First Draft to Published

Join Olakunbi Korostensky ND , author of the inspirational spiritual life guide book: lntuition Involution on her virtual book Tours   from April 2 – April 27,2012 , with Pump Up Your Book About Intuition Involution – Living by Intuition for a Balanced World in 2012 and Beyond!   By Olakunbi Korostensky ND INTUITION INVOLUTION is an inspiration spiritual life guide, instructing us to fully merge our intuition into Creation and worldly actions so as to bring a more harmonious balance into our lives and our world. It shows why bonding fully with intuition is the answer to the chaos of modern daily existence and business challenges. It presents how living by Intuition can best guide against several life issues such as manipulation, suicide and struggles. It’s time to look within us, to begin trusting our natural abilities, and integrate them into our lives. It’s time to remove the barriers that we’ve placed on our life path that are preventing us from trusting our own...

Join Elizabeth Parkinson-Bellows , author of the Middle Grade fantasy novel , Alexander Drake’s Extraordinary Pursuit (Wild Child Publishing), as she virtually tours the blogosphere April 2 – April 20,2012 on her second virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book ! About Alexander Drake’s Extraordinary Pursuit Alexander Drake is not a typical “story book” hero. He’s awkward, insecure and introverted. His struggle to make friends has made him a bit of a loner. He is terribly fearful of not living up to his conservative father’s expectations of him, and always puts forth every effort to make him proud. At the same time, Alexander is a curious and wildly imaginative boy, who constantly craves adventure. Up to this point, Alexander led a very sheltered life. He was raised solely by his father, a reserved distinguished gentleman with a rarely exposed soft side. His mother died when he was baby, and he has no memory of her. Many secrets of his family’s extraordinary past were intentionall...

My Indie Writing Life Kim Antieau This essay was going to be about my typical writing day, but I don’t have a typical writing day. Nearly every day is atypical, odd, unusual, and irregular. Be forewarned: What follows is the minutiae of my life as a writer, exciting to some and dull to others! Once a year, my husband (writer Mario Milosevic) and I go on a writing retreat in the Southwest for a month. During that month, our days are fairly regular. Mario gets up when it’s still dark, leaves the casita where we stay, and walks through the desert to the tiny studio where we write. (It’s called the Quail House.) He writes for several hours.

By Rebecca Camarena   One can never go wrong with obtaining a college education. It used to be that getting a job that guaranteed job security and a gold watch after 30 years was the way to go. Those jobs are part of a different era and in today’s economy, one need to be competitive in the marketplace. It is becoming more important than ever to obtain some type of college education, whether that would be a full bachelor’s master’s or even certificates. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Employment Projects Report for March, 2012, it states that education pays in higher earnings and lower unemployment rates.   Colleges are becoming more diverse in the courses they offer, the times and days offered and a many of them are now offering online classes. How does one select a college to attend? It all depends on a student’s number one goal of education and a specific field of interest. Sometimes, a student will pick a college based on state location, climate, ...

Lisa Merrai Labon is a passionate advocate for healing Earth and local communities. As a writer, Lisa has invited her readers to embrace their own lives with conscious intention, exploring community values, health, education and spiritual connections.  Lisa contributed " Take A Family Sabbatical " to Hampton Roads forthcoming book  "Pearls of Wisdom:  30 Inspirational Ideas to Live Your Best Life,"  featuring best-selling author Jack Canfield.   She lives with her family in Park City, Utah.  Lisa just finished her first novel. Q:        How did you get into this collection of inspiration with folks like Jack Canfield? I heard about it from Renee Baribeau, a dear friend and fellow author.  She knew that we had done some radical things as a family and that I am a huge life transformation advocate.  I was thrilled to have my chapter selected as one of the 25 new authors. Q:        Wh...

Letting Go of Your Characters  As a writer what is your reason for getting rid of a character and how do you make them exit from the story?     Studying for a degree in English Literature requires enormous amounts of reading. Quite a number of these books have been a pleasure to read, but many of them contain female protagonist who meet a premature death. Most of these books are 19 th century literature and the female’s death is the result of not following the feminine rules that men and society imposed upon women. A woman’s place was in the home taking care of the family, husband and entertaining guests. Women were not allowed in the men’s sphere and there were not many options available for education.   In the 19 th century, it was unheard of for women to be a feminist; this was long before Jane Fonda. 

