Category: journal

English instructors are occasionally looking for new techniques to assist keep stuff fun for their students, and one area in which they have difficulty the most is reading comprehension activities. Learning and improving reading understanding requires, truthfully, reading more material until you get it. Unfortunately, students appear indisposed to do the real forms of study which are necessary so you can make a real difference. While there are a wide plethora of PC or Mac jobs and games for every points, the in-course game where you do not need any hardware is often much more difficult. Despite this, it is nevertheless plausible. One that has worked fairly well is typically called the peanut butter sandwich game, due to the reason that it involves children writing the steps to putting together a peanut butter sandwich and then reading them out loud to the teacher, who acts them out for the entire class, taking the definition as literally as plausible.

What typically happens is that a big mess is made on teachers and students, but many students know the need for clarity, and can begin to consider stuff going incorrect with the steps they’ve created, and how they may be misunderstood. Aside from reading understanding activities you can play in the classroom, its necessary to find alternative, more traditional methods of training students tricks to read and understand astounding words. For them, the world is full of them, and each is as enigmatic as the next, but adults, who’ve worked our way throughout the English tongue often enough, know that there are some successful methods for making sense of what each completely new word indicates. The simplest method for training young kids is to use the method of teaching them root words. because our language is descended from both Latin and Greek, a good number of their general vocabulary words have ingratiated themselves into our tongue, and type the root of many brand new words. Take ‘bicycle’ By way of an example. ‘Bi’ means two, and ‘cycle’ means wheel. Knowing a huge number of both Latin and Greek root words might support students determine a fairly large portion of English language words, and even if they are not entirely sure what a word means, at least they can discover a piece of the meaning. Context clues are constantly given in every paragraph, that can assist you find the definition of unfamiliar vocabulary words.

Due to the fact that writers generally write in descriptive words, gathering these clues can assist you considerably boost your vocabulary capabilities, and make reading a whole lot a whole lot easier. Using context clues is also much quicker and simpler than using a reference tool to determine the definition of the words, making it a favored way to reading among smaller students. Deliberately to start, first identify what part of communication that the word had. If it is a noun, adverb, or verb, then you know at least some small part of it’s meaning. Then, look for surrounding words that give you some clues. For example, if you see a word like ‘skulking’ in a sentence, and you also see that the person doing this skull king is a spy, and that he’s doing it slyly, then you could figure that its highly close to a word like sneaking, which it is. The first easiest ways for a instructor to get reading understanding strategies taught is to explore poems. In poems, there are so many similes and metaphors in use within the poems that students should should extrapolate the meaning of the words, and to think beyond what is just being shown. There is also a possibility to explore the author’s perspective, or how multiple words convey different emotions to the reader.

It seems everyone is writing e-books today to market their online money making systems or a first novel. Writing and selling an e-book is a great way to get your word across without having to wait long periods for the final product, as you would with traditional paper publishing. If you want complete control over the process, self-publishing will allow you to determine not only how fast the e-book gets out, but also its price, form of distribution and overall look. There are many ways to self-publish an e-book. This article presents a method for you.

Firstly, you need to decide whether you want to use the e-book as a promotion tool or for profit. If you have your own company or sell a product, an e-book can be used to introduce potential clients to your product and become an easy-to-distribute promotion tool. Deciding on a purpose beforehand will also help you choose the length and organization of the work.

Secondly, decide the format. Most ebooks are now available in PDF format, but some people may prefer epub or text format. Once you have chosen a format, you will need to download programs to convert pdf to epub or convert pdf to text formats. To create a PDF, you will need Adobe or you can use a free program such as PDF995, available online. If you choose a HTML format, you will need to create the code yourself in a program such as Dreamweaver. For EXE files, you will need to buy an e-book compiler, many of which are available online at sites such as Virtual-ebooks.

Thirdly, you can now publish the actual e-book through a self-publishing company such as Lulu, if you don’t want to deal with formatting. To do that, you will need to upload the file directly to the Web site and then chose a cover and look. The process itself is free, and while most of these companies do take a percentage of the final sale price, they also take over the selling and delivery process, so you don’t have to manually deal with each order.

Next, Set up a payment processing system to handle orders. If you are selling the e-book directly through your Web site or blog, you will need to install some type of shopping cart software to process orders. You can also automat the process by using PayPal or Clickbank, both of which allow you to accept credit card payments (see Resources below).

