Tag Archives: rebuild your life

Gift of an Irishman

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 “These things, I warmly wish for you- Someone to love, some work to do,
A bit of o’ sun, a bit o’ cheer. And a guardian angel always near.”~ Irish Blessing 

Are you wearing the green today? On this St. Patty’s Day, as I have for the past 35 years, my shamrock pin is placed over my heart on my lapel. The shamrock pin was given to me as a gift from my Irish in-laws. Just before I met my mother-in law and father in-law, they had taken a trip to Ireland and had brought the shamrock pin back as a souvenir. The gift of the shamrock, to me, represented a fulfilling sign of approval – I had passed “the test!”

My in-laws are no longer on this earth. Every March 17th I think, with appreciation, about their gift of the four leaf clover and what it represented to them and to me:

  • Faith – A chance to learn a little about their beliefs. My in-laws had a strong faith in the Catholic Church, as many Irish do.
  • Love – We reciprocated plenty of that. From day one they accepted me unconditionally as the daughter they never had.
  • Hope – My in-laws hope was for an enduring marriage for their son. When we announced the arrival of the greatest gift of all, the birth of a little leprechaun, my in-laws really danced an Irish jig!
  • Luck. As luck would have it, my relationship to my in-laws was nothing but wonderful. I don’t have a single “I Hate my In-Laws” story or joke to tell. 

There is a little sadness in this day for me. Six months after our “little leprechaun” was born, my father-in-law passed away. Our son never got to know his Grandfather Leonard. When he asks what his grandfather Leonard was like, I tell him “he gave me the gift of a shamrock and all that it represents.”

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of you Irish men and Irish ladies! Drink a little green beer, dance a little Irish jig, listen to award-winning Irish independent recording star Mary Black. Her music has taken America and other countries by storm!  http://www.mary-black.net/ Enjoy this day of celebration of Irish heritage.

 This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.

How to Cook a Good Book

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“March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns or the sharp stones on life’s path.” ~ Kahlil Gibran 

It is mid-March and the other day we adjusted our clocks ahead giving us more daylight. Along with spring comes an urge to begin to eat a little differently. Our diet of satisfying  hearty stews, soups and chili is gradually replaced with lighter fare. The clothing we wear has less bulk, too. Before I transition my diet from winter to spring, I am going to offer one last fulfilling, robust recipe that many independent publishers have been working on perfecting all winter long – “How to Cook a Good Book.” 

Step 1 –

Test the water first – make sure you have a hot and a unique idea.

Begin to stew on a pre-publication marketing plan.

Fill the pot with energy, insight, creativity and stick-to-itiveness.

  • Include the necessary base ingredients– a central theme, strong character development, story line that supports the theme, engaging plot, and cohesive writing.
  • Incorporate varied vocabulary with shades of meaning to support the base.
  • Make adjustments to the recipe – edit ingredients that provide no flavor.
  • Add more seasoning, if needed, to make a more fulfilling concoction.
  • Let it cook and stir, cook and stir some more.
  • Send your creation off to some taste testers.
  • Satisfied that the  ingredients are complete?
  • Add a “read hot” title and packaging to match. 

Step 2–

  • Consider branding the idea.
  • Place it for sale on-line and in other pre-determined markets.  
  • Ramp up all marketing efforts.
  • Promote yourself as the chef.
  • Advertise and promote the finished product.
  • Saturate the market.
  • Share “dribs and drabs” of the finished product with others.
  • If you need help with smokin’  “soup d’jour” e-marketing tactics – seek help!  

Way to go! You have cooked your book and now you can add “published author” to your Curriculum Vitae. What other recipes can you follow to make your life more fulfilling?

This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.

Yankee Writers Gathering!

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“If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”~  Thomas Edison

 New Englanders are hearty souls! I can attest to that after having lived in the State of Vermont for 35 years!  On March 25th and March 26th there will be a gathering of New England Writers focused on how to “Survive and Thrive” as independent publishers. The New England Publishing Conference will be held at Chapel Hill-Chauncey Hall School in Waltham, Massachusetts. 

