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im reading a story entilted the nine billion names of god, and its considered a science fiction story but why? is it because of the notion of god or what?
keep in mind that god existance hasn’t been proven,

Creative writing is all about playing around with words on any given subject. It allows you to let your imagination run wild. Those of you thinking of writing your first novel tend to have that one vital ingredient required, an active imagination. It is through the power of that imagination that your first novel will be created.

More often than not when thinking of creative writing, we tend to believe itâ??s only for certain people when really anyone can do it. Itâ??s a great release for your passions and thoughts, giving you an ideal opportunity to put down all that musing. Creative writing is about committing to paper whatever you want, in the way you want to do it. The challenge of actually doing this, however, can be overwhelming to most people yet, if thatâ??s all there is to it, then why donâ??t more people do it? The challenge of writing your first novel doesnâ??t have to be as daunting as it may seem.

IDEAS:

Use your local library and study all the different writing styles offered in short stories for inspiration and ideas.

Is there a chapter in your life you could use as a base for a short story? Remember that only you know itâ??s from your experience so you can expand as much or as little as you want; itâ??s your story.

Try this popular writing exercise. Get out a dictionary and, with your eyes closed, randomly pick out half a dozen words. With a timer set to, say, a quarter of an hour, freewrite on each chosen word and try to incorporate the said word within the first paragraph.

Pick up a ladiesâ?? magazine, open up at any page and again freewrite for fifteen minutes on the main photograph or picture on view.

As a writer, you will need to be able set down all emotions and feelings. The seven deadly sins are:

GREED -  strong and selfish desire for possessions, wealth or power.

LUST -  a passionate desire for something

ENVY – discontented longing aroused by someone elseâ??s possessions, quality or look

GLUTTONY – the habit or fact of eating excessively

WRATH – extreme anger

SLOTH – reluctance to work or make an effort; laziness

Each one of these words is fantastic to write about and can offer a multitude of dimensions to explore. Create a short story about each one, making it as long or short as your imagination allows.

How to reach your intended constituents with your non profit’s services is no mere afterthought for a non profit founder. These are some marketing methods to plan for and to describe in the marketing section of your non profit business plan.

Partner Organizations

Businesses, the government, or related non profits may be in a position to refer those who need your services to you (or you to them). Look for groups like this who can be potential partners when their stated purpose is to help funnel those in need to non profits like yours. Establish a positive, win-win relationship with these organizations, focused on both how they can help you and how your services will help them and their own constituents. If the exchange is uneven, perhaps the partner should be paying you for your service, or your non profit should be paying them. Paying for referrals should not be ruled out if it is more efficient than other marketing methods.

Go To The Sources

If you’ve done your homework and learned where your constituents live, work, and spend their time, you will have many ideas of physical locations where you should advertise to reach them. If other businesses and non profits have the same idea of reaching the target market this way, you may find it hard to be heard through the clutter of marketing messages. Look for the unexploited spaces and always think about how your message can stand out through clever graphic design or through personal interaction, for example.

Advertising

For some non profits, traditional advertising methods, including television, radio, print, and online, have an important place in the marketing plan. Look for outlets that have a demonstrated ability to reach your constituents at low cost. Then consider those that offer further discounts for non profits. Remember that, with mass marketing techniques, you are paying to reach those who don’t need to hear your message as well as those who do, so choose the advertising channel wisely and attempt to measure the results from each channel so you can adjust where you spend your marketing dollars later on.

by Cathy Macleod, 31 January 2009.

Agatha Christie, Fay Weldon and Ann Morven have all embraced electronic publication as the ebook revolution gushes into the new year of 2009.

For evergreen Christie characters, such as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, it entails a reformat from the hardprint titles. But new Weldon and Morven titles, exclusively digital, can be read only on an electronic device. These may be handheld, laptop or desktop, the worldwide appliances that have changed reading habits.

Ann Morven, diva of the short whodunit, said her publishers had decided to issue her latest mystery in digital style only. It is a short story, “Birthday Snakes”, featuring the heavyweight chump of crime fiction, a female sleuth with   bumbling instinct for human frailty.

“My publishers have attracted on-screen readers for the past year by means of texts below 6000 words,” Ann Morven said. “This means short stories and serials. The reason  is simple. Booktrade watchers believe that to absorb a long digital novel needs practice when we are all used to paperbacks. People are still just bonding with their megabyte machines, whether mobile phone or a book-friendly computer.”

