Pray for Boston

Prayers and condolences for Boston, for all the victims and all those affected by the heinous act today.

fairy folk?

When we talk about little people, we usually think of the Leprechauns of Ireland or the Brownies of England.   Well, how about San Francisco?  I came across this article on ABC News about a tree in Golden Gate Park where somebody installed a tiny door over a small hole in the trunk of the tree.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/03/itty-bitty-park-door-opens-to-a-world-of-mystery/

It seems that people stroll through the park looking for the door, and sometimes they leave notes inside for whatever creature lives there.

It all started with a blog.  Somebody sent a photo of the little door to the blogger, and the rest is history.

http://richmondsfblog.com/

They aren't telling the exact location of the tree, so people strolling through the park can have fun looking for it.

(Image Credit: Erica Reh / RichmondSFBlog.com) 

how an author really makes money

Authors do not get rich, unless they hit that lucky jackpot of a best seller or a Hollywood deal.  Even then, most successful writers go through that money in a year or two.  It simply is not as much as you think it is, and it is all that you will ever see, unless you happen to be Stephen King.

My books, all of them together, make about $25 in a good month.  So I write articles for Examiner and review products and services for Epinions.  I also pick up coins, cans and bottles from the roadside.  Every little bit helps to pay the bills.

So how do authors really make money?  Most do it with a day job.  Some live off the benevolence of a spouse or other family member.

And then there is the Internet.  I have signed up for countless paid to surf, paid to click and paid to read sites, as well as a few survey sites.  I have wasted my time on some and found a trickle of rewards on others.    Some sites never pay, while others are faithful.

I have lots of fun on Swagbucks, which has several ways to make money.  They have a search engine, video clips, surveys, a daily poll, shopping, coupons and more.  I usually get an Amazon gift certificate because it takes more points to get cash.  Like many sites, they send cash by Paypal.

If you want to make money online, Paypal is safe and reliable, and almost certainly a necessity.  Paypal allows you not only to get paid online, but also to transfer funds to and from your bank account.  I even have a Paypal debit card that I can swipe at stores and ATMs to spend my Paypal balance,

Of the survey sites, I have done okay with Vindale, Opinion Outpost and ClixSense.  I'm trying Survey Savvy, but I have't qualified for any surveys yet.  The most interesting survey site is PollBuzzer.  They send you a single question that you answer by clicking a link in the email, and they send you a dollar by -- you guessed it -- Paypal.

I also use MyPoints, which has paid to click emails, shopping, search, coupons and more, and they just sent me $25 by Paypal.

If you would like to join any of these sites, I will try to come up with my referral links.  They must be around here somewhere, buried among my notes, shopping lists (consisting mostly of cat food) and manuscripts.

  ~~~

why grammar is important

When I was teaching English, I used to pose this question to my students:

In Dr. Seuss' book Green Eggs And Ham, what color is the ham?  We know that the egg are green, but what about the ham?  Is it also green?

If you understand grammar, or if you look at the pictures on the cover of the book, then you know that the ham is also green.  If it were not, then the phrase would be "ham and green eggs".

You see, grammar is composed of a set of rules that help us to communicate with each other, so when we use poor grammar, we communicate poorly.  Grammar is also the means for thinking clearly.

In the Trivium, the three basic areas of knowledge that Aristotle taught, grammar is the first.  Grammar gives you the building blocks from which you learn logic.  Grammar and logic together form the basis for the third area, rhetoric.

Grammar helps us to communicate clearly, logic helps us to form cogent ideas, and rhetoric presents those ideas to others.

As the first and most basic area of the Trivium, grammar is important.

  ~~~

Testing a new revenue source

If this works, then my sites and my novels will get some support from advertisers.

It's a new way of helping advertisers, bloggers and others with web sites to support our efforts online and off.

If you like the works of Philip K. Dick, and if you like my work, then this will provide an easy way to make sure that the bills get paid.  The more secure I am, financially, the more I can write about my husband's work and the topics that he explored.

