The Audacious Author

Spring Blog (again)

News from The Cape of Cod

April 29, 2018

Morning Everyone!

Today is almost the end of April, and the weather here on the Cape of Cod is slowly warming. I sincerely hope it does warm up because I washed and stored all my winter sweaters, etc. and packed them away. All I have in my closet now are summer things.

It is refreshing to walk outside and see all the beautiful signs of Spring.

Are you seeing signs of Spring where you live? When I lived in Florida, the signs were there, but very subtle.

On another note, the Cape Cod Writer’s Studio is blossoming. Pat Carroll is back from her wanderings around the globe, a sure sign of Spring for us. We do expect to see more of our summer writers appear in the Studio. Pat confided in me that she plans to finish a YA novel she started a few years ago. Her travel blog is getting a lot of hits.

Michael is reading his glorious poems for us, such a brilliant poet! They begin our session on such a high note.

Sedona has published her second book, On the Rosy Path, and she will be doing book signings all over the Cape again. Bravo! Sedona, you go girl!

Deb and Felix are bringing us new venues, which Deb is mastering to enhance her writing skills. (I do have a fresh supply of doggie bones for Felix.)

John is in the process of writing his Business Plan for teaching welding classes at his Morash Welding Institute, offering OSHA Certification nationally.

Joyce has finished her book, China Strong a Backpacking Adventure, and has started her second novel in the series. A publisher in Florida, who specializes in books on China is interested in her work.

P. J. is editing and beta reading for Joyce and I believe so is Deb. We are so blessed to have their remarkable editing skills.

Karen is working on her final chapters of her book, Good Dog. As an at-home-Mom, her writing time is completely limited.

This news is new for the group. Hang on to your hats, guys!

Cynthia attended a class on play writing at the Cultural Center in Yarmouth with Max Makowski (Google him), and he is linking (literally) her with an Animator he knows for her adorable children’s books!!!!

O.K. you can breathe again.

And you thought we didn’t do anything and just had a boring writing group! HAH!

My satellite group, Writers in Common ( I hope they don’t mind that I share them) are producing books, too.

Barbara has done two, Falling from the Ladder, and Taking Cover. See her links on my website www.audacious-publisher.com

Greg has switched his focus and will concentrate on another book he has on his screen. (Note, this happens all the time, usually for the better.)

Katrina is very close, she is setting an insert of photos into her book and will be published by the middle of May.

There you have it!

Me? Well, I am writing the third book in the Something Series but got sidetracked and finished a book on self-publishing. It started out as a marketing tool and ended up in print!

This brings my count to 30 books on Amazon.

Title? Blueprinting for Successful Self-Publishing. Here is the link for the e-book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CQ7D7LD  link for new e-book

The paperback is still in limbo on CreateSpace because I pushed the incorrect button. UGH! See the cover here.

There you have it. We are fast approaching Memorial Day when all the busy little tourists arrive and clog up our Roads, Restaurants and Beach Rights.

After all, it’s only 12 weeks.

Hugs and Happy Writing!

Sharon

Blog – 3-22-18

Cosmic Update and Scalable Income

Hi, Everyone:

Let’s start with the Cosmic Update

This is one or two days delayed, because the equinox was yesterday March 21^st. which means that we are moving into the Astrological Sign of Aires the sign of the RAM.

” Born at the Spring Equinox, an Aires Archetype is strong, initiative, enthusiastic, and will butt heads with his enemies and his contemporaries for what he/she believes in. He/she will fight for what is truth and right and become the Warrior/Peacemaker for saving the world or a damsel in distress. It is his or her character of seeing life’s challenges and taking them on fearlessly.

Ares is the first astrological Sign of the Celestial Zodiac.”

Quote from my book, Cosmic Blueprint, Your Life and How to Live it.

When you have your Natal Chart done, it is your own personal blueprint of what your life is about. You chose to be born at that specific time, day and location.

“Every Natal Chart, every Cosmic Blueprint in every system comes with all the information we really need to figure out:

1. Who we are (Our sign)
2. What we need to learn/do during this incarnation, (Our planets)
3. Where do we accomplish this (In which houses)

4 When do we do it? (This present lifetime or incarnation)

5. How do we do it? (Using experiences from past lives and newly acquired skills from this one.)”

Here is my Natal Chart:

A blow up of my actual Cosmic Blueprint showing my planets, signs and houses where I will do the work in this lifetime. As you can see, most of my work is done in the 6^th house which represents service and work, and the 8^th house which represents death and regeneration (the Phoenix rises again). Amazing?

