Writing Today

People who always dreamed of publishing a book are now lucky enough to be approaching a juncture in time where the unknown basement novelist can express any idea and bring it to the mass audience without leaving the computer. There are diehard readers who insist on toting around a paperback for their reading pleasure, but natural selection is bound to replace the tree-haters with their mere chunk of paper and propel the majority to the familiar hand-held electronic device. An eBook can be read with one hand on a crowded subway train and bookmarked without fumbling around for pieces of scrap paper. Old books invariably fall apart after decades in the closet, or shred to bits after being in your coat during a rainstorm. Storage space is a serious problem for voracious readers who can’t bring themselves to toss out the collection. Just as MP3 players have increased storage space astronomically for record collections, eBooks have to be seen as a mainstream medium in the truest sense as the storage area for your beloved tomes. People are in a hurry to relax, and shopping online for adventure stories, romance novels, and suspense thrillers is conveniently logical as we wade into the first decades of the 21st century with our Blackberries and PDAs in our pockets. At this rate of acceleration, there will be a day when our minds will be able to bring up holograms of the data we request with a whisper or a thought. This being said, if there’s an entertaining old-fashioned tale being spun, the page turner sort of novel needn’t become obsolete because a good story has a way of getting around, despite the modernization of it’s method of delivery. The antique typewriter required strong fingers to keep the heavy keys moving and corrections were made with white-out when I attempted to start my first novel. A band of black and red ink crawled on spools to immortalize each letter before it moved to the next position. Later, I acquired an electric typewriter, but it had many of the same difficulties to strain the patience of the author trying to edit the work: each page had to be re-typed so that a proper manuscript could be submitted to faceless publishing companies who, to this day, hold in abeyance any thought of releasing an unknown name to the bookshelves. The writer would spend his meager dollars on postage to pray for a break and a nod of acceptance into the elite world of literature. The word processor and the World Wide Web have liberated the author’s access to an audience. Books are less frustrating to write, and the fear of rejection is bypassed by self-publication on an appropriate website. It is important to note that creative people are trying to complete the cycle from the seed of the first idea to its conclusion, that is, to have others read the work. I felt that sense of completion after struggling with a manuscript for a year. The story could advance quickly when the computer could make swift corrections and save the results. The result was a fiction The Golden Blues which I presented on my web site as an adventure through scenes in the life of a traveler who encounters evidence that existence is not a random accident, but a flow of the mind’s power of intention which he plans to use to recreate events so that he will meet a lost love once again. Writing any new type of idea is rigorous and has to maintain credibility to make a fanciful plot believable. Most important, though is the fact that end result is available to those who navigate to that spot in the eternal void of the Internet.

As the Internet get bigger and bigger as time goes on so does article marketing. If you can produce keyword rich articles that are written by you then the search engines will reward you by giving you a high ranking on the search engines. Also you can submit them to the article directories to gain more back links. Here is five easy steps you can take to improve your article marketing and to help you get better rankings. 1. Whatever niche you are going to write about you need to a keyword list, make it long the longer the better. Having a quality set of keywords is to your advantage in today’s marketing strategies. 2. Look for a keyword tool that you can bookmark and go to when you need to. The two that comes to mind with me are Google Keyword Tool which gives you a comprehensive list of keywords according to the main term of your topic. Also try Word tracker it will be free for a certain time period then after that you will have to buy a subscription. 3. Go on the internet and start looking for great titles! Go and have a look at your favorite article web page and start looking at the article titles on that page this will give you ideas on some good article titles that you can re-write. Create a file of potential article titles that are going to grab the interest of the reader. The title is a very important part of article writing if you don’t have good title no one is going to click on it. Make your title sound interesting grabbing the attention of the reader. 4. Having a good first paragraph is important too. You only have a small window of opportunity to grab the readers attention and get them to stay on your site and read the rest of your article. 5. Writing articles is a gift that writers have, you can adopt this with practice and write the best articles you can, and over time your writing is going to get better and better. Keep at it and try and improve your writing with each article make them helpful to the reader and try to keep it interesting thought your copyright. 6. Last and probably the most important, submitting your article to the best article directories around, don’t try and submit your articles to the many article directories that are available. You need to look at the page rank of every article directory that you look at. Page rank is important when your submitting your articles. For instance you might submit to twenty high ranked article directories apposed to 100 directories that are not ranked and will never be seen by anyone. So try and get the best ranked sites that you can to submit your articles too. Copyright 2009 Charles Goldie Charlie is a professional writer who does article writing as a hobby. He lives in Vallejo CA, with his wife and son. Charlie has been working in the maintenance field all his life but just recently attended college to get a degree in medical billing which he has taken an interest in. He also likes to be invovled with his home based buisness in his spare time. You can visit charlies blog at :Home Business Ideas And Opportunities Blog

