Thank you so much, Kristen Lamb, for another educational blog post on how to write stories properly and keep the reader interested. We all appreciate your hard work!
Change is one of those concepts that gets a mixed reaction. Depending on personality and/or age group, change could be welcomed…or greeted with a metaphorical shotgun at the metaphorical door. While change is necessary for all living things to grow and thrive, plants have proven far more open to this notion than people.
I’m betting it’s because plants don’t overthink everything…unless they’re orchids which are high-maintenance and die while writing bad haiku (if they had hands and pen and paper).
Existential plants have a far tougher time, unlike weeds. Weeds just roll with anything that comes their way, and that’s why we can pour concrete over them and it’s no big deal. They simply mumble to the nearby crabgrass, “Hold my beer and watch this!”
*makes crack in new driveway* I’M BAAAAAACK!
All kidding aside, many writers miss the point of a story. Stories are about change, and the more the protagonist (and, to be blunt, all members of the cast) change for good or bad, the better.
Change & Plot
I know what it’s like to have writer brain. We see the world VERY differently than ‘normal’ people. Some see a roll of old carpet at the curb? I’m counting if all family members are present. Just yesterday, I had some fun over on Facebook with this…
Derek Haines writes about starting over and leaving our comfort zone. Thanks a lot for that blog post, Derek. It was very important to me right now.
Change is the only constant in life
Everyone loves to talk about change, but when change happens unexpectedly, it usually means starting over and leaving one of our comfort zones behind us.
It doesn’t matter what the cause is; a relationship, a job or where you live.
When your stability and routine is upset, it can be difficult to know how to start over and find a fresh start.
But when we look back on the changes that have happened in our lives, such as an old job, a previous relationship or where we lived ten years ago, today is better.
It can take time to adapt, but in the end, we generally feel good about the choices and decisions we made.
Change in life is not always easy.
But when it comes to publishing today, making changes is the only way to move ahead.
I realized today when I wanted to share a blog post on my Google+ account that there was a yellow ‘field’ button with the information that my Google+ account will be deleted.
I tried to find out more about the reason and clicked the link, which took me to the following Google-page:
In December 2018, we announced our decision to shut down Google+ for consumers in April 2019 due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations. We want to thank you for being part of Google+ and provide next steps, including how to download your photos and other content.
On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down, and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your Album Archive and your Google+ pages will also be deleted. You can download and save your content, just make sure to do so before April. Note that photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.
The process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, Google+ Pages, and Album Archive will take a few months, and content may remain through this time. For example, users may still see parts of their Google+ account via activity log and some consumer Google+ content may remain visible to G Suite users until consumer Google+ is deleted.
As early as February 4th, you will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities or events. See the full FAQ for more details and updates leading up to the shutdown.
If you’re a Google+ Community owner or moderator, you may download and save your data for your Google+ Community. Starting early March 2019, additional data will be available for download, including author, body, and photos for every community post in a public community. Learn more
If you sign in to sites and apps using the Google+ Sign-in button, these buttons will stop working in the coming weeks but in some cases may be replaced by a Google Sign-in button. You’ll still be able to sign in with your Google Account wherever you see Google Sign-in buttons. Learn more
If you’ve used Google+ for comments on your own or other sites, this feature will be removed from Blogger by February 4th and other sites by March 7th. All your Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted starting April 2, 2019. Learn more
If you’re a G Suite customer, Google+ for your G Suite account should remain active. Contact your G Suite administrator for more details. You can also expect a new look and new features soon. Learn more
If you’re a developer using Google+ APIs or Google+ Sign-in, click here to see how this will impact you.
