Tag: humor

Building Your Public Presentation Skills

The cloistered life of a writer can take a toll on your social skills. As an author, we all spend a lot of time in our own heads as opposed to interacting with other people. Social media doesn’t count. I mean the kind of people you actually might have to go outside your house to encounter. Real people—like the ones you see on television. The ones on television don’t count either.

Sooner or later, you will need those social skills because at some point, you will be asked to do a presentation of some sort. Perhaps you will be asked to speak before a book club, or at a library function, or (as in my case) to ask people in the grocery store if they’d like to try a sample of today’s cheese.  Continue reading “Building Your Public Presentation Skills”

Sorry, We Can’t Use Funny by Barry Parham

Author Barry Parham

Not long ago, I wrote a book. I didn’t mean to – I had to. Somehow, I had managed to snub a minor deity, and I had to set things right.

I knew I didn’t have what it takes to write a novel. I’m missing a few essentials: a plot, a plan, intimacy with a bunch of interesting characters, vocabulary, discipline, talent.

No, I wanted to write something less dramatic, something more useless, something that lets me get away with gross grammatical gaffes like, for example, the previous paragraph. I wanted to write a weekly commentary and then find some newspaper to carry it, so I could get out of the numbing habit of actually working.

And so, for a while, I tried writing stuff and contacting newspapers all across America. But the newspapers kept telling me to get out of the way so they could finish dying.

So it didn’t go well, and now I focus on writing other things: online columns, long parole violation rationalizations, extended grocery shopping lists. Continue reading “Sorry, We Can’t Use Funny by Barry Parham”

I will survive – ‘ReKindled’ version

I will survive – ‘ReKindled’ version.’

Dedicated to the team at Indies Unlimited who have guided me through the maze of Google Plus, Stumble On, Diggit, Twitter and Facebook to mention a few of the tutorial subjects that have helped me become a social networking genius.

At first I was afraid
I was petrified
Kept typing promo emails
With wine gums by my side
And then I spent so many nights
Thinking I was going wrong
But I grew strong
And I learned how to get along
 
Thanks to this site
In cyber space
I signed up to find some help
And found some clever folk who’re ace
I should have checked them out before
I should have read all helpful posts
If I’ve have known for just one second
They were such accommodating hosts
 
So thanks to Hise
And KS Brooks
I have recently
Learned to pimp my fellow author’s books
Weren’t they the ones who tried to tutor me, oh my!
Did you think I would Stumble
Did you think I’d fall down and cry?
Oh no, not I
 
I will survive
Oh, as long as I have my laptop
I know I’ll stay online
I’ve got lots of likes, oh look
On my page now on Facebook
And I’ll survive
I will survive, hey hey.
 
It took all the strength I had
Not to fall apart
Kept trying hard to understand
Tech lessons and all that craft
And I spent oh so many nights
Just struggling with their tips
I used to sigh
But now I hold my head up high
 
And you see me
Somebody new
I’m not that confused aged person
Now I’m feeling ‘phew!’
I can tweet loud like a crow
I can share with all my mates*
And now I know how to promote
So many peeps in cyber space.
 
Come on and try
For goodness sake
Get mingling with us
You won’t make more mistakes
Weren’t you the agent who tried to break me with ‘goodbye’
Did you think I’d crumble?
Did you think I’d lay down and cry?
Oh no, not I
 
I will survive
Oh, as long as I have my laptop
I know I’ll stay online
I’ve got lots of likes, oh look
On my page now on Facebook
And I’ll survive
I will survive
I will survive…

*mates – British slang for ‘friends’

Apologies to Gloria Gaynor but just be thankful I didn’t post a YouTube video of me singing this.

Want to sing along? You can!

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Carol E Wyer is a Contributing Author for Indies Unlimited and author of the novel, MINI SKIRTS AND LAUGHTER LINES. For more information, please see the IU Bio page and her website: http://www.carolewyer.co.uk

The Fountainhead of Creativity

While it is always wrong to make absolute declarations and sweeping generalizations, it is undeniable that there are three types of people in the world:

1. Those who are good at math, and

B. Those of us who aren’t.

The easy conclusion is that people who are good at math are organized, logical thinkers. This may be true—the old left-brain/right-brain thing. I can never remember which is which. That may mean I am the third of the two types. However, I think there is a reason the people who are not good at math tend to be the more creative types—artists, writers, thespians, short-order cooks.

The very simple and obvious explanation is that we had to think up reasons we did not have our math assignments ready to turn in. This forced us to turn on our creative juices to move beyond the old trope of “the dog ate it” to the more entertaining (if no more credible) mitigation of epic singularities such as alien abductions, evil twins, foul play, espionage, talking rabbits who are late for parties, and inter-dimensional portals opened by the magnificent correctness of a formula you calculated (which sadly resulted in its theft by miscreants from another galaxy). Continue reading “The Fountainhead of Creativity”