Tuesday, October 14th was a perfect day for me, one of those rare calm occasions when there are no major errands to run (except to the voting poll), the to-do chore list is about done, and all is right in one's family--no drama or things going wrong, no dog pooping on the carpet. So I allowed my mind to get into the writing groove. Not the quick, shallow groove where one writes on the fly between day-job and domestic duties, but someone who stretches out on the sofa in an empty, quiet house and picks up a chapter and allows the mind to think and create, and to edit ... a new phrase here, a crossed line there ... page after page of sharpening, tightening, clarifying.
In the afternoon, I really indulged by putting the chapter down and turning to a short story I've been trying to work on for weeks. The story will be one of my longer pieces. I've written twenty-three pages so far and the first draft is not yet finished. But once that first draft is done it will be cut and sharpened and polished ten to fifteen times--more in some spots--until I'm happy with it.
Short stories have never been a quick process for me. Even the 250 word flash fiction pieces require time and attention and rewriting, but it's one of the most satisfying types of writing I do. I've written fifty-six stories - some mysteries, others mainstream, humorous, and even a horror/ghost story. Fifty-four of them have been published, and the last two are being marketed. I've started posting some of the published pieces on Authors Den, so if you'd like to read any please visit my page at http://www.authorsden.com/debrapurdykong
When things get rough, and I'm swamped with real life, I'll remember October 14th and know that a perfect day can happen with a little planning and maybe a little luck. I wish all of you perfect days of your own.
To read excerpts of Fatal Encryption and Taxed to Death visit, http://www.debrapurdykong.com
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
'Dare to Dream and Dream BIG' - the motto I've lived by
Note: Ironically, my post ties in to Karen's just below. You know you're addicted to blogging when you still post something even though you've been suffering from major food poisoning for the past 2 days. This is the first day I've left the house and that was to go to the doctor for tests and medication. And we leave for Vegas on Monday...sigh...
Anyway, please enjoy today's post. It was featured on OnceWritten.com.
Daring to Dream Big
I’ve always been a dreamer, and I’ve always believed in dreaming BIG. Ever since I was a young girl, my goal was to become the next Stephen King―or 'Stephanie', at least. It’s been a long, hard journey, but one well worth it, and now I am published and on my way to greater success. I learned that with a dream, anything is possible. With a BIG dream, one never stops reaching higher. This is my story…
Read the rest of my story at OnceWritten.com.
~Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
bestselling author of Whale Song
Anyway, please enjoy today's post. It was featured on OnceWritten.com.
Daring to Dream Big
I’ve always been a dreamer, and I’ve always believed in dreaming BIG. Ever since I was a young girl, my goal was to become the next Stephen King―or 'Stephanie', at least. It’s been a long, hard journey, but one well worth it, and now I am published and on my way to greater success. I learned that with a dream, anything is possible. With a BIG dream, one never stops reaching higher. This is my story…
Read the rest of my story at OnceWritten.com.
~Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
bestselling author of Whale Song
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Dare to dream? Or succumb to fears of failure?
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. ~Seneca
Dare to dream? Or succumb to fears of failure?
A collection of rejection letters dating back to 1997. You can bet some of these have tear stains on them.
A drawer full of scripts and novels and stories battered and bruised by rejections. But I'll never throw them away because they remind me that I have many more stories in me.
The one story that made it past the rejections. These are the original notes and edits and drafts for JANEOLOGY. On the day the novel was published, a new round of rejections began. And they aren't just in my drawer. They are public.
--
And I suspect that, like me, that the fearful dare to dream did not stifle them - it fueled them.
Dare to dream? Or succumb to fears of failure?
A collection of rejection letters dating back to 1997. You can bet some of these have tear stains on them.
A drawer full of scripts and novels and stories battered and bruised by rejections. But I'll never throw them away because they remind me that I have many more stories in me.
The one story that made it past the rejections. These are the original notes and edits and drafts for JANEOLOGY. On the day the novel was published, a new round of rejections began. And they aren't just in my drawer. They are public.
--
Should you dare to dream? Yeah, it's a dare for certain. It takes courage. No one can dream your dream for you. There will be many obstacles and more reasons to quit than to keep going. But how do you know if God's plan is that you must have 51 rejections to reach the one yes? That the 52nd try is the one that will take off? That all the time spent dreaming, nay WORKING, was all to make you better, stronger, impervious to rejection. And what if you quit at attempt 39? Well, you would never reach your dream summit.Once you reach your dream summit, as I have, you are still in for bruising judgment and critique. But you'll be able to endure that because of the years of blood, sweat and rejection that preceded it.
