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Laugh...Really!
Gia
Dawn
When was the last time you had a laugh, a really good
gut-busting, teary-eyed laugh? If it was more than a couple of hours ago, you’re
due. As babies we tend to laugh up to four hundred times per day. As we settle
into adulthood, that number drops significantly, to a mere fifteen times a day.
Yet the reasons we should laugh are many and varied. |
- Laughter
increases the activity of the immune system, making our
natural killer cells come alive to attack cells contaminated
with viruses.
-
Laughter lowers stress hormones and increases feel-good
hormones that can play a powerful role in the reduction of
pain.
-
Laughter lowers blood pressure and increases cardiac
activity through expansion of the diaphragm. It also relaxes
all muscles in the body.
-
Laughter brings us closer together. The couple that laughs
together lasts together.
-
Laughter diffuses tension in social settings. It can help us
drop our defenses and better bond with other people.
-
People who laugh don’t worry as much as those who don’t.
Laughter helps us cope with challenge and conflict by
putting the difficulties into a better perspective.
-
Laughter puts us intensely in the moment. When we are
laughing we know we are alive! It can reactivate body, mind
and spirit and spark new creative ideas. (Hmmmmm, laughter
as a cure for writer’s block, I’ll have to try it sometime.)
-
Some doctors recommend at least fifteen minutes of laughter
per day.
-
Laughter helps release three of the most negative human
emotions, fear, anger and boredom, thus enhancing our
perception of our lives.
-
And best of all—laughter is contagious and it is free!!!
Pass it on and feel the love.
So,
the next time you feel lost or lonely or disconnected from
life, call a friend and tell a good joke. Giggle and guffaw
and let the healing begin.
By
the way, did you hear the one about the…..
Gia Dawn
writes fun fantasy romance with the heat turned way up. Her
next release is Dunmore Rising, June 24, 2008 from Samhain
Publishing.
www.giadawn.com or
www.samhainpublishing.com/authors/gia-dawn
“Nothing shows a man’s
character more than what he laughs at.” ~ Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe
Promo and
Parenting, A Fine Balance
Jody
Wallace
I’m a stay-at-home mom. People have varying
ideas about what this entails, but for me it means that balancing my career and
parenting is a constant challenge, especially considering my girls are young.
Having a career and kids is always going to be tricky, so I’m not in some
unusually pitiable condition because I work from home.
Yet realizing I’m not to be pitied didn’t stop
me from feeling sorry for myself when I was preparing for the Lori Foster
Readers and Writers Get Together recently. Let me give you a little taste of
what it’s like to be a writer with a toddler, a kindergartener, two bad cats and
a deadline. I call this little number a “whineline”.
The situation:
1:30 PM Friday, May 30. One week until the Get Together,
my first “official” appearance as a published author. Via
the phone, find out my helper for next week, during which I
scheduled the bulk of my preparations, has to cancel three
of our four days. As my helper-cum-babysitter is my (unpaid)
sister, cannot get too frustrated...especially since my
(unpaid) sister is coming with me to the Get Together and
hopefully letting me wear some of her clothes.
(I
Need More Time!)
Contest
Winner
And the winner
of a free Samhain Publishing ebook download is: trinachell
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No, It Isn’t
Cellulite!
Diane Craver
It was supposed to be an awesome time in San Diego
with my twenty-six-year-old daughter Christina. I
had never been to the West Coast, so when she
mentioned me flying to see San Diego with her, I
quickly said yes. After Christina finished her
sessions at a health conference, I pictured us
shopping, eating at cool outdoor restaurants,
walking on the beach, swimming in the ocean and
getting a rest from taking care of my two daughters
with Down syndrome. |
Wow—was I ever way off. Pain and illness never entered my
vacation thoughts.
(Help!)
“Laughter is the closest
distance between two people.” ~ Victor Borge
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Mad
about my WIP
Denise MacDonald
Or… Mad Libs™ Can be Your Friend!
I’m always trying to think of a new way to wake up my muse…spice up my prose…get
the mental juices flowing. One Christmas, I received a Mad Libs™ card game in my
stocking—okay I bought it and put it in there myself since I never get
anything in my stocking!
