Filed under: Online Adventures
One of my not too public desires is to write and publish a book. The only trouble is that the minute I decide to sit down and write one, I get writers block. Its not that I can’t write, I have no trouble with that. It is just that I don’t know what to write about.
There are so many things that I can write about. A cookbook would be fun and realtively easy to do, but no sooner than I have collected ten recipes, I lose interest in the project. I love poetry and have a lot of work online, but the mere thought of putting it all in a book makes me yawn.
Then I think about a collection of short stories, I have written them all along the last ten years. The mere thought of typing them all out again gives me the shivers. Imagine how much work it will be to collect all those notes scribbled in old note books and putting them together in a readable fashion.
How about a novel, I think next. What will I write about? Why not make it autobiographical, I think I have led a fairly interesting life. Then I think again, what if I’m the only one who thinks its interesting. No that will never do. So that idea gets tossed out of the window.
In the meanwhile I keep learning about how easy it is to publish your books these days. The fact that you can self publish them on companies that do them online. I also discover that they charge almost thrity thousand rupees for that previlage. Not one I can afford at the moment thank you.
Here’s something else I discovered. Using social media to publicize the book you have written. Here’s what you need to do. First get a wordpress blog. Hey I already have one!
Then get a facebook profile for your identity as an author and a facebook page for your book. Hmm so far I’ve just been playing with my facebook profile, need to get serious about it now.
Get a My Space page for your book. Have not really worked on My Space as yet. More learning to do. It’s supposed to be like orkut and facebook, how tough can it be?
Get a flickr account that is integrated with your social network. Have a flickr account now need to learn how to do the integration bit. Next get a FeedBurneraccount to help blog. This is something I have been meaning to try out for a while now. Let me see when I can start. Probably after the break will be a good idea.
A Shelfari social book account? A Goodreads social book account? A LibraryThing book cataloging account? Never heard of these things. Need to do some research about all this stuff. Then we’ll see just how easy or difficult all this is.
Next is a Twitter micro-blogging account. Check. Already have one. May need a specific one for the book though. That’s easy enough to get and use. The way to harness the power of the social media is to make one entry on a wordpress blog and all the social media accounts get updated on their own.
This means that your visibility on the net increases and soon your book campaign goes viral. Yipee. Okay hold your horses. You need to write that book first. Any ideas?
Filed under: Online Adventures | Tags: affair, father's day, festivals, free tarot reading, hub, hubpages, hubs, India, indian festivals, love, men, tarot, tarot cards, tarot decks, travel, understand, visit, visiting india, women
As you know I have been writing a few hubs at Hubpages. So I have not been able to write too much on the blog all of this month. So I thought I should collect all the material and present it here so that its easy for you to reach.
Here are the four Tarot Hubs I wrote
Tarot Cards – Situation, Obstacle, Solution
And here are the Travel hubs
Then there are the Relationship Hubs
Do Real Men Understand Real Women?
There are more hubs that I wrote that I’ll add into a second post. Enough reading material for one day.
I’d appreciate it if you left some comments on the hubs to tell me what you liked, or did not like…
Bye for now.
Filed under: Parenting | Tags: ben 10, dates, handy manny, holidays, home work, mates, mickey mouse, play, tom and jerry
School’s out and holidays are in, the kids are at home 24/7. Trying to keep them busy that too without having them turn into zombies in front of the TV is an uphill task. With Tom and Jerry, Handy Manny, Mickey Mouse, and Ben 10 who wants to get away from the screen? Add to that the cartoon cds that have always been great draws and its a wonder they ever leave the room.
Sure there is holiday home work, but have you tried getting them to do it? Its like dragging a horse to the water. No they will not write if it suits them not to. And in the summer there’s always a reason why they don’t want to do home work just now. There’s so much time to do it all later.You feel the same way. So it gets dropped.
On to the next activity. The toy room was never more throughly used. Each toy that you ever bought is inspected, played with and left aside. Old toys that have long since been outgrown are brought out, used and stuffed back in cartons. Some toys are broken and others are secured. A huge pile is segregated of toys to give away, then they are promptly put back in the cupboard.
Then we move on to visiting friends. This thankfully does not get boring soon. These play dates with play mates are looked forward to. Its the headache of reaching friends homes in the heat that is the real problem now. Specially with the car not being available. So getting out in 47 degrees on the scooter is not at all appealing to mama, even if the kiddo does not feel the heat.
Now comes the difficult part. The actual play date. The kids to fine for the first half an hour and both mothers relax. Then comes the first howl. The fights have begun. It is now time for diversion tactics. If that fails it is time to leave. Hopefully to be repeated the next day at the other mom’s home. Quite a task it is, keeping kids busy during the summer holidays.
Now I can’t wait for him to restart school so that I can have some time to myself. It does feel like the only holiday I get is when he is in school. So while I love my kiddo very much, I do wish that the schools reopen very fast. I have a limited patience and its stretched thin right now.
Filed under: Living The Fauji Life
As yet another Indian Air Force aircraft crashes I sit back and reflect on the Fauji life.
As I saw the news scroll I felt that a missing aircraft can still be found. Okay the radio contact was lost, but that doesn’t mean anything. It could be a malfunctioning radio. I was hoping for a happy ending here.
It was in the east so had to have come from Jorhat. I think of friends posted to Jorhat. My husband’s course mates, their wives, the kids. I quickly count off one man from the list, I know he’s doing a course in Bhatinda.
Then the phone calls start. From friends in non flying units, who want information. The concern is there and so is the scare. Then the information filters in. Names Butalia, Shahji, Manas, two youngsters we don’t know.
Now the tragedy is real. It is personal. It is people whom you know. Some you have met and some you have been posted together with in another station. Then the crash is confirmed.
Hope for survivors is like hoping for an ice cream to not melt in an oven. There are no parachutes on an AN32. My husband told me so. Transport aircraft are not equipped with them. They are not supposed to crash, but they do.
One just did. The loss of a flight crew, plus two youngsters who went on the flight for their clearances. A painful reminder to us all that life can be unpredictable.Its not always the fighters that crash. It can be one of our husbands too.
The twins who will never see thier father again. The young wife who was packing to leave for Nagpur when tragedy struck. The farewell party that became the funeral pyre. That’s what this life is all about. Ups and downs and not all happy landings.
