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Enjoy book! Jackie Lynaugh: “Reading books for enjoyment is a luxury” sharing ultimate marketing tricks

July 25, 2024July 20, 2022 by Lokesh Umak

Every writer enjoy book on their weekend and on any occasions. Therefore, reading books teach us every day, and that is a time when most of our learnings occur. Every day is a new and special for us.

However, in case of Jackie, her education actually happened when she joined IBM. In 1972, during her schooling, everywhere was violence, the protesters, and the Vietnam War. Jackie also shared how her mother used to read romantic novels and enjoy her life. Jackie has also written a poem, “Out from the Shadows” accidentally, upon reading, it brings power to the one's selfness.

She believes, marketing is writing and selling an idea. Therefore, she took one more step and started investing more in writing romance as an endeavour to get lost in love stories.

About Jackie Lynaugh

Jackie's passion is writing, and her favourite place is the ocean. Besides, she loves painting landscapes, collecting sunglasses and crave sunshine like there's no tomorrow. She has worked as a marketing manager at IBM, writing technical spec-sheets for computer engineers. Now retired from the corporate world and writing fiction, family saga, and romance full-time. She is currently living in South Carolina.

Tell us when did you find interest suddenly evoked in you for reading or enjoy book, and at what age you got your first book and its name?

The first book I read at a young age was “Gone With the Wind”, by Margaret Mitchell. I read it again in a different mindset at 40 years old. The genre I gravitate to is romance and family saga. I also write in that genre. I don’t write historical romance. I write what I know.

My mother was a romantic bookworm. I watched her get lost in her paperback romance novels growing up. Some of her books, she would tape a brown paper grocery bag over the book cover. I remember the first time I pulled off the brown paper to see what she was hiding on the cover. It was like unwrapping a present. I would read her romance books when she was out of the house. From then on, I dreamed of riding off on a white horse with the shirtless hero my mother was hiding on the cover of the book.

Reading books for enjoyment is a luxury I never had while raising my children and during my corporate career, and as a business owner. Life was too busy to just relax and get lost in a great novel. I know I missed out, and I am making up for lost time reading for pleasure.

Where did you finish your schooling, and what experiences of life counted in your writing career, loving and enjoy book?

I don’t believe we ever finish our schooling. Life lessons happen every day. I dropped out of high school in 1972, went to night school, and later took the General Educational Development Test (GED), which took me nowhere. In the ’70s, racial tension and school dropouts were high, and the Vietnam War and protesters were on every corner. The world was on fire as peace signs, tie-dye t-shirts, and standing up for our rights were the thing. The '70s is a future novel in the making I hope to write someday. Life lessons in a small southern town are on my bucket list for my seventh novel.

Fast-forward to the 90s, I returned to the classroom at Winona State University in Minnesota. Short-lived but productive. In 1994, I began my corporate career with IBM in marketing. This is where my education began. I learned more on the job than I ever learned in a classroom. Later IBM relocated us to North Carolina where I wrote technical spec sheets for computer engineers. The documents were online and sent with the product for the customer to read and learn how to use their new computer and software.

Would you like to tell us when did you write your first poem and read it for us?

I fell in love with poetry in college. In the summer of 1993, I wanted to add credit toward my marketing degree and took a poetry class. It felt beautiful to hear words flow, and Walt Whitman turned me on to poetry.
The first poem I wrote was by accident. I was writing notes for my novel, At Her All. The main character Lara Faye Edison is a college student. I was trying to get inside the main character's head. In my past novels, if I wanted to get into character, I would paint with oil on canvas the location's scenery.

Also, I sketched the scene on paper with a pencil and the character’s faces helped my creativity flow. It was like I could talk to the character, and they could talk to me. I am a visual writer. By doing this, the story would flow out of me like turning on a faucet, and the characters came alive. The poem in the novel At Her All is about Lara and her hovering parents.

Poem, “Out from the Shadows” by Jackie Lynaugh

“I wasn’t born to spoil under anyone’s shadow

and rot like an unhatched egg.