From all of us on the Google+ team, thank you for making Google+ such a special place. We are grateful for the talented group of artists, community builders, and thought leaders who made Google+ their home. It would not have been the same without your passion and dedication. (Source: https://support.google.com/plus/answer/9195133?hl=en&authuser=0)
More information I got from the following three websites:
AndroidPolice.com writes:
Google announced its plans to sunset its Google+ social media network for consumers on a sour note in October. The platform, which has a small but dedicated user-base, decided to shut down following Google’s acknowledgment of a data exposure that affected up to 500,000 Google+ profiles. Shortly after, in December, the shutdown timeline was expedited due to another, larger bug that had the potential to reveal private user information and impacted approximately 52.5 million users. Now, the company has detailed its shutdown timeline for the consumer version of Google+ — and it’s not wasting any time. Click the link below to read the entire post. (Source: https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/01/30/google-reveals-shutdown-timeline-for-consumers-and-its-coming-fast/)
ArsTechnica.com writes:
The latest beleaguered Google product to get a death date is Google+. Google’s controversial Facebook clone is shutting down on April 2. Google has been backing away from the service for years, but it gave the site a death sentence in October after revelations of a data leak were made public. Now we have a concrete shutdown date for the service.
Google’s support page details exactly how the G+ shutdown will go down, and it’s not just freezing posts on the site. The whole site will be taken down, and everything will be deleted. “On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down, and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts,” the page reads.
The whole deletion process sounds brutal. It won’t just be the entire Google+ site that will be scrubbed from the Internet—Google+-powered comments on Blogger and other third-party sites will all be deleted, too. Users of Google+ have until April to download and save everything themselves, which they can do via this page. To read the entire post click the link below: (Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/google-shuts-down-april-2-all-data-will-be-deleted/)
DigitalTrends.com writes:
After a security vulnerability impacted more than 500,000 of its users, Google announced in late 2018 that it would be shuttering the Google + social network. Now several months later, it is providing an update on the shutdown, noting that after April 2 all content on the platform will be deleted.
Though the date is still a couple months away, Google is warning that starting April 2, all Google+ pages will be removed. Content from personal Google+ accounts will also be deleted on the date, including photos and videos from Google+ in Album Archives. In the meantime, an archive of all your important information and specific data from the social network can still be downloaded easily According to Google, the full deletion process will take a few months, and some Google+ content might remain visible to G Suite users. To read the entire article, click the link below: (Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/google-shutdown-april-2/)
To us, this means, the era Google+ is coming to an end. Whether or not it was a ‘Facebook clone’ as ArsTechnica writes, or why it wasn’t used as much as Google hoped for, at least to us writers the communities were an excellent platform for exchange and networking – and yes, for promotion. April 2, 2019, this will be over. Goodbye, Google+.
This is some hilarious, eye watering example of truth about how women “help a man grow up”. LOL I’m sure you’re going to have as much fun with this as I had. Thanks so much for sharing, Carl D’Agostino!
A loyal reader of my blog asked me yesterday how I added the license widget to my sidebar. Since there might be others who are eventually interested in how to do that, I decided to take the time and publish a step-by-step guide.
Now: Please remember that you might have chosen another theme for your blog. Therefore don’t count on the image dimension or font size that’s given within this guide. These dimensions are for my blog and picture size to match the theme.
All right: Let’s get started:
1. Download the license .jpg to your computer picture library.
2. Go to your WordPress “Admin” Page and click “Appearance”.
3. Then pick “Widgets” and scroll down to “Image”.
4. Click on the “Image” button and drag it up to the sidebar. Place it where you want the license to appear.
5. Click onto the “Image” button to open the widget, by using the “arrow” on the right side.
6. Download the “license” image to your media file and add its URL to the sidebar.
7. After downloading it, you got the “dimension” there which you can change by clicking the “Edit image” button.
8. The URL of the picture you can find direction underneath the “dimensions” on the right side. Copy and paste it into the widget.
9. Add the license text to the “caption” of the sidebar. Adjust it where necessary, insert your name, your blog name and the year.
10. Change the picture size in the widget if necessary. You want it to fit into your blog theme. If you leave it empty, WordPress will adjust the image size and it might be over dimensionally blown up.
11. As soon as you’re done and completed the widget, don’t forget to SAVE your work and close it.
12. Last but not least: Go to your WordPress blog and open it. If done everything right, your Sidebar widget should look similar to this now:
I hope this guide is of any use for new bloggers. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them, either in the comment section or by using the form widget in my sidebar, which will contact my email.
Change is the only constant in life
Everyone loves to talk about change, but when change happens unexpectedly, it usually means starting over and leaving one of our comfort zones behind us.
Writer's Treasure Chest 
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