Can You Really Teach an Old Dog New Tricks?



It's been nearly two hours since I started my search for the meaning (and purpose) of an RSS feed.  I know, I know...I can see your eyes roll.  But for this old lady, RSS was just as foreign as FLK or AFK would be to anyone outside of an ER.  (Oye, the acronyms!)  Finally, my head is wrapped around the concept.  However, the process still eludes me. 



Finding a safe place in the ever-evolving cyber world of online communication and information exchange is daunting to say the least.  I realize that I'm not the first to blog about this issue - just the first in my own household. 

Writing the book(s) is easy.  Marketing and getting them "out there" is not.  Research and becoming savvy to the processes required to market a product in this era can be a full time job.  Personally, I'd rather hire someone else to do it.  Alas, finances doesn't allow this.  Fortunately, there are resources for people like me who struggle with understanding just what the "next step" would be. 

Create Space (Amazon's publishing house) has provided amazing resources to those of us who seek assistance with our marketing plans.  Their free assistance to marking for fiction is invaluable - providing links to everything from website design to website analysis to retail wholesale companies (the people we market to). 

My past few years has been focused on target audiences that center around my series genre:  Paranormal Historical Romance, Fiction and PIRATES.  The efforts have been rewarding , fun and eventful bringing in profits which have been notable.  However, these avenues are limiting.

Finding time to learn "new tricks" necessary to succeed in current markets is a key element to sharing the amazing story found in the Deja vu Chronicles.  I supposed, with the prospect of "getting it out there" through cyber tactics, learning a new trick or two won't hurt this old gal!

This Time of Year Totally ROCKS!

 

This is my favorite time of year!  Ask my kids and they'll tell you there is nothing like Halloween at my house.  Initially, my intentions weren't pure but rather those of a desperate single mom attempting to keep her five rambunctious kids off the street.  It worked, actually.  Our yard became a giant cemetery with something created (by hand of course - another day designated to keep those kids busy and out of trouble) each year - a "new addition", so-to-speak.  Glow-in-the-dark tombstones, red satin lined coffin and gum eyeballs made quite the impression on the neighbors.  I was impressed myself with it all until one year we went a little  over-the-top, I guess.  Speakers for the sound system were wired on top of the roof (surround sound screams were amazing), a bonfire in the middle of the driveway in a very urban neighborhood broke all the "rules" and a 7-foot tall grim reaper wandering the grounds was definitely the "creme de la creme" that year.   No one came.  Yup, too scary.  Dutiful parents rushed their trick-or-treaters past our driveway to the next house while I sat despondently holding all of those eyeballs.

So, the next year we turned our skeletons into pirates.  I don't know what became of the satin-lined coffin but it was gone.  Everything else morphed into an 18th Century Caribbean artifact.  The timing worked well for my book's promotion too.  Plus, my kids stayed home.  I'd hit the trifecta!

Pirates stormed my yard to include a 17 foot ship (thanks to Brett, Mike and Danny...and Home Depot), two fog machines, a treasure chest and those amazing eyeballs.  Life was good and we had scores of trick-or-treaters once again.  Even the media showed up to film the merriment.  Huzzah!  I was in my Halloween Heaven.

This year as I pull out the Halloween bins and prepare to set up the grotto, there are no kids to boss me around, set up the ship and re-dress the skeletons.  I'm sailing solo on this Halloween stuff and doing my best to keep dry eyes as I decorate this house with memorabilia from days long ago with five kids and a night of threatened trouble.  I think I've done okay this year.  The treasure glints from underneath the lanterns while empty sockets grin under tricorn hats and cutlasses.  Below the balcony, I hear gasps from kids as they pass, taking in the detail of an 18th Century grotto.  The effect is the same as it was years ago and I smile inside remembering happy times with my rambunctious five.  I'm sure Rich, Jeff, Brett, Rachel and Brooke will be celebrating in their own tradition, hopefully a pirate will be amongst their decor in honor of their mother.  But whatever happens, kids are the same this year as in the past - pounding the pavement dressed up on the one legal night to pretend, collecting candy and looking for that scariest costume or house - perhaps even a pirate grotto that hands out those amazing eyeballs!  I'll be waiting.....

All Hallow's Eve



Fall is truly my favorite season! So many traditions make it that way for me: the evening air turns crisp and paints nature a vibrant array of colors, football season dominates the weekends of sports fans, eating yellow vegetables is totally cool, scary stories and tales of ghosts pulls me into the pages of my favorite books, cemeteries are my favorite haunts and humankind waits for Halloween when tricks and treats stalk the streets as adult and children alike shed their daily image and don a new identity.

Year after year, from times earliest record, All Hallow's Eve has been a night of tradition. Fires burned in ancient Celtic rituals celebrating Samhan, hallowed Saints were honored by Christians and European folk traditions collaborated to create the Halloween we celebrate today in America.

Of course, I am one who has grown up loving "The Great Pumpkin" with Charlie Brown and was always the first in my family to create the perfect costume for trick-or-treating through Millcreek. Too soon it seemed I was designated as "too old to trick-or-treat". Yet as an adult, there is still a compulsive draw to the mystic moons and creepy cemeteries that become "appropriate" when Fall makes it appearance.

Why is that, do you think?



I don't have the answer of course, but the desire is there and excitement builds as I anticipate becoming my favorite alter-ego, a pirate, and my house converts to a grotto filled with treasure, an authentic wheel from a ships' helm (held by a long-dead helmsman whose skeleton features send chills down young kids' spines as they watch him sailing a sunken vessel in a foggy night). Torches will burn and lanterns will flicker, lighting the path to the candy waiting for any mate who'll come aboard shoutin' "Trick-or-Treat!"

May ye all be safe an' have a most Happy Halloween!

M'Lady Marti



Rain on a Full Moon Weekend

Rain is falling on a full moon weekend! Spooky times ahead and pernicious pirates make mischief this month~

That has been my "theme" (if you will) for the past few weeks. I like how those words work together, they just sound good when spoken aloud. But more than that, I love the meaning.

October always brings a hint of mystic mindset and wide-eyed eerie watchfulness, particularly so when the moon is full and it's a little hazy outside at dusk. That's how its looks outside my window right now and when the sun fully sets, a full moon will rise and cast a pale glow, throwing shadows in places seen only out of the corner of the eye.

Only four days until our annual Cemetery Stroll and I can hardly wait. My sisters (mainly Shari and I - Mindy has already stated she's "NOT going!  It will give me bad dreams!"...'nuff said) and our children stop at the local Starbucks to fuel up for a chilly, spine-tingling evening walking among the dead. Mostly, we just laugh and scare the you-know-what out of each other and take lots of photos. Some of those photos can be viewed on Shari's site.  Note: the pic of Shari with her head chopped off and lying on a tombstone that has TAYLOR inscripted across it.  These are memories in the making and definitely not something for the faint hearted (or loose bladder).  The photos, I will definitely post!

In the meantime...enjoy your eerie autumn weekend. May you stay warm and happy (and a little bit on edge!)


Marti

There are Good People Out There...Really!

Tonight I sat in the South Towne Mall and spent four hours talking to complete strangers. Anyone who knows me understands how difficult that whole process is for me. But, I'm so glad I did. There are some amazing people walking this planet! Each person's story was very different than the other, each sharing personal trials, victories and hopes for their future.

Particularly amazing is this fan who showed up, taking photos and supporting my dream.

Thank you!
Marti