Life as Training in Love

Greetings! I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Easter with your family as well as this beautiful week. I am happy that our school is having its spring break now so I can enjoy the weather without worries.

We had our last meeting at the Panzer residence. Present were Richard Panzer, June Saunders, Kerry Pobanz, Jerry Chesnut and Bob Beebe. Kerry gave a presentation of his latest pieces on the spirit world, entitled "Life on Earth as Training in Love, Parts 1 & 2." In reality, these pieces were more about what we should do in our life on earth in preparation for the spirit world. Kerry covered the three stages of life (in the womb, on earth, and in the spirit world) as well as the four realms of heart, or love (children's, sibling's, spouse's, and parent's). For Unificationists, of course, this is ground well-covered. Here they were presented in Kerry's cogent and clear prose that makes his writing so enjoyable to read.

In the period since our last meeting, our group was asked to make a presentation at the small group seminar held at the Demott church last weekend. Ours was cited as an excellent example of a theme-based small group. Kerry presented representing our group and gave a synopsis of our history, brought copies of our two anthologies, and talked about our members' past and present projects.

Our next meeting is scheduled for this coming Sunday, April 11, 3:00-5:00 pm. It will be at Jerry's place. Presenting will be June Saunders, the latest chapters of her Civil War-era novel, which is nearing the end. Something you won't want to miss at the story approaches its climax.

I look forward to seeing you there. God bless.

50 resources for better writing from Smashing Magazine

Image by churl via Flickr

This is such a good comprehensive resource, I just had to list it here. Smashing Magazine is well known on the Internet for their breaking stories on the latest social media events. This is a very good resource on writing, and I hope everyone will take advantage of these sites for writers. Oh, and don't forget to let me know how you like the new blog layout. Thanks.

Smashing Magazine - 50 writer's resouces

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Broken Dreams

Our last meeting took place at the Pobanz residence on February 28. Present were Kerry and Carol Pobanz, Jerry Chesnut, June Saunders, Valerie Shimoyama, and Bob and Karen Beebe. We thank the Pobanz's for the wonderful coffee and treats.

We began with a discussion about what motivates us to write. Is it fame? Money? Personal growth? Challenge and adventure? Simply the love of writing? What motivates us will determine how we respond to various stimuli, whether positive or negative. Obviously, the best motivations are the more internal ones and, if we are good, the external ones will follow. So, who's going to be our first Nobel Laureate in Literature?

We then discussed some of the submissions we have received for the next issue of our literary journal, The Spirited Goldfinch. Already we have a good sampling of poetry and short stories.

Finally, Bob presented a new short story he is working on, tentatively entitled "Broken Dream." It is based on a true and tragic event concerning the death of his father's first wife. It is a story about how the direction of our life can change in one second. Also, about how people can lose sight of their dreams over time. It is also a story about destiny and twists of fate. I thank everyone for their feedback as I work it towards its conclusion, which I hope to present in a few weeks.

Our next meeting will take place this Sunday, March 21, 3:00-5:00 pm, at the Panzer residence. Kerry plans to present his latest--we expect it will have something to do with the spirit world. You should be receiving it soon.

I look forward to seeing you all then. May God bless.

How to Write with Confidence

I like the title above because it shines. When you are confident about the content and the quality of your writing it is something that really stands out.

Here is a post from one of my favorite writer's blogs on the subject.

Copyblogger - Write with Confidence

Happy New Year!

Our last meeting was held at Jerry Chesnut's house. Present were Jerry, June Saunders, John Lombaerde, Kerry Pobanz, Richard Panzer and Bob and Karen Beebe--and a wonderful spread of goodies (thanks, Jerry!). The main topic was Jerry's recent addition to his ongoing sort-of-autobiographical novel, which has brought us up to the present. We appreciate Jerry's honesty and vulnerability in sharing with us through his story some of his deeper thoughts and feelings. In addition, he introduced a new universal principle called "The Brass Rule." And he left us with a cliffhangar...to be continued. We can't wait, Jerry!

Bob also revealed that the second issue of The Spirited Goldfinch is now available online at lulu.com, nearly a year to the day after the first issue came out. Twenty copies have already been ordered, delivered and will be brought to our next meeting, which will be at...

The Beebe residence (26 Amity St., Little Falls) this coming Sunday, January 24, 3:00-5:00 pm. On the agenda are two presentations: June Saunders' latest addition to her Civil War novel plus a new story by Mike Yurechko, entitled "Two Moons," which was inspired by a recent dream (please see the attachment). As mentioned, copies of The (new) Spirited Goldfinch will also be available.

US Web Site Promotion | Library to the World

Image via Wikipedia

This is a picture of the Celsus library, built in 135 A.D. It housed over 12,000 scrolls.

It's been a while since I posted here, but I ran across a web site that claims to be a sort of online library to the world.

Take a moment to check it out, I am sure you will not be dissapointed.

Welcome to BookYards.com!

Their goal is to be "The Library To The World", a web portal in which books, education materials, information, and content will be free to anyone who has an internet connection.

Bookyards has a total of 17,010 books, 41,784 external web links, 4,197 news & blogs links, 384 videos, 32,963 Ebook links and access to hundreds of online libraries (800,000 Ebooks) for your reading pleasure.

Also this is a link to Free Public Domain classic literature. Any one want to download the complete works of Shakespeare?

You will find it on this site. Free Public Domain Classics

We hope you enjoy it!

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Web Site Promotion | Download Everything for Writers - for Free

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
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