Why do I bother? I bet you’ve said that to yourself before, even if you haven’t said it to someone else. So it is with humour in writing: why bother with it? Let’s be positive though. Why do you bother? Why do you write? Is it to get across a point? Is it to sell something, even if it’s only an idea and not ice to Eskimos? If you knew how much humour helped you connect with your reader and guide what they think, you’d use it more often. Humour has been defined as “Reality plus Distance”. It can make an article that would not have a connection with a reader…come alive. In articles, you don’t have much space to waste words

Article Alley has relaunched and it is bigger and better than ever. With new faster hardware and software it means that the site can go from strength the strength. Due to popular demand we have added some great new features include a control panel where you can add, edit your articles. The pages are now cached using smarty templates which has overcome the speed issues. There are now more rss feeds. So why is article promotion so good? First and foremost most good article sites are free for anyone to use, secondly anyone from anywhere can publish their articles instantly. Good well established articles sites usually get thousands of visitors’ everyday and your article might be the right content that someone is looking for. The better article sites will often let you include a short bio and an important link to your website. This is very important. Your hyperlink back to your website is what helps you add weight to your web presence. If you have lots of links to your website this gives added weight to your positioning in Google. The more content you have on your site about your particular field and the more articles you write with links back to your site will do wonders. Using key search terms in the hyperlink is a good trick, especially if your website address is not very key friendly and does not describe your site. Article sites are very popular. If you do a search for articles on Google you will find over 860,000,000 results that’s eight hundred and sixty million. That is a huge amount. You may be thinking why are they so popular? Well for one they are excellent information sources. You can find everything about everything on them. You can add a link to your site which is good for your ranking in Google. So if someone is trying to find some information out on “pink elephants” for example, and you have written a good article on “pink elephants” and Google thinks its most relevant, then your article will appear first in Google, and with any luck the person will read the article and then click on the link to your site. Also the more you write about your particular subject the more Google will see you as an authority on the subject. I have only been a web author for a couple of months and already if you type my name into Google, my articles come first and all over the front page. Article Alley has a huge fan base. With over 24000 active authors and nearly 50,000 visitors each day with over 500 posts you can see why article promotion is popular. We are trying our best to maintain the site and make it even more attractive for our authors and readers. Our site is a great source for free web content. So people can re-publish relevant articles to help promote their own site. So there really are some things in life that are free. Many thanks to all our loyal authors and visitors that have used Article Alley over the years. Keep on posting your articles and we shall do out best to ensure we offer the best service possible. Carolyn Clayton is the webmaster of Article Alley a popular article promotion site. Please feel free to republish this article providing this resource box remains intact with a working hyperlink to our site.

