From Cheerios Cookbook, a BEARY GOOD MIX, 5 minutes prep time, 8 servings 1/2 cup each 240 calories.

• 2 cups Honey Nut Cheerios cereal
• 2 cups teddy-bear shaped graham snacks
• 1 cup honey roasted peanuts
• 1/2 cup raisins

1. Pour all ingredients into a half-gallon plastic bag or 2-quart container.
2. Seal the bag and shake, or stir and cover the container.

This video game comes free with your purchase of Honey Nut Cheerios, review and Cheerios-eating dog on this site only! Enjoy.

 WATCH FOR SPACEHIVE, A  HONEY OF A BOOK, ON KINDLE SELECT www.Amazon.com to be released on AUGUST 10th!

There are many very talented Indie people around, including authors, publishers, designers, artists, musicians. I've met a lot and I try to encourage all of them.

• The publisher of DISCOVERY-An Anthology of Poetry, Authors for a Cause, is Indie and consists of a father and daughter team who have a vision of helping children learn to read. 

• Imajin Books is an Indie publisher awesome in its scope of promotion and knowledge of the book industry and writing, mainly due to its founder, Cheryl Tardif. They will be releasing my first novel, SpaceHive, on August 10, 2012 on Amazon.com.

• Diamond Heart Press is a mother/daughter publishing company in California who are publishing our young reader's book Benjamin and Rumblechum in April 2013. They have a dream, and they are stainless in their pursuit of perfection and purity.

• An Indie band I've discovered to my delight plays from Vancouver, Canada. They're called Sons of Granville. A duo who plays on a fiddle and acoustic guitar. I bought their CD and I want to mention them in a positive light when I can as they're a young band, just starting up, and I think they're very good. I sat with their drummer/manager on a Greyhound bus going to Vancouver. He was a very polite and very talented young man who took the time to explain to an older woman, as I am, technologies I wasn't familiar with, was patient and pleasant, and I'm happy to promote their band, which is billed as classical/rock. Very energetic and amazing instrumental music. 

 

• Amazing and wonderful authors, publishers, musicians, and graphic artists with a vision and independence, entrepreneurs, beautiful and moving like the wind, and they're not going to go away. They will give rise to a spring of their own tomorrow. The seeds have been planted, they are nourishing their futures, they are springing up from the grassroots of their democratic heritage. I might be here to see it flower.

• This is the generation and the face of the future.

 

Discovery-An Anthology of Poetry has sold 65 copies so far today and is 4th on Amazon bestseller list, with more hours in the day to come.

I'm hoping this will continue over the course of the next few weeks and jump start the sales.

Thanks to all of you who participated in the launch and downloaded the book. Please consider leaving a short review on Amazon if you have the book.

Note you don't have to have a Kindle to read it. Apps are available for your PC or mobile device.

I'm having postcards made up. What do you think? Do they need tweeking?

I saved myself $$$ by designing them myself. I'll get them printed at Staples. About 100 at a time, I think, in case I want to tweek them again.

Alison Bruce, crime writer extraordinaire, does graphic design work. You might want to get in touch with her if you need postcards, business cards, bookmarks or templates of any kind. She's also an author of note.

I designed this postcard. The format is a bit wonky here but it fits on a regular postcard and the title is centered.

Would you be interested if you found it in your mailbox?

Discovery-An Anthology of Poetry by Kenna McKinnon Available in ebook on Amazon.com E-mail: kennam@shaw.ca www.facebook.com/KennaMcKinnonAuthor Follow on Twitter: @KennaMcKinnon http://kennamckinnon.blogspot.ca			"Her words speak to my heart in a simple way....to others, they may take on a different meaning. They speak of hardships, trials, and events in life that have been overcome by faith and strength of character."

FREE BOOK LAUNCH on my Discovery-An Anthology of Poetry Facebook launch page! Get a FREE Download of my poetry book, enter a contest for a $10 amazon.com gift certificate (no purchase necessary), see Beatnik Betty (me) read excerpts from the book, have a virtual bistro party.

The book is available on Amazon.com in Kindle Select. You can read it on your PC or Mac, and there are free apps for your cell and tablet, too, if you don't have a Kindle reader.

Come to the virtual party and have fun. Interact with the author, comment on the book, and get your FREE ebook here.

Photo Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The most amazing young woman athlete has written a book about her life. I met Shellie Blum on Twitter and out of curiosity looked at her website.

She's done on water skis what Sheryl Crowe did to music. Perhaps I should say, what Leonard Bernstein did to music.

Shellie is the only female freestyle water ski ramp jumper in the world. She was raised in an athletic and beautiful family, and from an early age demonstrated extraordinary abilities. Shellie needs an agent/publisher for her amazing book. It would make a great movie. Contact information is on her website.  

