders of the sessions and replays.

Only those who are signed up get access to the full set of show notes (downloadable as a PDF or available to send to any Kindle-enabled device).

 
Starting January 2013, Shawn made a transition with this training so it's specifically tailored to WordPress, Blogging, and Marketing Tips for the Small business Owner.

The Indie Book Marketer Strategycast (a weekly audio-only podcast) covers Self-Publishing and Marketing Tips for independent authors.

The iTunes links for the audio portions of each show are here:
 
The Indie Book Marketer Strategycast: http://shawnsuggests.com/Strategycast

On FREE Friday, Shawn shares her favorite resources. And she always has a surprise for the people on her mailing list.


To learn more about Shawn, go to:
http://indiebookmarketer.com/about-shawn-hansen-the-indie-book-marketer/

Enjoy and happy training.



Thursday, December 20, 2012

December 22, Doomsday or Birth Day?


(This post appeared yesterday on my other website and is slightly edited.)

Visionary futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard believes December 22, 2012 is a day to celebrate.

And she's doing so big time on what she calls Birth Day – the day after the so-called end of times.

 So who is Barbara Marx Hubbard and what is Birth Day?

Since December 22 is only two days away and Barbara Marx Hubbard is planning to be everywhere - via cell phone, Twitter, and Skype - celebrating Birth Day, this is the perfect time to answer both questions.

Who is Barbara Marx Hubbard?


A visionary dreams of the kind of world he or she wants to create.

A futurist figures out how to do it.

Put the two together and you have Barbara Marx Hubbard.

Hubbard is the co-founder and chairperson of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution and the global ambassador for the conscious evolution movement; a shift from evolution by chance towards evolution by choice.

She has formed a global team to co-produce a global multi-media event titled, “Birth 2012.”

Other visionary futurists you may have heard of are:
  • Alvin Toffler, who published Future Shock in 1970, argued that civilization was about to move from the industrial age to the information age. He joined the phrase “information overload.”
  • HG Wells, who wrote The Shape of Things to Come in 1933, predicted that WWII would begin in the 1940s and the devastating use of aerial combat.
  • Walt Disney, who built the Epcot theme park at Disney World.

What is Birth Day?


Birth Day, December 22, 2012, is the day Barbara Marx Hubbard plans to do her darndest to unite us all in what is called the noosphere, the thinking layer of the Earth, where we are not separate but one.

It will be a twenty-four hour day of celebration, a day Hubbard plans to “encourage, connect, and celebrate what’s born through all of us.” A day ”to identify what’s good, what’s loving, and what’s able to create a future that works for us all.”

After the recent shootings in at Sandy Hill in Newtown, Connecticut, we have desperate need for a celebration – especially a celebration that will help us cross the gap between breakdown and breakthrough.

Birth Day, December 22 is the day after the end of the Mayan Calendar. On December 22, Barbara Marx Hubbard will ask, “What are you giving birth to in your life, in your work, in your whole movement that you feel contributes to the shift on planet Earth?”






She hopes 100 million people will wake up, take notice, and understand that they are one Global heart, one Global brain.

Spiritual leaders who will join Hubbard in hosting this world-wide celebration in hubs all over the world are:

How can I join in?

  • Visit Barbara Marx Hubbard on, before, and beyond Birth Day, December 22, 2012.
  • Visit the Shift Network for news, publishing, television, and radio that concentrates on breakthroughs instead of breakdowns.
  • Choose work that is self-rewarding and of service.

Let’s join Barbara Marx Hubbard on December 22 to celebrate Birth Day, December 22, 2012, the celebration of an event that comes around only every 5,200 years.

Let’s participate in the greater whole.

Thanks as always for stopping by,

From The Reporter of Good News.

Monday, December 17, 2012

The Bla Bla Meter, Unmask Your Writing Style


To all writers - be you a novelist, journalist, PR-expert, or writer of Christmas letters - I think you'll get a kick  out of the Bla Bla Meter to "unmask" your writing style.

Yep, it detects how much "bull" hides in your text.

