Monthly Archives: January 2012

ROW80: Kicking and Screaming!

 
Why do I still say Kicking and Screaming?
 

Besides loving that caricature on the left,
 

I have never liked setting goals!
 

Someone last week encouraged me to keep putting myself out there. And as that person may not have been referring to my ROW80 goals, I think this is an essential way to move forward to meet that challenge. 🙂
 

So here we go…
 

The dreaded check-in
 

First I’d like to say a big thank you to all who have dropped by to support me with my ROW80 goals! You guys are fabulous! Really, I mean it! Since Jenny Hansen didn’t get a chance to stop by last week to kick my butt into gear because she is so super busy (No duh!), I kinda feel like I got away with something! But I can’t expect that to happen two weeks in a row! So I best get busy! LOL!
 

Let’s take a look at how I did last week, shall we?…
 
 

Goals for Round 1:
 
 
1- Work on my current WIP five days a week.
 
Uh, nope. Nothing happened again. Then I read Kristen Lamb’s post on Friday, which I must say was one of the best blogs she has ever written! “3 Steps to Freedom—Grab Hold of Your Brilliant Future!” I’m sure the post wasn’t written specifically just for me. I’m mean really who am I? But oh boy, did she ever make me think. Whew! I’ve been so overwhelmed with everything lately that I haven’t known where or what to start working on. Well let’s just say that her post really helped.
 
 
2- Check in with Donna Newton at WWBC once a week.
 
Yep, talked to Donna about my dilemma with my WIPs.
 
 
3- Participate in my online class to help authors balance writing and business with Bob Mayer.
 
This week Bob gave us an assignment that was an emotional brain burner. Really Bob, it took me days to get through it. I wanted to take my time and get the most out of the exercise. It was about our personality traits and how we can get in our own way and keep ourselves from succeeding. Amazing stuff.
 
 
4- Blog at least once a week.
 
Well what do you know? Yep, I posted on Wednesday and it was my very first Mash-Up! That seems to be a good day for me and I’ve received some awesome comments and support. Thank you all, I really appreciate it! 🙂
 
 
5- Visit and support 5 bloggers per day.
 
Check. Did that. There are some awesome blog posts out there. It’s nearly impossible to get to them all. So following Fabio Bueno’s advice, I set up a system. I took our WANA1011 class list with everybody’s blog site. I go down the list, one by one, and when I’ve finished reading a blog, I date it. That way I know when I last visited that blog. I’m trying to work through the entire list and visit everyone. Of course I’ve added others who were not in our class as I visit them.
 
 
6- Tweet at least once per day.
 
Check. Did that at least twice, if not three times per day. It doesn’t take that long. Ten minutes perhaps at a time. I like to skim through the columns to find tweets to RT. Again, it is my intention is to support others!

 
 
7- Exercise on my elliptical twice a week.
 
Well, uh…not much. I got on that thing on Monday and it felt great. Then the week fell apart. But at least I got on it last week, which is more than I can say about the week before. Baby steps. 🙂
 
 

So now I’m looking forward to a fresh new start to this week.
 
 

Whew, okay I did it. That wasn’t really so bad. And I’m not alone. There are others that are right beside me to help me along the way. So that I don’t irritate my wonderful supportive subscribers, feel free to delete my ROW80 posts if they start to irritate you. They probably won’t be all that interesting, unless…
 

Unless I can temp you all to join us over at the party at ROW80! Feel free to jump in anytime. See you there! 🙂
 
 

So what do you think? How did I do? I wasn’t able to meet all my goals, but are you all still behind me? Can I still count on your support?
 

Awe, thanks guys! I knew I could count on you!
Karen.

 
 
 

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Million Dollar Smash-Up!

Well really it was more like a four million dollar smash up and could be considered the most expensive car crash ever! Some of you may have already heard about it. It happened last month on a highway in Japan when a driver lost control of his car on a wet road while changing lanes and had hit a barrier before spinning back across the road.
 

