The most important part of the package is, of course, it’s intuitiveness. The software could be the most amazing you’ve seen – but without being able to actually use it, it’s worth nothing! Before selecting a provider for the ezine, be certain to try different packages out.

With spamming and hacking being an issue online, protection should be your next main consideration after you’ve made an online publication. Is the account protected? Can individuals just copy and paste your content or has the digital publishing software supplier protection in place peventing these things? Is your content made safe by the publishing software vendor from copy-pasting by readers?

The business plan needs to be considered to promote your ezine. Whatever your business plan may look like, you will should think about such things: maybe not for each individual issue but rather for your company in its entirety. What use are you making of modern media? How are you treating ads? Selling the ezine will likely need search engine optimized content. Will your content just be freely available? You could think whether you can offer multiple and single copy subscriptions. Will the content be commercialized ? How about providing summaries to market your digital publication? How available is your newspaper? Is it private: in which case you can look into all your hosting possibilities or will it be public? You will probably be better hosting directly. What’ll you be doing with back-isues?

And before it actually becomes necessary, ypu’ll want to consider some possibly critical situations. What about the tech-support? How is their FAQ page? Is there useful information to fix things which you can actually follow? If a response time isn’t published ask about it. How well-manned is their tech-support line or email address? This is admittedly a case of last-not-least consideration. You determine the achievement of your e-publication by opting for the best software package vendor. Success follows cautious choice.

If you boil down to one factor what it was that moved you what would that be?

Well likely that the speaker was appealing to you as a human being, that is to your emotional heart. He/She likely awakened the emotions of passion that live in your heart and this is what you then felt erupting out of your chest and flowing throughout your entire being.

What does it take to become such a powerful speaker?

Well quite simply it requires that you, as a speaker speak from the heart!

In other words allow yourself to feel, be inspired and guided by what you genuinely feel in the core of your being.

Now this is not an easy thing to do for several reasons:

1. Most speakers attempt to structure their talks around a well laid out “mental plan” that has nothing to do with the emotional heart.

2. Many speakers are uncomfortable with feeling let alone displaying their emotions in public.

3. There is a huge fear of letting one’s self be guided by something that most of society considers fickle, untrustworthy, impulsive, illogical etc.

So how can you deliver an impassioned speech if you’re not even feeling the source of that passion yourself? Well pure and simple, you can’t!

That relegates your talk to one that is perceived as rigid, flat, boring, dry, uninteresting, forgettable, soporific, and not persuasive and so on.

In order to speak passionately it therefore becomes necessary for you to begin to feel comfortable relying on your core human self or your emotional heart.

Now as I said many individuals are uncomfortable with this largely because during their lives they became conditioned not to feel, express or trust their feelings. The result is that many became what I call “emotionally impaired”.

The impairment, which is the cumulative storage of years of negative conditioned beliefs that they carry within, can now be reversed easily, quickly, painlessly and permanently with a new modality I call the Mind Resonance Process(TM) (MRP).

MRP has the capacity to bring the mind and body to the service of the emotional and passionate heart.

Another way of saying this is that it will unleash the passionate charismatic speaker that lives and has always lived inside you.

If you would like to embark on this journey kindly visit the web link below and arrange an Introductory Telephone Consultation or join my Public Speaking Telelclass.

Dr. Nick Arrizza is trained in Chemical Engineering, Business Management & Leadership, Medicine and Psychiatry. He is an Energy Psychiatrist, Healer, Key Note Speaker,Editor of a New Ezine Called “Spirituality And Science” (which is requesting high quality article submissions) Author of “Esteem for the Self: A Manual for Personal Transformation” (available in ebook format on his web site), Stress Management Coach, Peak Performance Coach & Energy Medicine Researcher, Specializes in Life and Executive Performance Coaching, is the Developer of a powerful new tool called the Mind Resonance Process(TM) that helps build physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well being by helping to permanently release negative beliefs, emotions, perceptions and memories. He holds live workshops, international telephone coaching sessions and international teleconference workshops on Physical. Emotional, Mental and Spiritual Well Being.

Web Site: http://www.telecoaching4u.com/PublicSpeaking.htm

This has really happened to me…

As a technology geek and yes I will call myself a geek cause that is what I am, I often write articles on technology subjects like how to use excel, how to build webpages, etc. However, when I submitted my articles to five article directories recently I found some really disturbing aspects to the way they do business and present my articles. One of the most disturbing issues was that if you had any domain names or links in either your webpage or in your Author Bio they stripped them out. If you had used keywords in your Hypertext, they removed your links and substituted their own to your competitions website. See, it seems some article directories are now using your work to advertise other people services within your articles.