Anyhoo, I digress. If you have ever played Mad Libs™, the card game is simple:
filling in words, after you draw cards, to form funny sentences and/or to form a
story. (If you have no knowledge of this ageless pop-culture game this reference
may seem weird, but I think you’ll catch on.) The deck of cards comes with
twenty-four cards each of verbs, nouns, adverbs and adjectives. There are a
couple of other cards specific to the game, but I didn’t use those. Without
looking, I drew three cards randomly from each category and wrote them down.
Then I used the words to create a scene in a WIP I am in desperate need of
finishing.
(I
wanna play, too!) |
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“Laughter and orgasm are
great bedfellows.” ~ John Callahan
The Hills are Alive
Mari Carr
One summer,
my cousin Gina made her dream trip, traveling to Vermont and
the home of the Von Trapp family. Long had she dreamed of
making the trek. Chaucer had his Canterbury pilgrimage; Gina
had her Sound of Music dream. Much of our September
cousin weekend that year was spent hearing about “the trip”.
“My God,” Aunt Ann said, opening a beer. “We drove for hours
listening to that stupid soundtrack over and over. Finally,
we get there and Gina flings open the door and starts
spinning in the yard before she takes off skipping down some
hill.”
“I thought the hill was in Austria,” I added.
"It was, but there was a hill there too. Tell her what daddy
said,” Gina interjected, laughing.
“He looks at me,” Ann continued, “and says, ‘Jesus Christ,
Ann, can’t you get her back in the car. I’ve had about
enough of this.’”
“It was great.” Gina beamed. “And look what I brought.” With
a grand flourish, she produced the Sound of Music CD
and pops it into the player.
And with that, cousin weekend history is made, a new
tradition forged. We’ve replayed the songs over and over,
each year adding more. Sometimes we don costumes (towels on
our heads as we sing “How do we solve a problem like Maria”
nun-style), sometimes we choreograph the numbers (during
“The Lonely Goatherd” the aunts fall to their knees and
pretend to be yodeling puppets, while the cousins are the
Von Trapp children pulling the strings), sometimes we act
out particular scenes (Gina as Maria singing “My Favorite
Things” with a blanket over her lap while the rest of us
gather around her like children frightened by a storm).
(But,
I can't carry a tune!)
“Life can be wildly
tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens
to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the
final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.” ~
Katharine Hepburn
The Sweet Smell of
Summer
Jennifer Shirk
With
the warm summer weather fast approaching, I don’t know about
you but my thoughts automatically turn to…food.
(Hotdogs and hamburgers to be exact, but since the hubby is
in charge of the grill, I’ll share a great BBQ dessert
recipe that will please many a chocolate lover.)
I
stole—er, borrowed this recipe from author Susan Elizabeth
Phillips. It’s too good not to share, so I’m sure she won’t
mind.
Bring this to your next backyard BBQ and you’ll wow all your
friends because it looks so pretty and complicated.
SUGAR BETH’S CHOCOLATE BROWNIE TRIFLE
1 brownie mix
prepared in 13x9x2 pan and cut into 1” pieces
1 package (4
serving size) chocolate INSTANT pudding and pie filling mix
PREPARED (Or prepackaged chocolate pudding, if you’re short
on time) **I like Kozy shack
1 small jar
caramel ice cream topping
1 (8 oz.)
container Cool Whip
Crushed nuts **my
daughter is allergic to nuts, so I use chocolate
jimmies/sprinkles
DIRECTIONS
Mix container of
Cool Whip with about ¾ of jar of caramel topping.
In a trifle dish or pretty glass bowl, layer half the
brownies in the bottom. Add half the prepared pudding, then
some of the caramel/whipped cream topping. Repeat. You’ll
end up with a little leftover caramel/whipped cream topping.
Wash down the sink. Do not eat like me! You can put nuts
between layers. Cover and refrigerate at least four hours
but not more than twenty-four.
This serves about
12-18 people depending on how piggy everybody is.
Jennifer Shirk
writes humorous contemporary romance, because she's a firm
believer that love stories should make you smile. Her latest
book from Samhain Publishing, The Role of a Lifetime, a
romantic comedy, is available now. Visit Jennifer at:
http://www.jennifershirk.blogspot.com
Website:
http://www.jennifershirk.com and
www.myspace.com/jennyshirk
“I've never had so much fun as I’m going to have tomorrow!”