Finally, you would better set up a Web site or blog where you can promote the e-book. If you can’t afford to pay for your own domain, you can always set up a free blog with a company such as Blogger, where you’re allowed to use advertising and to add products for sale without having to share the profits or pay for extra bandwith. If you’re selling the book yourself, rather than through a self-publishing company, you can also use the site to set up a sales page .

Does it looks easy to self-publish an ebook? In fact, with the highly developed internet, it is not hard for people to self-publish an ebook.

So you’ve been signed up with a literary agent. They’ve had your manuscript for 18 months. They’ve sent it to a dozen publishers. But they still can’t get you a book deal.

Now they’re saying maybe you should write another book. What should you do?

Before you make a decision, set up a meeting or phone call with your agent to discuss the situation. You may be irate, but it’s important not to let this show. Record the meeting with a Dictaphone if necessary. It is vital that you hear what they have to say and understand where they are coming from.

Questions you might ask are:

o Why isn’t my book selling? o Is there anything I can do to make my book more marketable? o Is it worth rewriting my book? o Can I see publishers’ feedback?

Afterward, ask yourself: ‘Does what s/he is saying resonate with me?’ For example, if your agent says your book is out-of-date, have you had this sneaking suspicion all along? If they say your plot is too weak, do you agree? You can also ask for a second opinion from a publishing professional or a literary consultancy before making a final decision.

After weighing things up, you may agree with what they say. You may decide to write another book and stay put.

On the other hand, you may disagree. You may feel it’s too much of a risk to write another book, knowing you could face the exactly same situation in the future. In this case, you may decide to represent yourself.

A lot of writers are understandably reluctant about representing themselves. However, there are hundreds of publishers in the world. These include the small independent presses that most literary agents won’t even look at. Just because a dozen publishers have rejected your book doesn’t mean they ALL will.

Self-publishing is also a viable option that has made bestsellers of many supposedly ‘unpublishable’ books. There are so many self-publishing options these days: print-on-demand, ebooks, ‘hybrid’ publishing.

Finally, believe in yourself. Take heart from the fact that a literary agent took you on in the first place. Agents are busy people. They send your book out at their own expense. They really wouldn’t give you the time of day if they didn’t think you had talent!

I have gone through many sci-fi books and their author, and ever since man was able to write on a paper, he wanted to show vision of his or her surroundings far more advance than what it currently was at that time. Seventy years ago people were star stuck at the technology of a wired phone, operators and being able to talk to your friend miles apart. Seventy years later, not too much has changed, even in the age of iPad and iPhones. Writers and authors of 50-70 years ago predicted we would have flying cars and Friday nights would be spent on Mars or the Moon; this fantasy came truly only in the hit songs of Frank Sinatra ‘Fly me to the Moon’, and movies of Spielberg like E.T. and Close Encounters. The genre of Science Fiction never really got a true definition, because when I see certain books on the bookshelves these days, I can instantly say “that book doesn’t belong in sci-fi category”.

There are so many so called ‘Science Fiction novels’, but none prevail that defines the definition of Science Fiction. What is a science fiction novel? Science fiction novels is a story that should give a glimpse of the near or distance future for humanity, or the space age, which is realistic for us to relate to. I ran into novel with synopsis of alien vampires, and Planet XYZ Dracula’s attacking the civilians of another planet. Where are those books like 2001 space odyssey, 1984, and War of the Worlds? The foundation of sci-fi books have always been around aliens, our human existence and the future of man kind in the near future being effected by environment; natural or otherwise.

All the new sci-fi books have mostly been of fantasy genre, or a mirror image of a recent novel which became a hit. This is another problem with the dieing publishing world; they milk the same subject over and over again just because one became a hit. When ‘Twilight’ saga came out, soon after, hundreds of other novels came out based on vampire love story and triangle; whether they belonged on the bookshelves or not, the publishers made sure they milked out any and every author they had who wrote around the same subject. This is why in my opinion, going the independent and self publishing route is the wave of the future. No longer do you have to depend upon a third party to accept, like or dislike your work; the new technology has allowed the author to judge their own work.