When I saw this for the first time, I was flabbergasted. Not just because somebody else was using my work and saying that it was their, but more so, they were using my keywords to hijack my back links back to my website to my competitors. I had also found from these five article directories that they had licensed my work to others, so that they could put their names on my articles.

This one issue alone opens up a plethora of issues with Google, MSN, AOL and Yahoo?

The entire search engines above frown on duplicate material on websites and by somebody using your material without permission you could find that anyone of these Search Engines could ban your site. The really scary aspect to this is that you are not responsible for this and it really is a form of identity theft and more copyright infringement.

For all except one of the directories, I was able to overcome this problem by simply going in and deleting the articles to reclaim my work and stop my competitors from stealing my work but one of the directories did not have the capabilities to do this.

So from my experience I have written five mandatory questions you should be asking your directories so that this does not happen to you!

Q1. Do I Own The Rights To My Articles?

This seems pretty straight forward but I have found in the fine print of some article directory sites, it will say that by submitting your article to this directory that you agree that the directory now owns the intellectual property of this article. If you find that, then my recommendation is to run. Most quality directories do require you to give them a non-exclusive license to reprint or reuse or redistribute your article and this is quite acceptable as this is what you want, but you do not at any stage want to lose your rights to your articles, especially if you are not getting paid for it.

Q2. Can I Pre-format My Article with HTML

Some directory articles have rules that prevent you from including HTML in your article. What this means in many cases is that you cannot format the article the way you want. This can be a major problem for you if you have bulleted lists or numbered lists as you can sometimes find these lists are all on one line or not properly formatted.

I have even seen situations where, I have submitted articles to this type of article directory only to find that all my paragraphs are lumped together and the articles look terrible. The bottom line is this, select your article submission directories carefully and make sure you can pre-format the article in HTML. I should note that there are now many Article Submission directories that allow you to enter articles with full html including pictures.

Q3. Are You Going To Sell or Provide My Email Address To A Third Party?

Everyone that I know hates spam. Me in particular, especially since I get around 1,000 spam emails everyday! Be very careful though, some article directories have written into their operating agreements that they can pass your email address onto third-parties. This means, they could sell or supply your email address to anyone. Most article directories that I deal with, have very strict policies on protecting your privacy and your emails but some article directories automatically put your email address up on the article with your name.

This is as big a problem as someone actually selling your email address, as some spammers use tools called mail bots or email bots that look for the html tag mailto and then pickup the email address after that html tag. This is a big problem for all of us, as this means the spammers know they have a valid email address, so ensure when you are choosing an article directory that they do not sell or provide your email address to any third party plus that they do not put your email address on the page your article is on.

If you are not sure, have a look at some of the articles in the article directory as that will give you a pretty good indication as to the way the articles and email addresses will be handled.

Q4. Do You Allow Hyperlinks or Domain Names in your Article Or Author/Bio Line?

The whole reason for you or I writing articles is so that we can get our work published onto the internet and promote our business whether it be through back links or from people reading your article and then deciding to visit your website. If you are not writing articles for this reason, then I hope you are getting paid a lot of money cause if you are not getting links back to your website, then you will not get any traffic.

There are some article directories that do not allow hyperlinks in the main body of the webpage, where as others do allow it on special occasions. Some article directories do not even allow hyperlinks in the Author/Bio Line which as far as I am concerned means you may as well go elsewhere because if you are not getting at least a domain name shown in the Author/Bio Line then how are people going to know where your site is. If you are selecting an Article directory, make sure in their writing rules area that it specifies that even if you can have an active domain link, that you can at least have an inactive domain link or web address link.

A sample of an inactive domain link is shown to the right – http://www.1-on-1.biz

What this means is that the reader of your article at the very least can see your domain and can copy and paste your domain into the address section of the browser. You certainly will not get as many people visiting your website if you are using inactive domain links in the Author Bio area but at least if people really want to see what you have to offer they can get there relatively easily.

Remember one thing, the human race inherently lazy so if you do not make things as easy as possible your sales will never soar.

Q5. Do You Allow Hypertext Links in your Author/Bio Line?

A Hypertext link is one of the most important links on an article page. Essentially what this type of link is, is where a person will see normal text but when they click on the text it will take them to a particular webpage. For example I have included a Hypertext Link below -

How to Profit from a Direct Sales Website

I have written the code for the link below. Note that I have substituted the < > for [ ] brackets simply for this article.

[a href="http://www.1-on-1.biz/dms.asp"] How to Profit from a Direct Sales Website[/a]

The link is shown in the a href section and the text “How To Profit from a Direct Sales Website” is the Hypertext. The reason it is important for us to structure our links in this way as it tells the search engines that that page is related to those keywords. The more times a search engine finds those keywords and links on different websites, the more points you will accumulate for that page, and the higher the likelihood that search engine will rank you high when people use those key terms. I will say though, that SEO technology is more involved than just that one issue, but it is certainly an important issue that can make the difference to your webpage being at the top of the search engine results or at the bottom.