 
The cars involved a total of eight Ferraris that included two Ferrari F430s (one was the race-ready Scuderia worth more than $400,000), two Ferrari 360 Modenas (each worth almost $200,000), two Ferrari F355s (each worth about $150,000), a Lamborghini Diablo (one of the most expensive supercars of the 1990s and still likely worth a handsome $200,000) and three Mercedes Benz.
 

Why I nearly broke down and cried. If you’re like me and feel the need for speed and love fast cars like I do, this was truly a heartbreaker.
 
 

But what I really had wanted to share with you today was a…
 

Million Dollar Mash-Up!
 
 
Blog posts worth a million praises that we could never put a dollar amount to!
 
 
 
Have you ever thought what it would be like to live without water?
 
Julia Whitmore has written a beautiful post entitled “Thirsty” about the fragility of life living with or without water. Go take a peek. I think you’ll find that this post will definitely quench your thirst.
 

On a Historical note, Debra Eve wrote an interesting post entitled “Edith Wharton: Beyond Downton Abbey”. Downton Abbey on PBS has become one of the hottest series on Television. It has an outstanding cast of talented actors and Julian Fellowes’ superb screenwriting captures conflict in every scene along with a stunning array of award winning costumes. That said, Debra helps us to see why Edith Wharton was really the true master of writing about this period.
 

Now let’s get technical for a moment, shall we?
 

Jenny Hansen is a well known name in the blogging world with good reason. She not only shares her knowledge about “Risky Baby Business”, but can literally knock you off your feet with laughter. As a Techie, she now has a series of posts on Triberr, a new network designed to help save time with all things Social Media. Save time you say? With Social Media? Where do I sign up? Don’t hyperventilate! You can sign up right here.
 

Well, well, well, who do we have next?
 

Does the name Bob Mayer ring a bell? Of course he does. Especially if you are a loyal subscriber to my post since I’ve been reporting on his class that I am taking.
 
What, you’re not a subscriber? Are you missing out!
 
Go now and sign up at the top right corner of this page. Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you…
 
(Tapping foot… Hmm, hmm, hmm…Whistles…Looks around the ceiling.)
 
Okay, are you done? Good. Thank you very much. You won’t be sorry! 🙂
 

Bob wrote a blog last weekend, on January 22nd to be exact, that dealt with a certain subject that most writers forget to put into the equation of this writing business. MONEY. That’s right. MONEY. Apparently most writers aren’t comfortable discussing this subject, but if you know Bob, he’s out to change this. Pronto! So check out his post, “Reflection on the Best Seller’s List vs. The Long Tail”. This will give you a goal to shoot for!
 

Since I just received my new Kindle a couple of weeks ago, this sweet tweet caught my eye immediately. (Don’t tell me Twitter doesn’t work.) In this post April Plummer wrote about how “The EReader Has Changed My Life and I Like It!” Take a look at this one as April explains how she was a die hard paper book reader and held out as long as she could until her husband introduced her to the iPad and now this girl is hooked!
 

Now last but not least, Amber West wrote a very touching post on her Friday Inspiration blog. I know, I know, it was last Friday—five whole days ago and there have been a gazillion blogs posted since then, but listen up. In this post Amber refers to herself as Oprah, only poorer. But what dear Amber did for someone who she didn’t know because of this horrible economy, is simply amazing. She has got THE biggest heart and we can all learn from her example. Please make the time and go read, “Social Media for the Good!” if you haven’t already. It is a wonderful story with a happy ending!
 
 

Okay, I think that about wraps this Million Dollar Mash-Up!
 
 

Please be sure to visit these fine people and leave a brief comment to share a little blog love across our talented blogosphere! 🙂
 
 

So what do you think? Have you had the opportunity to read any of these wonderful posts? Have you been able to keep up with reading your blogs? If not, why not give Triberr a try? And if you are already on Triberr, please tell me how you like it? How does it work for you and does it save you any time?
 
 

Thank you for your many fine thoughts and comments everyone!
Karen

 
 
 

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Row80: Kicking and Screaming!