I learned to be the drill sergeant to my own goals. And I hope you become that for yourself, too. You have to want it more than the other guy. This is one reason you will observe extremely successful artists, singers and writers and say to yourself, "Uh, what's so great about their art? I can do better than that?"Yes, but those people are on their dream summit not because they were the MOST talented, but because they wanted it more than anyone else and they WORKED harder.
And I suspect that, like me, that the fearful dare to dream did not stifle them - it fueled them.
Visit me at http://www.karenharringtonbooks.com/
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Wine Buyer's Guide
Whenever I lead a wine tasting, it seems that the same questions always come up. Millions of people are falling in love with wine and most of them are intimidated by the enormous variety that they see in the wine shop. Here's an excerpt from The Short Course in Wine that I hope will help.
Chapter 4 – Standing in the Wine Shop Trying to Make Sense of It All
When you finish this chapter, you will:
• Understand what makes one wine shop a better place to shop than another
• Understand the difference between red and white wine • Know when age helps a wine and when it hurts
• Appreciate the unique position of Beaujolais
• Know what makes sparkling wine sparkle
• Know how and when to best serve champagne
• Have a beginning of an idea about the appeal of fortified wine
• Appreciate why some sweet wines are so expensive even though most sweet wines are very cheap
• Understand why many great wines are very expensive
Now let’s turn from the sensual and pharmaceutical to the crassly commercial business of buying wine. You are standing, let’s say, in a well-stocked wine shop. You are staring at perhaps 8,000 different labels, and they seem, somehow, to be staring back at you. The whole thing is very intimidating. You know that wine is important, you know how to taste, and you are aware that alcohol, like fire, is a friend only if judiciously contained. None of that is the same as knowing what to bring home for dinner. Let’s reduce the confusion by sorting the wines out by type. [MN:
What should you look for in a wine shop? There are four things to keep in mind.
o Selection
Having thousands of bottles to choose from isn't the same thing as having a good selection. Many of the large discount stores simply pile in the wine, focussing on the labels that are most heavily advertised and the ones sold to them at the deepest discount. A good selection is one that's been carefully picked by a knowledgeable wine buyer. You're much better off choosing from a few hundred wines that have been tasted by someone in the store than from a few thousand that came in by the carload.
o Storage
Wine stored at temperatures over 80 degrees quickly loses its flavor.
That's why wines are often made and stored underground. It also explains why the bottle of wine that you left in the hot beach house doesn't taste as good.as the one you drank right away. Shipboard containers, tractor trailers and uncooled warehouses do the same nasty thing. Look for a store where the temperature is around 60F/16C and the staff is wearing sweaters in summer, a sure sign that the place is well-cooled and the wine is happy. If there’s no cashmere in sight, ask where the wine that’s not on the shelves is stored and at what temperature that room is maintained. (Sometimes turnover on a sales floor can be so rapid that a slightly warmer room doesn’t matter.)
o Information
A good wine store is a good source of information. Sometimes wine merchants have merchandise that they were forced to buy and they may want to dump it on you. It's a good idea to ask the wine guy to recommend a few bottles. If you like what you bought, if there are no more than one or two obvious losers, then you may want to keep doing business at that store.
o Price
Wine prices vary widely and I have never found one store that's consistently lower than all its competitors. Even the big discount shops are not reliable money savers. The best way to save money is to subscribe to the various newsletters that the shops mail out to their customers. Remember that the only real saving is a good price on a wine that you enjoy, and that there's nothing special about a 'special' on bad wine.
• • • •
You can find out more about The New Short Course in Wine by clicking here. Or you can get the first chapter of bang BANG-the exciting new novel about sex, guns and wine here.