What I mentioned at the start of the article was that 5 article directories I was submitting articles to were keyword hijacking my articles. Essentially when they were presenting my articles in the directory, all my links in the author bio line that contain the “a href” section were dropped and changed to my competitors simply because my competitors had paid for that service. Ultimately, when a user was to click on my keywords and my Author BIO line they were going to my competitors which I consider a dirty tactic. Keyword hijacking degrades an article directory because eventually the article writers wake up to this issue and simply cease putting articles into the directory and the quality of the directory will die off so all I can say to those article directories that are doing this, I hope that you are making lots of money, because this technique is not going to last.

The bottom line is this, if you are trying to build your sites traffic, then you are better off spending your time submitting articles to those article directories that allow you to use HYPERTEXT in the Author Bio lines. Very few that I know will let your get away with that in the main article and to be honest, it can actually get you banned from the article directory.

To finish off …

Let us be frank here, it takes a lot of work to build successful websites and it takes even a lot more to write high quality articles, so why would you want to short change yourself by submitting your articles to article directories that do not want to work as equal partners, because remember that whilst you are writing quality articles for the article directories, you are helping them build traffic to their website and build their PR ranking with Google. Both you and the article directory are in fact benefiting from your work.

Look the bottom line is this … make sure you check out and tick off each of these questions -

Q1. Do I Own The Rights To My Articles?
Q2. Can I Pre-format My Article with HTML
Q3. Are You Going To Sell or Provide My Email Address To A Third Party?
Q4. Do You Allow Hyperlinks or Domain Names in your Article Or Author/Bio Line?
Q5. Do You Allow Hypertext Links in your Author/Bio Line?

White Paper Format:

A white paper is generally ten pages in length including the covers. The paper should contain the following information:

Page One – Title page that includes in large type the title of the paper, in smaller type the name of the author, the name of the company, and the date.

Page two – The next page should contain all the copyright information

Page three- The Introduction to the company producing the paper including a very brief description on the services offered. The Introduction should also include a description of what is contained in the paper.

Page four to page eight – The body of the paper. This should be written in a format that gives the reader at least seven major points.

Page nine – The Conclusion

Page ten – The Back Cover – could contain ordering information for additional papers, books, seminars or similar items. This should be brief and to the point. If you overdo this page, the paper will not get read.

If you keep your white paper very simple in nature yet very informative, you may receive requests for more information.

Bette Daoust, Ph.D. has been networking with others since leaving high school years ago. Realizing that no one really cared about what she did in life unless she had someone to tell and excite. She decided to find the best ways to get people’s attention, be creative in how she presented herself and products, getting people to know who she was, and being visible all the time. Her friends and colleagues have often dubbed her the “Networking Queen”. Blueprints for Success – Networking: 150 ways to promote yourself is the first in this series. Blueprints for Success Branding Yourself: Another 150 ways to promote yourself is planned for release in 2006. For more information visit http://www.BlueprintBooks.com

The Hero’s Journey:

Attempts to tap into unconscious expectations the audience has regarding what a story is and how it should be told.

Gives the writer more structural elements than simply three or four acts, plot points, mid point and so on.

Interpreted metaphorically, laterally and symbolically, allows an infinite number of varied stories to be created.

The Hero’s Journey is also a study of repeating patterns in successful stories and screenplays. It is compelling that screenwriters have a higher probability of producing quality work when they mirror the recurring patterns found in successful screenplays.

Consider this:

• Titanic (1997) grossed over $600,000,000 – uses the Hero’s Journey as a template.

• Star Wars (1977) grossed over $460,000,000 – uses the Hero’s Journey as a template.

• Shrek 2 (2004) grossed over $436,000,000 – uses the Hero’s Journey as a template.

• ET (1982) grossed over $434,000,000 – uses the Hero’s Journey as a template.

• Spiderman (2002) grossed over $432,000,000 – uses the Hero’s Journey as a template.

• Out of Africa (1985), Terms of Endearment (1983), Dances with Wolves (1990), Gladiator (2000) – All Academy Award Winners Best Film are based on the Hero’s Journey.

• Anti-hero stories (Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990) etc) are all based on the Hero’s Journey.

• Heroine’s Journey stories (Million Dollar Baby (2004), Out of Africa (1980) etc) are all based on the Hero’s Journey.

Proactive Transformation

One element of the transformation (also known as the Road of Trials) is the hero’s proactive nature. Whilst s/he may be initially reluctant, when the time comes, the hero must be proactive in order to learn or gain that what must be gained or learned. Often there is some form of trigger that pushes the hero from reluctance to engagement.

