IS IT OK TO... ?

This is a question which is asked with frequency by writers who have recently committed to the idea of getting serious with their time and have decided to take it out on a novel. Is it Ok to...?

How to write headlines that convert

You know that — on average —

only 2 out of 10 people read an article beyond the headline, don’t you? If you don’t write irresistible headlines, even fewer will read your content.

How to self-edit so you don’t look dumb

Whether you are a good writer or not doesn’t matter.

Does this surprise you?

The only way to become a master writer is to become awe-inspiringly good at editing. Advertising great David Ogilvy says this:

I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor. So I go to work editing my own draft.

Getting Your Content on Google

There is a basic fact that we need to get clear here. Other than yourself, there is no one on this planet who wants your content showing up as often as possible in the SERPs than Google.

For nearly two decades Google has spent 100s of 1000s on giving you an education, and telling you exactly what it takes to get you listed as often as possible. They want you to be #1! Reels of Video Training on YouTube,. Free College Credit Classes at Universities across the nation, MOOCs, free advertisement with Adwords (up to $500 at times). Reams of pages, and the best Analytics program money can buy given to you with all the training and needs you could imagine -- for free.

How to enchant your audience

• If you try to sell right off the bat without building trust, the sceptics will quickly click away.
• If you delight your readers with your product or idea, if you provide real solutions to their problems, they’ll want to find out more.
• Use the following tips to engage, delight, and ultimately sell:
• Understand your readers. Know their fears, dreams, and desires. How can you engage with someone you don’t understand?
• Don’t write for a large audience. Choose one person, picture him, and write to him as if he’s a friend.
• Use a conversational tone of voice. Nobody wants to chat with a company.
• Be engaging. Using the word you is the most powerful way to be more engaging.
• Be remarkable. So much content is out there, how can you stand out? Disclose your point of view, tell your personal story, and develop your own writing voice. If your readers feel they know you, they will connect with you.
• Use familiar language. Check Twitter, Facebook or Google’s Keyword Tool — and find the wording your readers use. 
• Avoid jargon. Always choose the simplest possible expression of your idea. Avoid obscure words.
• Don’t insult your readers. Being clear doesn’t mean you have to tell your readers things they already know.

Be likeable. Do great things for your readers, help them out, and be generous. It’s obvious isn’t it?

Some OpenEducation Resources on the Web

Open Education Resources, K-12

• CK-12: flexbooks, FlexMath, and more (see story about El Paso partnership)
• Curriki: big community around big library
• Gooru: search engine for education
• OpenEd Institute: biggest Core-aligned catalog
• Khan Academy: 6000 videos on math & more
• OER Commons: dedicated to innovation in open education content & practices
• PowerMyLearning: grade level collections
• NROC: high school science & math
• iCivics: open resources for learning civics
• Literacy Design Collaborative: tools & prompts for writing across the curriculum #
• Edmodo: free learning platform with tons of open content
• Learning.com: Curriculum Foundry helps organize OER #

Postsecondary OER

• Academic Earth: free online courses from the world’s top universities
• iTunes U: view a course, make a course
• Saylor: 250 college courses across 13 subject areas
• Writing Commons: Freshman English from USF
• Connexions: open library from Rice
• MIT OpenCourseWare
• Wikipedia & WikiEducator
• PhET Interactive Simulations
• Washington State’s Open Course Library Project: resources for 42 courses

Anytime Learning

• Coursera: the world’s best courses for free *

• General Assembly: learn from experts on business, tech & design *
• Udemy: online courses from expert teachers *
• LearnZillion: great instructional resources for teachers *
• edX: non-profit created by Harvard and MIT
• Udacity: IT and coding nanodegrees
• Canvas: open online courses #
• MentorMob: education search engine
• TED-Ed: create customized lessons around TED videos

Some High Caliber resources

• National Science Digital Library
• The Learning Regestry
• Lumen Learning
• OERCommons OERCommons - where My lesson are

How to write content your readers will remember

You’ve made so much effort.

You write, and write, and write. People are reading your content, but your message doesn’t stick. Your readers are forgetting it, and fast.

Don’t worry.

The following nine simple tactics will make your message unforgettable:

1. Use sound bites. These are easy-to-remember, easy-to-quote nuggets of wisdom, just like proverbs. And haven’t generations of people remembered proverbs?
2. Avoid routine common sense. You won’t win reader loyalty with your breathtaking grasp of the obvious.