Friday is a good day for a laugh moment, so we asked our visiting author, Jaimie Hope to share some memorable moments that happened during the writing and/or publishing of her children’s book, The Adventures of Baby Jaimie.  1, Originally when I was writing my Children’s book I intended for it to be an exclusive e-book. I was trying to get the book e-published in time for an event and needed to hurry. When I ordered my illustrations, I ordered black and white illustrations. I got the book published in time for my event and as I told each person about my latest release the first thing I got asked by every person was “Is this title going to be available in traditional book format.” 2. Since I got so many requests for a traditional book, I felt compelled to give the people what they wanted. That meant I had to color the illustrations myself. So, even though the book lists Alex Baranov as the illustrator I added the color to the colored editions myself.

I appreciate the guest post, Jamie Guy My parents are very old fashioned, so my sister and I have been trying to help them get with the times. I know trying to get them to learn how to use a computer would be a challenge, so we decided to start with something easier. We bought them a new flat screen TV for Christmas and got satellite TV hooked up through DirectStarTV.com . At first they were intimidated by the box and remote control, but I am happy to report that they are bona fide Directv addicts now. They even learned how to DVR their favorite shows, and are getting more and more comfortable every day. We think they are almost ready to learn how to use a computer. I have an old computer I was going to get rid of, but I am going to give it to them and see how they do first. I think it would be great for them to connect with old friends on Facebook, and use online banking. I think they would be able to get the hang of it in a few months, and then we could buy them a better compute...

  About Dark is the Sky Twelve years earlier, Olivia and Joel Cameron invited the family to spend the weekend at their new country home. Olivia hoped to provide them all with a much-needed escape from their anxiety over the recession crippling the nation; instead, the visit ended in tragedy when Scott, Joel’s wild and outrageously sexy youngest brother, was found dead. The repercussions tore the family apart. Now, Olivia’s sister Violet has persuaded her to host a reunion. She claims it’s time they finally put the past behind them and laid their ghosts to rest. However, some wounds run too deep to heal, and some secrets are too destructive to remain hidden. Still grieving for the man she loved, Violet is determined to uncover the truth behind his death—a truth she believes lies within her own family. As the web of deceit and hostility begins to unravel, family ties are tested to the limit, and no one will emerge unscathed. Thursday Thirteen by Jessica Chambers 1. For 12 yea...

Our guest author Thomas Waite is not only an author, but an entrepreneur and consultant whose writings have appeared in such publications as the Harvard Business Review and The New York Times and he has been featured in a wide variety of media, including CNN Money and a number of cable news programs.  About Terminal Value When Dylan Johnson sold his mobile computing business to Mantric Technology Solutions – a red-hot technology firm about to go public – he thought he and his partnerswould realize their wildest dreams. But before the deal is even completed, Dylan senses that something isn’t quite right. He should have trusted his instincts. He quickly finds himself marginalized and his partner and best friend Tony suspects that they are all caught in sinister web of deceit. The very night of Mantric’s wildly successful public offering, Dylan discovers his best friend dead – and is convinced he was murdered. Dylan forms a close alliance – and romantic relationship – with his form...

Coffee and writing seem to go hand in hand. I have heard many writers and authors who announce that they can't write without a good cup of coffee next to their keyboard. Their motto is "Keep the coffee brewing and the writing will flow." I will admit that the aroma of coffee makes does wake up the mind and the other senses and maybe, that's what causes the writing to flow. Do you start your morning with a cup of coffee? How many cups do your drink a day? I have a special offer for all those that place an order for coffee with ROASTe; - Free Shipping on order $35+  - Use coupon code for $5 off your first coffee purchase- BLOGME5  - Find the ROASTe ad in the right sidebar and order from there.  Enjoy your next cup of coffee from ROASTe and let me know if it helps to keep the writing flowing. 

  1.  The Canker Death is my first full-length novel.  It's an adventure story about a reclusive, cynical computer geek who finds that one of his own servers has been cracked late one night and gets far more than he bargained for when he decides to track down the perpetrator.  What his search uncovers thrusts him, unaware, into a mad shifting between worlds, time and alien minds 2.  The Canker Death is not easy to classify.  I realize that many authors say this of their novels.  I only started saying so after my literary agent, editor, and, later, my readers all told me so.  Oddly enough, I wrote the book with both the literary and the sci-fi, fantasy audiences in mind, which is a bit of a strange mix.  I've been happily surprised to find that people with many different reading preferences have enjoyed the book.  If I were to really narrow it down, I'd say that science fantasy is the closest classification – sort of like Star Wars, w...