One evening on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Ayatana, an old man in rags with one eye, leading a lame white horse, came upon an old beggar who lay dying by the side of the road. The old man gently sat the beggar up, and holding him up in his arms, gave him some water. But the beggar could not drink; he could barely open his eyes. With parched lips, the beggar looked up and murmured, “My king.” “It’s been a long time, my friend,” the king quietly said, “but now I will hold you as you once held me in my darkest hour. Do you remember my promise in the blacksmith’s cell?” The jailor didn’t answer. He was quiet for awhile, and then managed to whisper, “I see you have found your key, Sire.” “Yes, it was never far away,” the king replied, “just here,” as he pointed to his heart. The jailor’s breathing was labored, but he managed to say that he was trying to make it to the forest, just as his king had done. But he knew that it was too late now; he was just an old man, all alone, whose time had come. And he was frightened. The king held him for a moment. Then he said, “There is nothing to fear. You are as a splendid sunbeam that danced on the earth for a moment, and will now stream back into your destiny only to stream forth again and again, and each time, you will be stronger and wiser. Just as a beam differs not from the sun which it is born, you are truly the sun, and the sun is all of you. Soon you will see the truth of this for yourself, for your faltering efforts to reach the key with your last steps have made all the difference.” The jailor looked up for the last time, and smiled. And then, his eyes closed. They remained by the side of the road; the day was ending. The king held the jailor’s lifeless body as passersby shook their heads at such a sight as two apparently drunk, old beggars trying to prop each other up. The light waning now, the king carefully lifted his friend’s withered body, holding it close to his heart, and carried him up a nearby hill. He laid him gently under the branches of a little tree - a tree that would serve as the jailor’s forest. And then, as the king walked slowly back into the woods, away from his kingdom. a crippled, white horse followed in his footsteps. And the old, one-eyed man had a smile on his face, and he had peace in his heart. The king was happy. (THE END) (hr) E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, .SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-nine years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit .AYearToEnlightenment.com

Too often trips can be planned like a mad shopping spree, adding new places to the itinerary as fast as you can, thinking ‘the more the better’! In fact, when it comes to seeing as much as possible, there’s a lot to be said for not spreading yourself too thinly. It’s sometimes better to spend a little more time learning about the history, tradition and people of one place, than sample lots in one go. It would take a lifetime of travel to truly understand even one country, so you won’t run out of things to explore. Touring a country and delving a bit deeper into its culture means unlocking the mysteries of the past as well as your inner explorer. Temples, monasteries, castles and ancient ruins are solid memories of worlds long gone and provide a fascinating and unique insight a country’s history, as well as a welcome break from the hectic world of modern travel. Step back in time and out of the airport check-ins and endless queues of tourists and you can discover these countries all over again. The place to be The best places to visit on a cultural tour are those whose history and culture you’re really interested in. Africa and Asia have cultures that are so distinct from ours that they’ve had an immeasurable appeal to westerners for a good few hundred years. The mad colonial scramble for African and Asian land wasn’t just a product of their location but owed much to their beauty and desirability. Their diversity, colour and enchanting traditional life continue to fascinate all who visit. Top tip Asia gets our vote as the most visually stunning place to take a cultural tour, but the choices are many and varied. Countries as distinct as Pakistan and Japan offer the adventurous traveller trailblazing tours through strikingly different places. Perhaps you’d like to find out the origins behind Cambodia’s troubled past amongst the jungle covered Khmer temples, or learn more about the world’s next super power, China? Equally, as one of the oldest and most diverse countries on Earth, India almost offers several cultural tours in one! The life of locals Culture isn’t just embodied in buildings and books, the best part of a travelling experience can be meeting new people. If you stick too closely to the tourist trail and you rarely come across traditional communities. Wander off the beat and track will help you to meet people with different traditions and broaden your horizons. Whether it’s helping to build stoves in an Andean village or visiting the ancient towns of rural Thailand, looking at a country through the eyes of its people is a really rewarding experience. Top Tip Africa is still an underexplored place. While thousands head to the plains of Kenya to see the Big 5, fewer take the opportunity to explore the amazing cultural history here. A country not undeservedly known as the ‘cradle of humanity’, the people here embody traditions and cultures as ancient and rich as anywhere on Earth. Maasai herders and warriors once dominated the East African plains, but life is now a mixture of nomadic culture and the influences of the modern world. Exploring this part of Africa offers one of the most exciting cultural experiences in the world but also an insight into the conflicts of traditional and modern cultures. In recent years travellers have become more interested in meeting and learning about the people in foreign lands rather than just enjoying their views. Cultural tours are becoming hugely popular as a means of seeing a country in a different light. As long as they are done responsibly they offer the chance for distinct peoples to really connect with each other and enjoy their differences. They can be the most informative and authentic travel experiences you’ll ever have, offering memories that will stay with you for the rest of your life. .i-to-i.com/adventure-travel/

