My Ambition: "Bore No One & Entertain" (click here)
Someday, when I have time, here are the classes I will be enrolling in at The University of Ultimate Knowledge and Other Fun Stuff".
How To Get Along With Cats (Feline Diplomacy 101)
How to build stilts for fun and/or profit. (Prerequisite: Circus Experience)
How to put a sharp point on a No. 2 pencil (101 Pencil Sharpening)
3-Day Course. Binge Watching for Beginners. Part One and Two (Netflix - BW101)
Christmas Tree Decorating Using Common Kitchen Utensils (CTD-101)
How to argue with Judge Judy and not get thrown out of court. (JJ-100)
So you want to be an auctioneer but you stutter. (STST-1010)
Circus Stunts Made Easy. Must supply your own net. (CSME-BYON 202)
Golf Course Management: How to build a better sand trap. (GCM-B-Murray-Instructor)
How To Waste Time On The Internet and Still Hold Down a Part Time Job and write that novel that you've always wanted to write and read. (HTTP://Timesink.com)
How to find Irony in everything you do (Ironic-111)
How not to sound stupid when you talk (Stoopid:102)
How to legally change your first name. (CFN:300)
How To Rest on Your Past Achievements (PA-855 Part 12)
Where do you see your self in: 1- hour, 1-week, 1-month - ninety days (FutureStudies -300)
Get out of debt without spending a dime (DebtFree_901)
How to read a tipping chart Part One (TIPS-101)
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And now for something completely serious:
• My twin roles as writer and social media strategist grant me insight into how to create compelling content and deliver it to a targeted audience. Over the past fifteen years, my experience work-shopping novels in both writing groups and the writing retreats I organize has helped create the kind of tales that have attracted the attention of a host of national editors and agents. My position as a college-level social media instructor keeps me constantly updated on the latest strategies and software for finding and engaging the best readers for all categories of print and online work.
• Hard work and time makes the difference that leads to greatness, but it’s a specific kind of hard work: It’s a regimented and completely consistent practice schedule, tracking and analyzing your performance, and making adjustments as you learn what works and what doesn’t.
• Fiction is one of the few remaining places where the reader’s imagination can roam free - where they can build word pictures in their minds that become theirs and theirs alone. At this point, those word pictures no longer belong to the author . . . which is exactly as it should be.
• Always leave a little room for cream and serendipity.
• The most important thing any writer, artist, or musician needs is PASSION. The creative life is hard – Void of passion. Find you’re passion and you will create things inside you that will shine brightly in the darkest night.
• Properly used, Social Media can create the ‘critical mass’ required to kick-start the process of word of mouth recommendations that actually sells lots of books.
• The core of author marketing comes down to this: Figure out where your potential readers are gathered, go stand in front of them, and make lots of noise until they notice you. (Try to be funny also)
• It's not our job as writers to sell books. (Shocked?) Actually, it's our job as writers to create connections that will sell books.
• Making movies teaches you to always cut for story. Always eliminate the extraneous, and make everything express character.
• A bad story is basically - an ineffective story.
• The magic of believing creates an energy force that has no bounds. The writer cannot see it, taste it, touch it, smell it or hear it, yet when seasoned with laughter and tears, it can make a person smile or cry, just the same as music can.
• A successful writer can tell a story in such a compellingly way that the readers awareness of the actual medium and technique disappears.
• Our attention span is shrinking, yes, but I have a theory that our capacity to be awed remains the same. We need what is sacred and what is beautiful as much as ever; only our hunger for it has been stunted.
• Remember: Play fair, share with others, and be nice as though our world was a "small town". And for gosh sakes, be kind to others, because everybody is going through something hard.
EMBRACE is no ordinary word.
I wish we could all embrace each other, if for only for a day, or an hour, or a short minute, and just be nice to each other as though our world was a "small town, as well as be kind to one another, because everybody is going through something hard.
To break the egg, it’s critical that your content is engaging, authoritative, and thought provoking. It needs to spark emotions from readers, so that they feel a deeper connection to your content.
The customer shouldn’t notice your words – they should “disappear” behind your amazing content . If your content is relevant and correc, and well-written, it will pull readers in.
. . . Be something you're not! Not somebody you're not!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . "Serendipity always rewards the prepared." . . . . . . . . . . . . .