In Gladiator (2000), Maximus is initially reluctant to train as a gladiator. However, Proximo forces him into the arena, from which point on he forces his way through the learning experience.

In Lord of War (2005), the transformation stage is where Yuri, until then reluctant to pursue Ava, proactively sets out to woo her.

In Million Dollar Baby (2004), the transformation stage is where both Maggie and Frankie proactively set out to ensure that Maggie improves.

Learn more…

The Complete 188 stage Hero’s Journey and FREE 17 stage sample and other story structure templates can be found at http://managing-creativity.com/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

**********************************

You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. His specialities include Knowledge Management and Creativity and Innovation Management. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached at http://managing-creativity.com/

1. It’s Easier to Impress

Editor says…

“I really don’t mind new writers at all. If you’re new and act professionally, I’m usually willing to give you a go. I’d suggest that new writers just be honest about who they are.

If I get a fairly good article by a new writer, I’ll be impressed. To me, that’s my chance to discover new talent. That’s when I’ll contact the writer and try to help them. If I get a fairly good article by a new writer pretending to be an experienced writer, I will probably just issue a standard rejection.” -Evelyn, Magazine Editor

If you claim to be a professional and experienced writer, an editor is likely to expect a lot. That means it will take a lot to really impress them. Even a good article might not be enough to get their attention. But if you tell the truth and admit that you’re a new writer, it takes a lot less to impress. A new writer with a professional approach is something special – just sending a professional quality submission might even be enough to impress.

2. There’s Room to Grow

Editor says…

“When I get a good article from a new writer, I’m always very happy. Why? Because new writers with the right skills and attitude are wonderful for our magazine. They can be shaped to suit our style, they listen to instructions, they usually have a positive attitude. That’s the kind of writer I like to take on and mentor.” -Stephanie, Magazine Editor

If an editor knows that you’re a new writer, you’re giving them the chance to spot new talent. If you’re new and right for their publication, you might be taken in and mentored until you suit their style.

The same isn’t likely to happen if the editor thinks that you’re experienced. Instead of looking at your work and thinking that it shows potential, they’ll be assuming it’s the best that you can do.

3. Anything Else, And You Risk Losing Their Interest

Editor says…

“I would tell writers to be careful if they’re going to exaggerate. I know everyone does it on resumes. But if someone claims to have been a writer for twenty years and is pitching my low-paying mag, I’m going to wonder two things. First, I’m going to wonder if they’re lying. Second, I’m going to wonder why they’re not working for a higher paying magazine if they really have that much experience. If they’re not lying, then I have to assume that they’re just a bad writer. Either way, it doesn’t look good for them.” – Danielle, Magazine Editor

If you’re a new writer, you need to be targeting the right kinds of markets. And if you are targeting small markets, claiming years of experience is only going to make editors suspicious.

4. Attitude Matters

Editor says…

“It’s simple. Many seasoned writers pitching me have a bit of an attitude, a hint of suspicion, and often a streak of boredom. Fresh writers pitching me tend to have nothing but positive energy and enthusiasm. I’ll take the enthusiastic writer, please.” -Sam, Editor

If you can’t go in with experience, go in with enthusiasm. That might be the big advantage that gets you the job.

Shelley Ann Wake is the editor of 30 Clips in 30 Days: A Crash Course in Getting Published and Getting Published Without Clips. These practical guides don’t muck around – they deliver the inside information and the proven methods that will get you published for pay and on your way to a successful writing career. If you have the will and the skill, these books have the way! Link: http://www.writingstuff.com/books1.html

It didn’t used to be so bad. The neighborhood was a safe place when she was born here but now, three kids later, a lot more people had moved in and they weren’t good neighbors. Some of them were downright evil and she made a point to try and make herself invisible when she saw one of them coming.

Usually the bad ones were pretty easy to spot. They were bawdy, smelled of alcohol and cigarettes and drove noisy trucks with beds full of howling, chained dogs. As long as she kept to the shadows they were usually too drunk to notice her. As she quietly sang her babies a lullaby she shuddered at the thought of what would happen if one of these barbarians found her children alone.she couldn’t think about that; she had work to do and she had to keep her mind on the job. The family was counting on her.

When the last of the little ones had drifted off to sleep she stepped out into the moonlit chill. She was still trying to shake off the awful scenes that her imagination had just conjured up when she stepped on a twig, snapping her attention into the moment. As she looked up she found that she had caught someone else’s attention as well. She froze, hope against hope that she had not been noticed, but he was close enough she could see in his eyes that she had made a fatal mistake.