I wasn’t born to follow orders.

I wasn’t born for boredom.

I wasn’t born to satisfy someone else’s needs,

to take care of them

or they take care of me

or hide in their arms

or to be taken for granted.

I wasn’t born to follow ideas of what truth is

or to live according to someone beliefs

or to think along their lines

or to learn their facts.

I was born to think independently

I was born to find my own truth

and make my own rules

and find my own way.

I was born to meet life full throttle.

Walk the Appalachian trails.

To be seduced by an alpha male.

Kissed a thousand times

and loved for a million years.

To meet different faces, travel,

and learn other cultures.

Watch the stars at night.

Take long walks

dance on the beach

be swept off my feet

be taken by storm

to be heartbroken.

Stunned.

Shocked.

Devastated.

Lost

and found again.

I was born to get my hands dirty and

plant a garden and watch it grow.

To get sand between my toes.

Mud on my face.

Sand spurs under my feet.

I was born to jump into the ocean.

Pick up seashells and find starfish.

To go beyond time and space.

To welcome miracles.

To share a wishbone

and make a wish.

To totally lose myself.

I was born to feel everything

and to experience everything.

The bitter taste of sorrow.

The foul taste of hatred.

The sweet taste of love.

I was born to learn how to be grateful.

I was born to know the truth

and learn how to give to I have nothing more.

To work hard and play hard.

To pray.

I was born to learn how to speak the language of love

and unlock my heart.

How to take care of my health.

Learn how to let go of all expectations

and let the future unfold like unwrapping a present.

I was born to learn how it feels to lose everything

except for the things that matter.

I am born to spread my wings

fly towards the sun

burn into ashes

fall to the earth and rise again.

I will be proud of my scars and my wrinkles.

My stories.

My memories.

My wisdom.

My freedom.

I was born to be free

and therefore, time will let me live my

life out from the shadows.”

What circumstances made you to choose career into the field of marketing than going for writing? Could you please share with us in detail?

I’ve been in business for many years, and I was always marketing something. Marketing is writing, elaborating about a product, service, retail, wholesale, or selling an idea. In any trade, you have to write to market. It’s a labor of love.

Writing romance is one of the unlimited endeavors to get lost in a love story. To be invited into another human’s world of romantic thoughts and read stories about falling in love is the greatest triumph for a romance writer. I want the readers to question, cry, laugh, hope, feel emotion, fall in love, and dream you are the one and only. An overall feeling you belong in the story rescues optimism. Romance starts with an invitation into the most beautiful thing, love. Writing about love is personal.

The first manuscript I wrote was about health, and I mailed it to a publisher in New York in 1987. Motivated by the women who exercised at my health salon called Slender You in Winona, Minnesota. As a business owner of an exercise salon, I learned how important it was for women to support women. The manuscript was written to inspire women to exercise, with motivational quotes, and a diary to track success and healthy recipes. Six months later, it was rejected.

I filed the manuscript in the closet for safekeeping. I sold my business in 1989. The computer industry took off, and I knew IBM would change my life. I kept writing stories and frequently drew inspiration from my own experiences in the corporate world and private life. My career ended with a buyout at IBM. I reinvented myself and did something I had dreamed of for years. I took the real estate test and got my license to sell homes in North Carolina. I found success in real estate for 23 years. I am now a retired broker and writing romance and family fiction novels full-time.

I witnessed my son pass away tragically at the age of 45, in 2017. I learned he was also a closet writer, and he loved writing about his hunting and fishing trips. Heartbroken by my son’s death I learned writing was helping me with my grief. It was time to be the author I dreamed of being. In 2018 I wrote romance while working full time and as a caretaker for my mother who died at my home under the care of hospice.

I self-published my first novel, Plantation Hill in October 2020. Never planned to write a series, but I just kept writing. The next novel, Nectar (2021 second series) and then Hart to Hart (2022 third series) in Plantation Hill. The novel Inside Glass Towers was published in May 2021. I began writing Inside Glass Towers when my beloved husband was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer and treated with radiation and chemo at UNC Cancer Center. My latest novel At Her All was published in February 2022 and the story would never be complete without At His All (second series) out in 2023.

