5th Halloween-Poem Contest – Jury introduction – and Start Up

Picture courtesy of: http://preventioncdnndg.org/

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JURY:

I am honored to announce that the following authors have agreed to participate as judges in the jury who will decide on the winners of the contest:

Author Raymond Walker
Author Sherry Perkins
Author A. J. Alexander

Thank you, authors, for your effort to be part of this contest!

There will be three winners in the 4th Halloween poem contest. Each of them is free to choose from the following prizes:

Signed Paperbacks with a T-Shirt of Hiding from the Light  – OR – Winter’s Ghost – OR –  The Painting written by Raymond Walker
E-book of A Horse by Any Other Name: A Doctor Butterbaugh Mystery  – OR – E-book of A Girl and Her Dog: A Short Story – OR –  At the End of the Rainbow – OR –  What you wished for,  written by Sherry Perkins
E-book of “Soul Taker” – OR – “Sundance‘ written by Aurora Jean Alexander

I’m very grateful for these excellent authors to offer their books as a prize in this contest. Thank you!

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STARTUP!! OCTOBER 10, 2019

Every author and poet are invited to participate and deliver a “Halloween-Poem” to my email address: aurorajean.alexander@aol.com, together with their picture and a link to their website and/or blog.

There are a few rules to follow:

• Your poem needs a Halloween theme.
• Your poem needs a minimum of 99 words.
• Your poem has to be delivered to my email address between October 10 and Halloween, October 31, 2019, 9 pm Central Standard Time.
• Your poem has to be delivered together with your picture and a link to your blog/page.
• Please avoid violence, bad language, and sexual content within the poems. It would be disqualified.

Every poem that meets the rules and is delivered within the deadline will be published here on “Writer’s Treasure Chest” together with the provided picture and link.

The contest starts October 10, 2019, 06.00 am and ends October 31, 2019, 09.00 pm Central Standard Time!!

Please, deliver your poem and your picture to my email address within this time frame, neither earlier, nor later. Poems arriving outside these 3 weeks will be disqualified.

aurorajean.alexander@aol.com

We’re looking forward to your poems! Write away, ladies and gentlemen, we are ready!

A. J. Alexander

When Nature Prepares For Hibernation

An Hour Of Relaxed Reading

For the first time since I moved, I felt the need for an hour of relaxed reading.  In my former home, I had a deep enjoyable bathtub which I filled up with wonderfully warm water and bubble bath and spent an hour or 90 minutes in the tub, reading an amazing book.

I prepared everything for another relaxing hour today, book, glasses, scented candle, water…

I was looking forward to the tub and the reading… until I realized, the tub was far too small for me. It might be good for a bath after being dirty and muddy… but it definitely is not comfortable enough to read in… not five minutes, not even three minutes…

That means, I will have to read somewhere else than in the tub – or I move into a home with a big corner-tub.

Picture courtesy of Google.com

Do you ever read in the bathtub? If yes, how long are you staying? How much do you enjoy? Do you read your e-reader or do you prefer regular paperbacks? Let us hear about your reading preferences in the comments. We are curious.

 

5th Halloween-Poem Contest

Picture courtesy of: http://preventioncdnndg.org/

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It is a great pleasure for me to announce the
5th Halloween-Poem Contest
on ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’.
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Every author, poet, and reader is invited to participate and deliver a “Halloween-Poem” to my email address: aurorajean.alexander@aol.com, together with their picture and a link to their blog/page.

There are a few rules to follow:

• Your poem needs a Halloween theme.
• Your poem needs a minimum of 99 words.
• Your poem has to be delivered to my email address between October 10 and Halloween, October 31, 2019, 9 pm  Pacific Time.
• Your poem has to be delivered together with your picture and a link to your blog/page.

Please avoid violence, bad language, and sexual content within the poems. It would be disqualified.

Every poem that meets the rules and is delivered within the deadline will be published here on “Writer’s Treasure Chest” together with the provided picture.

End of this month I will introduce this year’s jury members to you. I am very proud that these authors agreed to be part of our contest.

The contest starts October 10, 2019 06.00 am and ends October 31, 2019 09.00 pm Pacific Time!!

Please, deliver your poem and your picture to my email address within this time frame, neither earlier, nor later. Poems arriving outside these 3 weeks will be disqualified.

aurorajean.alexander@aol.com

We’re looking forward to your poems!
A. J. Alexander

Book Signings And How To Be Horribly Underprepared – My Guest Post on The Story Reading Ape’s Blog

My guest post about book signings and how to be horribly underprepared was published today on The Story Reading Ape’s blog. Thank you so much for your ongoing support, Chris! What would I do without you?

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When I was happily posting about my first book signing, a couple of weeks back, I was looking so forward to what is going to happen that I was completely unprepared. I mean, what exactly would happen? I hoped for people dropping by at my table, loving the book, buying it and I’d sign it. – Wonderful me.