Her mind raced as she assessed the severity of the situation: He was big. He towered over her and she could smell the beer on his breath. She didn’t have to see the gun pointed at her to sense his lack of respect for life. She knew his kind and had witnessed the cavalier way they extinguished lives in their lust for blood. They killed the innocent and the unarmed to prove that they were men. He was too close. If she ran he would find the kids. Her love, a mother’s love, would not even think of saving herself and leaving her young ones in the hands of such a perverted mind.

But what could she do? Perhaps she could bluff her way out of this. She had learned enough about this kind of man to know that they are all cowards at heart. If she could make herself look fierce enough perhaps he would run. If he did, she resolved that home or no home, she would pack up her brood and leave town in the very next instant.

With all of the courage she could muster she raised her slender, 100 lb frame to look as commanding as she could and shrieked, with a sound that would make your blood run cold, her threats of what she would do if he came one step closer.

Laughing at her pathetic attempt to deter him, he fired the gun point blank into her. The impact at such close range spun her around and he fired again, dropping her dead on the spot. He didn’t see a single mom doing her best to raise a family in a hostile world.

All he saw was what a trophy her head would be hanging on his wall.

Pulling out his knife to sever her golden haired head from her shattered, bleeding corpse, he barely heard the mewing through his gleeful stupor.

The gun blasts had awakened her three sleeping kittens. Their eyes weren’t quite open yet, because they were less than two weeks old, and they could barely focus on the scene. What a horrible sight to be one of the first that these young innocents would ever see! Any right thinking person would be appalled to consider the horror that these little ones must have been experiencing, but the hunter didn’t think anything of it.

In fact, he was even happier at the thought of being able to raid this nest. His Neanderthal, pea sized brain was musing over how cool it was going to be to have three mountain lions on leashes. He would raise them with the dogs; maybe drown some of the bitches’ puppies so she could feed his little prizes for him. Then wouldn’t he be the center of attention? Women would probably do anything for him just to get a chance to pet his new cougar cubs. He would be the envy of his drinking buddies when he had the biggest, baddest pets in town.

He would have been singing all the way home with his new little pets in a bag and their mother’s head in the back seat if it weren’t for one of the babies who was crying hysterically. He pulled over, and in the drizzling, icy rain tossed out the crybaby by the side of the road near a farm house.

By the next day he had sobered up enough to see that raising two mountain lion cubs was not as easy as raising a couple of hunting dogs. The babies cried incessantly for their mother. They refused to eat. They were sick with grief and fear and wanted no part of this man and the lifestyle he had envisioned. Being the coward their mother had thought him to be, he had a relative turn the cubs in to the Idaho Fish and Game Department. He claimed that he had killed the nursing mother in self defense and no charges were pressed.

Just the night before the officers had gotten a call from a man who found a screaming baby puma on his front porch. When he asked what he should do for the kitten, the officers told him to leave it outside to die. Unwilling to treat any living creature so heartlessly, the man took the baby in and tried to offer food and comfort to no avail.

To spare the infant’s life the kindly farmer contacted the press with the story and once the news was out that the cub was to be left to die, the Fish and Game Department decided to pick up the kitten and place him and his two siblings, that had come in from the hunter’s family, with Mady Rothchild, a licensed wildlife rehabilitator working with the Animals In Distress Association. Now they were her problem and to make matters worse she was instructed to find a zoo that would take them or they would have to be killed because big cats are not allowed to go back to the wild in Idaho once they have been handled by humans. It might make hunting a dangerous sport if the hunted were not afraid of the hunter.

With twenty years experience in rescuing wildlife and returning them to their rightful home, Mady did not like the alternatives presented to her. She knew the dirty little secrets the zoos hid from the public and knew that if these siblings went to a zoo they would be used, split up and bred for more babies who would live out their lives in prison cells. When they didn’t attract a paying crowd anymore they would be sold out the back door to brokers who would sell them at auction to back yard breeders and canned hunts.

It is legal to kill a cougar in a cage in the U.S. and call it sport hunting. It is the only way most hunters would ever be able to hang a big cat head on their walls and they have viciously fought to protect their right to do so in the name of freedom. They don’t get much opposition from the public, because in most states the Fish and Game departments are staffed by hunters so there is a code of silence that is hard to penetrate. The zoos, an industry that proclaims to be the ark of the future, doesn’t want to talk about it either. No one would support a zoo if they knew what happened to last year’s babies and babies are what pay for all of the salaries.

Mady went online to see if there were any alternatives to zoos or death for these little ones. She found Big Cat Rescue online and played a slideshow that contrasted the legacy these magnificent animals were born to inherit and the pitiful prisons they are confined to when man intervenes. She concluded that there are some things worse than death and sending these cougar cubs to a zoo was one of them. But how could she snuff out the life from these newborns when they had already endured so much? She called and emailed the sanctuary with her story.

