Rosepoint Publishing

The 4th Annual Phoenix Festival of the Arts-Coming in December

The Margaret T. Hance Park in Phoenix, Arizona, is home of the fourth annual Phoenix Festival of the Arts on December 11 – 13, 2015. Jointly sponsored in part by APS and Lou & Evelyn Grub, the arts festival hosts a weekend-long event showcasing arts, entertainment, exciting food trucks, and over 125 vendor booths! And, of course, there will be a beer and wine garden.

I love craft fairs, art festivals, or book signings, either private or with a group.

Phoenix Festival of the Arts

Presented by the Phoenix Center for the Arts, the event is free.

This park, dedicated in 1992 and named for Phoenix’s first female mayor, covers over 32 acres. It is actually situated over a freeway tunnel and is part of a major cultural center that includes a Japanese Friendship Garden and Irish Cultural Center.

The Phoenix Publishing and Book Promotion group now consisting of over 582 members will have two booths strategically planned for two hour intervals in each of the three days. I will be posting the times for my participation at a later date.

The dynamic organizer, Laura Orsini, has a full spectrum of marketing and promotion planned from banners with author’s book covers to MeetUp T’s.

I’m especially excited over the postcard that Laura is planning and having printed that will include a QR Code linking the participating authors to their websites, books, social media addresses, and 10 pages of content.

The Meetup typically meets twice a month that may include seminar type meetings with handouts or guest speakers. The wide range of topics cover everything from creative writing, publishing, self-publishing, eBooks, marketing, and social media. Within the social media spectrum are discussions covering “Life Beyond Facebook,” and other related sites.

Additionally, there is also an informal Meetup to match names to faces, network, and exchange tips. Laura has set up a group blog to keep us actively writing to which we contribute once a month (and we’ve volunteered to do so–mine is the 12th of the month). We’ve recently completed a grueling 35 day Author Blog Challenge!

This Meetup has met my expectations of finding help in the marketing of the books published for my grandfather–my responsibility even if they had been traditionally published–and I’m really looking forward to the Phoenix Festival of the Arts!

Resource Box

A Great Source of Writing Prompts

Writer’s Block—ugly words–but something that happens to most who would be authors. So it is that I am always looking for “prompts,” those lovely little ideas that would prompt an article, story, or more. It was when I downloaded “The Authors Publish Compendium of Writing Prompts“ by Emily Harstone that I finally thought I’d found Nirvana.

This was a free for the download fount of prompts and is divided into a number of different categories:

Quick, simple prompts
Classic prompts
For novelists
For poets
For creative non-fiction writers
Focused on craft
For groups

Rose Point Publishing

The first group includes ideas such as first sentence, last sentence and a 10 word short story.

The prompts are laid out in a clear, easy format, describing the location, character(s), and possible action scenarios. For instance, the prompt for “Castaway” (classic prompts #2 above) sets a main character on a small island with only three items. How the character ended up there is part of your own idea as well as whether the focus will be escape or survival. Continue reading “A Great Source of Writing Prompts”

Time To Learn About Flickr and Creative Commons Licenses

Days of research on the computer have left me blurry eyed with the dizzying array of hosts who would love to have you upload all your pictures large and small to their storage reservoirs. This, in the fervent hopes you’ll upgrade and get all that stuff off your own limited computer, laptop, tablet, and cell capacities. (Okay–there’s another Oxford comma!)

There is everything from MyCloud to ZipCloud and JustCloud. I signed up for the Box.com 10 gig free cloud storage for my files. These could comprise all kinds of files–including videos, financials, spreadsheets and taxes. My Dropbox is currently at 45% of 5.8 GB capacity. I take double pictures of everything–never sure the first will be acceptable. Because this is the digital age, I can take a gajillion pictures–(and do!). I never have to wait and they never have to be developed. I have the power of the “delete” button AND I need photos for my posts.

I like YouTube for video, and other than the one html file, the remainder of my “files” are photos. But I have not found one cloud that will store my html file unless it’s within a website.

I’m a senior: I need it simple.

My Weather Bug is programmed with at least seven locations, all of which when checked come with a beautiful background and usually have the photographer’s name and the notation “©[photographer] on flickr“. I’ve been looking at those pictures and wondering where in the world those were taken. But I keep seeing “Creative Commons” and “flickr”……

Great! Another photo storage host! Flickr will host up to a capacity of 1 TB. WHAT??! Not 5 gigs or 10 gigs–1 terabyte.