The positive side to new publishing methods has also made the author well versed in the art of creative writing with zero grammatical and spellings errors. Most professionally published work has been edited, and re-edited by professional copywriters. An original manual script of a published author is far different than the released copy. Many people think that authors are the greatest doctors of written language, while in reality they, too, have the same, average English skills which are polished far beyond their capability to make it sound and read well. In the new multiverse era of books and publishing I came across a unique gem; ‘Kyirux: The Message of Pascal’.

Reading the synopsis gave me the thrill of the good old days of futuristic storyline with realistic approach. The story of Kyirux is based on a strange device that gets discovered from deep beneath the surface of our planets in the early years of 21st century, which turns out to be 500 million years old. This device tells the human about their origins, lays out the secrets of our universe, and, gives a warning of celestial proportions. Just reading the synopsis gave me chills, and as the short intro, the story was well beyond applause. This is a must read for all sci-fi books’ fans.

Hot romance stories available today range from gentle and sensitive erotic fiction to love between fantastic creatures and sex games that stretch the imagination. They invite readers to experience adventures beyond their normal lives.

Some classics in hot fiction, like ‘Story of O’ (by French author Anne Desclos, who wrote under the pen name Pauline Reage – English version published 1965) may not be readily available (you can probably find a second hand copy). ‘Story of O’ was an enormous commercial success and even won a literary prize. However, there are many other erotic novels which are available today. Regrettably, they may sell strongly but are often written with less psychological insight and without its calm, almost emotionless, elegant style.

Hot romance novels today have considerable freedom in the creation of the leading characters. Some are fairly ‘realistic’, as with cowboys, cops and soldiers, but nonetheless possessing great sexual appeal. Others involve the imagination and delve into fantasy. There is an abundance of vampires, werewolves, demon-slayers and even feline-based characters. The women are often – though not always – beautiful and invariably have a great longing and a yearning for love.

Some author’s write prolifically in this genre and don’t feel the need to be realistic, yet provide characters that readers can still identify with, as in ‘Pleasure Unbound’, by Larissa Ione. The heroine is a demon-slayer with a great sexual thirst that is denied her. Unfortunately, the character with greatest appeal for her is a hot demon!

Lora Leigh is another who writes extensively and with great imagination. In ‘The Man Within’, the man she loves belongs to a genetically altered Feline Breed which has shocked the world with their presence. In ‘Guilty Pleasures’ the women have husbands or lovers who are members of an exclusive and select ?Club,? where a third party is invited into their beds.

Some have produced a new version of familiar stories. for instance, ‘ ‘Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories For Women’ by Nancy Madore. She has assembled some of the world’s best known fairy tales into an erotic collection.

Others like to tempt controversy. In ‘Bedroom Bully’, by Trista Russell, the novel is, in essence, a romantic suspense novel. However, a key feature has the heroine falling in love and becoming passionately involved with the man who has taken her captive!

Not to be overlooked are the scenes described by Lorelei James. In ‘Tied Up, Tied Down’, the action is played out cowboy style as the hero uses rope to keep the heroine ‘tied’ to him in no-holds-barred sex games.

Hot romance is clearly alive and flourishing, as well as being eagerly read by millions of fans who enjoy a touch of erotica with their bedtime reading.

At a recent workshop I was asked for tools for self-guidance and here are three I have used myself at different times.
WRITING IN A DIARY OR JOURNAL This tool works because you get your thoughts out so that you can review different aspects of your situation. It’s effective in a similar way to a conversation as you get to express thoughts and feelings. Try to write without ‘editing’ to please an imaginary judgmental reader. You are the only reader and editing may be in the way of the truth. Start by clarifying what you are seeking guidance about. Ask yourself the questions you want answer. Then write answers as if you are a magazine ‘agony aunt’. Or let your thoughts flow freely, ranging around until you find you are writing something helpful.
SLEEPING ON IT people say ‘sleep on it’ when someone voices their concerns but is not getting anywhere. It does work. Write down your issues and questions before you go to sleep, or sit with them in meditation or prayer. Let them go and go to sleep. Then notice what is there in your psyche as you wake up. It might be pictures, dream fragments or fully formed thoughts. There may be new insights or a fresh way of looking at things available to you with the new day.
FINDING ANSWERS IN NATURE Nature offers so much as a source of inspiration and wisdom and this is something to do wherever you are. Taking your current life question with you, go out into a park, a garden or on a country walk. Keep an eye out for something that attracts you that you can take home easily, perhaps a stone, a leaf or a fallen twig. Don’t look for anything in particular in this exercise, just for what catches your eye. Take it home and sit comfortably. Talk to yourself about the object, noticing everything about it. Then form sentences starting with ‘What this…(the natural object) Tells me about… (the life question) is… and see what answers come to you.
All the best with using these tools for self-guidance. I’d love to know what happens when you try them. Please do write and tell me.

