Saturday, November 28, 2009

Web Site Promotion | Download Everything for Writers - for Free

Image representing Scribd as depicted in Crunc...Image via CrunchBase

I ran across a site with a list of 100 places to download everything from Audio Books to Web Design.

http://supergeekland.com/09/100-sites-to-download-all-sorts-of-things/

These are two of the most interesting sites on the list:

Scribd, a site with over 50 billion words in ebooks and articles that authors post at no charge. You can easily search for anything imaginable, and find almost every subject you can think of.

Project Gutenberg: The most comprehensive repository of ebooks on the Internet. Project Gutenberg was built by volunteers and has 27,000 ebooks online.

Good Luck in all your writing and web site promotion efforts.


John Lombaerde
Web Site Promotion Blog
SEO East Coast Blog
Google Wave Blog

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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Narcolepsy and Russia

Our last meeting took place on Sunday, Nov. 8, at the Pobanz home. Present were Kerry Pobanz, June Saunders, Richard Panzer and Bob Beebe. Kerry began by presenting a recent essay entitled "Who Am I?" in which he expressed a heartfelt lamentation over the human state of what he called "spiritual narcolepsy," or sleeping sickness. In other words we live our lives unaware of our true value and identity, oblivious of the immense love God feels for each one of us. Because of His never ending love, however, the day will come when God will be able to lead His children back into the light of His love.

Next Bob presented several pages of his Russian novel in progress. Jim and Father Vladimir finished their conversation/debate and we switched back to St. Petersburg to catch Jim's wife doing a bit of Christmas shopping in a country that till recently had all but ignored the holiday and for whom Dec. 25 still meant nothing at all (Jan. 7 being Orthodox Christmas). We get another flashback to the time when they first came to Russia and were unceremoniously thrown out of their apartment for failing to go along with their landlady's decision to suddenly double the rent. (In the early 1990s Russians were beginning to experiment with capitalism in their own way.) Stay tuned for more in the coming months!

This Sunday, Nov. 22, we will be gathering at Richard Panzer's home for our next meeting at the usual time slot of 3:00-5:00 pm. June will be presenting another chapter of her Civil War era novel. We hope you won't miss another of her insightful and readable updates of her book.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Web Site Promotion | Use Google, Yahoo-Local Search | Web Site Promotion Blog

SMX East - Ranking Tactics for Local SearchImage by w2scott via Flickr

How do you use local search for your web site promotion ?

I wrote a post on my web site promotion blog about local search at the following URL.

http://www.websitepromotionblog.net/web-site-promotion-promote-web-sites-local-search-web-site-promotion-blog

There is also an excellent reference article about local search at Search Engine Land.

http://searchengineland.com/blocking-and-tackling-10-fundamentals-of-local-seo-29115

You may also want to visit these blogs I have set up recently.

Web Site Promotion Blog Carnival

Google Wave Blog Carnival

SEO East Coast

More to follow soon.


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Friday, September 25, 2009

10 Best Writer's Blogs - Winner copyblogger

Travel PensImage by retro traveler via Flickr

We discussed blogs, (among many other things), at our last writer's meeting.

The fourth annual best blogs for writer's was held recently, and copyblogger received the award for the best blog for writers.

You can see all 10 winners here.

10 Best Blogs for Writers.

If you want to put a link to this list on your desktop, you will have access to some great information to refer back to over and over again.

copyblogger is one of the sites I use on the blog roll on my site at:

The Web Promotion Blog

Any feedback in terms of comments would be gratefully appreciated.

I recently changed the site design to a new sportier design. I wish I could do the same with cars. One minute your driving the old model and the next, the latest and greatest.

Also, here is a happy writer's site with some light-hearted cartoons about writing that I think you will enjoy.

Inkgirl

Happy Writing !

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Thursday, September 17, 2009

How to cure writer's block

Grave of German author Thomas Mann in Kilchber...Image via Wikipedia













From a comment posted on copyblogger about writer's block.


Here’s a sure fire method to cure writer's block.

Keep a copy of any classic work of literature that is over 1000 pages in length, preferably something that you had to read in school, and really disliked, near your desk. For me it would be Thomas Mann – Magic Mountain (sorry to you T.M.)

Every time you get writer’s block, say to yourself, “if I don’t break out of writer’s block in 5 minutes, I will have to read that rather dusty, incredibly long book that I had to read in school”.

This is truly a magic motivator to cure writer’s block.

lol


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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Screenplay for a short film

TribalImage by tata_aka_T via Flickr

I'm not exactly sure what the following writing selection is. I woke from a dream with the image of this story in mind. I guess you could say it would be a screenplay for a short film. At least that's how I best envision it. I hope you enjoy it.


Screenplay for a short film. "Up to Jamal"

There is little boy (8-10 years old) together with his parents at an airport. The father is white and the mother is black, the boy is much more fair-skinned than his mom. The Father drops off his wife and son at the curb with their luggage, and goes to park the car. The mother moves with the luggage to the check-in counter. She tells her son to stay close, while Dad takes care of the car.

The little boy hears the sound of faint music and leaves the side of his mom. He follows the sound of music and it becomes stronger. It is an African rhythm, with a strong beat, and an unusual, but very beautiful sound. The boy stops and looks ahead of him. There is an African man dressed in tribal costume standing perhaps 30 or 40 feet away. The man nods his head slowly, and looks at the boy. He has a beautiful feather in his hand. It is striped with both black and white feathers. A broad smile comes to the face of the African man. He gently lifts the feather in the air, and the wind takes it up in the air. It floats up high, and across to the little boy.

The boy looks up at the feather and is blinded momentarily by a flash of light from the sun. He hears a strong, deep voice say to him. “It is up to you to solve the problems between black and white in this country”. The feather lands in the boy’s hands and as it lands, the colors of the feather seem to reverse between black and white from their original colors. The boy blinks in astonishment, and grabs the feather and holds it tightly in his hand. Suddenly he remembers what his mom told him, and thinks she might be looking for him. As he runs back to find her, he glances over his shoulder and the African man is gone.

The boy finds his mother around a corner, and she shouts as she sees him. “Jamal, where did you go, I was looking everywhere for you ? Didn’t I tell you to stay close ? I’m waiting for Dad, now don’t wander off ! And where did you get that feather ? We are running late, so your Dad is going to meet us at the gate.”

With baggage in hand, the mother and son move toward the gate and approach the security area. The mother passes the security check point without incident, but the boy sets off the alarms. Unlike the normal sounds, the buzzers do not buzz just once, but continue to buzz, abnormally, without shutting off for half a minute or so. The boy is asked by a security person, if he has anything in his pockets, and the boy says no.

The security guard, (a black man), asks the boy to put the feather in the box, and the boy hesitates, but looks at his mom, and she nods to him, so he reluctantly agrees. The security guard watching the feather pass through security sees a bright blinding light as the feather passes under the radar, but there is no sound. The security guard shakes his head and his partner asks him, Is everything OK ? The man says "yeah, I guess so".

The boy passes through security the second time without a sound. The security man stands up and moves over to the little boy. He gives the boy a big smile, and says to him, "Take care of that feather, OK" ? The boy responds, “I will.”

As the boy and his Mom move away from the security area. The security guard can’t take his eyes off the boy as he walks away. A voice in the background, (same voice that Jamal heard before), says. “Don’t leave everything up to Jamal. We are all brothers and sisters in one Family of Man under the one True God.”





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