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Happy Birthday @MFRW_ORG 17 years of Marketing for Romance Writers #MFRWauthor #MFRWorg #Authors
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Fear – the dreaded words “You have cancer.” Author Pia Manning @piamanning3 #RLFblog #CancerAwareness #Authors
All my fears – of surgery, radiation, chemo, puking my guts out on a daily basis, losing every hair on my body, and dying – every one of them walked into the exam room right along with the guy in the white coat.
And then he uttered those words we all dread hearing: “You have cancer.”
The world, your world, stops.
I know this from personal experience as both myself, my husband and several other family members have heard those words. I’m not sure anyone can say they don’t know someone who has been touched by cancer.
Sure, we try to reduce our risk factors – quit smoking, lessen alcohol consumption, eat right, and exercise – you’ve probably heard this before. Unfortunately, there are factors that simply cannot be minimized. Everyone ages. Family history based on genetics can be a harbinger of future disasters waiting to happen.
That’s scary as hell.
One way to combat the risks associated with aging, lifestyle risks, and genetics is through early detection. No one (that I know of anyway) wants a colonoscopy or a pap smear, but the exams find cancer in its early stages. Other tests are simple blood draws, like the PSA (Prostate-specific Antigen) test, which measures a protein associated with prostate cancer.
The love of my life celebrated his thirteenth cancer-free year because a PSA test found his disease before it spread.
For women, a mammogram is the best way to protect themselves against dying of breast cancer. Caught early, breast cancer is highly curable. I have been cancer free for fifteen years.
This does not mean that I worry any less when the mammogram reminder pops up on the calendar every year. A parade of ‘what ifs’ prances through my head. Should I cancel this year’s test? After all, I can’t feel any lumps – not that I felt my tumor fifteen years ago. Neither could the surgeon. And there it is. The reason I need to make that appointment. I shove the fear aside and call.
In the years post-diagnosis, My husband and I have experienced the joy of watching our children fall in love and had the pleasure of welcoming their wonderful spouses to our family. We’ve played with our grandchildren. Hugged each other. There have been countless joyful experiences that, but for our screening tests, we might not have had.
Isn’t that reason enough to pick up your phone?
P.S. Still scared? That’s okay. If you’d like to talk about it, email me: at piamanning@yahoo.com. Or contact me through my website at: www.piamanning.com
Pia Manning Social Media
I live in the northwoods territory of Wisconsin with my spousal unit, Blondie girl, and three spoiled felines. When not writing, I can be found dog walking, reading, playing Clash of Clans or crocheting.
Twitter https://twitter.com/piamanning3
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pia.manning.71 -
Don’t miss free access to Self Publishing Advice Conference Oct 29-30, 2022 #SelfPubCon #Writing
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Free Access to Self Publishing Advice Conference 2022 #SelfPubCon #Writing
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Eileen Troemel author of Celtan Dilemma shares a #TechTip for Rocketbook and beacons @EileenTroemel #RLFblog #Rocketbook
An order from the captain of the ship creates a moral dilemma for Lieutenant Lillian Buckner in Celtan Dilemma a new Scifi Romance by Eileen Troemel. Does she become a traitor or a criminal? If she follows orders, she and her squad are war criminals. If she disobeys orders, they are traitors.
Eileen, welcome to Romance Lives Forever. I’m Kayelle Allen, author and owner of this blog. Happy to have you here! We want to hear your tech tip, but first, please tell us about Celtan Dilemma.
Celtan Dilemma is about a group of women who must choose to kill innocents including children or become traitors to their own species. Once they make their choice, they learn things are not as they’ve been told and the Celtan race offers options they’ve never had.
Celtan Dilemma by Eileen Troemel
Genre Scifi romance
Book heat level (based on movie ratings): R
Traitor or criminal?
Lieutenant Lillian Buckner receives orders to take her squad of women pilots out to specific coordinates and destroy an unarmed transport. Lilly must decide whether to be a war criminal by firing on an unarmed vessel or to be a traitor and disobey her orders. Her life and those of her six pilots depends on her decision. No matter her decision, the punishment may kill her if she returns to the human forces.
Trust or Punish?
Lord Hugh Korol fights against the humans. They invaded the Celtan’s territory and took sectors of space from them. The humans attacked their home world. When human women aid one of their unarmed transports, he must decide what to do to them. Can he trust the one he desires or will she break more than the fragile trust growing between them?
Tech Tip
With working a day job and writing, my eyes get tired of staring at a screen. I tried writing on a tablet but the transcription was problematic and it took more time to correct the words so I’d lose the flow of my writing.