Here's an example of the kind of ad that will appear from time to time in my articles here:

http://www.donationpickupservices.com

This will help me ton continue updating you on world events that pertain to the Black Iron Prison, the world beyond the veil and other high strangeness.

For example, the Bigfoot DNA has been shown to come from a hybrid creature with a human mother,but the father is an unknown primate.

Meteors Falasha through the sky over Russia, San Francisco and other parts of the world while amateur astronomers were watching the skies for a near Earth asteroid that was due to pass close by

Sink holes are forming all over the Southeast, and a man in Florida died when a sinkhole suddenly swallowed his bed while he was in it.

Various Internet news sites and radio shows are covering high strangeness, and I need the time and financial stability to post more about it here.

So let's hope that this new advertising will earn a few bucks to support my work.

  ~~~

How do you carry your books?

How do you carry your books? In a book bag, of course!

Here's where you can get my book bag,

http://www.zazzle.com/book_bag_with_a_book_cover-149375046195985280

And here's the coupon code:

Winter Savings - 20% Off Select Products! Use Code: SAVEFEBRUARY  

and here's where you can get the books to go in it:

http://www.amazon.com/Tessa-B.-Dick/e/B002BMDCBE/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Interview: Joseph Rinaldo, author of the novel A Mormon Massacre, based in part on the historical massacre at Mountain Meadows

1. What inspired you to research the Mormon Massacre? In other words, what did you know about Mormonism before you decided to write this book? This massacre at Mountain Meadows was the largest killing of Americans by Americans outside of the Civil War until the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and no one knows about it. I say no one because I grew up in Kentucky and now live in Tennessee and all we "know" about Mormons is they sell books and marry dozens of women. I had, quite by coincidence, read Sally Denton's book about the massacre at Mountain Meadows, and it started me thinking about Mormons and the curious lives they lead. For me research falls into two categories: intentional and inadvertent. Inadvertent happens when you stumble across something that becomes part of a book you write. Such as, a family member might hate people who talk about religion too much. Too much might be defined by this person as any talk about religion. Intentional research is obvious. With the Internet a writer of fiction has no excuse for not including enough facts to be believable. 2. Does your book describe the life of the average Mormon settler in Utah at that time? My book does not dwell on the past lives of Mormon settlers in Utah; the focus is primarily on the modern-day descendant, Jeremiah Cameron, and his reaction to learning about the murders of his ancestors and the abuse of his mother in a prior, polygamous marriage. He wants revenge, and he wants to expose the LDS Church as a dangerous cult. It's interesting to hear about your ancestors and the story your grandfather told about the Mormon Massacre. From my research in the writing of this book, one man, John D. Lee sort of played the "fall guy" in the prosecution of the case, though others were named, charged, and arrested. Remarkably, Brigham Young was never charged or prosecuted; he distanced himself from the case entirely, though it was said that he was often seen riding around in the most valuable wagon taken from emigrants after the massacre, and his wives were seen in the clothes of the women who had been slaughtered. It is almost certain that he kept the bulk of the gold that had been hidden in the emigrants' wagons for himself. 3. How does your novel portray Brigham Young? I believe my protagonist sees Brigham Young as a man who would stop at nothing to further his own ends. In A Mormon Massacre, it is clear that Jeremiah believes that Brigham Young is entirely responsible for the massacre of some of his descendants; further, he sees Brigham Young as a power mad dictator with complete control over his followers and no scruples about murdering innocents to get what he wants. Jeremiah sees Brigham Young more as a forerunner of Jim Jones (without the Koolaid) or David Koresh (without the arsenal) than a man of faith. As he puts it in a presentation before his college classmates, “Like many cult leaders, Brigham Young believed that the world sought to destroy him and his followers. He saw no gray in the world; you either joined the Mormons, or you waged war against the Mormons. Although the Mormons had been persecuted in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois before moving to Utah, they were free to worship as they pleased out west. In spite of this freedom, Brigham Young’s paranoia led him to issue orders for his followers to murder the Fancher-Baker party.” ~~~