You’ve decided to start an exercise program and that’s great. Unfortunately, more than half of all people who begin an exercise regimen quit within the first six months. It’s not easy to develop a successful exercise program that you will stick with for the rest of your life. However, there are steps we can take to boost our enthusiasm and to facilitate long-term program adherence. Specifically, these 15 behaviors will help you stick with an exercise program for years to come:
1. Set realistic goals. Make sure your expectations regarding your exercise program are reasonable.
2. Write your goals and post them in a visible area. This provides you with a constant reminder of why you are exercising.
3. Share your goals with others. This allows your friends and family members to encourage you.
4. Consistently monitor your progress. Steady improvement is a tremendous motivator.
5. Choose a convenient time and place for your workouts. You are much more likely to stick with your exercise program if it is convenient for you.
6. Start easy and slowly build your effort. Simply stated, don’t overdo it!
7. Keep your exercise sessions brief. 30 minutes is enough in most instances.
8. Choose a variety of exercises and activities to avoid boredom. Boredom is a common reason for quitting an exercise program.
9. Combine family and exercise time. For example, walking, hiking, skating and bike riding all offer an opportunity to combine exercise with family time.
10. Learn how to do your exercises safely. Injury and soreness are common reasons for quitting an exercise program.
11. Work out at the same time every day. This will allow you to get in the habit of exercising at a particular time of day.
12. Keep an exercise journal. This provides you with a picture of your progress, which can be a great motivator.
13. Schedule activities around your exercise sessions. Once you have identified the days and times you will exercise each week, schedule your other activities around these times. This demonstrates the importance of your exercise program in your life.
14. Don’t stress out if you miss a workout. Missing an occasional workout is not a problem. In fact, it’s to be expected. Just get back to work the next day.
15. Make sure you have fun. No one sticks with exercise unless they enjoy it. You can make sure you have fun by selecting activities you really enjoy and by working out with others.

At the end of 2009, I purchased a small journal from Target. This little notebook serves the purpose of collecting random ideas that hit me at random times. It fits neatly in my purse so it goes with me everywhere. Assuming I actually have a pen in my purse (and not only eyeliner or lipstick to write with, which has happened on more than one occasion), it’s a nifty little tool to have.
I was waiting for an appointment last week, and began thinking of topics to blog about and I kept writing the word “envy.”
Envy is an odd duck.
Since having a book (and now almost two books) release, I have had a few people mention they were envious of my life. And by “my life,” they confessed they were envious of what they perceived about “my life” because of my blog, or my books. A few days ago, a wonderful author named Rachel vulnerably shared about how she resented me (it’s a very lovely and honest post).
When these conversations pop up, even as seldom as they do, they confuse me.
Why? Because my life is well – just life. It’s nothing to be jealous of and find it interesting while people are wishing they may “be me” in some ways…
…I’m wishing I was someone else.
Don’t get me wrong: I feel incredibly lucky that during this season I can write books for a modest living and travel a bit to share a little hope here and there. I have also eaten enough humble pie to know this has little to do with me, if anything at all. As much as writing and speaking is not a “normal job” it’s still work. It’s still frustrating. There are things I hate about my work sometimes. It’s easy to get lonely and lazy. Questions of “am I good enough?” or “am I as good as…” or even “am I better than…” cycle in my mind day in and day out.
And truth be told, envy plays a large part in that cycle.
I see other bloggers and authors and speakers who seem to float from one puffy white cloud of God’s blessed goodness to another, whose marriages are picture perfect and friendships are solid and complete. They never seem to fight loneliness, or writers block, or carbs, or bad hair days. They don’t say “um” forty-seven times in a thirty minute talk and their words flow seamlessly from one noun to one verb. They are never “too passionate” and write thoughtfully instead of from a place of raw, immature emotion. They’re wise. Stable. And go to great parties or dinners and tweet about it and it seems like everyone else is there but, well, me. They’ll get credit for something and I won’t. They’ll get more money than I’ll get. Someone will review or endorse their book that won’t return my emails.
And I get envious. (Obviously. And very whiny, too).
It’s scary to admit that perhaps I’ve even allowed myself to become so envious that my heart is becoming bitter. I’ve forgotten to celebrate the good things others do and to mourn (and not silently rejoice) their falls.
(Please tell me I’m not the only one who does this little mental happy dance when someone perfect makes a mistake…)
Envy eats away at my heart, slowly, and quietly, and daily.
And is it tragically ironic that I hate it when people perceive me in certain ways, and yet I do the exact same thing and place those exact same perceptions on others?
Comparison. Perception. Assumption. Envy.
This life thing can be messy and ugly sometimes.
I’m so glad there’s grace. Aren’t you?

