Writing Prompt #4

Prompt: Bridgette fell from the…

4 Minute Timed Writing Result
Bridgette fell from the larger of the two sunflowers. How she happened to be up there, while something of mystery in regards to the why part of it, was easy to explain in terms of the how. Gilplaster’s ladder leaning against the stem of the 40 ft. plant explained that to everyone’s satisfaction except Principal Parsons who insisted the ladder needed dusting for fingerprints before he would believe anything. Bridgette had "ladder polishing" on her job description so naturally her fingerprints were all over the ladder, but this held no sway with Principal Parsons.

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I would be honored if you chose one of my stories for your next reading experience. If you do, please let me know how you enjoyed it by commenting below or on Amazon. I also enjoy hearing from readers at my author’s email address which is paul dot lloyd dot author at gmail dot com. (Thanks for taking time to figure out that email address so I don’t have to worry about the spider bots getting me.)

Be sure to click on the BOGO button above for my latest buy one, get one free book offer.

Fill a Box with Your Thoughts

A quality work life is essential to success, but we need to consider our family and career. This article looks at one aspect of work life balance using the image of a box as a container for your thoughts.

The thoughts are all jumbled in the thought box. They need to be organized. They are a confused, bunch of ideas. Organize your thinking so that there is no confusion. Take out each piece of crumbled up thought and organize it according to a plan.

Some thoughts can be filed one way, some another. Some can be cross-referenced and duplicated. Redundancy is good in thinking because it helps you retain the message.

Start a real thought box. Whenever you think of something, write it down and add it to your thought box. Then with a box full of thoughts you won’t be so thoughtless.

When the thoughts pile up big enough, organize them. The thoughts represent a blessing to you in the form of ideas, opportunities and solutions to problems. The important thing is to not be so thoughtless. Then you too can become a blessing among God’s people.

Have fun watching your thoughts grow. Fill the box with joy. Receive the ideas with gratitude and then share them with others. Go in peace.

Another Thought
Try clicking on my BOGO (Buy One, Get One Free) page above. Purchase one of my novels or short stories and receive The Case of the Knife-Tossing Networker: 12 Mysteries Requiring Deductive Reasoning. This 154-page PDF ebook includes a Special Bonus: The first 9 chapters of Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters.

No More Football

We are one nation under God. Let’s keep it that way. We can disagree on religion, politics and just about any other topic you can think of. You can divide us into categories based on what we look like, where our ancestors came from, what we believe, what we read, what we watch or in any other way you choose. BUT we are all Americans and we stand united as one nation.

To symbolize our unity as a nation, we have chosen a flag of 50 stars and 13 stripes. It’s red, white and blue. When our precious flag waves it means we are still the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” Anyone who desecrates the American flag or refuses to honor it during the playing of our national anthem disrespects what America stands for.

America is not a perfect place. No country is perfect. It’s right to protest when you believe you have been wronged or when you feel a disenfranchised group needs to raise its voice. But when the flag is raised and our national anthem is played, we should all stand together as one. One of the best examples of this unity in diversity concept has traditionally been our sports events. Two teams, bitter enemies, stand together as Americans to honor the flag and our national anthem before the game begins. There are plenty of opportunities to protest or express your personal beliefs without seeking to break the bond of unity that is our nation.

With the recent decision of professional football players to dishonor the anthem, I have decided to dishonor the sport of professional football by no longer watching the game on television or attending any professional games. You are invited to join me in this protest.

Write That Book!

Blog Your Way to a Book Series #1

Writing a business book is one of the scariest of activities. Yet, becoming an author is often the key to opening the door to promotions and new job offers, launching a new business, taking a local business global, and increasing sales. Along the way, your book project becomes the means for taking your expertise to a new level through research and learning opportunities associated with your book project.

