Mind Sieve 5/23/16

Had a website server fail on Sunday. Still not sure if it was me or my host. Had some new pics from a new game to share too. :( Still can't do posts from work, so schedule is super tight. Let's see how far I get! :P

Fan Fun

Star Trek Beyond Official Trailer 2 - looks fun! *fingerscrossed*

New Star Trek show teaser coming from CBS. But it's only going to be on paid access. :( (1 episode on regular free CBS TV to work us up. Boo!)

ICKERMAN Official Trailer - the visuals look super awesome! 

Social Media/Author Platform

14 Tools for Bloggers by David Sawyer at the SocialMedia Examiner.

Writing Advice

Character Dead-Ends by John Adamus - great things to keep in mind when writing characters. The WHY is important!

Have a good one!

Mind Sieve 6/1/15

Morning all!

Fan Fun

Hannibal First Look at Season 3 (Preview) - I'm so looking forward to this! Great series! :)

Point Break Trailer - a remake of the 1991 film. (Which I never have watched. Eek!)

Pawn Sacrifice Official Trailer 1 - looks rather fascinating!

Cop Car Official Trailer 1 - looks like a weird puppy! lol.  

Social Media/Author Platform

6 Ways to Grow Your Blog Audience from the Social Media Examiner - article by Kristi Hines.


Branding 101: What's Your Brand's Voice? by Jami Gold - great stuff to think about in this one. :)

Writing Advice

How Mad Max: Fury Road Turns Your Writing Advice Into Roadkill by Chuck (NSFW) Wendig. ROFL! Yes, Mr. Beard, I totally agree. ROFL.

I thinks it's a wrap folks! Have a great week!

Mind Sieve 3/23/15

Morning all!

Fan Fun

Con-Man Teaser - Campaign by Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion - this looks like so much fun!

The Transporter Refueled Official Trailer #1 - should be cool!

Pixels Official Trailer - this will either be a lot of fun or a big bomb. lol.

Inside Out Official Trailer #2 - this is going to be a wild ride. Heh heh

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation - would not let me share the video. Waaaahhh! Look great!

Social Media/Author Platform

Make Your Videos Even More Interactive With Cards by YT Creators.


Should We Change Our Blogging Style by Jami Gold. Food for thought!

Writing Advice

Want to Start a Writing Related Company? guest post by Kathryn Golman at Jami Gold's blog.


The Flip Side to my Writing Tirade by Chuck (NSFW) Wendig.

Heck must be about to freeze over. I did a full post! *pumpsfists*
If you guys only knew all the stuff that has NOT been working out. Bwahahahaha

MInd Sieve 3/9/15

Greetings!
Let's see how far I get!

Fan Fun

Let's play a game with Animals from Maroon 5 - replace the word Animals with Hannibal. Oh it fits so good! Heh heh

Avengers 2: Age of Ultron Trailer #3 - woohoo!

Mr. Holmes Teaser Trailer #1 - Old Holmes with Alzheimers. Ugh the dread of a degrading mind. Eek!

Self/less Trailer - Oh! Hello Heinlein! This looks fun!

No Escape Official Trailer - holy molly!

Social Media/Author Platform

5 Pinterest Image Styles That People Love to Share by Cynthia Sanchez at the Social Media Examiner.


How To Drive More Traffic to Your Blog Posts From Social Networks by Andy Crestodina at the Social Media Examiner. Ack! I need to get on the ball on this one.

Ack, got derailed by the last article. Had to go check things. lol.
Hope you have an awesome week!

Mind Sieve 12/1/14

 Morning~!

Fan Fun

Into the Woods Trailer #2 - this is going to be twisted. lol.

Jurassic World Official Trailer - Oooooh!

PAN Trailer - Blackbeard, Hook, and Peter - Prequel time! Woot!

Strange Magic Official Trailer #1 - should be interesting. lol.

Even Santa Poops - PooPurri.com - These guys crack me UP!

Social Media/Author Platform

The Best Reason to Blog 2014 from Jami Gold. Connections can be so totally AWESOME! As pretty big introvert myself, I totally get it. :)


How to Design Social Media Images For Brand Recognition by Anna Guerrero at the Social Media Examiner. Some nice tips!

Writing Advice

A Writers Guide To Surviving The Holiday Party by Liz Crowe - guest post at Kristen Lamb's blog. Hah, funny, way too real, and helpful stuff here. :) (She might just be channeling her inner Chuck Wendig, too! Heh heh.)

Why It's Important To FInish Your Shit by Chuck (NSFW) Wendig - great list! And one of the biggest obstacles for new writers.

Woot! I did it! An actual full blog post! Yay!

Mind Sieve 4/28/14

Morning all!

Fan Fun

Sex Tape Movie Official Trailer - The name made me raise an eyebrow but this actually looks utterly hilarious!