I love to write. Give me a spiral notebook and pen and I’ll write a complete novel that way. Except then of course, I have to type it up. I learned about Rocketbook and beacons at my day job but for my day job, I didn’t really need it. However, as an author, I saw a lot of potential. When I initially looked into it, it did not transcribe writing to words in a document it only took a picture. So I set it aside and did not use it. Fast forward a couple years, my middle daughter says mom do you want a Rocketbook. I asked if it could transcribe. She said no. I thought well I could try it and see if I could make it work. We got them and I set it aside to work on later. Then in my email, the company emailed to say here’s this new feature. You guessed it – Transcription. I had to try it immediately.
You can get the Rocketbooks in a variety of sizes. I have three – flip pad (think police officer’s notebook), journal size 6 x 9, and then spiral size. My favorite is the spiral size. It has lines and I can fit a lot on one page.
First time I did, I learned a lot. So I’ve written in a journal forever and in my journal, I write from top to bottom and side to side. So Rocketbook spiral, this is what I did. No. Leave plenty of space at the top and at the bottom there’s a QT code which the software uses to do it’s magic. Also don’t crowd your words or write edge to edge. It didn’t take me long to adjust my style for this.
So at the end of the day when my eyes are blurry from looking at a screen but I still want to write, I pull out this spiral size notebook and write. It’s soothing, relaxing, and allows me to continue to write when I struggle with screen work.
The software – app on your smart phone – takes a little to get used to but it is fairly simple. But you must have patience.
Two things I’ve figured out. My scans go to my One Note. You can also send them only to your email and there are all sorts of options. So in One Note you have to have a page available. But I’ve found it comes in to One Note faster if I have my email open as well.
At the top I write ## Title of Book ## This creates a tag in their software. So I add a number for pages – ## Celtan Dilemma 1 ## and ## Celtan Dilemma 2 ## and so on. This allows me to know if I’ve received each page I scanned.
Now the transcription. I am right handed and have relatively neat handwriting. Things that mess up – when letters go below the line it will interfere with the letters on the next line. If I write sloppy, it will put odd things in. But for the most part, it does a good job and as they technology moves forward, I believe it will improve.
This has all been about the books – what are the beacons and how can they be used? Oh I was excited to learn about the beacons. So these are little triangles you buy and can put on whiteboards – according to their ads and product information. The thing is when I read about them I thought of other uses for them.
How many of you have spirals of your writing that you’ll do something with some day? Transcribing handwritten stuff is a pain. It’s time consuming and tedious. But here’s where the beacons come in. Open your spiral of handwritten materials, take your four triangles and the software and start scanning. It takes a little to get used to how to do it, but I scanned three handwritten poems in a short period of time. Now I have them electronically. Even if it’s not in a spiral (if you’re like me) and it’s on the back of an envelope or post it or something else, put your triangles around the text and scan.
I have a handwritten cook book from my mom which I plan to use both the picture of the scan (so we can keep her handwriting) and the transcription of the text. When I’m done, I hope to have a family cookbook which includes family stories about food. Ultimately with this technology, I’ll be able to write wherever and however I want and transcribe it fairly easily. This will give my eyes a break and allow me more flexibility with my writing.
Where to buy Celtan Dilemma
Universal Buy Link https://books2read.com/CeltanDilemma
Eileen Troemel Social Media
USA Today Bestseller Author Eileen Troemel writes action packed and emotionally powerful fantasy, scifi, romance. She’s versatile and writes in many genres. She’ll try almost any genre if it means she can tell a good story. In addition to her writing, she loves to read, crochet, and research genealogy. Her best days are spent with her family of three adult daughters and her husband or writing.
Website https://eileentroemel.com/
Twitter https://twitter.com/EileenTroemel
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/EileenTroemelAuthor/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/eileentroemel/
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/eileen-troemel-6667825b/
MeWe https://mewe.com/i/eileentroemel
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7868345.Eileen_Troemel -
Hey Authors, Yeah You! Get Twice the Exposure of your books for #Free #Authors #RenesGetaway #RLFBlog
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Rene’s Getaway and Romance Lives Forever have joined forces so that you can reach even more readers. We both have space open on our blogs and we want you.
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We have a Fiction Furbaby interview for the animal side of shape-shifters. You can also talk about pets or animals in your books. A fun “Know Your Hero/ine” lets you answer quirky questions about your character, or put them through the wringer with “Stressing the Hero/ine”.
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