Life squeezed every ounce out of me. My books have been my recovery from life’s blistering truths, turbulent trials, inner turmoil, overwhelming grief, and a maze of absolute chaos through the healthcare industry during the pandemic. I am a caretaker's survivor and I came out on the other side stronger and wiser. It was time to come out of the closet, and share my novels with the world.

Today, my husband is cancer free. A comeback story all in itself for a future novel. Since retiring in 2020, I have published five novels in two years. Stories that have been buried in my brain for years came alive. To write and publish you cannot be a wimp.

Do you currently write as a full or part-time, and why?

I write full time. I am currently writing the novel At His All, the second series in At Her All, a bottle of lies. A Her and His (ladies come first) family saga. I have been patiently waiting for this stage in my life to open up and be who I was born to be, a storyteller. I came from a long line of storytellers.

Over the years, I was inspired by all the characters I met while growing up in a small, close-knit agricultural town in Belle Glade, Florida. The Glades motto is, Her Soil is Her Fortune. My grandfather Walter and my father Douglas were both incredible storytellers and role models for my future craft and my desire to write stories.

Which book you have written for the first time? It is fiction real life inspiriting? Moreover, tell us which character is your favourite one from the book and its journey, creating the character making it to live.

My first book is Plantation Hill. A Florida location from 1990-1992. Inspired by a southern family in the citrus business growing oranges. The family lives in an old southern white mansion tucked behind large oak trees with Spanish moss hanging from the trees that looked like an old man's beard. A typical Florida scenery of the old south.

My favorite character is Tee Hart. The readers tell me they fell in love with Blossom Hart, Tee’s daughter. The Hart family goes on different journeys, but with this family, blood is thicker than orange juice. And money grows on trees.

What struggle aspiring writers face? Could you please share your journey with us, when you were being an aspirant, what learnings you got as a first-time writer?

I was born an aspiring author. Two years as a self-published author have been exciting and challenging. If you are not ambitious, curious to learn, and thin-skinned, I’d find another industry to tackle. If you don’t like marketing yourself, social media, technology, and the ever-changing secret world of publishing, it might be a better option to work on your craft and keep writing and keep your day job.

The World Wide Web is still the Wild Wild West. The publishing industry has been like stepping back in time to find the secret code. To me, the most important thing is to entertain the readers.

10 CC: About to shake Indian medical community

April 13, 2023July 19, 2022 by Dr Ram Sharma

This is a tale of chemistry between a chain-smoking medical intern and the time he spent with his sedative addicted boss, owner and in-charge of a small town ICCU equipped hospital. The boss makes the patient buy sedatives on pretext of a wonderful Intramuscular injection guaranteed to provide relief. He pockets the vial with the efficiency of an illusionist and injects air in patient’s butts. Is air injected in human body fatal? I’ll explain below.

The primary issue raised in the novel is the biggest taboo in our medical fraternity, which is addiction among doctors. It is a known phenomenon in Western countries. There are special hotlines to report substance abuse and rehabilitation centres for addict doctors. This novel touches almost every medical malpractice in Indian society. When this novel will hit big, government will be forced to make many reforms. It will scare a lot of powerful people and will bring about positive changes in Indian society.

The novel starts with our protagonist joining a small town ICCU, without any experience. To make the medical procedures and terminologies easy to understand, the protagonist in this novel is shown to be good just in theory and lacks practical aspects. Either he remembers details about the situation or someone tells him. You won’t feel like you are entering some alien world while reading. The hospital is in an old residential building, the dirtiest place ever spawned, infested with mice and spiders. The staff is untrained, rude and without any morale.