What does your chart look like, and what are your lessons for this lifetime?

The second part of our blog today is a word about Scalable Income.

When I first heard this term, I had no idea what it meant. Google took me to Ben Casnocha’s site and his description of scalable income.

“Professions where you are paid by the hour are not scalable. A prostitute who charges $100 an hour only has 24 hours in a day. At some point, she will hit a ceiling on her earnings. Similarly, dentists, lawyers, contractors, bakers, and consultants can see only so many clients at a time.

By contrast, scalable professions allow you to make more money without an equivalent increase in labor / time. An author writes a book one time and his effort is the (basically) the same whether he sells 500 or 500,000 copies. A Hollywood actress need not show up at every screening of her movie to make money off it.”

Perhaps this is why I urge writers to look at their work on a global perspective, and to “Write, Publish, Repeat”. The more global your books sell, the more scalable your income. Local sales are great, but global will give you the scalable income you just might want to have. Myself, I prefer to be that Author, not the others.

Happy Equinox and

Happy Writing

Sharon

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BLOG

March 11, 2018

COUNTDOWN FROM THE CAPE OF COD

9 days to Spring and Equinox

Clocks Spring Ahead today.

What a very busy time for us as we move our clocks ahead one hour (Spring Ahead, Fall Back) and do our countdown to Spring and the Equinox.

One remarkable thing about this is my clock in my Mini is now reading the correct time, because I have not figured out how to set it yet. So, all winter I was one hour off. (Dah)

We have been fortunate so far that the weather has not dumped a lot of white stuff over us here on the Cape of Cod. Blessings! Yesterday was the St. Patricks’ Day Parade which swallowed most of Rte. 28 from Dennis to Yarmouth. Happily, the temps. were in the 40 degrees range and the parade route was packed already at 9:am as I drove to my daughter’s home in Centerville. Phew! My return trip was along Route 6A. I remember last year, the temperatures were very cold for the parade, and I felt terrible for both the audience and the performers.

At the Spring Equinox on March 20^th, the energy will shift, as the planets re-align themselves and we slide into Mercury Retrograde again on the 22^nd. We all know what that means, but if we are aware of it, then computer crashes, mis-communications and anything to do with the throat chakra will pass through our lives smoothly and we won’t become attached.

My new website: www.audacious-publisher.com is hanging out there like bait on a fishing line, no nibbles yet.

I want to speak briefly about BETA READERS. Those non-writers bear with me as I make a few points here.

What is a BETA READER?

“An alpha reader or beta reader (also spelled alpha reader / beta reader, or shortened to alpha / beta), also pre-reader or critiquer, is a non-professional reader who reads a written work, generally fiction, with the intent of looking over the material to find and improve elements such as grammar and spelling, as well as suggestions to improve the story, its characters, or its setting. Beta reading is typically done before the story is released for public consumption.^[1] Beta readers are not explicitly proofreaders or editors, but can serve in that context.

Elements highlighted by beta readers encompass things such as plot holes, problems with continuity, characterization or believability; the beta reader might also assist the author with fact-checking.^{[2] “}

Quote directly from Wikipedia.

As several of our members of the Cape Cod Writers Studio are reaching that point in their manuscript, this information might be of interest.

Your Beta Reader is your best critique. Your BETA READERS should NOT be a family member. Here is why. Your family members love you and want to encourage you on your literary path. If you ask them to read your manuscript, however tempting, how can they in all honesty tell you about it in a valuable way? You really place them in a difficult situation. Would you want to be there?

I learned the hard way.

When I got smart, after I had written Stones and Bones, a YA novel, I went to the local library and spoke with the YA Librarian and enlisted her help. She assigned the copies to four young YA readers who were doing some community service and part of the YA Library group. (My perfect BETA READERS.) They were, too. I was requested to not use their names in any conversations to protect their identity, which meant, I had no direct contact with them and the reviews were theirs alone.

I was amazed at the candor of the reviews and what they thought I should change in the story. I took all their advice and incorporated it. Some of their advice made me wince, was my writing really that bad? Yes, it seemed it was, and what they would not read. (willingly)

Rude awakening? Definitely!    BUT it made me a better writer.

The point here is: If and when you ask someone (a Beta reader) to read your work and give you some honest feed-back, and the feed-back is not what you were hoping to hear, then listen up. Perhaps, just perhaps, you need to look at what you are writing and what you need to do to make it “good enough for human consumption.”