According to the internet: “One terabyte is one trillion (short scale) bytes. The unit symbol for the terabyte is TB.” Which is 1,000 gigs! Va Va Voom!

Waiting for the other shoe to drop, I signed up! Why not? I won’t be buying any more little flash drives, the last one of which I’d ordered from Amazon to back up all those files. It came apart after the third use.

You knew it’d get complicated somewhere though, right? Now we have the option of offering any of these photos through a Creative Commons license. There are attribution options out there. And many more photos to share! I love it and I’m sharing two I found today. Hope these have the proper licenses.

Free WordPress Blog Theme

This is a free WordPress Blog Theme–titled “Twenty-Fifteen”. Given that it was actually fairly easy to change out of my old theme, “Beach,” I feel now that I have the power, this theme will be short-lived–no doubt until the end of the year! I know white space is supposed to be a good thing–but this much?

Having been crushed that the clickable file I tried to upload, wouldn’t, I’ve scouted for most of the day for a free host where I could park some html files. This was not a huge file.

I’ve tried uploading a gif before and noted that the action I had programmed in, didn’t. This is getting very frustrating!

Today, I found a number of free html file storage hosts, offering anywhere from 1 to 10 gigs FREE storage with up to a 250 mg upload capacity. Most are geared towards businesses wherein they hope to snag an upgrade or premium account later. Having checked everyone from HiDrive to Box, I finally went with Box only to discover it doesn’t really hold my html file as I’d hoped either. Google Drive is another (obviously giant) host driven toward businesses hoping to get bigger and there is always “the Cloud.” It’s out there–somewhere.

So, apparently, I’m back to the self-hosted website. ARGH! Gotta be an alternative! There must be something I haven’t thought of or tried yet. I will continue to tackle that problem and now I’m thinking it’s time to look into FREE (there’s a recurring theme here as well) #twitter hashtag analyzer/tracker out there. Suggestions? No, not Yoast–apparently this blog (at my level anyway) doesn’t support that app either–I’ve looked.

Wanted: Free WordPress Themes

I Need a New WordPress Theme! (I think)

I liked the (free) theme of this blog, so much so it’s dominated the background since I created the site (and that’s been awhile).

However, I keep getting assailed with bigger and better–that’s what led to publishing my grandfather’s 2nd (and more) novels in the first place; created this WordPress blog, opened (or resurrected) accounts for Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Etsy, Facebook and Pinterest. Is all this really necessary?

Link Images — Yes, these were all clickable–but WordPress doesn’t do html?

I’m still mainly clueless regarding the purpose of half of the above and as I’ve alluded to previously, really don’t know what I’m doing. So it goes that there is a constant need for more knowledge, ever more studies into making the present, better. Yes, I’m one of those that must learn from my mistakes!

Behind the desire to make something more desirable, more topical, create a larger readership, open more channels, craft a better product, I’ve been looking into converting this WordPress blog into a “self-hosted” website. Having read what I could, I’m still not sure of the benefit other than to infuse the coffers of others with my hard-earned Social Security money–all those years contributing my portion of those pitiful paychecks into that which is now being called the “entitlement.” (Guess I missed the benefits–don’t get me started).

Do you have a compelling reason for converting from a regular WordPress blog into a self-hosted website? (Maybe getting it to accept an html graphic?) I’d love to hear it! Since this is not “big business,” I’m thinking maybe I should just do more with the blog I have:

Keep up the writing commitment
Offer a wider content
Continue with reviews (I do still love reading for fun)
Change that old theme

WHOA! I know what you are thinking! (I almost snuck that one in!) “But it has served so well!” Or perhaps, “It was obvious at a glance the blog’s subject.” Okay, the last, arguably so.

Therefore, in keeping with the aforementioned warning [she] “doesn’t know what she’s doing,” I’ll only say this–I’ve been surveying some new theme ideas. Uh Oh.

Commitment to Blog Posts

Day 35: What are you going to do to keep the blogging momentum going? What plans do you have to continue your connection with other Author Blog Challenge participants and the new readers you’ve generated for your blog?

Keep the Momentum Going? Huh?

Dash To Christmas — Can I really add one more commitment to this pile?

This time of the year, I can think of few things I’d need to add to the chaos of the on-coming Christmas-time rush. No doubt it’s my daughter’s fault. Born in the middle of October, she upped the start of the season as her birthday quickly heralds in Halloween, followed closely by Thanksgiving, and in our case Christmas, though I know most people celebrate this time of year in their own way.

