The Good Old Days

God, my mom could tell you about prairie life—the loneliness and isolation—no neighbours for miles and miles.

And winds—always winds—blowing  the top soil away, or packing the snow into drifts sometimes as high as the house and so hard the cattle and horses could walk on them without breaking through.

And the poverty; fried potatoes and eggs three times a day all winter because that was all they had, walking nine miles to town with a dime to buy a box of corn flakes and taking the penny change home to her mother.

Wearing hand-me-downs from her aunts—flapper dresses that didn't fit, the neckline hanging much too low on her gangly teen body. Wearing her brothers' long johns under her dresses—long johns that bagged and sagged under those flapper dresses (imagine how lovely that looked), her legs rubbed raw from her rubber boots—the only boots she had. Using goose fat to try to cure chapped skin.

And the terrible depression that ensued from it all.

We moved to the city with its modern conveniences when I was ten. Mom was not sorry to leave those “good old days” behind.  

Email lists: What do you want from the author?

For most authors marketing their books is tougher than writing them.

Numerous blogs, webinars, and courses provide advice. The general consensus, at the moment, (I say this advisedly, because a month or two from now, the direction might be quite different) is to build an email list of subscribers.

I’ve subscribed to a number of author emails lists. Some email only to announce a new book, which means I hear from them once a year or so. One gentleman emails about his latest release and also writes about the state of publishing and marketing. This author is prolific. His emails come every few months. Yet another sends fascinating tidbits a couple of times a month related to ancient history—you won’t be surprised to learn that his genre is historical fiction. One woman writes weekly with sage advice and tips about writing.  Then there’s the guy who sends out short bits daily.

So, for an author trying to market his or her books, what is the magic “email” answer?

We’re told:

·       Offer them books, extra chapters, character profiles—al for free of course.

·       Email often—once a week at least.

·       Don’t email too often—once a month will do.

·       Keep your emails short.

·       Provide long, informative emails.

The thing is, with all these emails floating about, I don’t know that anyone has stopped to ask subscribers what they really want. So, here’s the question of the day:

Once you’ve decided to sign up to an author’s email list, what do you expect to receive from that author and how often do you want to hear from him or her?

Could reincarnation be real?

I believe in reincarnation. How else to explain that sense of déjà-vu? How else to explain the dreams of childhood that came each and every night like never ending reruns of some television show? How else to explain the meeting of those dreams in reality years later?

As a child I had recurring dreams, some scary, some reassuring, all puzzling for they were of places beyond my farm yard experience. Rooms with wooden slatted doors: I’d never seen one of those in real life. Vast high roofed buildings with wide open staircases; we surely had none of those on the farm.

When I encountered the doors as an adult, when I climbed that stairway in the new airport as a teen, I knew I had lived before. Nothing else could explain the clarity of the dream, the exact match of that dream image to reality.

http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-proof.htm

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/reincarnation.htm

www.darlenejonesauthor.com