A week from Thursday there will be a FREE BOOK LAUNCH on Facebook of poetry starting at midnight PST on July 26th.

You're invited to the virtual party with...

• FREE contest with one $10 Amazon.com gift card to give away to the best answer (what made you smile today?). NOTHING TO BUY.
• FREE downloads of DISCOVERY-An Anthology of Poetry ALL DAY.
• A VIRTUAL COFFEEHOUSE right from the 1950s with BEATNIKS, POETRY READINGS NEVER HEARD BEFORE, virtual BLACK COFFEE, virtual RED WINE, virtual TAPAS, CHECKERS, CHESS, JAZZ AND DANCING.
• REVIEWS, 'LIKES' AND FEEDBACK OPTIONAL BUT APPRECIATED.
• FUN TWEETS all day.
• Check out FACEBOOK for more information as the day of the quarter moon approaches.
• COOL INFORMATION about the phases of the moon, changing fashions in poetry and clothing, types of coffee that keep poets awake and their readers asleep, ANECDOTES AND LITTLE KNOWN FACTS about the author, Michigan (home of my publishers), and Canada (home of the author).
• The virtual party will be featured on FACEBOOK.
• This FREE LAUNCH is co-sponsored by my Indie publishers, Authors for a Cause, from Michigan, USA.

Don't miss it - you are all invited. Some of you will receive email invitations. Sorry, I spilled virtual coffee on my address list (poets will do that). But EVERYONE will get a personal invitation! Here it is!

26 July 2012 MIDNIGHT TO 11:59 p.m.

Come to my LAUNCH PARTY on Facebook at midnight on FRIDAY, AUGUST 10th! Someone will win a $10 Amazon gift card for entering, answer a simple question (What made you smile today?), see great honey recipes, learn facts about Bees and Wasps, drink mead and eat honeycakes. Dance like nobody's watching but everybody's watching because it's my SpaceHive Launch Party!


 


Have a GREAT time on August 10th!

See you then.

There's been a buzz about bees in the news lately. A man found 50,000 bees in the walls of his house in California. They were relocated by Mike, a humane bee worker who doesn't exterminate the winged critters but vacuums them into boxes and introduces them to a new home, hopefully in the country or a tree where they'd be more welcome.

Bees in China have apparently been poisoned; as well, our own honeybees have been in the news over the past few years for the same reason.

Little known facts about bees? Watch this space in future.

Bees are not wasps. Read about the difference.


Watch out for the General. He's a mean wasp, and threatens earth with extinction.

It might be we had it coming!

What do you think? Is mankind the top of creation or would you give that honor to the insects who might survive long after we're gone? Watch how this jewel wasp turns roaches into zombies and lays its eggs in the roach.

Meanwhile, we're BUZZING WITH NEWS...

READ "SPACEHIVE" TO BE RELEASED ON KINDLE KDP SELECT AUGUST 10th and in TRADE PAPERBACK SEPTEMBER 1st, 2012!!! 

Earth was in danger.
Jealous eyes gazed toward our Sun from a planet called Jive Hive in another star system, black compound eyes that peered without compassion as though we were flies caught on sticky paper ready for the fire.

The first of their suns was setting as blood orange light spilled into the valley. Three female worker bees, two over seven feet tall and the other not quite five feet, sat under a purple-flowered tree, sorting through various flowers.

"We can't go on like this much longer," Banter said. "There are too many of us. The hive has to find a new home. The Black Watch wasps, vicious as they are, know what they're doing. They've been scanning the skies for hundreds of years. And keeping a check on our population."

She sat next to her cousins, Zibb and Bipp. They had worked all day collecting pollen for their hive. Now they rested and talked of the Imperative—to colonize. The whole Jive Hive planet was abuzz with the news.

"Yes,” Zibb agreed. "The queen said this one is a plum ripe for the picking and only eight light years away. It'll be a brand new adventure for us. A new Jive Hive. We'll be tired when we arrive. From the long sleep."

"Too bad there are beings there." Banter selected a fresh flower and began culling its nectar.

"Too bad we have to kill them all," Zibb said. "I've heard the new planet's green and warm. I've heard from the wasp scouts that it's abused by its inhabitants, though."
"Their fault then and all the more reason to kill them. We must take it while we can."

Zibb began grooming her cousin. "The migration will be an adventure to be endured before it's ended. They say the trip will take eight years in suspended animation. Then, on arrival, our poor, wasted bodies must prepare for war." She sighed.

"Or negotiation," Banter offered. She picked up another flower.