Veteran publishers, industry experts and vendors to the independent publishing industry will be on hand fulfilling the need for knowledge for those who are starting out in book publishing. Book promotion and selling through e-marketing and other channels such as libraries, book fairs, bookstores and to non-profit organizations will be topics of discussion, too. 

Cevin Bryerman from Publishers Weekly Magazine www.publishersweekly.com will address the crowd. Don’t miss out on that! Cevin always has a lot of interesting things to share about the industry. There will be workshops focusing on e-books, blog writing, e-marketing, and other information on the business of publishing both domestically and globally. Another important speaker, Tim Brookes from Champlain College www.champlain.edu will be speaking about Publishing in the 21st Century – The Campus Revolution. The keynote speech will be given by publisher David R. Godine www.godine.com. 

For more information on this important educational conference, please visit www.ipne.org. For questions, e-mail talktous@ipne.org. There are special conference lodging rates at the Holiday Inn Express in Waltham, MA. Make your reservation now, so you can take advantage of this block of rooms set aside for the IPNE Publishing Conference. 

This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.

Connecting with your Creativity

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“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” ~ Edward deBono 

Abraham Maslow, founder of humanistic psychology said that “creativity is a characteristic given to all human beings at birth.” How many of us tap into our innate gift of creativity as we go about our daily life?  For those who work in careers involving the Arts, using one’s own God-given creativity is naturally incorporated into every day life. For others, it takes consciously finding ways to live life inspired. All of us have a different interpretation of what living an inspired life means. 

In essence, Maslow’s theory says that once our psychological needs for safety, love and affection and esteem are satisfied, then we as human beings are freed to travel down the path of toward self-actualization. We can begin fulfilling our need to create and do what it is we were born to do, if our basic needs have been met. For more information on the Maslow theory, please visit http://bit.ly/X2iQX. 

If you are a person whose career does not involve the Arts, March is Crafting Month, and it is the perfect time to explore new ways of incorporating more creativity into your life for personal fulfillment. Craft a unique and creative piece of Art through the written word. Writing poetry, essays, old-fashioned love letters, short stories, haiku or full length books will get your imagination and your brain working in innovative ways. There is no cost to that and anyone in this age of independent publishing can be a published author!  Join a local writing group, to enjoy the camaraderie of others whose spirits also soar when putting pen to paper. 

Let March be the month to rebuild your life creatively.Find  a new hobby and live a life inspired. It will provide you with hours of entertainment and personal satisfaction, too.

This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.

Have you Launched your Kite?

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“Success is focusing the full power of all you are on what you have a burning desire to achieve.” ~ Wilfred Peterson 

It is March 1st, and when I think of March, I think of my childhood days of growing up in the Mid-Atlantic section of the East Coast of the United States. March always still had a real chill in the air. Getting outside and flying kites in the stiff March winds always resulted in letting the kite go because my hands were too cold to continue to hold onto the string. When I finally released the kite, I found it fulfilling to dream about whether my kite was going to land in a country and climate much different than my own. 

Yesterday, I began to think about the analogy between finding fulfillment in building and flying kites and using blogging as a powerful internet marketing tool. When you build a blog site you want it to be a reflection of your own creativity, just like when you are hand crafting a kite. Create a blog site unique to your own interests and what it is you are trying to convey. The graphics must be attractive to the eye and the content needs to be catchy and of interest to the reader, otherwise, what is the point? 

Learning what content to use when attaching tails to your blog site is what will make it soar in cyberspace. There is a methodology and science behind e-marketing campaigns. You want to make sure you direct your “kite”, as best you can, to where you want it to land – in countries and climates that are rich with qualified leads. 

If you are inexperienced at setting up an attractive blog site and at the new science of blog writing, seek help from an e-marketing professional who understands the dynamics behind e-marketing for independent publishers. http://bit.ly/gDGQN8.  It will make a difference in how successful you are at attracting regular readers and fans to your site and where your “kite” lands on the world-wide-web.