She revealed her own preference remained a hardprint paperback, but said she achieved “something of the same intimacy” reading a laptop loaded with the free Mobipocket Reader software.

Fay Weldon’s efiction is also being introduced in short takes. It appears in serialized episodes at YouGov.com, under the title “Woodworm”.

Fay Weldon says she welcomes feedback and is writing the chapters in a continuing plot that can be influenced by what followers of the serial suggest to her.

She is not the first to follow this course. Alexander McCall Smith began the interactive formula with “44 Scotland Street”, a serial in The Scotsman newspaper. Later, it was published as a hardprint book, and several more Scotland Street titles have followed involving the same characters.

McCall Smith is currently writing a similar serial for London’s Daily Telegraph. It features London dwellers and appears under the title of “Corduroy Mansions”. Significantly, the chapters are available for digital download at the newspaper’s website.

Books by the late Agatha Christie that will appear in digital format are, of course, already popular in hardprint. The digital publisher, Penguin in the United States, believes there is a new market in the electronic field.

Initially, ten digital titles will be published by this publisher, one of the global giants to recognize that ebooks are here to stay.

Up until 2008, it was small publishers who led the trend into ebooks. This was mainly an economic choice to avoid the crippling overheads of printing, binding, warehousing thousands of books, distributing them to bookshops, and receiving just 40% percent of the cover price. That 40% had to pay for all those things plus advances and royalties to authors and, perhaps, leave a small profit for the publisher.

Such an impossible business formula encouraged small publishers to try the alternative digital market, selling direct to readers. Their pioneering endeavour has shown the way to the global giants who now suffer in the world recession.

The year 2009, therefore, is going to mark out fresh focus on ebooks following dismal earnings from traditionally printed titles. The business world is well into electronic documents, so is the world of education, where text books now come on a screen.

Fiction will enjoy its best digital year yet, because what was once a trickle has become a torrent.
Note this: “Read an ebook week” is March 8-14. Lots of promotional goodies offered! Details at www.ebookweek.com

Happy reading!     This from Cathy Macleod at booktaste.com

If I could give you one key, all important, tops above all tip for article marketing, here it is.  Now I know you are wondering what it is and you want to know, right now, right this second.  But, if you want to find out you will have to read the article.  I promise if you finish the article you will agree with me what the greatest tip is!

I love stories and want to tell you one about an article marketer and his wife.

A very successful article marketer was married to a vivacious blonde wife.  They lived on a ranch and the marketer’s business was in trouble.  So, in order to keep the bank from repossessing the ranch, they needed to purchase a bull so that they could breed their own stock.

The husband tells his wife, ‘When I find a bull and decide to buy it, I will contact you to drive out after me and we will haul it home.’

The marketer arrives at a bull owners ranch with $600, inspects the bull, and decides he wants to buy it. The owner tells him that he will sell it for $599, not a penny less.

After paying him, he drives to the nearest town to send his wife a telegram to tell her the news.

He walks into the telegraph office, and says, ‘I want to send a telegram to my wife to tell her that I’ve bought a bull for our ranch. I need her to hitch the trailer to our pickup truck and drive out here so we can haul it home.’

The telegraph operator explains that he’ll be glad to help him, but ‘it will cost 99 cents a word.’ Hmm, sighs the husband and realized he can only send one word.

After a few minutes of thinking, he nods and says, ‘I want you to send her the word ‘comfortable.’

The operator shakes his head. ‘How is she ever going to know that you want her to hitch the trailer to your pickup truck and drive out here to haul that bull back to your ranch if you send her just the word ‘comfortable?’

The husband explains, ‘My wife’s blonde. The word is big. She’ll read it very slowly… ‘com-for-da-bul’.

If you haven’t figured it out by reading the article, then I will give you one last chance.  The one most important, all encompassing, tops above all tip to article marketing is have fun and be funny.  Life is too short to take it and your business internet money online opportunity too seriously!

It very well could be real, but for now it’s the latest heart-pounding fiction book, Sledgehammer, about a terrorist who arrives in the ER with smallpox symptoms. An ER physician suspects it but has just six days to convince hospital executives and the U.S. Government before an epidemic breaks out.

The story is brought vividly to life by Dr. Paulo J. Reyes who obtained his MD at the UCSF School of Medicine, has 25 years in medicine and internal medicine and is a First Responder for the busiest cities in California specifically in terrorists training.