It would be wonderful if I could tell the world that as I was growing up in an Amish community I never experienced any domestic violence. But that is just simply not the truth. Amish people are human being and they experience all the same feelings that anyone else does. Happy, sad, confused, angry, ashamed are all feelings that pretty much everyone in this world has felt one time or another. The Amish are not exempt from that. There are many very good and friendly Amish people in America and this is not to bash the Amish in any way. The awareness that I want to bring out here is that there are some Amish that are very violent towards others and those victims need our (as outsiders, non-Amish) help when we get the chance. The Amish culture is very male dominated so I must say that violence between women was very seldom seen or heard of. However, violence towards women and girls is very common and also amongst the young people. They understood the Bible teaching about non- violence but not all Amish people practice this or have moments of weakness. Is spanking considered violence? It all depends on the severity of the spanking. When you swat a child on the behind to get their attention, without leaving a mark or redness, then I would consider that to be warranted sometimes. However, if you spank a child with a leather strap or willow branch hard enough to leave red marks and sometimes draw blood then absolutely that is violence. Some children are scarred severely, both physically and emotionally, by the time they are old enough to fight off the offender. Many people have asked me how they can help an Amish person when they find out that violence is happening. There is not an easy answer for this because of the secretiveness of the Amish culture. The Amish believe that all issues should be kept within their own group. If the victim of violence wants help they are only allowed to look for help within the group. Calling the authorities for help is not okay and not practiced. Some live with the violence all their lives because they do not believe in getting help beyond their own culture. In some cases the help that is available is not forceful enough to actually stop the violence. The leaders of the community will try to talk to the offender. He is required to ask for forgiveness in church and promise to change his ways and everyone hopes it will help which sometimes it does and other times it does not. Here is my plea to all who do not live the Amish lifestyle (as I don’t anymore, I left that all behind 16 years ago). If you see violence happening among the Amish please call for help. Someone in each situation is begging you to see beyond the lifestyle and the dress to get them some help. When I grew up only knowing the Amish way of thinking I know the victim feels there is no choice but to take the beatings. Now I know, as an outsider, that there is help if only we can get to them soon enough. For more in the experiences of growing up Amish visit .growingupamish.com

by Philip Yaffe William Shakespeare was unquestionably one of the world’s greatest poets and poetic playwrights. Arguably, his mastery of English far surpassed that of anyone else who ever put pen to paper. So what can Shakespeare — a genius at playing the language almost like a violin — possibly teach us about expository (non-fiction) writing, where ideas must prevail and the language made as inconspicuous as possible? He can teach us that being a truly accomplished writer means knowing when to turn a beautiful phrase and when to speak plainly. Perhaps more than anyone else, a poet recognizes that the result that must take pride of place, not the techniques used to achieve it. Ask anyone to recite something from Shakespeare. Almost invariably you will hear either “To be or not to be, that is the question” or “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.” The first is the famous Hamlet soliloquy where the young prince is contemplating suicide, the other the famous Marc Anthony soliloquy where Anthony laments the death of Julius Caesar. Both are works of genius. However, the Hamlet soliloquy is very much of its time, composed of literary images, erudite allusions, and poetic turns of phrase. By contrast, the Marc Anthony soliloquy is almost painfully plain and seems as if it could have been written yesterday. Since Anthony’s speech sounds more familiar to contemporary ears, let’s analyze it to see just how Shakespeare made such an apparently “simple” text immortal. Bear in mind that Anthony’s hidden agenda is to turn the people against Brutus and the other assassins who have seized control of Rome, largely to popular assent. As a public relations gesture, Brutus allows Anthony to address to the crowd, but only to express his grief at the death of a friend. At the outset, this is apparently all that Anthony intends to do, until his ingeniously crafted words reverse the situation and send the conspirators fleeing. With this as background, read the first nine lines of the soliloquy straight through. Then read the analysis follows. Sentence 1 Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. Sentence 2 The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. Sentence 3 So let it be with Caesar. Sentence 4 The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious. If it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath Caesar answer’d it. Sentence 5 Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest

You have an idea for a book. You know it’s going to be great. You know people will want to read it, it will help millions, it will be funny, it will be touching, it will…you fill in the blank. Now what? You do a little research, you talk to a few people, you might even sit down and outline the whole book, chapter by chapter. Then…nothing! You don’t know what to do, you can’t even put a few words down on the computer screen to get you going. You don’t know how to begin. You’re not alone. I’ve heard this so often it makes me envision a huge pipeline in writers’s brains and it’s clogged with all these books wanting to come out. All they need is a little push-from you. Get Behind the Wheel Let’s pretend your book is a car on a road trip and as the writer, you are the driver. The car is not going to drive itself. Likewise, your book will not write itself so you have to get behind the wheel. That means you have to make the time to sit down and do the work of writing. Easier said than done, right? But on some level you’ve probably already done it. If you’ve outlined your book you’ve done some writing. It’s just that many writers then freeze at the prospect of the first sentence. Somehow it’s different than just making notes in an outline. People might read this-it has to be good! Well, yes, but not right away. At this point you’re just trying to put words on the screen or paper. Not sure what to say? Here’s where to start… Describe a Little of Where You’re Going To get to your first sentence, talk to your reader directly. Start out very conversationlike, explaining why you’re writing this book and what the reader will get out of it. If you’re writing non-fiction, you can start by describing the problem the reader is having (that way they’ll know that you “get” them and understand the situation) and how your book will help them solve it. If you’re writing a novel, you will start with telling a simple story, one that will grab the reader’s attention and give a taste for the adventure to come. Here’s a great example from Cane River by Lalita Tademy. The first sentence of the book is, “On the morning of her ninth birthday, the day after Madame Francoise Derbanne slapped her, Suzette peed on the rosebushes.” Ms. Tademy follows with a brief telling of Suzette leaving her bed and doing the deed then the rest of the first chapter tells how Suzette came to be slapped. Already you know this little girl is a pistol, but she’s also a slave. It’s intriguing to think where she might be going-and we’re along for the ride. Put The Car In Gear Quickly set up some action that will pull the reader in even further. In a non-fiction book you can use real life examples that will engage the readers and allow them to see themselves in the book. With a novel, you can throw out a series of complications. In The Prince of Tides, author Pat Conroy has many things happen within the first 20-30 pages: Tom’s sister attempts suicide, his wife declares her unhappiness with their marriage and you learn Tom has a difficult relationship with his mother. You can feel the engine of this book revving up. Go! Now that your story is in motion, keep going! In a non-fiction book, just take the reader step by step through your process or whatever information you’re putting forward. With a novel you can pretend that you’re telling the story to a friend. You’re both enjoying the conversation-you’re especially excited to tell your friend about what will happen next. You want to maintain that feeling as you write. When the Car Stalls Somewhere along the road you will get stuck. It’s happens to all writers. How do you get unstuck? This is where your outline really comes in handy. You go back to it to find out what you’re supposed to be doing in the book at the point where you’re stuck. Use it to figure out what’s not working. Maybe you’ve written yourself into a corner. Maybe you need to end a plot line or start a new one. Remember, the outline is like your road map. And a good map is essential if you’re going to reach your destination or, in your case, finish your book! © 2009 Sophfronia Scott WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, but you must include this complete resource box with it: Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at .DoneForYouWriting.com.

Nowadays, many freelancers rarely meet their clients face-to-face. However if you do find yourself “taking a meeting” with a client, following are three guidelines that will ensure a constant flow of work. 1. Fight the urge to speak: My mother used to say, “The creator gave you two ears and one mouth. Now why do you think that is?” (I’ve always loved to talk, talk, talk). Obviously, her point was, talk less and listen more. So, after the initial pleasantries have taken place, let the client do the bulk of the talking. If you let a person talk long enough, you will invariably get a feel for what they want