The events in the novel slowly unfold to show how a hospital works, and the protagonist discovers his boss is addicted to a sedative. Worse, his boss makes the patients buy sedatives and injects air in the buttocks of patients. As the novel progresses, our protagonist starts getting good in his craft. At the same time, antagonist cranks his addiction to 11 and weird hijinks start. Protagonist thinks about leaving, but he is now addicted to chaos along with cigarettes.
This novel is a dark comedy and full of cuss words. The protagonist is a man with no name, as I wanted every reader to associate with him.
Plenty of issues regarding medical care and social problems in India are raised in this novel like
• Addiction among the doctors – Both antagonist and protagonists are addicts, along with most of the other male characters. They are sometimes drunk on duty.
• Air injections – Small amount of air, if injected in muscles, is painful but rarely fatal. Up to 100 cc or 100 millilitres air injected in venous blood of an adult male without any debilitating disease is rarely fatal. A small amount of air injected at a slower pace in arterial blood might cause air embolism, but is rarely fatal. So, the game depends upon amount of air, speed of injection, site of injection and the host. Our antagonist knows his game and never loses.
• Neglecting government authorities – Government watchdog authorities are not keen on keeping watch on private hospitals, especially in rural areas and other healthcare institutions like PHCs. Under trained staff is appointed at many hospitals. Authorities make an occasional show of raids, and everything gets back to the way it was in a few days.
• Costly treatment – Relatives fighting over bills of few thousands will sound shaky for many people, but the story is set in 2007, in town of Yavatmal in Vidarbha region, place of 1/3 of farmer suicides in 2006 and 2007 in Vidarbha. And comparing with the ‘facilities’ provided in hospital, it’s too much for the people around there.
• Attacks on doctors – Due to politically aspired goons, negligence from doctors and delay in treatment, attacks on doctors are more frequent in India. A brief mention of a mob beating an MO and throwing a table on him is in Ch.3 as ‘girl bitten by snake died’ and another in Ch.34. Reasons are inability to control crowd in time, lack of infrastructure and serious staff.
• Domestic violence – A woman getting unconscious during beating and the relatives running away with patient in Ch. 18 and 19 show that the women in rural India are still abused and few of the events are reported. And worse, women have greater participation in abusing other women.
• Use of bizarre things to go high – Traditional liquor, tobacco and drugs are lagging behind as doctors and non-doctors are experimenting with prescription drugs and making ‘cocktail drugs’ and other things like sanitizers, whiteners as mentioned in Ch. 10.
• Corruption in medical companies – In protagonist’s confrontation with MR, protagonist gets small idea of working of pharmaceuticals. Lot of references like costly medicines instead of cheaper ones like Ranitidine are also scattered throughout the book.
• Doctor's symbol – Whether it is caduceus or Asclepius rod? And from where they are derived? Which one is correct? An attempt to answer these questions in a satirical way is present in this book. Mindless copying of caduceus for doctor’s symbol is the subject of widespread debate.
• Confusing scientific data – Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. This one is longer, but stay with me. It will be interesting.
We live in the scientific world. But the scientific data, instead encouraging the knowledge, is misleading people and working in favour of pharmaceutical companies. It is explained best when protagonist wants to find information whether cheaper heparin or costly fractioned heparin is best for patients and gets extremely confused seeing two articles on same website.

Five of the researchers-writers are the same in both articles, giving apposite views using soothing words like ‘No statistically significant difference was observed when the efficacy and safety of low-molecular weight heparins were compared with those of unfractionated heparin. A cost-effectiveness analysis of low-molecular weight heparins versus unfractionated heparin must be done urgently to establish more firmly the place of low-molecular weight heparins in the management of unstable angina.’ And ‘Enoxaparin appears to be superior in efficacy to UFH and similar to UFH in safety. No difference in costs was detected in this study.