Scott Lope is the operations manager for Big Cat Rescue and knows that providing for the 150 big cats at the sanctuary is the primary task. He knows that hundreds of big cats are turned away every year because there just isn’t enough room and not enough resources to commit to a lifetime of care. He knows that the only way to stop the flood of unwanted exotic cats is to change the laws so that the breeding and dealing stops. He knows that every cat who is turned away was a victim and deserving of shelter and he knows that the fate that awaits them outside our gates will be tragic, so he approaches the Founder, Carole Baskin and President, Jamie Veronica and asks them to consider the situation.

It would appear that agreeing to take them would be an easy choice; they’re cute, they’re small and no one wants to be the one to say, “Go ahead and kill them.” But it is never that simple. How do you choose these over any other? When your main goal is to stop the flood of cats in the front gate how do you divert time and resources to building them an enclosure fit for three adult mountain lions? When the plan is to stop the breeding and selling of big cats so that twenty years from now there is no need for a place like Big Cat Rescue, how do you commit to provide lifetime care to cats who could live as long as Scratch, our 28 year old cougar?

And what about the quality of life for the kittens? While life at Big Cat Rescue would far exceed the quality of life in any zoo, it is still life in a cage for animals who have been selectively bred, through survival of the fittest, for life in the wild. They would be paying the ultimate price for this choice and Mady and Carole wrestled with this aspect because both of them wanted what would be best for the individual cats and best for the species, when these are usually mutually exclusive propositions.

During the emailed conversations between Mady and Carole their lives were continuing down the same paths as usual. Mady was pulling pets and wildlife from steel jawed traps and treating their mangled bodies. Carole was dealing with a hurricane demolished collection of 38 cats in Miami , and an owner who had ended up with a collapsed lung from trying to do all the clean up alone. His cats hadn’t eaten in a week, all the food was gone, no one knew if he was going to survive, or if there was power to run a freezers or wells, or if the cats had broken free when the trees all crashed down on their cages. .Life as usual for those left to clean up the messes caused by the irresponsible.

The cubs’ fate was decided for them and while that isn’t the way it should have been, it was a decision that had to be made for them due to the actions of others. Mady and Carole believed that if these adorable, blue eyed orphans could cause enough people to stop for a minute and THINK then perhaps the kittens would have chosen this path to save their cousins from a similar destiny. Their story would be told and their mother’s death would not have been in vain.

For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 150 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.920.4130 fax 885.4457 cell 493.4564
http://www.BigCatRescue.org MakeADifference@BigCatRescue.org

(This article may be freely published with author’s information intact.)

One morning, I decided to sleep late for a change. I stumbled out of bed at 10:00, not my usual 7:00, and fired up the computer. Little did I know what I’d find in my mailbox on this particular morning.

The first thing I saw was about a dozen people congratulating me for something. I opened an email at random, and it didn’t say why I was being congratulated.

Meanwhile, my other mailbox opened in a different window. It informed me that 39 people had joined my newsletter mailing list since the previous night. A dozen more congratulations waited for me there. I opened one up, and again there was no reason.

Instead of continuing, I played a hunch. I logged onto my publisher’s website, and there it was. VIGILANTE JUSTICE. While I was sleeping, my first novel was published. (There’s a 16-hour time difference between my home in Hong Kong and my publisher’s office.)

I checked out the VIGILANTE JUSTICE web page — my web page — and was astounded once more by the book cover. The music, which I’d never heard before, captured the mood of the book perfectly. For a long moment, I simply basked in the feeling. Published at last.

If someone had told me one year ago that I’d be publishing four books this year, I’d have called him an eejit.

The last time I was published, not counting VIGILANTE JUSTICE, was twelve years ago, and that doesn’t count because I paid someone to do it. I’d long since given up on getting published again. In fact, I doubted I’d ever write again.

By now you may wonder how I made it from Point A to Point B. Or for that matter, why I stopped writing.

The second part is simple. I was chasing money, becoming a high-powered businessman and losing myself. The first part is a little more difficult to explain.

In December 1999, I flew to Hong Kong for a vacation. The first vacation in my life, really. I intended to stay for a month, but I never left. Instead, I married an Australian who teaches English over here. I quit my job in North Carolina by email, though I still maintain my former employer’s website. I love the Internet.

I found myself unable to work in this country. So what was I to do with my time? I dusted off a childhood dream and resumed writing.

I had a slush pile full of old short stories, and I ran them through the on-line writing workshops. There are two parts to writing — story and structure. I wasn’t changing my stories — they came from me and were what I wanted to write — but my style was pathetic. Style is also the part that can be learned. So I did.

Then came something that amazed me. New stories. Just mixing with the “writing culture” got my creative juices flowing again. After all those years. Better than ever, in fact.