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Properly Honored, at Last

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All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.                       ~ Winston Churchill

On Monday at our weekly Kiwanis meeting, we saw a touching DVD of World War II Veterans taking a flight of a lifetime to Washington, DC. The Honor Flight is a program that transports veterans of the Second World War to see the memorial that was built in their honor. For many of these vets, the trip is not an easy one due their age and failing health, but for many veterans it fulfills a dream of a lifetime to see the capital of the country they so bravely fought for many, many years ago. 

The World War II Memorial was completed in 2004. It was built on the National Mall in Washington, DC and it consists of 56 pillars and a pair of arches which surround a beautiful reflecting pool and fountain. During WWII, the gold star was the symbol of family sacrifice, thus a field of 4,000 gold stars incorporated into the Memorial commemorate the more than 400,000 Americans who gave their lives in their fight for freedom. 

Almost 400 veterans from this area, the Western Slope of Colorado, have made a flight with their compatriots to see the World War II Memorial built to honor their military service. A better way to honor the vets and give them one “last hurrah” would be difficult to find. Family members, veterans of other wars and community volunteers accompany these aging vets to make the help make trip as easy as they possibly can. Many of the WWII vets have ambulatory and other health issues, so charter flights helps make the trip a little less difficult. Their bodies may be failing them, but their strong spirits carry them through and it is truly a trip well worth making, each one of them would tell you, I am sure. 

Almost every State in the Union has honor flights several times a year. If you would like more information on donating to this wonderful cause, please visit www.honorflight.org.  We are hoping as a club, Kiwanis International of Steamboat Springs, Colorado http://on.fb.me/epjzSf  will be able to provide support for this wonderful program. If you wish to accompany a flight as a volunteer or would like to provide financial support to the West Slope Honor Flight, please visit http://www.westernslopehonorflight.com/. 

Thank you to all World War II veterans ( and all veterans of the military) for  the sacrifices that you have made for your countrymen so that we may enjoy the freedoms that we do today.

Joint Interests

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“Friendship isn’t a big thing – it’s a million little things.”  ~Author Unknown

February is International Friendship Month. If you had asked me years ago “whether I had many international friends?” in all truthfulness, I would have said none. Before the age of the world-wide-web, the options for finding friends, fans, customers and clients in far reaches of the world were very limited. The power of e-marketing has changed all that. 

By having a strong, easily found web-presence, I have made connections with people all over the world who are the kinds of friends that my company seeks. We all share, for various different reasons, a joint interest in the independent publishing industry and the types of services that my company offers. 

Knowing how to connect through the internet with communities of like minded people is so helpful when it comes to selling independently published books, films and music. When you look at the statistics alone of the number of households connected to the world-wide-web, the possibilities for finding “like minded” people are staggering. This chart helps us to realize just what the potential of reaching customers, fans, clients and friends outside of the United States can be.  http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.

Our collective world is strengthened when we have friends and allies on other continents. So, today, I would like to say Happy International Friendship Month to those who have connected through the power of digital communication with my company’s web-presence  or directly with me personally. I appreciate your friendship and your joint interests!

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A Victory for All

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“In reading the lives of great men…self discipline with all of them came first.” ~ Harry S. Truman

You’ve heard it from me before. Independent publishers, it is not all about the manuscript. The most successful independent publishers have vision and a solid marketing plan for their books, prior to even beginning the writing process.

I love hearing stories of independent publishing success and the other day I got word of some very exciting news about author and past president of the Colorado Independent Publishers Association, Mara Purl. Her romantic women’s fiction, the Milford-Haven Novels, have been picked up by a New York Publisher, with a plan that Mara has dreamed about. Her novels will be re-launched by Bellekeep Books, and will reach an even larger audience than before. Mid Point Trade, a major national distributor, is also involved in the deal.

Mara, whose curriculum vitae includes author, screenplay writer, actress on Days of Our Lives and script writer for The Guiding Light has always had great vision for her professional life and for her written work. She parlayed her vision for her serial novels into great success in the U.K. Her stories of the fictitious, small town, Milford-Haven, was the first American radio drama ever licensed by the BBC. It has reached an audience of 4.5 million listeners! For more information on Mara and her Milford-Haven novels, please visit www.marapurl.com and her blogsite http://bit.ly/ekghXc.