"Never! Negotiation with General Vard and his black wasps?” Zibb shook her barbs in the air. “The Black Watch wouldn't allow it. No, the Eternity Drive will deliver some of us to an early death once we've arrived on Earth. The humans are said to be a warlike race. I don't think they'll offer to share their planet. And our Black Watch sure won't share it. Earth will be taken by force and the human survivors used for food for the wasps."

 

Picture courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Summertime and the livin' is easy. Caps are bustin' and the baseball is high...Take me out to the ballgame ...buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack (what's that?), I don't care if I never get back...and it's...

Fifth inning stretch, hotdogs and coke and big soft NY pretzels with salt, and yay, Edmonton has yet another ball team this year to play in Telus Place. Any Edmonton fans out there?

Any baseball fans? Who's your favorite team?

I'm partial to Edmonton, but next to #YEG, I love the Cleveland Indians and the Cincinnati Reds.

♥♥ My poetry anthology is released this week. Buy for 99 cents today! Kindle Select on amazon. Reviews would be welcome. Please retweet and mention on Facebook. Published by Authors For a Cause, fantastic father and daughter team, Mark and Allison. Check them out, buy their books, send your books to them for great formatting and book covers (they did the cover below for me and the formatting of the poetry book, with much patience and skill).

Thanks, pals. Your comments are appreciated.

Summertime and the reading is easy...la la la and the reading is fun. What are you reading this summer? Many are reading about ancient Egypt, magic, the Kane family, and the Serpent's Shadow. Learn about Ancient Egypt in the Kane Chronicles. The on-line world of Rick Riordan is fun aplenty with Chaos threatening to overtake the world, and two teens and some trainees using magic to restore the World order. Will they succeed? Of course, but how?

Check out Rick's blog, see the British Museum's website for fun and games about ancient Egypt. 

If the Kane Chronicles was a movie cast...who would you choose to play the lead roles? This was uploaded by The Muzbo in August 2010. Thank you for the opportunity to download these interesting drawings. Can anyone else do as well? Comments?

 

Interesting blog by Natasha Wing, who's published 22 books and is still dancing with the keyboard.

She wrote the Night Before series, such as The Night Before Kindergarten, a twist on The Night Before Christmas.

Natasha is Picture Book Expert Guide for Children's Book Insider (CBI). Visit them on Facebook and perhaps win a prize for a short story!


Swim around obstacles, join writer's groups, network on Facebook and Twitter, email fans, get an agent, submit, read marketing and writing books, never give up. Write, write, write and you'll outlast your competition.



"Sometimes it's about skill...sometimes it's about luck."

It's stacking the odds in your favor. In the words of Winston Churchill, "never give up, never give up, never give up."

I tried for almost 30 years to publish a book, so I totally "get it." I submitted and polished and submitted again, I let my books gather mothballs and dust bunnies in drawers for years, and then - I learned to write!

I started with articles, gave some poetry and a few articles away for free, began to build a portfolio, started a  blog called The Scribe.

I matured, I found a publisher who was a mentor, I followed advice, she saw something in my work worth coddling and I signed two contracts last year and another two this year.

My ebook called Discovery - An Anthology of Poetry, is presently offered on Kindle Select by Authors for a Cause, and received marvelous help with formatting and promotion from Mark and Allison.


Write because you love it and don't be in a hurry to get published. Keep your day job at least part-time, put your eggs in several baskets, write poetry, articles, nonfiction, fiction, short stories, ghost write, write, write because you LOVE IT.

Make sure your grammar and spelling are perfect. No typos please. Show don't tell. Leave lots of white space. Cut and hire a professional editor. Have a couple of people proofread it. Take constructive criticism and learn from it. Make changes. Go with the smaller publishers, not everyone makes the Big 6 right away.

Consider self publishing but be prepared to put in the effort. Make sure it's as perfect as you can make it. Make sure it's your best work. Be patient.

Develop a fan base. It's not all about you.

One day it will happen. You'll be on your way.


What do you do to stay positive on this writing journey?

CELEBRATE WITH A FIREWORKS VIDEO!!!

Do you have some great ideas? Put them on paper.

1. Write a diary
2. Or journal and copy it to a blog
3. Use writing prompts such as this one
4. For example, "Why I didn't work today..."
5. Or write from the viewpoint of an old car that has just gotten a new paint job
6. Find pictures for writing prompts
7. Write about this...

1. ...or your day

✺✺✺✺ Happy 4th of July to my American friends. Independence Day. Never forget your freedoms fought and died for by your forebears and ours.

1. A location
2. A clever line of dialogue
3. A character
4. A fun title...
5. Every good writing idea comes from a process
6. Most of all, just sit down and WRITE! The ideas will come.
7. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't write
8. That's like telling you that you can't think
9. ...or dream
10. ...or imagine
11. ...or create!
12. Most of all, have fun