In Sledgehammer, the lead character, Max Kroose, an intuitive emergency room physician, believes terrorists are to blame for the attack and fears the more lethal form of smallpox, called Sledgehammer, will kill within days. As time progresses, the terrorists planned attacks at a sports arena, mall and airport must be stopped. The question becomes can this ER doctor convince the hospital administration and the public health care system about the presence of this deadly disease and the need to vaccinate the American public. You won’t be able to stop reading as you seek to find out the truth in this non-stop thriller.

How big a threat is smallpox? “The Federal Government should allow voluntary smallpox vaccinations to protect us from smallpox bioterrorist attacks,” says Dr. Reyes. “At the very least the Federal Government should allow voluntary vaccinations of the first responders which should include all hospital medical staff. The President and the military have been vaccinated. Why shouldn’t the American public?”

Dr. Reyes also authored Health-Care Reform or Redistribution of Cost? and in his research of the health care system, he has seen its shortcomings. Realizing there is clear and present danger of a terrorist attack in the health care system has prompted him to support voluntary smallpox vaccinations.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) considers smallpox as a possible danger and includes it as one of the possible agents of a bioterrorist attack, in its website under the subheading Emergency Preparedness and Response along with anthrax, plague, and tularemia.

Reyes believes the Federal Government should consider a trial program to detect the presence of the virus – similar to a pregnancy test – so if the disease presents itself, it will be detected before it becomes an epidemic or pandemic.

The American public is immuno-naïve to smallpox, which means it could spread very rapidly, Reyes says. And containment could be even more difficult or impossible if the virus was aerosolized, which the CDC believes may be the case, he says.

With new terrorist attacks continually happening in the United States and the fear of a global pandemic, Sledgehammer is a gripping book to get a real insight into what could possibly lie ahead unless immediate action is taken. Buy your book today at http://www.pauloreyes.com, Amazon.com or any major online bookstore.

Small non shedding dogs are generally hypoallergenic. Hundreds of thousands, even millions around the world love animals, but alergies and sneezing as well as sore eyes due to hair stop them from being owners of these cute little creatures. However, there is a soloution, non shedding dogs!

The term non shedding refers to dogs that are minimal to literally no hair loss. These dogs release only a small amount of dander, basically small scales on the skin that flake offer and cause people to have allergies. However, those with allergies should still make sure the particular breed can be around them; you wouldn’t want to take a dog home only to relise you have to send him back!

Reasearch has been done on different dog breeds that fit the non shedding catergory. If you are on the lookout for small non shedding dogs, there are a few that are recommended. The Airedale Terrier, Boston Terrier, Basenji, Havanese and Maltese are all non shedding dogs, we encourage you to click the link below if you are interested in learning more about these dogs and others.

Click here for more information on small non shedding dogs

You can find hundreds of non shedding dog shelters and homes around, take one in today and save a little dog now. Before heading to the pet shop to pick up a pet that has been cared and loved for and will continue to be, head over to your local animal adoption center and try to save a life.

For more information on dog shedding in general, please click here

I recently had the pleasure of watching Marc Forster’s film, Stranger Than Fiction, which I found to be a delightfully charming, intelligent comedy written by first-time screenwriter Zach Helm. I give it two guitars up. Way up. (Platonically speaking of course).

It’s about an uptight IRS agent, Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), who realizes that his mundane life is being narrated by the voice of a chain-smoking novelist played by Emma Thompson. The novelist is suffering from a bad case of writer’s block and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown because she can’t decide the ending to her story.

Going mad with the constant narration in his head that accurately predicts his every move, Crick solicits the help of a literature professor (Dustin Hoffman) to help find his voice. To his utter shock and dismay, Crick learns that the voice of his narrator belongs to this eccentric author that writes tragedies in which her heroes are killed off.

But Crick does not want to die! For the first time in his life he is discovering who he really is and what his true passions are. He sets out to meet the author with the determination to alter his fate. And upon meeting, the two worlds collide. The author is petrified to see that her main character has come to life and that he is very real indeed.

I can certainly relate to this movie as a writer working on my first inspirational novel. The movie raises some intriguing questions: What does it mean to be real? To find one’s voice? To express one’s voice? Who is narrating our story? Can fate be altered? Where do the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction collide?