The dreaded check-in
 
 
Okay, I thought before Jenny Hansen comes over here and grabs me by the throat that I would kick my own butt in gear and get my Row80 post up!
 

Well, let’s take a look at how I did last week…
 

It was not a pretty picture. In fact I don’t know why I am bothering with this because last week was absolutely crazy. And for those of you that know me, Hubby had surgery at the beginning of the week, which was no small task and that threw the whole week off, though not completely.
 

Shall we take a peak? Although seriously, it’s not worth looking at. But here it goes…
 
 

Goals for Round 1:
 
 
1- Work on my current WIP five days a week.
 
Uh, nope. No surprise there. I could not mentally get into it. I was zapped.
 
 
2- Check in with Donna Newton at WWBC once a week.
 
Donna was in L.A. and then I was busy with Hubby.
 
 
3- Participate in my online class to help authors balance writing and business with Bob Mayer.
 
Aha! This I did participate in and turned in my assignment as well. 
 
 
4- Blog at least once a week.
 
Well what do you know? Yep, I posted. And what a wonderful guest post by Tim L. O’Brien. It was an awesome piece of writing. Great job Tim. Thank you!
 
 
5- Visit and support 5 bloggers per day.
 
Check. Believe it or not, I did find time for that. Just don’t ask me how I did it. And yet again I found some wonderful blog posts too!
 
 
6- Tweet at least once per day.
 
Check. Did that more than once. How did I do that? All I can say is that from the start of this, my intention is to support others!
 
7- Exercise on my elliptical twice a week.
 
Well, uh…Nada. That didn’t happen either. There simply wasn’t any time and I was pooped.
 

So now I’m looking forward to a fresh new start to this week!
 
 

Whew, okay I did it. That wasn’t really so bad. And I’m not alone. There are others that are right beside me to help me along the way. So that I don’t irritate my wonderful supportive subscribers, feel free to delete my ROW80 posts if they start to irritate you. They probably won’t be all that interesting, unless…
 

Unless I can temp you all to join us over at the party at ROW80! Feel free to jump in anytime. See you there! 
 
 

So what do you think? How did I do? I wasn’t able to meet all my goals, but are you all still behind me? Can I still count on your support?
 
 

Awe, thanks guys! I knew I could count on you!
Karen.

 
 
 

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Guest Post by Tim L. O’Brien


 I am honored that Tim O’Brien has agreed to be my guest today because I admire his writing and thought you’d like to know a little more about the man whose been causing all that “Static in the Airwaves” in the blogosphere recently.
 

Now he’s not to be confused with THE Tim O’Brien, the award-winning multi-published author and the Grammy award-winning bluegrass musician that goes by the very same name—although I hear he likes to sing in the shower.
 

Please don’t sing for us today, okay Tim? Thank you.
 
 

What he does admit to being is a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none…
 

Hmm maybe. Maybe not.
 

So what are a few things that make Tim O’Brien the man that he truly is?
 

Though Tim was born and raised in Houston, Texas he now resides near his Alma Mater, the University of Oklahoma. Go Sooners! There he received his degree in Journalism and is currently in pursuit of his Masters in Professional writing, that is when he’s not working, writing on his novels, or playing Mr. Mom to his ten year old son and his nine year old daughter.
 

He is also the proud father of two grown daughters, one married, both in college, while he himself just got married within the last couple of years. So all together there are three boys and three girls which makes them, as Tim put it, the real life Brady bunch, minus Alice.
 

Whew, did I get that right Tim? You are one busy man!
 

Yet besides his family and his strong desire to write, the closest thing to Tim’s heart is an isolated stretch of land along the Rio Grande called El Indio. There is where he feels most at peace and in isolation. And there is where Tim spent a week of vacation with his wife and children on his family’s full working cattle ranch, which sounds just about perfect.
 

Uh-oh, I hear more Static in the Airwaves. It must be Tim. Oh, hi Tim!
 
 

Hi Karen.
 
 

Take it away Tim!
 
 

Thank you Karen.
 
 

Hello everybody!
 
 

Ever since Karen asked me to write a post for her blog several weeks ago, she and I have sent messages back and forth about what I should write.
 