Next, I published them. Between March and December 2000, I published twenty stories in twenty different e-zines. I only made $6, but I was padding my resume. I believed that I had a short story anthology in me, and I’d decided to try e-publishing it. I felt I needed a “track record,” so I got one.

I also had a novel in my slush pile, the one new thing I wrote in the nineties. A gripping imaginative story, badly told. But I’d finally learned about the craft, the structure, and the hard work that comes after that original flash of inspiration.

You see where I’m leading by now. I wrote two new novels, and signed contracts to publish all three novels plus the new short story collection in 2001.

It’s a common sight among new writers, and really it’s a bit sad. People who have the story — the part that can’t be learned — but tell it badly. They rush in on the adrenaline high that all authors know so well, then get rejected and give up.

What defines a great story? That depends on which reader you ask. If you’re writing a story that moves you, someone somewhere with similar tastes will like it. Some stories will be more popular than others, but every story will be considered great by someone. But if it’s badly written, the reader will simply put the book down and read something else.

As a teenaged author, gathering up enough rejection slips to wallpaper the room, I didn’t give up. I just got arrogant and decided “You don’t understand me, ya eejit.” That’s no solution either. Nor is paying to be published.

Nope, if you want to get published, learn how to tell your story. Spelling, grammar, punctuation, pacing, dialogue… all that stuff that you may have slept through in high school will become second nature with enough practice.

I did quite well in high school English, by the way, but it’s not like they taught pacing and dialogue and real story-telling there. To learn that, you’ve gotta read. But that’s no problem for an author. If you don’t enjoy reading, I don’t think you can write something that others will enjoy reading.

Also, you must listen to the criticisms. Accept some and reject others, but always listen. I believe the Internet makes it much easier to get those criticisms.

I work as an editor now, and one of my authors told me that he sees movies inside his head. It shows in his writing! I don’t write that way, unfortunately, but I still know how he feels. When “the Muse” pays me a visit, I’ve gotta write it down as fast as it comes to me. That’s the one part that can’t be packaged, taught or mass-produced. That part comes from you, the author, and no one else can do it the way that you do.

Kurt Vonnegut, whose works I greatly admire, writes one sentence at a time, and makes each one perfect before he begins the next. But I don’t write like that, nor do most of the authors I know. We just let it fly, then go back and fix it later.

But if you don’t want to get published, don’t go back and fix it. Pass that raw copy around to your friends and family and let them tell you how wonderful it is for fear of hurting your feelings. Then send it to the publishers and collect the rejection letters. That’s what I did “in my younger days,” and I wasn’t published.

It took me twenty years to learn my lesson. It would genuinely make me feel good to hear that most writers aren’t taking quite so long.

Oh, and when the day comes that you finally are published, it’s best not to sleep until 11:00 PM Eastern Standard Time and hear about it in the wonderful but chaotic way that I did. (Not that you can know what day that’ll be.) I barely had time to bask in the moment before I had to fire up the publicity machine and see how many copies I could sell.

I’m very proud of VIGILANTE JUSTICE, by the way, and not just because it’s an EPPIE 2002 finalist in the Thriller category. I wrote what I like to read; something that says what I want to say, and my readers are genuinely enjoying it. That’s why I write.

About the Author

Michael is an American living in Hong Kong. He has been working as a full-time author for over two years and as an editor for over a year. He has 4 novels scheduled for publication. He’s proud of the fact that he rarely writes in the same genre twice. One of his novels is an EPPIE 2002 in the Thriller category. His website is at http://free_reads.tripod.com.

Because of the obvious differences of season times, the changes that occur in the transitional period (from winter hibernation to summer) can be easily watched and registered.

As we have started our observations in February, we already have been able to see the weather and nature changes. As the temperature increased, the snow melted and the flora awaked from hibernation. Even so that the soil was yellowish and there was no grass the trees began to change. The buds on the trees were getting bigger, and their dark color was a confirmation of metabolism that started when temperature became stable above freezing. As it was noticed this process of preparation lasted for a month and only in early March obvious changes began to occur. The explanation is not just the increased temperature but sunny and longer days. As it’s known the sun light is essential for growth because it stimulates the process of photosynthesis in plants that is essential for growth. These changes also promoted changes in the wild life. With the warmer days not only green grass and leaves began to appear but also animals and insects as well.

As we see the connection of all the species in the wild nature stimulates and makes to awake one another. With getting warm as the flora began to awake and the increase of sun light the insects began to appear because they depend upon flora in their nutrition habits, that stimulated the activity of bigger animals from frogs and other amphibians to different mammals as squirrels, mice and raccoons.

Moreover as the weather became warmer and stable the local nature surrounding enriched by some migrating species as turkey vultures, European starlings and others.