I certainly don’t pretend to know the answers. I can only share my perspective as a writer. One of the challenges writers face is to know their characters inside and out and to have a complete understanding of the world they have created so that everything magically comes to life. As the story-writing guru, Robert McKee, likes to say, “Not a sparrow should fall in the world of a writer that he wouldn’t know.”

I believe in a sense that we are all writers. We are writers of our own play. In The Hero Soul (http://www.HeroSoul.com), I close the last chapter of my book with a quote from Shakespeare:

”All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”

The world is a stage upon which we perform. Each age consisting of the acts and scenes of the play. But it’s our play. We choose how we act in each scene moment by moment. What type of play do you want to write? What type of a life do you want to live?

Realizing that he is going to be killed off, Harold Crick asks the literary professor for advice. The professor gives him a deceptively simple answer, “Go live your life! Do what you love to do!”

At first, Crick is offended by the professor’s triteness; but he realizes later that he has no control over his mortality and decides to do just that: live his life. He’s always wanted to play the guitar but never really had the time. For the first time in his life he walks into a guitar shop and sees this wicked turquoise guitar starring back at him. He picks up the guitar and begins strumming. In that moment his life is transformed from a tragedy into a divine comedy.

What have we been denying ourselves? What type of play do we want to have a starring role in? Sometimes we act in an “If Only” play with a bit part in shoulding all over ourselves until we are mired deep in our own pile of dung. I should write a novel. I should exercise. I should be a painter. I should start my own business. I should go on a dream vacation. If only I was younger. If only I was older. If only I had the money. If only I had the time.

In the professional world of writing there is a clause known as the “kill fee.” The kill fee is a fee paid by the editor to the writer for an assigned piece of writing that is killed off and never published. It’s usually a percentage of the total amount that was originally agreed upon between the editor and writer. Although there can be many reasons for rejecting a piece, the kill fee is often executed because the writing simply isn’t up to par.

When we’re not being our best selves, when we’re not expressing our unique voice, when we’re not being true to ourselves and not doing what we love to do, something inside of us dies. Life then pays us a kill fee: something less than what we truly deserve.

Are we living a life that’s worthy of being published, or will we live a life of mediocrity and accept the kill fee that’s assigned to us?

Eyeglasses of all types can be divided into two groups according to the function of their lenses. One main group is prescription eyeglasses, which are equipped with lenses with a power or certain powers. The other basic group is non-prescription eyeglasses. It is absolutely true that there are many ways to categorize the numerous spectacles produced by different manufacturers in the world. But lens power is one of the simplest approaches to such a classification. Eyeglasses in old days were all prescription ones because those wearers resorted to these devices solely for vision correction. Non-prescription eyeglasses are now available and popular in modern days. The emergence of non-prescription spectacles suggests that there are urgent needs from certain individuals to decorate their eyes. This is best testified by the prevalence of fashionable sunglasses. While non-prescription glasses are being enjoyed by more and more people who never need vision correction, prescription eyeglasses are still indispensible for those with defected eyesight.

In general, eyeglass users can buy a pair of prescription eyeglasses only when he or she has gained a valid prescription of the eyes. Such kind of eyeglass prescriptions can be determined by an eye doctor, either an optometrist or an ophthalmologist. An eye optician only has the right to provide eyeglasses according to a prescription given by an eye doctor. This is a strict requirement which is aimed to ensure eye safety for those wearers. In a serious case, an improper or out-of-date prescription may impair the wearer’s eyes. Prescription eyeglasses will help the eyes refocus the entering eyes appropriately, which is called “correction” in brief. But a basis point is that such kind of correction can be precise only when the eyeglass lenses have the right power according to the wearer’s eye condition. In a traditional way, most people trust eye doctors or practitioners when they want to buy prescription eyeglasses due to security concerns. In fact, other sources especially online eyewear stores can also provide safe prescription glasses. They can offer spectacles with vision correction exactly according to the prescriptions submitted by customers.

Dissimilar to prescription eyeglasses, non-prescription spectacles are designed to meet the needs for fashion. Many ordinary individuals and celebrities choose to wear designer sunglasses in summer days. Modern types of non-prescription eyeglasses usually incorporate the cut-edge fashionable tastes. Semi-frame and frameless eyeglasses are both stylish. In addition to special frame styles, non-prescription eyeglasses can also take use of unusual colored lenses. In some cases, those slightly tinted lenses can create an attractive effect. In a word, stylish elements are the key contributor to non-prescription glasses.