Until she asked me to write about this…
 
 
 

Hunting…For a Novel Idea
 
 

The first golden rays of the sunrise wouldn’t appear for another hour or so. We sat in muted silence, slightly shivering, and waited. We leaned against each other for comfort and added warmth, fighting the urge to close our eyes and grab an additional hour of sleep while waiting for the morning sun to illuminate our surroundings.
 

Sitting on the frost-covered ground nestled amongst mesquite trees and thorny brush gives your mind plenty of time to think and second-guess your decisions. Why in the world am I getting up at 5:30 in the morning while on vacation? At this precise moment in time that warm bed sounds much better than trying to remain completely still and quiet in the darkness.
 

The sacrifices we make to pursue our dreams and hobbies.
 

On this particular morning, I was sitting with my ten-year-old son not far from the banks of the Rio Grande River. We had spotted a big, mature whitetail buck several days ago and we were in hot pursuit.
 

Waiting for the sunrise gives your mind plenty of time to wander. I thought about ideas for my blog. I thought about the novel I’m working on and played out the next scene in my mind. I wanted to shut my mind off work and enjoy the moment with my son, and appreciate the great outdoors when I realized that hunting and writing are very similar in approach.
 

I’ve always felt that one of the most overlooked aspects of good writing is the writer’s power of observation and ability to pay attention to everything that surrounds us. The smallest of details can make the biggest of impacts.
 

Those details give the writer a time and place—a setting. Some writers like James Lee Burke are so talented at setting that it becomes a character in the book. Burke is so adept at description you can almost smell the salt-water air and feel the rain as you read about the world surrounding his fictional character Dave Robicheaux amongst the swamps and bayous in Louisiana.
 

Michael Connelly is another extremely talented writer who uses his setting—in the case of the novels featuring detective Harry Bosch—Los Angeles as a major character in his story. You can feel the smog drip off every page.
 

To be a successful hunter it is imperative that you pay attention to the same details. We had been following this buck’s track in the sandy soil and searched the brush for ‘rubs’ or ‘scrapes’ which a buck will do to mark his territory. Not unlike your pet dog and a fire hydrant. We needed to be aware of wind direction, time of sunrise and sunset, temperatures, and even the moon conditions from the previous night. We examined food plots and sources of water.
 

Slowly, we were able to determine the roaming radius of this buck and his likely pattern of travel. Using all of our clues we determined that the densely covered brush area, where we sat that early morning, could possibly place us in proximity to our goal. Let’s call this the research before beginning the novel.
 

Before any novel begins we must have some vague idea of the plot, a starting point—a plan.
 

The following quote if from James Scott Bell’s book Plot & Structure. “A plot is about a Lead character who has an objective, something crucial to his well-being. The major portion of plot is the confrontation with the opposition, a series of battles over the objective. This is resolved in a knockout ending, an outcome that satisfies the story questions and the readers.”
 

As the sun began to rise and our surroundings became more visible we began to detect an increase in activity. We could hear movement in the brush. Time for a little call and response. I picked up our rattling horns and began to simulate two bucks fighting over a doe. The thrashing of the antlers broke the morning silence. In less than a minute we had a buck come charging into our sights, his nose dripping and mouth frothing. His intention was to steal the doe while the two bucks continued to fight. Unfortunately, he was not the buck we were in search of.
 

We continued our call and response and I began to think back on one of my favorite books on writing by Jack M. Bickham, titled Scene and Structure. His chapter and explanation on stimulus and response is the best I have ever read.
 

We continued to rattle the horns (stimulus) and several more bucks came charging in towards us (response), but these were younger bucks and not the monster we were in search of.
 

Undeterred we moved spots, but again no luck. Time was running out on our vacation and hunting opportunities. The following morning we were scheduled to make the ten-hour drive back home.
 

That final evening we set out on foot, changing our tactics slightly, and moved into another area. The rut was on and our trophy buck was chasing does, making his behavioral patterns more erratic. This was our last chance. Make or break time, and time was running short.
 