Chapter 4 – Standing in the Wine Shop Trying to Make Sense of It All
When you finish this chapter, you will:
• Understand what makes one wine shop a better place to shop than another
• Understand the difference between red and white wine • Know when age helps a wine and when it hurts
• Appreciate the unique position of Beaujolais
• Know what makes sparkling wine sparkle
• Know how and when to best serve champagne
• Have a beginning of an idea about the appeal of fortified wine
• Appreciate why some sweet wines are so expensive even though most sweet wines are very cheap
• Understand why many great wines are very expensive
Now let’s turn from the sensual and pharmaceutical to the crassly commercial business of buying wine. You are standing, let’s say, in a well-stocked wine shop. You are staring at perhaps 8,000 different labels, and they seem, somehow, to be staring back at you. The whole thing is very intimidating. You know that wine is important, you know how to taste, and you are aware that alcohol, like fire, is a friend only if judiciously contained. None of that is the same as knowing what to bring home for dinner. Let’s reduce the confusion by sorting the wines out by type. [MN:
What should you look for in a wine shop? There are four things to keep in mind.
o Selection
Having thousands of bottles to choose from isn't the same thing as having a good selection. Many of the large discount stores simply pile in the wine, focussing on the labels that are most heavily advertised and the ones sold to them at the deepest discount. A good selection is one that's been carefully picked by a knowledgeable wine buyer. You're much better off choosing from a few hundred wines that have been tasted by someone in the store than from a few thousand that came in by the carload.
o Storage
Wine stored at temperatures over 80 degrees quickly loses its flavor.
That's why wines are often made and stored underground. It also explains why the bottle of wine that you left in the hot beach house doesn't taste as good.as the one you drank right away. Shipboard containers, tractor trailers and uncooled warehouses do the same nasty thing. Look for a store where the temperature is around 60F/16C and the staff is wearing sweaters in summer, a sure sign that the place is well-cooled and the wine is happy. If there’s no cashmere in sight, ask where the wine that’s not on the shelves is stored and at what temperature that room is maintained. (Sometimes turnover on a sales floor can be so rapid that a slightly warmer room doesn’t matter.)
o Information
A good wine store is a good source of information. Sometimes wine merchants have merchandise that they were forced to buy and they may want to dump it on you. It's a good idea to ask the wine guy to recommend a few bottles. If you like what you bought, if there are no more than one or two obvious losers, then you may want to keep doing business at that store.
o Price
Wine prices vary widely and I have never found one store that's consistently lower than all its competitors. Even the big discount shops are not reliable money savers. The best way to save money is to subscribe to the various newsletters that the shops mail out to their customers. Remember that the only real saving is a good price on a wine that you enjoy, and that there's nothing special about a 'special' on bad wine.
• • • •
You can find out more about The New Short Course in Wine by clicking here. Or you can get the first chapter of bang BANG-the exciting new novel about sex, guns and wine here.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Balancing Promotion With the Rest of My Life is Going to Get Tougher
After seven months of promoting Fatal Encryption and a new job starting this week, I've begun to ask myself how much more should I do? Since March, book promotion has been a seven-day-a-week job combined with writing and market searching/submitting my short stories. (Did I ever mention that I write short stories too?) To be honest, I only spend two to three hours promoting each day, which is probably why there's still so much to do--about two years worth of work, I figure.
I might have mentioned that I bought Steve Weber's how-to-promote-yourself book, Plug Your Book, some time ago. I read the book through and loved it, but I've barely started incorporating the many useful tips he offers for promoting. With time becoming more limited, it looks like I'll have to assess what's essential and what isn't. It could be a hard call.
Meanwhile, I have two events coming up. On Tuesday, October 28th, I'll be reading from Fatal Encryption at the Port Moody library, at 100 Newport Drive, Port Moody, BC. It's a Halloween event and since my first two chapters take place on Halloween, the library kindly asked me to read to the parents while someone else reads to their kids. The event starts at 7 p.m. and if anyone out there lives in the Lower Mainland, you're welcome to join us. For further info, call 604-469-4577.
My local Chapters (in Coquitlam) also invited me back to do another Meet 'N Greet on Saturday, November 8th from 12 to 3 p.m. I'll be selling both books at a discounted price, so if you're looking for a gift idea for the accountant and/or computer geek in your family, have I got a deal for you.
For excerpts of Fatal Encryption and Taxed to Death visit http://www.debrapurdykong.com/
I might have mentioned that I bought Steve Weber's how-to-promote-yourself book, Plug Your Book, some time ago. I read the book through and loved it, but I've barely started incorporating the many useful tips he offers for promoting. With time becoming more limited, it looks like I'll have to assess what's essential and what isn't. It could be a hard call.