The greater inhibition of platelet aggregation observed in the case of UFH compared to enoxaparin indicates that there may be more bleeding complications with UFH.’ It was stated in first trial that drug ‘enoxaparin’ containing trials were not taken in consideration. So does that means one should go for enoxaparin instead of other low molecular weight heparins or undergo another trial for efficacy of un-fractioned heparin and enoxaparin which was not covered in meta-analysis or prescribe as one wishes or what the pharmaceutical wishes? Is costly fractioned heparins are really better than un-fractioned heparin? And most important, who is the authority responsible for taking final decision on making a drug prescription protocol and what is its stance on this confusion. Bored after thinking for some time, protagonist decides to go for a smoke, feeling nothing is possible to do against such information overload not giving concrete information.

You’ll be wondering is it enough to actually shake Indian medical fraternity? I don’t think so. I believe they’ll laugh how I missed some even bigger issues. But I have something else.
I have a document from a pharma company that shows how doctors make black money. It explains how a doctor has to prescribe certain number of medicine in the given time, and he is awarded an iPhone, TV set, a bike, or plain hard cash. I also have invoices from pathology labs that give details like name of patient, cost of said investigation and cut forwarded to the doctor for that month. I am looking for people who can help me spread awareness among Indian people about this blatant corruption. And I am ready to talk about it.

So, in all, 10 CC is not just another novel. It could be the beginning of a revolution against corrupt pharma and other medical practices. Lives of a lot of Indian people could be better because of you guys. All I want from you is to spread the word until it gets the attention it needs. You can interact with me on Twitter.

Finding The Elegant Solution

December 22, 2022July 19, 2022 by Wynne Leon

The other day, my brother was telling me about his project to fix the engine on his Boston Whaler boat. He said he started with the most likely thing to fix and replaced that and when it didn’t work, the next week he worked on the next likely thing.

This went on for a year. Each week he’d work on the boat and repair or replace one thing until, at the end, he’d run out of ideas to fix. So, he went back to the very first thing he tried, the one that was most likely, and changed it out again. And – it worked! Finally, after a year, it sputtered to life and stayed running. His conclusion was that it must have been a combination of factors that caused the problem and made it difficult to tease out.

It reminded me of tinkering with our lives. When something doesn’t feel right, whether it's physically, spiritually or mentally, it’s hard to find the source or maybe even identify what system has a problem. And then we engage in a year long (or more) battle to fix one thing at a time.

Research professor Dr. Alison Gopnik, an expert on cognitive development, talks about the idea of the local optimum from artificial intelligence. As she describes, “It’s when you are trying to do something often you can be in a situation when any small change is going to make things worse, so you just end up being stuck. But if you made a big change, then you can actually make things better.”

Exploring the idea further, she says that we, especially as adults, get very good at doing things one way whether be how we turn on our computer or drive to work, and we forget there are other ways. She suggests, “Just doing something that we’re not good at, doing something really different than the things we do every day, can be the sort of thing that will kick you out of that local optimum and give you a sense of other alternatives.”

One of the things Dr. Gopnik suggests when we get stuck is to spend time with kids. Kids literally have different brains than we do. Their brains are wired to reward them for finding the things that can teach them the most. Or, adult brains are wired to reward us for getting things done. As adults, we have a harder time getting a sense of novelty because of the habits and life we are locked into.

This is an idea that is of course in no way new. Meditation helps us to open that sense of awareness again. Even when the practice is to focus on just one thing like the breath, we find that open sense of well-being after we’ve completed the practice. As Buddha said, “Most problems, if you give them enough time and space, will eventually wear themselves out.”

Psychiatrist and author Scott Peck echoed a similar sentiment in an interview. He said that he was able to get so much done in his life because he spent two hours every day doing nothing. When he called it his thinking time, people felt free to interrupt him, so he started calling it his praying time and found he was left alone.

Which leads me to the conclusion that play, meditation and prayer in many ways help us to face life when things aren’t quite right. It is the practice of doing nothing in a mindful way that can open the doors to elegant solutions. They may be the same solution that changing one thing at a time like my brother did with the boat will eventually deliver. But maybe it’s possible to get to the same place without the aggravation or elapsed time. By doing something completely unrelated to the problem, or even nothing at all. Doesn’t that sound like smooth sailing?