My first writing group was relentless and many times cruel, but I look back and thank them deeply, because they made me ‘Listen up’ and be a better writer. So, you incredible potential great writers, ‘listen up whenever someone gives you an honest opinion’, they are not doing it because. . . . they are giving you a ‘listen up’ to help you become a better writer. Because you have ‘free will’ what you do with the ‘listen up’ is entirely up to you.

Happy Writing!

Hugs

Sharon

March 4, 2018

News from The Cape of Cod

COUNTDOWN

Sixteen Days to Spring (Officially)

Eighty-Five days to tourist season (Memorial Day) or Twelve Weeks

Now if that doesn’t cheer you up!

Last Thursday, we spent the day in Province Town commonly known as P Town to the locals. You should have seen my ride! The weather was so glorious! Temps in the 50’s, sunshine and a few high clouds. A perfect day. Top down, cruising, heated seats on, music…here we are at Chatham Light on the way home.

Figure 1 MY RIDE — A RED, FULLY LOADED CHEVERLOT CAMARO!

The streets in P. Town are so narrow, only one car width wide because cars were parked on the right. How they maneuver those narrow passages is a challenge.

Figure 2 COMMERCIAL STREET IN P. TOWN

We had lunch at a ‘Local Bar’ where the lunch counter was the front of a boat. Liz’s Café. This was right down the street from the Pilgrim Monument.

Figure 3 PILGRIM MONUMENT

Figure 4 LIZ’S CAFE

The residents were starting to sandbag their store fronts because of the impending storm due to arrive the next day. On the way home, through Chatham, the clouds had already started to thicken, and visibility was low. We did see the breakers out over the sandbar in Chatham, already in white caps.

Figure 5 A VERY FOGGY VIEW OF CHATHAM HARBOR

I thought it was my lens or that I had moved to fuzz the shot, no, it was the actual cloud cover coming down…because all three shots were fogged.

My only regret? You weren’t there to share this remarkable almost Spring day. I liken it to Shakespeare’s “foreshadowing of things to come.”

On the Writing Side:

Are you a PLOT-STER or a PANT-STER? Translated this means, do you write with a pre-planned plot or do you write ‘by the seat of your pants’? What is your writing style? Have you ever thought about it?

Personally, I am a Pant-ster. When I start to write, the words and the plot unfold on their own. I like to blame it on that “Extra Help” we sometimes get when we least expect it. For eons this has been called “the Muse” by some writers. Personally, Hemmingway always referred to it, and so did F. Scott Fitzgerald. I blame all my silly stories on my invisible guides and Angels. Who else would know what things are like in the Angelic Realm, or Inside the Coop??????

On the Weather Side:

We did get that Nor’ Easter with wind gusts clocked at 95 mph., coastal flooding, abnormally high tides, and a great amount of debris from fallen trees and branches. Many streets were blocked because of that. We also had power outages and as I write this, there are still some in outlying parts of the Cape. Definitely a storm to remember.

There you have it.

Happy Spring

Sharon

Greetings from The Cape of Cod

February 20, 2018

Amazing that we are so close and the signs are all there.

The air smells sweeter.

The birds are singing loudly.

The daylight stays longer.

The temperature is in the 30’s to 40’s and some days 50’s.

The Wild Geese have gooselings, many gooselings. (probably not a legit word, but, hey, it’s almost Spring)

My down coat is sometimes too warm.

There is a persistent longing for Iced Coffee.

I have seriously considered unlocking my roof.

Still searching for ‘Pussy Willows’, snow drops, crocus, any of those little green sprouts.

There are more signs, but you will have to find them.

As we slide ever so silently into that next season, what are your plans? What is the first thing you will do to celebrate?

Mine will be to spend some time at the beaches before they are off-limits and crowded.

On a happier note: the website is finished, and if you have not had a chance to look at it, here is the address (again) This site is all about publishing your book on Amazon

www.audacious-publisher.com

My blogs will still come from www.audacious-author.com . This site is all about writing and anything silly I might be working on at the time.

Inside the Coop: is the Blog for All Cooped Up, our book addressing Senior Issues and told through the chickens in the coop. We have been inundated with more issues facing these Senior Chicks, and just may have another book.

Meanwhile, the Cape Cod Chickies Chorus is in full swing practicing their songs for St. Patrick’s Day. Incidentally, I don’t think I have ever heard a chicken with an Irish Brogue. Have you??

Songs in our repertoire for this holiday:

When Irish Eyes are Smiling

A Little Bit of Heaven

Charlie on the MTA

Irish Lullaby

Clancy Lowered the Boom

Molly Malone

Galway Bay

McNamara’s Band

Danny Boy

Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?

