Happy Monday to you all!
I hope you all had a great weekend. I was busy starting our little mealworm enterprise, and taking the first steps toward building a rabbit hutch. On weekends I like to do anything but writing, although my mind does not shut down. I’m thinking of topics to write even while I’m stapling wire to wood. Such is the life of a writer.
Thanks to those of you who weighed in on how often this blog should appear. I think I’ll compromise and post it twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Obviously this is Monday, but since I didn’t post a blog on Friday I thought I’d better toss this one out so you didn’t forget me. The next installment will be on Thursday and then I’ll try to be consistent from that point.
Let’s get started, shall we?
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Edwin Land
I don’t know what the “5,000 steps” means, but I love the quote, and let me tell you why.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
I have been thinking about this for the past few days. I’m an observer. I watch what other people are doing, and I listen when other writers speak, and there has been a great amount of complaining of late about distractions. Some writers are distracted because their score has dropped on HubPages. Some writers are distracted because their views are down and they don’t know what is wrong. Some are distracted by online theft, and some are distracted by the daily stuff like family, work, errands, chores, etc.
Well….I would hope that all those distractions are not taking you away from the one thing you must do as a writer…..WRITE!
Let me use HubPages as an example for a moment, and I’m sure I’ll annoy a few people with what I have to say, but oh well. I currently have twelve articles on HubPages which have a little “c” marked next to them, meaning that they have been copied and/or plagiarized. I haven’t done anything about that, much to the confusion and chagrin of some of my writing friends. They can’t understand why I’m not incensed about it all, but they don’t see writing through my perspective.
I can’t stop online copying. To think I can is ridiculous. As soon as I file a form stopping one, another two-hundred copiers pop up. It’s like that carnival game where you bop those little men on the head and another one immediately pops up somewhere else. I can’t win that game, and I can’t stop all the online copying.
And I don’t care. I am a writer. My main goal is to write books and become a well-known novelist. It is not to make $500 per month on HubPages. If I let plagiarism distract me from my goal, to become an excellent writer, then the plagiarists have won.
TIP OF THE DAY
Concentrate on being the best writer you can be. Everything else is window-dressing.
SITE OF THE DAY
Follow this link and you can read the thoughts of Janet Reid, a literary agent. There are pearls of wisdom in each blog post, and they give you insights into the mind of an agent.
OFFER OF THE DAY
I’ll keep offering and hopefully you’ll take me up on it. You are invited to do a guest blog here any old time you want. Just contact me at holland1145@yahoo.com and let me know you are interested. As long as your posting is about writing then I’ll be happy with whatever you come up with.
BOOK PASSAGE OF THE DAY
I thought I’d give you a snippet from my new novel, “Shadows Kill.” I hope you like it.
My sleep was restless that night. I was being chased in a dream, but I couldn’t see the face of my pursuer. He was darkness upon darkness, a shadow man, barely visible each time I turned to look at him. I raced through the woods, my heart exploding in my chest, my breath raspy and strained, sweat pouring from my brow. I knew there was no point in running, that being caught was inevitable, and finally I tripped over a tree root and fell hard to the ground. Turning over, I saw the shadow man standing over me, and his shadow formed a smile, dark teeth in a dark mouth.
“It won’t be that easy, Eli,” he said. “Now is not the time.”
ARTICLE TIP OF THE DAY
What’s happening six months from now? That’s what an article writer should be thinking to get maximum exposure for their article. Six months from now will be Valentine’s Day….set up a calendar and write your articles six months in advance. You will thank me for it. I promise.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK
I’ll have more for you on Thursday, including some new contests for you to consider. Now, enough of this….get out there and dazzle the world with your words.
Bill
“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”
Billybuc
Artistry With Words 
I am so with you on scheduling and try my best now to have a set day for what I post and when, but obviously life does come in the way and I day may get pushed here or there, but still having a schedule does work wonders (I learned the hard way). But still thank you always for your help and invaluable tips. Truly appreciate it! Happy Monday again 🙂
Janine, even if you hadn’t told me that, I would have known that you schedule by following your blog. It is obvious. Thanks for your thoughts and friendship.
I love the excerpt from Shadows Kill. It sounds like you’re writing a thriller this time. I’m going to keep this short because I have 7 landing pages to write for CheapTickets. I have a minute to check in while I await an answer to a question I have about the assignment.
Have a great day, Bill. I’ll see you tomorrow on HP.
Glad to hear you are busy, Sha, and yes, it will be a thriller/mystery…and I’m enjoying the process my friend.
Cool. My favorite genre! 🙂
Hi Bill, oh yes I totally know what you mean about always thinking of writing when we’re doing other things!! Understand 🙂 HUGS!
I knew you would, Christy! Enjoy your week and thank you.
Hi Bill. Not only for the ” article tip” ‘THANK YOU’, thank you for everything. I have to admit, none of those listed abstractions bother me,some other do.
( The first 5.000 steps are always easy to go through, the following thousands are more demanding..)
Blessed week to you my friend.
Michael my friend, I have found that to be true throughout my life. Starting out is so easy, and then we hit our first bump in the road, veer off course, and suddenly easy turns into a challenge. 🙂
blessings my friend
bill
Bill, I can’t thank you enough for being so real with writers. It is nice to know that my ignoring all the copies of my posts is right along with the best of writers. I am reading this late in the week, so I imagine you have all your chicks tucked away and area ready to enjoy Sunday.
Dianna, thank you. I just have better things to do than file reports about copying….and yes, the chicks and quail are all tucked away for the night.