Be Brave and Publish Your Books

Posted on by taniacreations

I used to be afraid of publishing my books. I am not anymore.

It is such a simple reasoning and yet, it evaded me like the vampire avoids the cross. I was so scared of criticism, of not being approved for publishing, of not being sold or not being liked that I stood frozen.

Suddenly (with a lot of internal mental work) I realised that nothing matters except putting the books out there.

If I don’t get a publisher I will pay for the publishing myself; if it sells, awesome, if it doesn’t, I’m a published author. At the very least I shall sell a few books to friends and family If people like it, great! If not, at least I have written and published a book, not everyone can say that.

Thinking of the books as stepping stones, as possibilities, as one of the ways that my writer career could climb, I can be happy with any results that come from them. Treating the books as my sole chance of success was absolutely killing my will to get published.
So you see, it is easy, forget all the reasons you have for not offering your book for publishing and send it out today.
A few months back I had two books that were written but needed revision to be ready for publishing. I then decided to take time and do just that. I have accomplished my tasks and completed them, they are fictional novels, written in Portuguese; one is about a colourful Brazilian guy who dates an Australian girl and the other has true tales from my grandfather’s life as a fictional ghost.
I have sent them to copyright; then distributed them to some chosen editors and finally promoted them at a specific website which distributes the books to potential publishing houses according to the book style and the editorial line of the publishers.
Now I am waiting for answers, let’s see how it goes. Wish me luck!

(Orble Votes: 82)

Floating in a Natural Aquarium

Posted on by taniacreations
I took this picture myself!
There are rivers, as clear as air, in a city called Bonito, state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.
Bonito means “beautiful” and it certainly is. It is a world capital of eco-tourism, a place where you can enjoy more than 40 different tourist natural attractions including horse riding, waterfalls, diving, and boat trips among numerous others. But the best of the best are the “floatings” as they are called. You float down river, among the fish which are protected, and feels like you are swimming in an Aquarium.
Imagem 117
I have spent a week in the region, have floated down 4 different rivers enjoying immensely each experience. Each time, after walking in the forest and seeing wild animals and being taught about the region’s flora you float for around 40 to 80 minutes in the clear water. We were lucky to have contracted food for after the efforts. It was delicious! Always homemade cooking in the wood fire stove, very tasty!
I have also climbed 866 steps to see a gorgeous waterfall and visited the “Hole of the Araras”. A natural hole where bands of highly coloured birds live.

Imagem 055

It looked like the fish were floating in the air…
It was a magic week. If you had to visit one place on Earth before it ended, you should definitely put Bonito on your short list!
(Orble Votes: 127)

Job Search Hints and Good News

Posted on by taniacreations
Do the unexpected. At the very least you will ride some pretty fancy lifts. I’ve been going to the recruitment agencies and I have good news: some of them really have people there.
The next morning from my last post I got to create some new crazy strategies, I got to think that letters with ridiculous sayings were not enough. Maybe I should do something in person, like enter the agencies singing (even though I cannot sing), the traditional wearing a watermelon around my neck or my favourite dream obsession: running naked in the middle of George Street, in this case with a body paint saying: hire me!
But by the end of the day I simply did what people seem not to be doing: visit the recruitment agencies. I realised that because mostly they don’t accept any walk-ins anymore, candidates simply stopped doing this walking around trying to talk to a consultant.
For me, the last two days have been amazing, I managed to shake hands with recruiters that actually have an open position that interests me and be interviewed by some nice people that didn’t have the job now but may have it soon. I also got a bunch of business cards; at least they give me a name to put on top of my e-mails with my resumes.
Of course I found some empty offices, got to the position of being inside a lift that doesn’t accept when you press the button. It is such an embarrassing feeling! You go inside a building, confidently go to the lift, the door closes, you press the button, it doesn’t lit, you do it again, and just one more time to be sure. Nothing happens, you press the button to open the door and leaves hoping no-one saw you.
The adventure is to ride all kinds of lifts though. I loved the one that didn’t have any buttons inside. You pressed the level you wanted to be taken in a panel outside in the hall and the panel would tell you which lift would take you there, you then ride the lift to your floor alone. Very fancy!
The best until now was that one of the companies I visited was great, the receptionist was warm and saw me as an actual person, not only a candidate, an unfortunate looking for work in times of crisis, or an annoying walk-in that doesn’t know people don’t do that anymore. She really talked to me, printed my recent resume and said a consultant would see me.
It was that then Magic happened. The consultant looked at my resume and her eyes started shining. She said it was amazing that I had walked in on her with an exact resume that would match a position she was just receiving. When she told me about it my eyes got to shine also.
I am now waiting to see how it goes but it already gave me hope and a warm feeling inside…
(Orble Votes: 58)

Uplifting 2008

Posted on by taniacreations

I saw The Writer’s challenge at the Writer’s Forum a bit late to be part of the contest but it inspired me to write something, because 2008 was the year of the years for me. And 2009 will be the best ever and then 2010 will be amazing, and 2011 will be the greatest, and so on.
2008 was the year I found out how powerful I am, that I can turn anything I want into reality especially when I think: I want to be happy. Then I discovered that I was! Happy! Really deep-inside happy.
This was the year I found out that Garfield was wrong: Monday is great. That no matter what, it doesn’t mater to me which day of the week it is… it’s all good.
Also that the world is beautiful, that there is enough for everyone, that there is love and hope. I found ways to help others I had no idea existed.
2008 was my discovery of being positive and believing in life. It was the year I witnessed incredible miracles: money rain, airplanes that didn’t take off, cancelled ball games, thoughts becoming coins, love in abundance, writing, wishes coming true and so many others.
2008 was the year I discovered myself and that everyone, anyone, anywhere has a chance of happiness…

Love to all writers, power to all dreamers.

(Orble Votes: 56)

Welcome to 2009 Written Life! New Author, New Ideas!

Posted on by taniacreations

This is my new Blog and my idea is to use the name of the site as its theme: writing about life. Mine and in general.
This is the best time to start something new: beginning of the year, just after vacations, writing about life now will be even easier…

(Orble Votes: 44)