Indians in UK and The British have also adopted many Indian cultures

July 25, 2024July 2, 2022 by Lokesh Umak

Author Sheila Patel who is one of the Indians in UK, she has spent years claimed that being a British Indian, seems no culture diversity. The most of the Britishers have acquired many Indian cultures and vice versa.

About Author

Sheila Patel was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK. She is the youngest of 7 children. Born into a traditional Punjabi family, she went on to study Engineering at Leeds Polytechnic and John Moores University. She later obtained an MBA from the University of Liverpool.

After working at British Aerospace for several years, she became interested in working with young people and ran a successful training company in Liverpool city centre for over ten years.

Sheila talked about her book and the cultures of both the country, India and United Kingdom. The culture, especially, how Panjabi frowns upon boozing for the female members. Her book, “The Magic Vodka Wardrobe” shed some lights deep onto the traditions and day to day life in her story lives in UK.

How the ideas of writing about “The Magic Vodka Wardrobe” came from? Was it a real life incident?

At a recent Indian wedding, I noticed the aunties were rather merry. The bar area seemed full of well-dressed men, knocking back whisky and performing various bhangra moves. On closer observation, it was the scruffy Uncle/ cousin/ brother that was lingering around the aunties with glasses of vodka, which he cunningly added to the various soft drinks. There were no objections from the happy wedding guests, actually, it was rather welcomed.

It is no secret that the Punjabi culture frowns upon boozing for the female members of the family. Actually, daughters should be educated, married and very, very sober! I believed the Magic Vodka Wardrobe would be a light-hearted way to shine some light on this subject.

The stories are very tongue-in-cheek and often ridiculous. I thought it would be amusing to write about a secret bar located in the wardrobe of Sharon Singh's bedroom. The bar would be complete with Bachittar the barman, a disco floor and a glitter ball.

The books are about pushing boundaries as a British Asian and dragging the older generation out of the corner shop and into the new world, often by the hem of their sari!

How did you spend your childhood? Most of the writers have a unique thinking, spend years and have a limited time for leisure. Was it a long race for you, or the writing came in sudden after studies?

I grew up in the 70s, in an industrious city in the north of England. There were lots of factories where many Indian people worked. It was a very Asian community with Indian shops, curry houses and temples. Nearly everybody was my auntie or uncle, and I can confidently say that it was a very happy time.

I started writing in my 40s, it seemed like a good time because I had lots of life experience and had been secretly spying on everyone for years. The very first book in the series was written as a gift for my niece, I ended up writing five more.

Has anybody from your blood relatives was into writing, or it's you who developed the nerves of fiction yourself?

I have a very funny family, lots of us have a great sense of humour. I think I am the first one to publish my stories. I will be encouraging others to write their stories in the future, I should ask at the temple on Sunday.

The Book, “The Magic Vodka Wardrobe” why not in one go? Are there series of the same book edition to come in future? Is there any specific reason you would like to tell the readers?

There are six books in this series. The reason they are written as a series is because they are set in the present day so include on- going world events. Mrs Singh takes great delight in reading her daily newspaper and sharing the news with everyone. She enjoys anything relating to the Royal family, the Prime Minister and Greta Thunberg. She likes to display their portraits on the wall and bless them daily with incense and garlands.

The series also covers the more traditional events in everyday life such as Diwali, weddings, Christmas and Baisaki.

How much time do you give to your writing every day also tell us, is it part-time or full time?

I started writing as a hobby and only write part-time. If I have a good storyline, I like to jot it down for future reference. If I see something funny, I write it down. I enjoy the whole 'writers' experience and have made many 'book' friends along the way.

Have you written any other short story? If yes, tell us more about its characters and about the protagonist.

During the lockdown, I published the 'Pandemic Diaries'. These are written in the style of a diary and include daily entries by Aunt Sheila. Some of her thoughts are on masks, vaccines, panic buying, boxsets and the Government. Again, written in the form of satire, to highlight a very serious world event that affected so many.