Meanwhile, I have two events coming up. On Tuesday, October 28th, I'll be reading from Fatal Encryption at the Port Moody library, at 100 Newport Drive, Port Moody, BC. It's a Halloween event and since my first two chapters take place on Halloween, the library kindly asked me to read to the parents while someone else reads to their kids. The event starts at 7 p.m. and if anyone out there lives in the Lower Mainland, you're welcome to join us. For further info, call 604-469-4577.
My local Chapters (in Coquitlam) also invited me back to do another Meet 'N Greet on Saturday, November 8th from 12 to 3 p.m. I'll be selling both books at a discounted price, so if you're looking for a gift idea for the accountant and/or computer geek in your family, have I got a deal for you.
For excerpts of Fatal Encryption and Taxed to Death visit http://www.debrapurdykong.com/
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Blog One Word
There is one word, a four-letter word that binds us to life. That word is hope. Without hope there is no reason to be, no reason to survive or to carry on. Hope is our glue, our daily dose of spiritual vitamin that prevents the breakdown of spirit and the onset of despair.
We must remember how fragile hope can be, how the maintaining of this four-letter word requires the love and support of family. Holding on to the thread of hope when you are faced with the possibility of your own demise is a challenge. Cancer shuts off the music in our lives, it takes up residence uninvited. Cancer moves in and spreads itself out. The treatment of this disease takes over. One day you could get up and go about your ordinary life and the next day you are tagged for chemotherapy, mastectomy, and/or radiology by a staff of nurses and doctors trying to give you every chance to survive.
Emotionally, hope can become elusive almost transparent. You could lose hope at any turn and then what? What would you do? Hudson Catalina is faced with that question and struggles with her own loss of hope. The decent into darkness that is represented by my book’s title has been the subject of several questions. Since hope is also part of having faith then its presence in each of our lives needs to be acknowledged and given its own chance to survive. Cancer crosses boundaries of culture, religion and genetics. It does not discriminate; it is not racist, anti-Semitic or bound by rules and convention.
Cancer laughs in the face hope, but there is no stronger medicine, no elixir or potion. In the end, if we keep hope alive, if we hold on through the darkest of days when there is light again, whether it is the beacon of God’s lantern, or the light in our kitchen, with hope and love we are victorious.
Please stop by Belly of the Whale’s Virtual Book Tour which is dedicated to Breast Cancer Awareness. Here are some of the upcoming stops, welcome aboard.
October 7-The Library at the End of the Universe
October 8-Café of Dreams
October 9-The Merits of the Case
October 10-Café of Dreams
October 13-Scribe Vibe
October 14-Literarily
Blog what you see, hear, think and feel.
Linda
We must remember how fragile hope can be, how the maintaining of this four-letter word requires the love and support of family. Holding on to the thread of hope when you are faced with the possibility of your own demise is a challenge. Cancer shuts off the music in our lives, it takes up residence uninvited. Cancer moves in and spreads itself out. The treatment of this disease takes over. One day you could get up and go about your ordinary life and the next day you are tagged for chemotherapy, mastectomy, and/or radiology by a staff of nurses and doctors trying to give you every chance to survive.
Emotionally, hope can become elusive almost transparent. You could lose hope at any turn and then what? What would you do? Hudson Catalina is faced with that question and struggles with her own loss of hope. The decent into darkness that is represented by my book’s title has been the subject of several questions. Since hope is also part of having faith then its presence in each of our lives needs to be acknowledged and given its own chance to survive. Cancer crosses boundaries of culture, religion and genetics. It does not discriminate; it is not racist, anti-Semitic or bound by rules and convention.
Cancer laughs in the face hope, but there is no stronger medicine, no elixir or potion. In the end, if we keep hope alive, if we hold on through the darkest of days when there is light again, whether it is the beacon of God’s lantern, or the light in our kitchen, with hope and love we are victorious.
Please stop by Belly of the Whale’s Virtual Book Tour which is dedicated to Breast Cancer Awareness. Here are some of the upcoming stops, welcome aboard.
October 7-The Library at the End of the Universe
October 8-Café of Dreams
October 9-The Merits of the Case
October 10-Café of Dreams
October 13-Scribe Vibe
October 14-Literarily
Blog what you see, hear, think and feel.
Linda
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