Normally I am a very cautious person, and I love to go somewhere, no matter where, and be really prepared. That day I wasn’t. I didn’t have more than only a few days to get ready for that book signing, and I completely slept the preparation away. There were many other things going on as well, but that isn’t a decent excuse to be as sloppy as I was.

What did I take?

• My books
• A couple of business cards (me and the books)
• Postcards
• Some Pen
• Tiny wing charms as giveaways

 

Continue Reading Here

 

Hungry After Dinner

Lately, I made some new friends, wonderful people I spent an afternoon with them and had tons of fun. Later on, we went for dinner together. We decided on getting a ‘family-style’ dinner. (For those who don’t know: that is different entrees for the entire table and each participant can help themselves from the served meals.)

Now, that is a great idea, as I find, provided there is plenty ordered. In a tiny small-town restaurant, I’m afraid four entrees for six people might be a bit narrow.

In particular, when one of the served dishes isn’t your taste, and the serving-round starts on the opposite side of the table it could happen that I’m sitting at the table and ending up with the paltry remains of the served meals. That can be especially painful if one of the meals is absolutely your taste and that one has been the first one to be gone.

picture courtesy of Google.com

We kept on talking for another while, we had a really good time, except that I was secretly frowning and asking myself if there are really only women sitting on that table that belong to those who eat like sparrows… Still, they constantly talked about food, compared different desserts and meals and drinks… while my mood slowly but surely went downhills.

Bluntly spoken I had about two and a half tablespoons full of something to eat… and I was about to ask: “Cool – the idea with the appetizers – and where’s dinner now?” – when everyone found it an excellent meal and someone asked for the check.

I thought: “Jeeez… I’ll soooo need a burger on the way home.”

It has happened to me before that I was invited to dinner and got up from the table not eating… But I swear, there was served plenty of food – I just didn’t like it.  I never got up from a dinner table, still hungry – and had paid for it.

Oh well… what should I say…?

Picture courtesy of Google.com

 

Monday Funnies…

And here, once again, The Story Reading Ape’s Monday Funnies with wonderful Aunty Acid. Thanks so much for the giggles!

How Dare They Steal My Idea! – Guest Post Written By Jaq D Hawkins

Author Jaq D Hawkins published a guest post on The Story Reading Ape’s blog about author’s ‘stealing’ each other’s ideas – unconsciously and unintentionally – and still it happens… Read the post, it’s enlightening!

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Ever think of a great plot and put it aside while you finish your current work in progress, only to find that someone else publishes something based on the same idea before you can get your version out?

I think this happens to all of us at some point. I don’t mean someone actually steals the idea, but someone totally unconnected to you thinks of the same idea independently, sometimes even a well-known author.

It can be frustrating, especially if it’s a big name author who gets the same idea as you and releases it sooner, but it’s also a great endorsement of the idea itself! So what do you do when this happens?

Continue Reading Here

A Writer’s Guide… to Writing a Character with Depression – On Ari Meghlen’s Blog

Ari Meghlen published a fascinating and educational blog post, written by Tobias Salem of writing about a character with depression. I found the post very useful and highly interesting. Thank you Ari and Tobias.

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Since I don’t have a guest post today, I thought I would put in one of the A Writer’s Guide articles I received since this series is going to be put on hold for a while, I wanted to share the last few I had.

This is part of the series of blog articles called “A Writer’s Guide…”. The purpose of this series is to give detailed information on skills and occupations that writers can use when creating characters.

Check out today’s article by writer Tobias Salem is on writing about a character with depression.

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Depression

by Tobias Salem

Writing DEPRESSION

It makes sense that, as writers, we may be expected or feel compelled to include accounts of psychological illnesses in our fiction. Maybe, like me, you are dealing with your own mental illness.

Or, perhaps, it’s your partner, parent, sibling, or child. After all, an estimated 25% of the global population will contend with a mental illness at some point.

Continue Reading Here

Authors: Taking Charge of Our Future in a Time of Uncertainty – Written By Kristen Lamb

Kristen Lamb provides us with an amazing blog post about authors taking charge of our future in a time of uncertainty. Thank you for a great post, Kristen! You’re amazing.

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Authors have certainly endured our fair share of upheaval. We witnessed a business model that had barely changed in over a century collapse in less than a decade.

Many of us felt the initial seismic activity back in the 90s when the big-box stores obliterated the bookstores we’d known all our lives. Witnessed the places we learned to love reading shutter one by one.

Those aisles where we daydreamed that maybe…just maybe one day WE would be on those shelves? Vanished.

We retooled the dream. Imagined our books in large hardback displays in the front of a Barnes & Noble. Or, perhaps on a kiosk next to the coffee bar at a Borders.

Then that went away as well.

Now, thrust into a digital age where anyone can be published and it seems there are too many hats for one head? It’s hard not to get discouraged.

But, writers are a tough breed.

 

CONTINUE READING HERE