I look forward to seeing the unfolding of this story. Mara’s first novel will be re-launched in August 2011, and another publication is scheduled to hit the market every six months. There will be no down time for Mara. That is for sure!

When I hear stories like this, it is not victory for one.  It is a victory for all who have decided to take the non-traditional route to publishing and have found success.

  This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.

Wanderlust

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 “After all these years…It’s better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe.” ~ Sophia Loren

Is it really half way through February? Already? It has been a very, very busy past several weeks filled with treks for this family of three. In my travels, I was accompanied by a group of writers, some from the Steamboat Writers Group http://bit.ly/gHUxik  and others from varied walks of life.  They joined me in exploring possibilities in this New Year of moving in a positive direction for:

  • personal fulfillment
  • career advancement
  • increased visibility for themselves and their businesses all through the power of e-commerce and e-marketing.

 I am pleased to report some have already begun to fulfill their dreams of writing their stories.

My husband was the most adventuresome. He trekked across 9 time zones and 18,000 miles into unknown territory and back! He was recruited to the coaching staff to lead team USA Alpine Skiers to the World University Games in Erzurum, Turkey. The athletes, six women and six men returned home to the U.S.A. with an unprecedented number of medals – 5 gold and 2 silver and lots of stories to tell of a country they had known nothing about. What a fulfilling trip for a coach who has been involved with training and educating athletes for so many years. 

The culmination of many, many months of planning led our son this week, into the atmosphere of co-hosting an international independent film festival. As Associate Director of the New Mexico International Film Festival, he was fully involved in the minutia of what he loves to do best –watch, discuss, judge and analyze independent films. There were so many logistical details to put into place in arranging a first year event. No blueprints to follow, no tried and true formulas, no maps to lead the way, only a good, hefty dose of energy and willingness to step into the unknown. I am sure he will have his share of tales to tell, too. 

 Each of us has our own interpretation of what brings personal fulfillment to our lives. How about you? Do you ever dare to strike out into territories of the unknown? It is the best way to broaden horizons and bring fulfilling experiences to our lives. What will tomorrow bring?

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Near and Dear to My Heart

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“Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.” ~ Kevin Arnold 

On this Valentine’s Day, I thought I would write about a cause that is near and dear to the hearts of many. There are millions and millions of families affected by cancer each and every year. The number of books written by cancer survivors and by family members of the deceased helps us to realize that cancer directly or indirectly touches everyone’s hearts at some time in their lives. Books on this subject are helpful to others, because it brings to the forefront the enormity of the disease. Writing about cancer serves great purpose in fulfilling a need for survivors and family members to share their hurt, their physical and emotional trauma and sometimes, very happily, their triumph over the disease. By reading stories of others who have experienced the effects of this disease, it helps survivors and families realize that they are not alone.

Events such as The Race for Life raises awareness of the need to raise money for cancer research. Teams that participate in the annual Race for Life Relay, Nordic Style are dedicated to keeping the spirit of their loved one alive and to raising money for research. Amy’s Angels will be competing for a second year at the Trapp Family Lodge (of Sound of Music fame) www.trappfamily.com  in Stowe, Vermont, and defending their title as the top fundraising team. The Race for Life Relay, Nordic Style kicks off on March 19 and 20th, 2011. 

If you are unable to put together a team to compete in one of the Race for Life fundraising events, held across the country annually, but still wish to support cancer research or honor the spirit of a loved one that you have lost to cancer, please visit this link, and make your pledge to the American Cancer Society this Valentine’s Day. www.relayforlife/nordicstyle.org. 

I will be routing for the women on Amy’s Angels team come March from Steamboat Springs, CO. My friend, Amy whom I lost to breast cancer almost two years ago, is near and dear to me in spirit every day. Her legacy lies within the minds of hundreds of children that she educated, mentored and loved in her 30 years of teaching in Vermont.

 Go Amy’s Angels, go!