Bla Bla Meter Instructions


You simply copy your excerpt (they suggest a minimum of five sentences) into a white field, hit check, and bingo!

My Bla Bla Meter Excerpt


I entered the following text from a previous blog post into the white field:

I'm not just talking about the stories written by our favorite authors for our reading pleasure. I'm talking about our life stories, the stories that begin on page one of a blank text on the day we are born and continue until the day - and sometimes even after - we die.

All the things we tell about ourselves, all the experiences we remember, the sights, the sounds, the feelings, are part of our story. As Christina Baldwin says in her book, Story Catcher, "You are a book of bone and flesh."


My Bla Bla Meter Score


Your text: 503 characters, 92 words
 
Bullshit Index : 0.08
 
Your text shows no or marginal indications of 'bullshit'-English.
 

If you're feeling brave today, click here for a merciless critique on your writing.

As always, thanks for stopping by.




 

Monday, November 19, 2012

Storycatcher/ Making Sense of Our lives through the Power and Practice of Story




When writing a post recently for Visionary Fiction Alliance about the relevance of visionary fiction in today's world, I realized how important "story" is to our lives. 


Life stories
+Freedomby ~myonlyexceptionisyou
I'm not just talking about the stories written by our favorite authors for our reading pleasure.  I'm talking about our life stories, the stories that begin on page one of a blank text on the day we are born and continue until the day - and sometimes even after - we die.

All the things we tell about ourselves, all the experiences we remember, the sights, the sounds, the feelings, are part of our story.  As Christina Baldwin says in her book, Story Catcher, "You are a book of bone and flesh."

What event, besides your birth, set your story's plot in motion?  What are its turning points?  What are you proud of?  What are you ashamed of?  What will you preserve.  What will you purposely omit?  What will you forget?  Who wrote your story?  From what point of view?  Yours?  Your parents'?  Your teachers'?  Society's?  What values shaped your life story?  How much of your story is real?  How much is fiction, created by distortions of the lens you're viewing it through.  The lens of judge, victim.

How did you come up with the lead characters and settings for your story's scenes? Who are the heroes, the villians, the bit-part players?  Who do you love? Who loves you? Who do you blame? Who do you judge?  Which characters do you bother to flesh out enough to know them enough to care for, understand, give a voice?

Life coach, Gary Van Warmerdam, talks about the different versions of stories we tell about ourselves in the fourth of his Pathway to Happiness Audio Sessions in Self Mastery called "Attention."


In Storycatcher, Christina Baldwin explores story as the core of life experience. Through stories, education, writing and oral prompts, the book illustrates how we use narrative to make sense out of what is happening to us and around us.

And here comes the big question.

How can your story still change?

The group, Rascal Flatts, sings about how "Life's like a novel with the end ripped out."

What can you change?

What will you change?

How will your life story end?

As always, thanks for stopping by. 

Check out my new website and blog by clicking on the banner below.



And don't miss out.  Sign up for my blog updates below.


Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

A Letter from Dean Koontz

I've been blogging for over two years, and lately I've been doing some serious soul-searching about the value of working so hard.

Then today, I received an email from Dean Koontz about a post I wrote about him at Visionary Fiction Alliance, and it has energized me in a way I haven't been energized in a long time.

Dear Margaret,

My editor at Bantam, Tracy Devine, sent to me your lovely post at Visionary Fiction Alliance, and I'm asking her to forward this to you. I was quite touched by your words. After a long career as a novelist, I've learned that what anyone writes about my work, good or bad, will only occasionally, very occasionally, be written with true insight regarding my intentions. For so many years, I have
denied being a horror novelist, never thought I was, and struggled to prevent earlier publishers from putting that word on my books. You got to the heart of what I try to give readers when you mentioned hope and healing, and spoke of seeking to "help readers see the world in a new light and recognize dimensions of reality they commonly ignore."

If you will provide my editor with a mailing address, I would like to send you
two inscribed books that are close to my heart.

Best wishes,

Dean Koontz

Oh my, talk about synchronicity!

Thank you, Dean Koontz, for taking the time to inspire a fellow writer to not give up. Ever.

I'm back.