I am always hesitant to give advice on writing, because many who may be reading this have been writing much longer than I have. All I can tell you is what I have learned through this process. The main thing I have found is writing a novel or story is the easy part. Editing comes next and that can be difficult. I edit myself y reading aloud, and then I have someone read my work, in the aspects of, if they like it, if it makes since, if it holds their attention. If you have a publisher, they have editors that will edit for grammar, but before I got a publisher, I had another reader edit for grammar. I have found it is important to have someone read your work, editing it for different things.
After all of that is complete, there is publishing. It is hard work getting a publisher to pick up your work. Be ready for rejections, and criticism, you have to have a thick skin, because you will be rejected and criticized. It took three years before a publisher picked up my first novel. Once you find a publisher, the manuscript will pass back and forth between you and your publisher many times. Then there is cover design. You can also self publish as well, but I never had much luck with that. After you have the finished product, you have to market it. This is hard and tedious; you want people to see it right? But how? Social media is helpful, but not as much as you would think. You have to hit bookstores, interact with people, meet people; word of mouth is the best marketing tool. Like I said this has been my experience, but the main thing I have learned is that writing the story is the easy part. Feel free to comment, and share your writing experience or advice. --Keith
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Winning your boss's favor isn't so hard to do.
And it's not about kissing up by complimenting their new haircut or volunteering for every single new assignment. Instead, it's about figuring out what they want from you and being strategic in making them feel good. To help you ingratiate yourself with your manager, we consulted both scientific research and expert opinion. Read on for the eight most compelling insights we learned. http://goo.gl/ekTbvL Excerpt:
Tomorrow is August 12, 2037. My name is Chad Owens and I am retiring from a forty-year career as an Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor. Although thankful for my success, my plan was to retire by the time I turned fifty, but that didn’t happen. The plan in my life was to make a living being a writer or a musician. Tomorrow, I assume they will have a luncheon and give me a token gift, as most companies do; that’s okay with me. The company has treated me very well over the years. I sit in my living room this evening, in my favorite chair, looking out into the night feeling blessed. Sipping warm milk, I have to say I am content. Most of my life I’ve been a counselor by trade, but am also a writer. This craft I’ve practiced all of my life. Fortunately, I embarked on a decent writing career late in my life with poetry, short stories, and several novels under my belt. Another blessing has been that I am an active and healthy sixty–seven year old man with a wonderful wife, stepchildren, and grandson. A regret however, is that I have spent the last forty years in this field without intending to do so. Hell, I just fell into it. Growing up I remember daddy wearing a suit every day to work and I knew I didn’t want a job where I had to do the same. Most of my life I’ve sported long hair, although not always this grey, and I never paid much attention to what I wore. Mom was an addict, as was my brother. Dad was a co-dependent enabler who turned his back on every problem within our family. At work, he faced problems with bravery, not being scared of any situation the business world threw at him. Other than that, he had a living problem, that being he didn’t know how. This is why I say I fell into the field. In my experience as a counselor, people raised in dysfunctional families fall into careers such as counseling, never choosing it; it chooses them. I went to college at the University of Texas and the only classes I found interesting and made good grades in happened to be Psychology and Sociology classes. Everything else I had to study hard just to make average grades. My major is in Psychology with a minor in Sociology. This degree just seemed meant to be and natural. Looking back through my career, I realize many people in the counseling field are fucked up worse than their clients. I am so used to being around fucked up people, around them, I am comfortable. Maybe this means I am fucked up, too, I don’t know. College was always hard for me. The first time I attended, I partied and flunked out. The second, I paid for my education by selling drugs and working at a part time job. Once older, I became serious about my education. My classes were difficult. I studied so much to keep up, there wasn’t much time for a social life. I made a couple of friends I would go to ball games with or play tennis with, but for the most part, all I had time to do was go to school and work. As much as I hate to admit it, more often than not, I feel I’ve wasted so many years and creative talent in this field. The work comes so natural to me, it has never been a challenge. This work is common sense for the most part. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for the years of work without layoffs or firings. That has been a blessing. Fortunately, I have made a decent living and I never lived check to check. Counseling is an art, not a science. I don’t see myself a counselor first; I see myself as a writer first, and then a musician. I’ve played the guitar all of my life and I am good, good enough for me anyway. The clients love to hear me play and to read my writings. I have worked with thousands of clients over my forty-year span and, in general, they like me and I never have many problems with any of them. Clients often share how they feel I am an excellent counselor and how I help them to change their lives, but my pride lies in comments on my writing or music, because that’s what’s most important to me. Any good parent wants their kids to stay out of trouble, do well in school, and go on to do awesome things as adults. And while there isn't a set recipe for raising successful children, psychology research has pointed to a handful of factors that predict success. Unsurprisingly, much of it comes down to the parents.
Here's what parents of successful kids have in common. Click link to read them. http://goo.gl/TcR3cd Left your keys on the kitchen counter again? No problem. Just go and get them. Walk through the house, into the kitchen, and—what was it you needed to do again? Why are you in here? In less than 30 seconds, you’ve managed to forget the entire purpose of your errand. But don’t worry. It’s not just you, and you’re not losing your marbles. It’s called the Doorway Effect, and it’s actually a sign that your brain is in fine working order.
Scientists used to believe that memory was like a filing cabinet. You have an experience, and it gets its own little file in your brain. Then, later, you can go back and open the file, which is unchanged and where it should be. It’s a nice, tidy image—but it’s wrong. Your brain is much more complicated and sophisticated than that. It’s more like a super-high-powered computer, with dozens of tasks and applications running at once. A 2011 study found that the Doorway Effect is the result of several of these brain programs running simultaneously. Researchers taught 55 college students to play a computer game in which they moved through a virtual building, collecting and carrying objects from room to room. Every so often as the participants traversed the space, a picture of an object popped up on the screen. If the object shown was the one they were carrying or the one they had just put down, the participants clicked “Yes.” Sometimes these pictures appeared after the participant had walked into a room; other times they appeared while the participant was still in the middle of a room. The researchers then built a real-world version of the environment and ran the experiment again, using a box to hide the objects people were carrying so they couldn’t double-check. The results of both trials were the same: The simple act of walking through a doorway made people forget what they were doing. And it wasn’t a matter of distance, either. The researchers asked the question (“Is this what you’re carrying?”) after people had walked a certain distance within a room, and a certain distance between rooms. Within a room, their memories remained mostly intact. But crossing a threshold was like shaking a mental Etch-a-Sketch. The researchers concluded that their subjects’ brains perceived doorways as a kind of cut-off point. The memories and movement that carried the students through one context literally hit a wall. On the other side of that wall was new context, and a fresh landscape for memory. The participants’ mental computers were combining the tasks of spatial awareness, movement, and memory. But each task requires attention, and you can’t pay attention to everything at once. Comments? |
AuthorKeith Kelly currently lives in Rio Rancho New Mexico. Archives
October 2020
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