Tag: Education

Excited about Kindle Vella

Hey everyone, I discovered Kindle Vella a few days ago and thought it might be something worth trying. I mean, how hard could it be?

Well, as it turns out, I’m starting to feel like it’s just what I’ve been looking for. It’s a platform that let’s a writer publish material in an episodic format. Caveat: ya gotta be a bonified user on KDP’s Publishing platform.

This is what you see on the landing page if you search for Kindle Vella. It’s just my opinion, but it looks like a reader’s paradise.

That would be perfect for an anthology of short stories or even a novel that could be broken out into episodes. There are some rules that Amazon insists the author follow and it’s spelled out in the terms of use. They specify that the content must never have been previously published in any format in any other location.

Just so I’m clear, they want new content. The target market is for the younger crowd. You know, those folks that never put the phone down. As a matter of fact, the prose is automatically formatted to fit phone screens.

I usually try to keep my chapter lengths to around 3k or so but I’ve discovered I can usually break those down even further to wind up with episodes that have the old internal cliffhanger. If you aren’t sure what that is I suggest you do a bit of searching and learning about it. It’s a great tool in a Novelist’a toolbox.

You still need to polish (until your fingers are raw and you are sick of looking at the damn thing) but in the end it gets your work in front of eyeballs. No gatekeepers. Just readers.

And baby, that’s where the rubber hits the road.

Have fun. Get the butt in chair. Stop scrolling this blog and git er done.

Much love to all of you out there struggling.

Peace,

Lee

Be Informed

I think every American with the right to vote should express their intent in the upcoming election of those who will hold the helm of our government for the next four years. Our foundations are constitutional and based on the belief that all men are created equal. That’s my take on it, but I have an uneasy feeling not all my countrymen feel the same. Only about fifty five percent of the voting age population voted in 2016.

Yeah, you read that right.

I mean come on. It sure feels like a full hundred percent complain about the state of things. What’s THAT all about? Apathy is for subjects. NOT citizens.

George Washington referred to our country as “The Great Experiment.” This was in reference to the belief that the citizens of a nation could indeed rule themselves; That government should not be the purview of only the rich and powerful.

“and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Remember that phrase, attributed to Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg address? The words go back as far as a preamble to the bible written by John Wycliffe in 1384. The idea of a free nation has been around as long as men have yearned to be free from the yokes of oppression.

If you think you should be a citizen instead of a subject, I urge you to be knowledgeable of the written platform of the two main parties, who spend most of the time, looking like two mules fighting over an onion.

I say this because OUR nation deserves so much more than we have seen on the major news channels lately. That’s right. I said OUR.

So if you are on the fence about all this hang on to the links below and take a hard look sometime before you make up your mind. Like I said, try to put your emotions aside and listen to your world view. Only you know what the right thing is for you. Not your friends. Not your parents.

Republican Platform

America First

Democrat Preamble

The above links take you to the pages where you can read for yourself EXACTLY what the parties stand for. The only advice I can give is that we all really do have more in common than we have differences. I would urge each of us to put our preconceived notions aside and simply allow ourselves to take these things at face valve and then see how the words align with our own worldview. Then make your decision on how to vote.

This Nation was founded on firm bedrock but beware. There are forces that would strip us of our liberties and subjugate each of us to an iron collar of federal rule, the likes of which most of us can only begin to imagine.

Go forward and be informed. Take charge of your destiny.

Peace,

Lee

Remembering “A Time for Choosing” by Ronald Reagan

Considering the chaos of the nasty political quagmire we find ourselves schlepping through every time the news comes on these days, I thought we might want to take a look back and perhaps, remember just who the heck we are as a nation.

There was a man once who said “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Some of us remember that day with tears in our eyes.

And you know what?

The wall DID come down, opening a whole world up to millions of people who had dreamed of freedom for a lifetime, yearning for that gleaming ideal. It isn’t perfect but the people get to CHOOSE.

As we seethe and boil in our skins from the infighting in our own government I hope we can step away from it for a moment to look back and remember a time when we saw things a bit more clearly.

This video is about half an hour so I hope you can find the time to make yourself something to drink and watch this for your own edification. I was awestruck at the raw truth in this mans words.

That’s it for today. I hope we can all find it in our hearts to remember that our neighbor is our neighbor. Treat each other like the brothers and sisters we are. Do something kind for someone today and you’ll feel better about your own self. Teach your kids to do the same.

Comments are welcome. Keep the faith yall!

Peace,

Lee