Gratitude is an amazing thing. It does something inside of us, that very few things can do. Many times, parents wish their children would be more grateful.
Ask yourself: Is it about not giving your children everything? Is it about making them work for what they want? What about making sure they see what others do not have? Or, teaching them to share? These are some of the strategies I have seen parents use in order to teach gratitude.
As I was giving this some thought, the answer, in my opinion, became quite simple: the experience of feeling grateful is what creates gratitude.
Gratitude is about having a true and authentic experience of being grateful.
Here are three ideas that you can use with your children to nurture gratitude:
#1: In the morning, start your day with sharing what you are grateful for. It could be a good night sleep, sunshine, rain, friends we get to see, a favorite cartoon, our favorite teacher, the home we live in, food to eat, health, family, a pet, a game, a book, the weekend, sleeping in, etc. Each person can share 1-3 things to start creating the habit of looking for things to feel grateful for.
#2: At dinner, have everyone share what their gratitudes or appreciations are for the day. We do that every night in our home, and it is a great way to see what is important to your children, as well as to nurture gratitude in their hearts. They also get to see what happens in your day, and what is important to you as well. Again, it is about getting into the habit of looking for, and expressing, gratitude. What we focus on expands.
#3: At bedtime, invite your children to share three things they were grateful for today. You share too. If your children enjoy writing, offer for them to keep a gratitude journal. Writing things down (especially what you are grateful for) is very powerful.
Pick one of these activities and just make it fun. You also want to make it informal. Do not press your children for gratitudes; it defeats the whole purpose. And, feel free to give them ideas if they are struggling to think of something. New habits take practice. The habit of gratitude, when nurtured daily, grows pretty quickly. You are planting seeds and fertilizing the soil with consistency and love.
Enjoy creating a grateful family.

Where do you find the motivation to write a daily journal entry? Good question. Life is busy enough so why sit down and write in your journal? Read these three motivators to maintain daily journaling success.
Perhaps you know some of the benefits of journaling but haven’t been motivated to make it a daily habit. Journaling is the most important action you can take today to increase your success rate, stay focused and maintain a positive mental attitude. If those aren’t reasons enough, then keep on reading.
1. Getting and Staying Organized
Well, journaling is the best time and place to combine some very important daily habits: getting organized in your mind and your daily action plans, visualizing a better life and to reconnect with your inner-self and what is really important to you. Taking time each morning to mentally prepare how you want your day to unfold will set the wheels of focused energy in motion. It will be easier for you to recall your to-do list and top priorities when you’re in the midst of a hectic day if you actually took pen to paper (or typed it on in a word processing document).
2. Mindful Meditating
Daily journaling is a form of mindful meditations. You learn to relax and let go of stressful thoughts when you learn to journal. Whether you write about your diet habits, your feelings toward your annoying boss or how you’d like to build your own on-line business, journaling daily will help you focus on what you really want and discard the thoughts that keep you from attaining those desires.
3. Treasured Personal Time
When you journal daily, you’ll start to reconnect with your inner voice. This quiet voice tends to get overlooked in the harried lifestyles we live. Being disconnected from it will leave you with a sense of unfulfillment. As kids and young adults, we had more time and those quiet times lead to listening to this inner voice. Regain that insight by sitting down daily with pen, paper, you and your thoughts. You’ll come to cherish these moments alone.
Start motivating yourself today to write daily in your journal. Get up and journal in the morning with your morning cup of coffee or tea and discover that this quiet time will be your most treasured. You’ll find your day flowing more smoothly with these daily mindful visualizations, a deeper sense of purpose and organization. What more motivation could you need?