The Girl in the Spider's Web (Millennium, #4)

by David Lagercrantz

3.8 of 5 stars 3.80 avg rating — 2,247 ratings — published 2015

This fall, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist return in the highly anticipated follow-up to Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. In this adrenaline-charged thriller, genius-hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist face a dangerous new threat and must again join forces. Late one night, Blomkvist receives a phone call from a trusted source claiming to have information vital to the United States. The source has been in contact with a young female super hacker—a hacker resembling someone Blomkvist knows all too well. The implications are staggering. Blomkvist, in desperate need of a scoop for Millennium, turns to Lisbeth for help. She, as usual, has her own agenda. In The Girl in the Spider's Web, the duo who thrilled 80 million readers in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest meet again in an extraordinary and uniquely of-the-moment thriller.

The Willing Suspension of Disbelief Believe

I grew up in writing under the impression that the Willing Suspension of Disbelief was a fact. I never questioned it, as it fit my personal experience with books and stories -- even movies -- perfectly.  The way it was explained to me by one of my first mentors said, "You can get away with anything. The reader is 'willing to believe' -- just don't remind them they are reading a book. Don't break the spell." What that meant was -- the sky can be purple, the planet square and the ice on the poles burning -- no problem. However, if you have your character put some ice into her glass and it doesn't explode, or you give a lame reason for how the gravity works on a square planet, you break the spell. The reader will toss your novel aside and never return. You broke a trust, a trust that is sacred between author and reader.

There are so few Sacred Trusts left in the world, so you can imagine my state when a Neuropsychologist showed that this wasn't true. The Suspension of Disbelief wasn't how we did things at all. 

Kurt Vonnegut - The Short Story

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.



"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"

She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing

Ray Bradbury 12 Tips and How to Save the World

Ray Bradbury was a hero of mine. His attitude toward life and his art centered my misgivings and neuroses more times than I can remember. When he died in 2012  the world was a little darker and it hasn't recaptured that light.

Steven King on Writing

1. First write for yourself, and then worry about the audience.“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”


2. Don’t use passive voice. “Timid writers like passive verbs for the same reason that timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe.”


3. Avoid adverbs. “The adverb is not your friend.”


4. Avoid adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.”

Solar Summer 2015

Solar flares are bursts of high-energy radiation that cannot get through Earth's atmosphere to affect people on the ground. However, extremely powerful flares can have impacts higher up, triggering temporary radio blackouts and radiation storms that could endanger orbiting astronauts.

Flares are often accompanied by explosions of superheated solar plasma called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Potent CMEs that hit Earth can spawn geomagnetic storms powerful enough to disrupt radio signals, GPS communications and power grids. CMEs also often supercharge the beautiful auroral displays known as the northern and southern lights.

http://www.space.com/28799-biggest-solar-flares-2015-sun-photos.html

Stephen Hawking believes he’s solved a huge mystery about black holes

On Tuesday, famed physicist Stephen Hawking presented new theories on black holes to a crowd of esteemed scientists and members of the media at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Hawking focused on something called the information paradox, which continues to puzzle scientists who study black holes. In a nutshell, the paradox surrounds the fact that information about the star that formed a black hole seems to be lost inside it, presumably disappearing when the black hole inevitably disappears. These things cannot be lost, according to General Relativity, and physicists generally believe that they aren't really lost. But where does the information go when the black hole that's absorbed it goes kaput?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/08/25/stephen-hawking-believes-hes-solved-a-huge-mystery-about-black-holes/

D.N.A. a novella by Alex Hurst

Get DNA on Amazon

Nanotechnology has helped gene therapy reach new heights, but not everyone is granted access to treatment. Defending the powerless has fallen into the hands of Alta Williams, the only known survivor of a full nanoCell organ transplant and host to the mysterious program D.N.A. Alta, able to change her genetic code at will, can fight those who take advantage of the Non-Generation – but at what cost?

This has me excited. I've heard off and on that Alex was working on this and just now saw it was release back on the 19th~ so, I'm missing out! I hate missing out!

So, here's the blurb she has on her site and I'm going to run off and get my copy. You should do that too. Hey, if you like Sci-Fi, this is going hit all the rivets right. Up to you. Here's the Link