~ Dennis the Menace
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Digital Publishers: Having Their Cake and Eating It
Too
By
Selena Kitt
E-book authors and digital publishers
everywhere go crazy whenever they find
someone re-selling or giving away their
books. They make long
posts of explanation wherever they find
someone even
talking about the option of sharing that e-book they just
purchased—not that I blame them. In erotic
romance, which is primarily a digitally
dominated and still relatively unknown
arena, a secondary market hurts an
individual author a lot more than in the
print market. |
The question is, should a secondary market for
e-books exist at all?
Digital publishers and e-book authors don’t want
one, that’s for sure, because every book re-sold
means less money for them. But four students from
Columbia Law School are
stepping it up, challenging all the legal issues
that occur when a buyer purchases an e-book for a
Kindle or Sony reader.
These legal eagles have come up with an interesting
point. Digital publishers and sellers ask e-book
buyers to “purchase” their books. In other words,
the total transaction is treated as a sale. That
little “Buy now!” button certainly tells someone
putting their hard-earned cash down for the product,
“Look, you’re buying me!”
But is that actually the case? Um… well…
The thing is, when you
buy
something, you technically have what is called the
Doctrine of First Sale. That means that you, the
person who made the purchase, now owns that product
and has the right to do whatever you wish with it.
You can share it, you can burn it, you can re-sell
it for whatever price you wish, you can rent it, you
can even open a library and lend it out. And you can
do all of this without asking permission or paying
royalties to the copyright owner.
There are four readers here in our family—but we
bought one Harry Potter book to share between us. I
once sold a copy of a print book on eBay for $30—the
original cover price was $3.99. I have a huge
collection of books about pregnancy, labor and
birth, and I have a system where I can lend them out
to people who want to borrow them. And I can do all
of that perfectly legally, because of the first sale
doctrine.
Publishers and authors everywhere hate the idea of
secondary markets, because in secondary markets,
they don’t get paid. Libraries are a great example
of how the first sale doctrine works, and every time
someone checks out a copy of Harry Potter from the
library, J.K. Rowling doesn’t get paid. Not that
she’s hurting, mind you. But Joe Schmo, who wrote
“The Great Book No One Ever Reads”, has a bigger
ouch in his pocketbook. But that’s the way it
works—so says the Supreme Court. They get the final
say, and they say people can do what they want with
the things they buy.
The only thing you
can’t do
with that product is make a copy of it. You can’t
Xerox Harry Potter and sell it on eBay. If you want
to re-sell or loan out the product, it has to be the
original.
This is what e-book authors and digital publishers
get up on their soapbox about when it comes to
e-books. This is why digital books are
different
from print books (or CDs or DVDs), they
insist—because people could make innumerable copies
to share with their friends, or on file-shares
(similar to Napster, only with books instead of
MP3s, before Napster was shut down and reborn.)
Which is true. Technically, the first sale doctrine
would mean, if you wanted to loan or sell your copy,
you couldn’t keep one on your hard drive. But the
question doesn’t end there, and the soapbox authors
and publishers are standing on when they argue
against sharing e-books may be a lot more shaky than
they believe.
The introduction of Kindle and Sony readers kick
this question up a notch—because you now have a
device where e-books are stored. Say you currently
own a Kindle or Sony reader with 200 e-books on it.
Technically, according to the current “license” on
the product, digital publishers say you can’t sell
that product with their books on it. And what about
libraries—could they buy a Kindle or Sony reader,
download books, and lend it out? According to the
current “license”—no.
You see, digital publishers and e-book sellers have
been sticking something to e-book buyers since the
beginning of the market, and these four Columbia law
school students may finally bring this
known-but-frustrating fact to a head in a big,
business-changing way.
The problem with e-books, and why they aren’t
currently subject to the Doctrine of First Sale, is
that as a buyer, you aren’t actually purchasing a
book.
That’s right.
You’re clicking the “Buy now!” button, you’re paying
your money. But you aren’t getting any of your
rights as a buyer after that. What you are paying
for is a very limited license to intellectual
property.
And last time I checked, that isn’t called buying.
It’s called
renting.
Hey, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a
duck…it’s a duck! Right?
Here’s the dictionary definition of a lease: “a
contract or instrument conveying property to another
for a specified period or for a period
determinable at the will of either lessor or lessee
in consideration of rent or other compensation…”.
Granted, most “leases” do expire, but by definition
(as in the underlined above) they don’t have
to. That time period could certainly be labeled
“indefinite” by an agreement between lessor and
lessee. Just because it hasn’t been done before
doesn’t mean it can’t be—and actually, I would
argue, it already is being done within the e-book
market.