Boyhood Official Trailer - they actually used the same actor and filmed this over 12 years! How bizarre is that? 

As Above, So Below Trailer #1 - oooh Parisian catacombs. Not your typical horror flick location. 

I Am Soldier Official Trailer - Dr Who fans will recognize someone in here. Heh heh

Social Media/Author Platform

Blogging: Tips, Tricks, and Knowing Your Goals by Jami Gold. Great stuff for author bloggers and more!

12 Types of Blog Posts To Drive More Traffic To Your Blogs by Rich Brooks from the Social Media Examiner. Great list! I think he's covered almost everything out there. :)

Writing Advice

The Single Best Way To Sell Books (Or Lose A Sale) by Kristen Lamb. Eye opening stuff as always!

Rape In Fiction (Or: "Oh, Game of Thrones, Really?") by Chuck (NSFW) Wendig. He's got some definitely vital points in this for us as authors.

I have somehow managed to finish this at a decent interval. YES!
Have an awesome week, ya'll!

Mind Sieve 5/7/12

Yo!

From the Huffington Post - Cute or Creepy? 9 Animals Which Could Be Aliens. Eek!

Solar Cells Must Emit Light To Attain Perfection, Research Suggests - article by James Holloway. Not the first thing I've heard of that must go counter intuitive in order to work.

Cool Kickstarter Project Called Steampunk Holmes. They've reached their goal, but got excited just watching their video. This could be a lot of fun! 

Birth to 12 Years in 2 Minutes and 45 Seconds from Hosmeester. Fascinating to watch her age through the years. 

Storm Trooper Shuffle - Star Wars Parody (Everyday I'm Shuffling) by Scifi 3D.com

NASA - Dawn Reveals Secrets of Giant Asteroid Vesta. 

NASA - Rubber Chicken (Camilla) Flies Into Solar Radiation Storm. (I met her! I've met Camilla! I have a pic of her in a Steampunk outfit! lol).

Designing From Bones - Heaven's Monasteries from Gene Lempp. So want to visit that place! 

Author Blogging 101: Listening by Joel Friendlander. Definite food for thought!

A Conversation over at Chuck (NSFW) Wendig's Terribleminds - "Let's Discuss The Nature Of Book Promotion" - comments galore.

The One Thing You Should Do To Sell More Books by Nick Thacker. (I need clones! Clones, I tell you!

Tips For Critiquing Other Wirters' Work by Melissa Donovan. Great advice!

From Jami Gold - What Does "Writing Is Subjective" Mean? Some definite wisdom here! Tell it, sistah!

And more Jami Gold - Why Does Feedback Hurt So Much? (Even without the "I suck" factor it can hurt. lol. The better I feel about a story, the more I know it's going to get blasted! Heh heh heh.)

Have a great week everyone!

I Won the Kreativ Blogger Award - Squee!

I knew there were blogger awards out there, but honestly hadn't paid much attention. So imagine my surprise when Gene Lempp mentioned giving me one on Twitter this past weekend. Squee!

Here she is in all her beauty...

It seems there's a protocol to follow once you get one of these, so let's see how badly I can botch it. :P

Oh, and in case you're interested, here are the rules for presenting others with the award.


1) The Kreativ Blogger image must be displayed on the blog.
2) The nominator must be acknowledged.
3) The recipient must state ten things about himself or herself that his or her readers probably don’t know.
4) The recipient must pass the award along by nominating at least six blogs to receive the award.

Ten Things About Myself You May Not Know! Dum Dum DUM! (Err, quickly rummages in cobwebbed filled brain for something to put on the list.)

1) I'm actually terribly shy.
2) Which means you won't be surprised that I am a total wallflower at parties.
3) Hate doing "Hard Sales" because I loathe trying to force people to buy something they might not want. (Yes, shooting myself in foot in this business, but I'm weird. And I live better with myself this way. heh)
4) I'm always wishing I had a clone, but not sure where I would put her.
5) I somehow destroy beta readers. Still trying to figure out how I'm doing that...
6) I love delicate things but have a hard time from keeping them from getting destroyed.
7) I'll wear jewelry, clothes, shoes, until they're dead. Then be sad about it.
8) Cannot work on something and watch TV at the same time. Have no idea how my daughter does it.
9) My husband insists I am psychic. I keep insisting he's a psycho. (He likes that for some reason. Huh)
10) Never ever auto follow me in an MMO. Not only am I Wrong Way Conway, but I'll somehow inadvertently make you fall off cliffs. (Especially if I don't know you're following.) :P

This next bit I am going to fail on. Since I get most of my post viewing from Twitter, there are few blogs I actually go to on my own on a recurring basis. So on that lame note...here are some nominated winners for  Kreative Blogger:

1)  Chuck (NSFW) Wending - recipes, memories, macro photography, writing tips, writing motivation, gaming industry, publishing industry, alcohol. Chuck is all over the place. No idea how his creative brain cells don't burn up into the ether. :P

2) Kristen Lamb - loads of social media and writing tips, but what wins her, in my opinion, the Kreativ award is the wide and insane range of pics she uses to put bling into her blogs. Just went over there to get her blog link and this beauty is what I ran across.