And like any good novel our trip concluded on a happy note. The protagonist overcame several obstacles and setbacks for an outcome that satisfied both father and son.
 

I wish you all the best as you hunt for your novel ideas!

Tim
 

Thank you for having me here today Karen!
 
 

No, thank you Tim!
 

That was an awesome example and we wish you the best of success with your novel writing!
 
 

So what do you think? What methods do you take to capture an idea for your novels? What kind of hours do you keep? Do your ideas keep you up late at night, or are you awakened before dawn’s light with thoughts and dreams from your wildest imagination? If they do, then you deserve a trophy from all of your fine efforts!
 

If you enjoyed this, I encourage you to follow by email for future posts!
 

Thank you for your many thoughts and fine comments everyone!

Karen
 
 
 
 

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Space Truckin’

Space exploration has been a fascinating journey. A milestone comprised of an unknown astronaut by the name of Neil Armstrong who took “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” as he stepped onto the moon. Then to think almost twenty years later we would witness no small disaster as the space shuttle Challenger exploded before our very eyes.
 

Perhaps that might have something to do with my fear of flying?
 

I am really quite content to keep my two feet planted on the ground, although I have flown countless times via liquid courage, with many flights crossing the North American continent and oceans to far away places. Yet I’ve never thought to grasp the concept of flight into space.
 
 

Until now.
 
 

I present to you, the Stratolaunch plane!
 


 

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (Money) is combining forces with maverick aeronautical engineer Burt Rutan (Brains) to build a space vehicle that will be able to transport passengers and cargo commercially into the atmosphere by the year 2016.
 

Why that’s only four years away. Ah, but that’s never going to happen, right?
 
 

You want to bet?
 

Though they have been talking about this for years, it is the amalgamation of the right set of circumstances that in this instance might just make this dreamlike fantasy become an incredible reality.
 

Money + Brains = Reality. That almost sounds scientific, like E=MC2.
 
 

Yeah right Karen. Get over yourself!
 
 

Okay, okay.
 
 

Most of us know who Paul Allen is right? But who is Burt Rutan?
 

This man is a Rocketstar super genius with five planes that hang in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum that include the Voyager, which in 1986 became the first airplane to fly around the world without refueling and SpaceShipOne that became the first private rocket plane ever to put man into space in 2004.
 

“There aren’t many names that are bigger within the aviation industry than Burt Rutan,” said British Billionaire Richard Branson who is behind Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin Galactic, his own spaceline based on Rutan’s rocket design. “He’s a larger than life character that brings a room to silence when he walks in.”
 

Well, that’s quite an endorsement!
 
 

So what will the Statolaunch be able to do?
 

One of the cool things that the Stratolaunch will be able to do is liftoff without the required launch pad. Instead, it will ascend to a predetermined elevation, then fire its rocket, blasting the plane into space.
 

Watch this…
 


 
It will be powered by six 747 engines that will be far more fuel efficient than traditional shuttle launches, since it will bypass the expense of standard rocket fuel needed to propel current shuttles up from the earth.
 

The new craft will be enormous, with a wingspan of 385 feet, making it larger than a football field, weighing in at 1.2 million pounds. And it will not be restricted by the many factors that normally dictate the space shuttle when it launches into space.
 

So are you ready to go? Are you ready to take off into space?
 

Because it’s going to happen. Allen and Rutan are competing with other private companies in a race to deliver people and goods to the International Space Station now that NASA has cancelled its space shuttle program and if all goes well, the plan is for the Statolaunch program to be involved with satellite transportation while promoting space tourism.
 
 

So come on…
 

Come on…
 

Come on…
 

Let’s go space truckin’.
 
 

So what do you think? Are you ready to go space truckin’? Can you imagine yourself on the ride of your life? The advantage of seeing the earth from out in space? To experience the feel of weightlessness? To boldly go where you’ve never gone before?
 
 

If you enjoyed this, I encourage you to follow by email for future posts!
 
 

Thank you for your many thoughts and fine comments everyone!
Karen

 
 
 

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