As we observe biological diversity in the forest we do also admire and amaze by the ways that this entire species adopted for the environment. It’s not just enough to mention that they go into hibernation in winter time, when the vegetation is impossible because of unfavorable climate conditions, but also it’s interesting to observe the ways that wild species adopted for the environment. Vine plants as ivy use other trees to climb and get the lack of sunlight and use trees as the sources of their nutrition, other plants have different types of leaves and structure that helps then to adapt to the lack of sun and to be protected from animals by some kinds of thorns. Living creatures use mimicry to survive in the environment. Basically it’s the color of the body and ability to pour in the surrounding to be invisible for predators. Most of mammals as mice, squirrels and other animals change their body color to be invisible in the environment for their animals.

Most of species have anatomical particularities that help them in hunting. For example frog has sticky tongue, which it uses in hunting the mosquitoes and other insects. Squirrels that eat mostly vegetative food have strong and big teeth for breaking nuts.

Another way of adaptation is socialization. To the difference to many other species, wasps and hornet live in colonies, with every member having his own duties. They settle in nests which are done from different materials basically pieces of grass, leaves and tree’s bark which they glue with saliva. Wasps, hornets and bumble-bees have a good protection against their enemies it’s their sting. To the difference to bees they don’t die after they sting but are able to use their sting while alive.

A good example of adaptation to the environment of the wood is a raccoon (procyon iotor), which is spread in the most part s of the USA and in the northern parts of Mexico. Raccoons are mostly settled in the woods and rarely live far way from water resources. They are mostly active at night time and that’s why are seldom noticed at daytime. In the cold period of the year they make holes, mostly for sleeping, rest and hiding from danger, but they don’t go into hibernation during winter time. Most of their food is grapes, berries, insects or crayfish, they seldom hunt bigger species. Raccoons can be also thought to be one of the most successfully adopted animals in the urban life, using drain systems to move unnoticed. Raccoons have five toes on their feet which are very helpful for climbing trees and hunting, moreover the most highly developed sense that raccoon has is the sense of touch.

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So what’s the process? First, get an agent. And yes, to anyone who has tried, that is easier said than done. Like most people in the publishing business, agents are very busy, overwhelmed even by the sheer number of requests for their services. But considering the large, well-known publishing houses deal almost exclusively with agents, it’s in your best interest to keep looking until you find one. Many of the larger publishing houses will not look at anything that is not submitted by an agent. A good agent will help you prepare your work and put together a proposal targeted to editors that deal specifically with your genre of work. Like agents, editors are equally, if not more so, bombarded with submissions everyday. The sad truth is that as a first-time writer, even if you find a good agent, and that agent is successful in getting your work in front of an editor, the chance of it getting attention is still pretty slim. Traditional publishers deal with what they feel will sell. Unless you have something that screams success, or are already well known publicly, it will be tough even for an agent to convince major editors to take a look at your work.

What’s the point then? Is there hope? Of course there is, and that’s the beauty of the system. While the larger publishing houses rely, even demand that your work be submitted through an agent, many of the smaller publishers and more specialized houses do not. In fact, they pay close attention to unsolicited manuscripts as well as those submitted directly from authors. Even better news for the first-timer is that many of the small, independent and medium sized publishers are among the best in the business. Do your homework. Look at publishing alternatives with small, local publishers. Learn what their requirements are and compare your work to titles they have already published. If it’s a match, then you have a good shot.

Then why would anyone go through the trouble of finding an agent first? The simple answer is experience. Quite simply, agents know the business. You, as a first time author, probably do not. An agent will, most likely, have more bargaining power, knowledge of how the system works, and the ability to command a better deal at closing than you. So while we know that it is not always necessary to have an agent, it is always wise.

Okay, how do I find an agent or editor? Good question, and like most things in life, there are rules. Follow them and your chances of success are better than average. Break the rules and your chances are zero. Before you start your search, put together two documents: a query letter and a proposal.

The Query Letter:

The query letter is a one page letter, exactly one page which is used to identify you and your book. Anything beyond that is a waste of time and gives an agent or editor an excuse to toss it, and your chance of getting published. The query letter generally has three sections: the intro, a short synopsis, and an author bio.

The Proposal:

The proposal describes your book and tells agents/editors why it should be published. It should include the following:

- A description of your book

- Who the intended audience is

- Who the competition is

- Author information

- Estimated time to manuscript completion

- Sample chapters

If you’ve started your search for a publisher and gotten bombarded with “Your work is great, but we’re not interested at this time,” don’t despair. There is hope and by looking closer at some of the things I suggest here, you will eventually reach your goal. Be patient, though, it takes time to go the traditional route.

Kenneth R. Eaton is a published author who writes suspense/thriller fiction. Learn more about him and his work by visiting his website.
http://www.eatonbooks.com