She must troll for hours to find some of these beauties. heh heh.

3) The History Blog - all things history. From the mundane to the outright weird. Treasures, museums, discoveries, and more.

I'm supposed to have three more...and that's where I failed. :( Once I post this I am sure I'll think of more. Hah! (As usual.) Doh!

Thanks Gene for the extra WORK! lol. (No, really, very flattered. Thanks!)

Mind Sieve 5/16/11

Fan Fun

FanOftheMovies Shared the latest Green Lantern Movie Trailer.  Should be fun!

SoonerCon shared preview clips & images of upcoming "Batman: The Brave & The Bold" Green Lantern episode "Scorn of the Star Sapphire!"

Suduvu had the link for the first full Conan The Barbarian trailer. Looks great!

FansoftheMovies also had a movie clip for Pirates of the Caribbean for the Palace Escape. Another movie I am eagerly awaiting.

 

Author Platform/Social Media

Fondalo led us to as post by Josh Davis on How to Use Twitter Following and Follower Numbers as an Effective Metric. Great for mind fodder!

TrashyWriter shared  a post by Tony Eldrige answering the question Can Twitter Really Help You Sell Books?

Judy Dunn tells us The 7 Biggest Lies About Blogging.

Tony Eldrige persues the question of When Should You Stop Marketing Your Book. Some good truths in here.

Penny from AME gives us 8 Tips to Make Your Next Writers Conference Awesome!

 

Writing Advice/Tips

Larry from StoryFix.com gives us 3 Edgy Little Tips to Make Your Story More Compelling.

AJ Walker discusses How Much Real World Culture Should be in Fantasy Fiction?.

Alan Baxter discusses Some Thought Provoking Words on World Building In Fiction. I made a large comment on this one as I added my own thoughts.  Even decided to do a guest blog on the subject (though I couldn't find this link to refer back to on it~! Argh! Blogger is not working at the time I am prepping this so can't even go fix it before it goes live. Waaahhhh!)

Chuck Wendig discusses Where Writers Get Their Ideas. He even gives us bizarre examples we can use when we get asked this question. :P (NSFW)

The 3 Rules of Dialogue by Jean Henry Mead.

How To Read a Book Contract by PassiveVoiceBlog. Got to be careful with these things. Eek!

Tackling Revisions by Susan Dennard. Chop it up and take it one chunk at a time. Avoid PANIC! :P

Nathan Bransford shares The Case For Putting a Manuscript in the Drawer. When to let go and move on as well as why.

Psst!

Psst! You there. Yeah you! The one reading this blog. Answer me this...how do you do it? How do you find the time to go trolling around and read this stuff? Tell me, please! I really need to know! I can barely scrape the time to do an entry, and yet you somehow found time to be reading it!


Now, don't get me wrong. I REALLY appreciate you being here. Honest! I just don't have the faintest idea how you're able to do it. Share your SECRET! Pretty please?


I bet by now you're wondering why, if I have so little time, do I even do a blog? Necessity, kind reader, purely for necessity! As an author, I am more obligated than ever to market myself as well as my works. With business being what it is anymore, all marketing efforts are on the shoulders of the authors instead of on the publisher. Only the big names get a marketing budget and possibly professionals to do it for them. Little fishes like me are on our own!


With the World Wide Web, marketing possibilities have widened. But you can stretch yourself really thin that way, because there are just too many to pursue! A website is a must, gotta have it, no choice. A little changing content like news and whatnot is good too, so people have a reason to keep coming back. (Sample chapters are a must as well, so people can get a feel for your writing. If you can pitch in a free short story or too, even better!) Blogs allow for continuous new content, if you can get into the discipline of doing it at least a few times a month or more. I won't even get into the tons of groups in places like Yahoo, Yahoo 360, Ning, Beepo, Frapper, My Space, Live Journal, etc that are out there on the net where you can post info, links, blogs, forums, and who knows what not. Then you have your marketing groups, specific genre marketing groups, publisher marketing groups, newsletters, online interviews, guest blogging, the list is endless!


So maybe now you can see why I am asking how you find the time to read this! I need your Secret! I know I don't have any time to go read posts what with trying to do all this stuff, go to work, keep the family and pets happy, carve a little time for myself (Writers need relaxation too!), and heck, make time to WRITE! lol.


So if you would, take pity on me and tell me how to do it! Even better, if you have a formula by which I can either redo time, replicate myself, or get the powers of Superman, do share! I'll appreciate you forever!:P


Being an author is not the cakewalk people think it is! Eek!

P.S. If you still have time, come on over to the site. I have tons of sample chapters and some free reads too! :P