A blog not to be missed…
‘Baby Boomers’
Welcome back to the working world. My editor is one step ahead of me and posted two blogs at one time over the weekend. So, I need today to play catch-up in the realm of my earthly existence. My mind has been scrambling over the holiday trying to decide what I needed to accomplish first. And then, I read a blog this morning that made sense. It was clear and concise.
It said…”Make a commitment right now, TODAY, that you will put your soul’s work first. That you need to spend at least 15 minutes a day, every day, working on the writing that makes you feel ALIVE.”
Well, I do this faithfully. I love working on my fiction stories, but at this time, my heart belongs to my blogs. I discovered, that I can do both, work on my stories, and that it is worth writing my blogs too. I enjoy coming up with new topics each day.
But, I have a children’s story that I wanted to publish before school started. I can’t believe that some schools are already is session, and others started today. This means that my job at hand is to get the revised ending to the kid’s book done today.
My second focus is to do a better job of marketing the books that are already published. I’ve spent years writing them and I’ve spent plenty of money to publish them. So, Monday, yesterday, Labor Day, I spent the entire day on building a book proposal and marketing strategy for the adult coloring book, Fun in the Florida Sun, featuring Walter & Katy Shuster. I have mapped out a full plan, including buying some promotional tools, to assist me in promoting the coloring book in my town.
Thank you for allowing me the time to have gotten that load off my chest, and on to today’s business. My blog features – Can an old dinosaur be taught new tricks?
I’m off to finish the book that is sitting on my desktop, Spog and the Bully. First things first. Get the book done!
Continue down to read the full blog.
Happy Reading, K. Lorraine http://klorraine.com
I had an interesting Sunday afternoon while shopping with my husband Ed. A nice young man approached us in the store and asked, “Are you happy with your internet package?”
Ed said, “Not really, what do you have to offer?”
Alphonso proceeded to explain the ins and outs and other benefits that his internet package might have that our current service might not. Of course, Ed was mostly interested in the cost. However, his pet peeve is there are too many sports networks and far too many repeat channels.
A man who was not interested in sports dumbfounded Alphonso, but he did relate to the abundance of repeat channels. In fact, he showed us that the average number of stations offered is around 79. Ed gasped and said, “I swear we get over 1,000 channels. Regular viewing and the upper end Hi-def ones.”
Ed then said, “All I want is the local networks – you know, NBC, CBS and ABC. I also like HGTV, Hallmark Movie Network and Lifetime movies. Can I tailor-make my TV watching to satisfy my wants?”
Well, I’m going to move on here because we talked with Alphonso for at least an hour about technical stuff. Boring!
But, what I do want to talk about is, that Alphonso was in the throes of becoming a writer. We talked about an array of topics connected with writing a book. He also counseled me on the ‘How To’s’ of promoting your finished and published book.
I’m here to say, that I’m old enough to be his mother, maybe even his grandmother. My first experience with a computer was in the 1980’s. I’m pretty sure that Alphonso cut his baby teeth sitting on his father’s lap at the keyboard. I know my grandson did. In fact, my two kids starting using a computer in school before they reached their double digit age.
Alphonso and I had a lot in common, which was nice to discuss. We both discovered our artistic talents early in life, (around six). We both loved poetry, and we started to think about becoming a writer in middle school. Our college education centered on business applications and advertising/marketing/promotion. But he had a leg up on me. An expansive working knowledge of computers.
Alphonso was speechless when he asked, “Do you have a smart phone?, and I answered, “No.”
“Do you have an Ipod – an Ipad?” and something else that I don’t remember. (Blackberry?
“Um, no,” I don’t know, I said. “I have my desk computer workstation and a laptop. That’s it! However, I do use social media… Facebook, Twitter and I have a pretty good website. And oh, by the way, I blog every day if possible… at least 4-5 times a week. ”
“That’s great, Kay. You are building your brand. Once you get a substantial number of ‘followers’, you’ll see an increase in book sales too.”
My ears took notice, but I became troubled when he said, “Now make 30 video blogs.”
Alphonso lost me right there and then. “How do I accomplish this?” I asked.
“Easy as pie.” He said, “Sit in front of your desk computer and talk into the camera.”
So, he then attempted to explain how simple this was to do and we swapped email addresses. Regardless, that we were generations apart, our commonalty brought us together to share knowledge and ideas. He was in need of a good Proofer/editor and I needed the encouragement that I could come out of my dinosaur cave and learn more about video-blogging.
Alphonso has a ninety day goal to have his Science Fiction short story finished and published. I promised to connect him with my proof reader – editor. I also pledged to work on my fear about how to video-blog. But until then, I will continue to find interesting things to write about and upload the written word to my website blog.
To answer my own question… can a dinosaur be taught new tricks? I think so, but I still haven’t found the nerve to try video – blogging.
Best of luck to everyone who has a dream and a goal.
Happy Reading,
K. Lorraine
My-Funn-Stuff-to-Blog 