But Paul, book writing is such a huge project!
You can handle it because you’re not going to sit down and write a book. You’re busy and you don’t have the time in today’s fast paced world. What you do have time to accomplish is a blog. With enough planning upfront, you can turn your blog posts into a book. Think what you can do with a 15-minute daily commitment. And if you find you have more time on your hands for the writing process, you can speed the whole thing up and get your book to market faster.

How book is a book?
Books in the traditional book store sense can run to several hundred pages. But with the Internet, people are self-publishing ebooks of a much shorter length. With planning, you can write a series of small books and later combine them into one large book so you don’t have to wait for long before you have your book up on Amazon. And you do it by first writing blog posts.

Hey, Paul, I don’t know what to write about.
You may feel that you are no expert like those national gurus who come around making speeches and selling lots of books and six-figure consulting gigs. Guess what? Those folks didn’t start out as experts either. They became specialists when they combined their knowledge and experience with a boatload of research needed to write a book about their topic. And they don’t think of their book as an educational tool for a grad school class. Instead, they use it like a company brochure or business card to minimize or eliminate their competition.

I’ll write more about what it means to be an expert in the next post in this series. In the meantime, start thinking about your area of expertise. What would make a good book topic for you? And begin having fun by outlining and writing about your book idea. And if you would like my coaching help, post a comment below or contact me through my company’s info@ email address at ironlayersecurity.com.

Read Like a Writer

Read Like a Writer Series #1

In high school and college literature classes you are taught to read like a critic. In criticism, you are concerned about how the novel, short story or poem fits into the long history of literature. To understand the book you are reading, you want to first have an understanding of the main currents in English and American literature. As part of this study, you will learn about story structure, but the main focus is on the way the story fits with other stories in the same genre or school of literature.

Writing a story is about constructing a story that hooks your interest and holds it to the end. The more the writer knows about literary tradition, the better the writer will be at producing a story consistent with past trends in literature. But the main issue for the writer is crafting an interesting story rather than its literary merit. To put this in perspective, I have heard too many literature professors over the years say something along the lines of: “We know a good story when we read one, but we can’t always tell why it’s good.” That’s a critical opinion. A writer on the other hand better know what makes a good story good or he or she won’t be able to write a good story.

This blog series is about how to read a novel or short story like a writer writes a story. The first rule in reading a story is to simply enjoy it. If it’s no fun to read, then it’s okay to not finish it. An author has to earn your reading time by holding your interest.

Rule number 2 in reading a story is on you. You are allowed to stop reading at the words THE END and move on to another story. However, if you ever wondered how the writer “did it.” That is, how the writer got you excited about the story and moved you in some way, then you want to turn back to the beginning of the story and take another look. This series is about what to look for when you take that second look. Over time you will learn to see some of these things the first time around, but it’s always okay to take a second look at a favorite story. And a third, a fourth, a fifth, etc. It’s up to you.

I would be honored if you chose one of my stories for your next reading experience. If you do, please let me know how you enjoyed it by commenting below or on Amazon. I also enjoy hearing from readers at my author’s email address which is paul dot lloyd dot author at gmail dot com. (Thanks for taking time to figure that email address out so I don’t have to worry about the spider bots getting me.)

Be sure to click on the BOGO button above for my latest buy one, get one free book offer.

Are you a big wheel?

Work-Life Balance Series

Picture an auto tire mounted on a fancy wheel with golden spokes. Notice how the spokes crisscross each other. The spokes are gold, the tire is black. The overall effect is of an upscale wheel fit for a driver who appreciates the finer things. People who drive cars with spoked wheels can afford anything they want.

Look at the spokes carefully. See how they crisscross? On the job, your team crisscrosses like this when they share responsibilities. When your team works in harmony like this, it’s a beautiful sight to behold. When your team fails to act together, the results won’t hold air and your project will go flub... flub... flub down the road until it comes to a halt. The team achieves nothing.