Peg O’ My Heart

And finish with

When Irish Eyes are Smiling

We have green hats and scarfs instead of feathers for this one.

Well, there you have it.   Pictures to follow in the next blog…

Happy Spring and Happy Writing

Sharon

BLOG — January 24, 2018

NEWS FROM THE CAPE OF COD

SPRING???

Hope Springs Eternal? Or is it Spring is Eternal Hope? Or Hope Eternal Springs?

Whichever way you write it, the signs are there already. I have seen some Robins in the morning for the past few days, and yesterday – two BLUE BIRDS in my suet feeder.

There is a small restaurant along Rte. 28 in Yarmouth that sports a sign, “Clamcakes in 10 weeks” and does the countdown until they re-open sometime in April.

Heartened by this, I took my calendar and did my own countdown. From yesterday, January 23, 2018, there are 8 weeks till Spring, March 20^th. (56 days) YAHOO!

Hope does indeed Spring Eternal. The weather here on The Cape of Cod is a bit unusual. January temperatures usually hover around 20 degrees most years, but this year has given us temps a little warmer, with not too much white stuff that we have to shovel. (PHEW)

With that cold week that we had, the ocean was frozen for a good distance out, and the ferries had to plow through some ice to get to the Islands.

The Writer’s Studio is chugging along, writers have curled up with their keyboards bringing forth their stories, novels, memoirs, whatever their “extra help” guides them into transferring words to paper.

You may not have received that last blog because someone (moi) did not send the correct link. In it I speak of the “extra help” we sometimes receive. Here is that link: https://audacious-author.com/2018/01/05/new-years-blog-2018/

The COOP is busy… very busy, preparing for our next GIG whenever that may be. The Cape Cod Chickies Chorus is singing some of the old favorites… Very old favorites, some of them dating back to 1902, and before. Watch out Bing Crosby. Many of the tunes we are rehearsing have a distinctive barber shop quality, with a lot of harmony, songs your Grand Parents may have sung, or listened to.

We have sold a few books, the proceeds of which go to the local food bank. How great is that? Here is that link for the e-book:

https://www.amazon.com/All-Cooped-Up-Senior-Society/dp/B077CVWXFY

And for the print book:

https://www.amazon.com/All-Cooped-Up-Senior-Society/dp/1979567301

We will let you know when we have our next GIG.

I am working on a website for the Coop. What have they done to make websites so complicated? Honestly, no matter where I try, the sites are supposed to be easy. I must be ‘out of the loop’. I have the BLOG done, and that was easy. Will send the link when I have one written, meanwhile this one will be published under Audacious-Author.com

That’s all for now, writers, friends, and family. Stay warm and dry, and hug those keyboards…

Happy Writing

Hugs

Sharon

New Year’s Blog

January 5, 2018

“A man’s mind plans the way, but God directs his steps”

Proverbs 16: 9

Hi Writers and Friends:

I fell into this Bible Verse yesterday morning when I was doing my daily verse, and thought it was so pertinent to my life and probably to so many of you.

“The best laid plans of mice and men,” (wait a minute, who said that?) are always so exciting and look great on paper. Aren’t they also our New Year’s Resolutions? Even if they aren’t, and we plan them throughout the year, they are still our plans, our dreams, our visions. BUT they are not going to go anywhere without EXTRA help.

If I have learned anything in this lifetime it is that need for EXTRA help.

Whenever I get off course, I literally get kicked in the butt. Directing my steps must get so tiresome to my EXTRA help. It certainly gets painful where I sit.

Have you ever decided to do something and begin the process of doing it, and everything just slides effortlessly into place? You hardly had to do anything at all, everything just ‘happened’.

Conversely, have you ever planned something, and nothing short of mayhem would make that plan work?

It’s the exact same thing with your writing. (You knew I couldn’t resist that one!)

If the story isn’t flowing and almost writing itself, then it is the wrong plan (plot). Perhaps you need to do a complete re-write. All the editing in the world won’t make it right. Sometimes, you need to walk away from it, and let it just sit for a while in a bottom drawer or another file on your screen. Maybe you should begin something new, but never put new wine in dirty bottles. (who said that?)

Been there, done that! Not with wine, but tried to make something I had written better only to fail completely. (New wine-dirty bottles)

Every writer struggles with his writing at one time or another. When that happens, you KNOW your steps are NOT going in the right direction, your EXTRA HELP is kicking you in the butt.

Happy Writing

Sharon