Guest post  Have you ever written an essay that you thought was really some of your best work-- definitely A+ material? You are actually excited to get to class, to turn in this piece of work that you spent so much time on, researching supporting details, carefully selecting your words, crafting a thesis that seems like, well, pure genius! And then comes the day when the papers have been graded and they are being returned... You stroll into class with a smug smile, totally relaxed compared to your nervous, nail biting classmates who probably slacked off and wrote their papers last minute and are now worrying about the effect that this might have on their grade. Then comes the moment of truth... Your name has been called and you saunter up to get your paper from your professor. But as you casually glance at what you have already determined will be a high mark you can text home about, you see something you did not expect! Your predicted A is actually a C (or in some even worse ca...

There were a number of inspirations for my debut novel, The Canker Death .  On the factual plane, the inspiration came from the fact that an FTP server I was running on one of the old Unix systems in my basement got hacked.  I have a collection of unusual computers that run esoteric operating systems.  Where most people's computer knowledge ends is where mine begins.  This fact alone gave me the idea for a main character who was based quite a bit on various facets of people I know – computer geeks, that is.  But, I didn't want to write a novel that was only tailored for sci-fi lovers.  I wanted to write something that was accessible to everyone, so I worked hard to make sure that the technical stuff was accurate and true, but that understanding it in any detail was not at all required for enjoying the novel.  Additionally, as I was getting started, I made a number of decisions about where the book was going to go.  I had been a high school English...

About Equity of Evil  A Venture Capital Fund makes a risky investment to start a challenging new business that appears capable of reaching profitability with modest capital requirements. The real challenge: optimizing one of the most frequently performed surgical procedure in the World — Abortion. Founding Partner, Roman Citrano, a successful entrepreneur turned venture capitalist, soon struggles with what he believes is his choice to establish the controversial new company. He soon realizes that he and others are but pawns on a massive, ugly chessboard being manipulated to benefit a far larger, illicit market in human organs for transplantation. Unknowingly, prime, hyper-enriched organs are spawned from the aborted fetuses and grown like hydroponic vegetables. An unfolding world of deceit, rape, human trafficking and assassination becomes deeply personal as Roman’s sole love interest secretly uses one of his new abortion services to terminate her untimely pregnancy. When she di...

About Valerie Stocking Valerie Stocking was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, and wrote her first short story when she was five.  When she was eight, she won a short story contest in Jack and Jill Magazine.  She wrote her first play at the age of ten.  In 1966, when she was twelve, she and her mother moved to a small town in Florida where they lived for a year.  During this time, Valerie experienced difficulties with the public school system, tried a Seventh Day Adventist school briefly, and then dropped out altogether.  It was her experiences during this year that inspired The Promised Land . Later, she would finish high school, graduate from college and earn a Master’s degree in Cinema Studies from NYU.

It’s All About the Dogs  Today in the blogging challenge we are at the letter “D”   and of course, this being a dog blog, it is all about the dogs. Dogs come in all different sizes and shapes and their personalities are all different as you can see in the little joke below. The responses however, I warn you are laugh out loud funny and super cute. Enjoy the letter “D” 

Chris Cloud, author of the young adult book, A Boy Called Duct Tape is on Day Three of his virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book . Today, he is spotlighted at Blog-A-Press. Visit his tour page during the month of April to follow along his tour.  About A Boy Called Duct Tape Pablo Perez is a 12-year-old poor kid without much going for him. His classmates have dubbed him “Duct Tape” because his tattered discount-store sneakers are held together with…you guessed it, duct tape. He can’t escape the bullying.  Pablo’s luck, however, changes after he finds a $20 gold coin while swimming in a river near his home. Pablo later buys a $1 treasure map at the county fair. The map shows the route to the “lost treasure” of Jesse James. Pablo can’t help but wonder: Is there a link between the map and the gold coin? He is determined to find out, and he, his 9-year-old sister and 13-year-old cousin hire an ill-natured cave guide, and begin a treacherous underground adventure in se...