My celebration these latter years is just getting through it. For too many years, I tried doing the multi-tasking thing–keeping my regular-time job, but also the decorating, shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking, and cleaning in prep for company (LOTS of it–my hubby is from a large–need I say, Catholic family?). And then in reverse, the clean up, get ready for New Year’s Eve–again clean up. Thank heaven his sisters married, had families of their own, and started taking over the whole routine!

Now my goal is to do as little as possible.

The Author Blog Challenge is being completed with this blog. 35 days.

In the meantime, I published the anthology, which was decided would be the last of the books published for my grandfather. However, in view of the over-whelming need to keep the momentum going and the necessity for continued marketing and sales promotion, I will keep the blog active, but on a scaled back version.

The daily thing was pretty significant–huge contribution of time–and most of the new subscribers were, indeed, participants of this challenge. I greatly enjoyed reading everyone’s posts and subscribed, so they have grown into personal links and will be on-going.

The history with the blog had been extremely spotty–and getting to it was not at the top of the priority list. Realizing the importance of a schedule, however, I will commit to at least two blog posts per week. I’m responsible for one blog post a month to this MeetUp, and as everyone else, will be keeping a separate writing schedule as well as participating in a copywriting effort for ice cream money.

It’s good I have a dog to walk–exercising the fingers doesn’t constitute a complete work-out routine and my back-side doesn’t need to grow (any larger).

How Many “Do-Overs” Do You Have?

How many “do-overs” do you have in your life?

How many of us would choose a “do-over” if the Genie got out of the bottle?

Incredibly lucky, I seemed to have gotten the right life partner right out of the chute–luck–and guidance from above–as I really wasn’t that smart. I met him when I was 17 and only knew what I didn’t want. My first and best decision.

However, when I think of do-overs, mine would be incredibly miniscule compared to the big picture. And mine would mainly have to do with money. Growing up in poverty, I learned to be very careful with money early and, for the most part, guided our family budget. That isn’t to say my hubby didn’t make some of his own grand decisions, leading to several extremely poor financial choices. Do-Over–don’t give away the store!

So I thought in the do-over world, money might be right up there at the top. I was wrong. It goes much deeper.

What about completely changing your destiny?* Wait to get married. Finish school. Choose a different career. We are certainly not the first to want a second chance–the chance to do it “right.” How many books have been written about the subject? Too numerous to count. One of the final works by Jane Austen, “Persuasion,” might be an excellent example.

A quick look into a short poll regarding regrets (not necessarily in order):

Too shy about taking risks (squandering opportunity).
Not having married the right person.
Not having children.
Not keeping your mouth shut about something.
Drugs and/or alcohol.

And the good news about several regrets–some things are never too late to change:

Education–go back to school.
Leaving the downers–you’ve heard the song, “Don’t Bring Me Down”
Standing up for yourself.

We all need and deserve a second chance, a do-over, from time to time.

Carpe Diem

*When further asked if the do-over would change who they are–would they still do-over? The answer was no.

The Mynah Birds Are Mocking Me

Good Grief! Those sounds–what are they?

Every day that I walk my dog, I am greeted with myriad sounds of birds that are way beyond my ability to identify. Every area has it’s contingent of indigenous birds–but in Goodyear, Arizona, what would they be? Guess I’d have to bring in an avian expert as even perusing the web for some idea, I’ve still come up with no clue.

Because of the water features associated with the golf courses, I see a number of water related birds, but these don’t have the call I’d like to identify. I’ve confronted a pair of ornery (burrowing?) owls on more than one occasion. They became rather aggressive when they spied Frosty from aloft, but circling and landing just feet away apparently decided against tackling her as she came with strings attached (me).

Perhaps if I could catch a glimpse of them, it would help to identify if they have a squatty body with short tail, or slim body with long tail, short beak, long beak, colorful body or black. They make a dreadful mess of the sidewalks, but trying to spy them in the branches has been futile. Of course, we have our sizeable population of doves, pigeons, quail, hawks, killdeer, hummingbirds, mocking birds, mud hens, widgeons, blackbirds, sparrows, finches, and even roadrunners.

The cactus wren is the state bird of Arizona. That certainly makes sense, but what sound do they make and are they actually in the neighborhood next door where the cacophony near evening is almost deafening?

Which bird is it that is making me wonder if I’ve teleported to Africa? The only bird I can imagine making all those sounds might be a mynah bird. But is that even possible? Surely they aren’t common or wild around town. Or are they?