But why don’t digital publishers talk about their
product in terms of renting? They advertise, they
promote and they do business as if they are selling
you something, when, in fact, whether they are is
pretty questionable.
When you put down your money, and download your
file, you are actually buying the rights to use that
e-book indefinitely, and
that’s all.
You have no rights after that, and digital
publishers and sellers clearly state that fact all
over the place.
The problem with this is, they still act as if
they’re selling you something.
Why?
Well, because they can. Legally, no one has said,
“Hey, you can’t do that!” But the golden era of
digital publishing rights may be coming to a close
some time in the future if the question is put to
the courts.
It’s a savvy business decision to present it as a
sale, even if it could be legally questioned if it
is or isn’t one. Because you, as a buyer, are much
more likely to pay out
more
money for a product you are actually
purchasing,
rather than renting. Right? If the courts told
digital publishers and sellers they had to say
they’re renting you a book with an infinite lease,
not actually selling you one, would you be likely to
shell out more or less money for it?
Here’s a snippet from Dear Author
about the cost of e-books at Penguin:
Penguin is charging $2.00 higher for its e-book copy
of a mass-market paperback. An e-book is an item
that is not returnable, cannot be sold, and is
subject to draconian digital rights management (DRM)
which prevents free portability of a book from
device to device. And for this, I have to pay $9.99?
I think not.
Reader backlash? Big time. And as the e-book market
gets bigger, it’s only going to get worse.
This clarification of the law should prove very
interesting. Regular publishers have always hated
secondary markets—re-sellers, libraries, etc.
Anything that takes away from sales is anathema to
them. But the Supreme Court says secondary markets
are perfectly legal. Digital publishers, though,
have taken advantage of the current unexplored legal
territory so that it appears as if they are selling
you a product and bundled it together so that even
the original license can’t be transferred.
Ever!
In a capitalist society, where the corporation is
king, if any industry could eliminate a secondary
market, do you think they would? Count on it!
But is this fair to the consumer?
I know it sounds like I’m shooting myself in the foot here. I’m an
e-book author. Whose side am I on, right? But I’m
also a reader, and frankly, I read more books than I
write. I’m also much more interested in a consumer’s
rights than a corporation’s. While I don’t think
digital publishing is doing anything intentionally
wrong, I do believe they’ve taken full advantage of
some very murky legal waters.
Which is why I hope the Supreme Court will
ultimately clear things up, recognize the
double-bind that consumers are being put in and act
accordingly. Even if it’s just forcing digital
publishers to change their terms, admitting that
they are “renting” e-books to you under a limited
license. Of course, the consumer would probably be
inclined to pay less for that, but that’s the price
you pay for a free market, so to speak.
It will get even more interesting if the courts
decide that what digital publishers are doing would,
in fact, constitute a sale, and that the Doctrine of
First Sale does, indeed, apply. That would mean that
I could sell my Kindle on eBay with my huge
collection of e-books. And if flash memory becomes
cheaper over time, I’ll be able to hand over a
memory card with Harry Potter on it to my sister for
her e-book reader, just like loaning her a copy of
the print book.
I think what it comes down to right now is that
digital publishers are getting to eat their cake and
have it too. They get to say they are “selling”
books (legally, that’s questionable, given the
“license” for their use) while eliminating any
secondary market and refusing to allow consumers
basic rights to their purchase.
In my personal opinion, if it’s a sale, then it
should be treated as a
sale—which
means I, as a buyer, have the Doctrine of First Sale
rights and I can sell my Kindle and all its
contents. If it’s a
rental,
without Doctrine of First Sale rights, then digital
publishers should be forced to call a duck a duck,
take down all their “Buy now!” promotions and ask
consumers to “rent” their product with a limited use
license.
I honestly believe we hold the fate of books in our
hands right now, and if e-books are really
the wave of the future, this is a question that’s
going to have to be decided for those coming
generations who may only see print books in museums.
We are entering truly uncharted territory, and I
hope we remember to protect the rights of the people
who want to read, and not just the businesses behind
the books.
Like any feline, Selena Kitt loves the things that
make her purr—and wants nothing more than to make
others purr right along with her! When she isn’t
pawing away at her keyboard, she loves spending her
time belly dancing, attending drum circles,
gathering in women’s groups and taking beautiful
pictures of everything in her world.
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