If your readers don’t care about your characters, you’re sunk. Readers don’t necessarily have to like all of your characters, but they have to care about what happens to your main character, or there’s no reason for them to keep reading.

Which means you have to care about your characters, and you have to know them, maybe even better than you know yourself. To create characters that live and breathe on the page, you must first create characters that live in breathe in your psyche. This is why you need to know much more about them than you’ll ever have to include in your completed story.

One way to achieve this authentic character history is to put your main character(s) in as many real-life situations as possible. And because thinking is only the first stage and can only get you so far, write these situations out, considering all sorts of details.

When you can imagine your character in different places and with different people, beyond people and places your story requires, you make your fictional people exponentially more realistic within the confines of your own story.

Start by deciding on the basics: your main character’s date of birth and favorite things (such as food, color, activity, place, song, movie, book, friend, family member, possession, game, animal/pet, amusement park ride, season). Remember: these are details you’ll want to work out, even though they may never need to be discussed in your story.

The basics is great place to start, but to create the most vivid, memorable characters, you’ll need to stretch your imagination and go beyond the basics.

The following exercises will get you started in developing rich, believable, interesting characters. Choose the exercises you’re most drawn to, and really let yourself go—don’t worry about polished sentences or grammar or mechanics. (You can’t plumb the depths of your imagination when you’re worried about comma placement.)

STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: List emotional, intellectual, and physical strengths and weaknesses for your character. Include any special talents or aptitudes. Get your hands on an IQ test and take it from your character’s perspective, not yours. (Tricky, but fun and worthwhile.)

DINNER AT OUR HOUSE: Imagine a family meal at your main character’s dinner table. Write a short descriptive scene revealing the average evening meal at your main character’s house.

Now revisit that meal scene and add tension. (After all, tension makes fiction go ’round.) Perhaps the school principal called Mom that afternoon and therefore Mom has some serious lecturing to do (or some serious disappointment to relate). Or maybe Dad lost his job that day and — over meatloaf and green beans — tells the family that they’ll have to be uprooted (again). Perhaps the teen daughter brings home a dinner date who only Mom (an undercover detective) recognizes as a convicted felon.

The point is: think of an emotionally-charged piece of information that will make this meal very different from the one above. Write this scene, paying attention to specifics.

WHAT WOULD S/HE DO? Imagine an ethical dilemma that your character finds himself/herself in. Maybe your character was offered a job promotion or a large bonus based on a task s/he didn’t carry out alone. Does s/he tell the truth and share the credit with the colleague or keep quiet about it and bask in the glory solo? Choose a moral quandary, plunk your character it in, and write a short, thorough, descriptive scene. Be sure to tap into your character’s thoughts, fears, conflicts, and ultimately how s/he arrived at the final decision.

DEAR DIARY: Write three diary/journal entries from your main character’s point of view, fully in his/her voice and in his/her head. Make the entries occur on different days and have them deal with different events and emotions. Try to include a whole range of feelings — joy, sorrow, rage, uncertainty, anxiety, to name a few.

DOCTOR, DOCTOR: Write up your character’s last physical exam report, as it would be written by the family physician. Include all relevant details, along with any physical complaints the character might mention.

Then write up some clinical notes from a psychologist who has been seeing your character in therapy. Perhaps your character has discussed his/her worst fear with the doctor. Reveal as much background to that fear as you can: when and why it began, how it’s manifested, how your character struggles to cope with it.

DEAR AUTHOR: Your character writes you (the author) a letter, instructing you quite specifically in how s/he wants to be portrayed in the book. Make your character’s personality come through loud and clear in this letter. Try to set yourself aside as you write it.

JOB APPLICATION: Get your hands on a job application (or create one of your own), and fill it out from your character’s point of view. Include work history, schooling, references, as well as the character’s statement explaining why s/he would be perfect for the job.

Always remember to have fun with these. The minute you’re not having fun, stop. The looser and more relaxed you are when you try these exercises, the more you’ll get from them. You’ll discover things about your character you never thought you knew, which translates to a more fully realized, believable person alive in your story.

To discover additional ways to make your writing habit more enjoyable, satisfying and productive, visit http://ManuscriptRx.com and sign up for “Write Through It,” the FREE monthly e-newsletter that offers practical writing advice and anecdotal wisdom.