Be careful how your work team crisscrosses its roles. The person who is best at a certain task should be the one who performs that task. It’s okay to crisscross roles on occasion but don’t overdo it. Switch roles to help each other carry their burdens.

Now, a product that looks like a high-priced wheel is fit for the carriage set. Price such a product high because they are willing to pay. You might not sell as many of these products, but your financial return on each one will be great. Which of your products is the high price one with the crisscrossed golden spokes? How much do you want to charge for it? It’s okay to be outrageous with the pricing of one of your products. It will make the others seem a better buy and you will sell more of those.

Do you want to give one product away? Double the price of another to earn back the money you lose through the giveaway. The other products are to be priced progressively in-between.

Where to find story ideas worthy of your writing time

What do you like to write about? As the brand statement in my banner above states, I focus on writing "Fiction that explores the monsters and strangers among us.” I also write nonfiction on assignment from companies and individuals, especially those who want to publish or self-publish their own business books. But fiction is what I love to write because, at heart, I’m a story teller. The “monsters and strangers” bit comes from something that happens almost every time I create a story. A monster shows up or a weird person pops in who definitely fits the definition of “stranger” that your mother warned you to stay away from.

There’s an old song with the line “Love is Strange” recorded by Mickey & Sylvia. The title is especially true when the lovers in a tale include at least one strange person or monster.

I enjoy spinning yarns about lovers in the moonlight, but don’t be surprised if one of my lovers grows a long snout, sharp fangs and lots of hair when the moon is full.

So where do my strange story ideas come from? Sometimes I begin with a single sentence that pops into my mind or when I have a young man in mind who is about to meet the girl. As I wander down the page with the keys clicking like crazy, something happens in chapter 4 or 5 or 6 when a monster or stranger shows up. I dump the first 4 or 5 or 6 chapters and begin with the stranger. Why? Strangers are interesting. Lovers only so-so. I have to admit that as I have grown as an author, I'm less likely to dump an entire chapter. Instead, I  just hang out at my desk until the monster shows up so I can start the story with reader-grabbing moment.

Other times I recall a nightmare and write about it. It could be a regular, ordinary nice dream, but those usually aren’t memorable enough to make it to the keyboard.

Another place story ideas show up is when you play the “what if” game. What if a boy meets a girl at the beach and they fall in love? Nah, it’s been done. How can we make it more interesting? Boy meets girl? Well, duh, that has to happen, but what if it’s not a pleasant first meeting? What if the meeting takes place in a forbidden place?

Here’s an example…
What if a teenage boy wakes up in the middle of the night to discover the girl he has a crush on has pointed a pistol at him. It’s not the way he imagined her in his bedroom at that hour. She proceeds to insult his private parts that, as far as he can recall, she has never seen, but she insults them anyway.

The girl fires her pistol.

Fortunately, the boy’s best friend breaks in with a possible female terrorist. They’re both carrying military-style rifles with bayonets fixed. The teenage girl terrorist takes out pistol girl all the way through the bedroom window. The boy’s best friend announces “This didn’t happen.” He then leaves with the terrorist.

As it turns out, the female terrorist isn’t a fanatic at all. She’s a teenage alien shapeshifter from some planet on the other side of the galaxy who crashed on earth and is now dodging the men in black. The boy could chalk up the whole episode to a nasty dream, except that doesn’t explain the actual bullet hole above his bed, does it? And it doesn’t explain the broken window his teenage crush crashed through with a bayonet sticking out of her chest.

And that’s just for starters.

I find the events described above fascinating, especially when you find out that the young lady who fired the weapon is still alive, was never stabbed, and has no recollection of the event despite the bullet hole’s continued existence above the boy’s bed. How does the boy with the crush know all this? It becomes obvious when the girl climbs back in through the window the next night with romance in mind.

The right story idea leads to interesting events, places and the strangers among us. It’s why I like to write about them in my novels. If you want to read how the story described above turns out, download a copy of my ebook Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters from Amazon. Also available in paperback.