How different lives of Punjabi family in UK than those live in India. Would you like to share in details about the Indian food, tradition and other things well maintained, or you have adopted the culture of UK?

Although I have lived here my whole life and have adopted the British culture, it is still wonderful to visit family and take part in many of the festivities and ceremonies the Punjabi culture has to offer. I do enjoy a traditional Indian wedding, although after three days of bhangra it can be quite exhausting.

I wonder if you know that 'curry' is the number one food in Britain, so it is interesting how over the years the British have also adopted many Indian cultures.

Read must-read interviews

Writing in English as a Second Language

November 11, 2022June 30, 2022 by AlexF

There are many people writing in English as a second language, and doing it very well. Some of them are friends of mine. But they live in the UK, so they’ve been able to learn and adapt to subtleties and changes in the language as they come across them in everyday life. But what if you live elsewhere?

The Advantage (and Disadvantage) of having English as your First Language

I feel that we in the UK take for granted the fact that English is one of those languages which is spoken, understood and read throughout the world. That gives us home-bodies an advantage, but it’s also apt to make us lazy. We can learn to communicate in other languages if we like, but unless we’re going to work or teach abroad, once we’ve left education behind, we don’t have to. And the more languages you learn and use, the greater your understanding of language in general.

Unique Local Words

No matter which language you learn first, you will take in your stride its unique elements which can catch out anyone who hasn’t grown up with them.

The individual regions within the UK have words that have developed locally and are unique to them. (And English is only one of the languages spoken in the UK, but that’s another story!)

A Disadvantage of Writing Poetry in English

On the other hand, those of us who write poetry, like me, have problems finding suitable rhymes. There are relatively few of them in the English language compared to, for instance, French and Italian. So, perhaps in self-defence, our modern poetry has largely moved away from rhyme.

Instead, we often use the ‘off-rhyme’ or ‘assonance. The film Educating Rita famously has the line ‘Assonance means getting the rhyme wrong.’

The Order of Adjectives in English

This is my personal favourite quirk of the English language. There is a recognised order of adjectives, and the weird thing is that this seems ingrained in us English speakers as if it’s part of our DNA. So much so that, in speech at least, whenever get it wrong and if we did, the result would sound ridiculous. The order is: OSASCOMP, which stands for opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. Of course it would be very unusual to use all of them, but if you did, you could describe something as a cute little 1960s square red Swedish leather armchair. But not as a leather red, cute Swedish 1960s little armchair, unless you want people looking at you funny.

English Loves Breaking its own Rules

And there’s another thing – rule breaking. The correct part of speech for the end of that sentence should have been ‘funnily’. But the term ‘looking at you funny’ can typically be used. On the other hand, I could have used ‘strangely’ and no-one would have batted an eyelid.

By the way, you can also use the term ‘batted an eye’ and even ‘batted an eyelash’: they’re interchangeable.

Helpful Dictionaries and Apps

So what can we do to feel more confident about our English usage? We can check online or printed dictionaries for the meaning and spelling of any word or phrase we’re unsure of. We can use apps like ProWritingAid or Grammarly to find and fix any errors. Even in a Word document those little red and blue underlines can help us pick up on a grammatical or spelling error. We all use them – even editors like me.

However, it’s important to be aware that many of them will correct to U.S spellings rather than UK if you don’t change them. But if you’re writing for the U.S. market that won’t be a problem.

Advice for Novelists

If you’re writing a novel in English and it’s not your first language I would recommend asking for line editing as part of your editing preparations for publishing. Your editor will use their knowledge of the language to ensure your writing is easy to read and to enjoy.

Author Gillie Bowen’s new novel

November 4, 2022June 27, 2022 by Gillie Bowen

Author Gillie Bowen’s new novel, ‘White on Wight’, has just been published by Bowood Publishing, and is now available from Amazon Books
In the early nineteenth century, there was no cure for smallpox. When most of his household succumb to the dreadful disease, Tom White is left to run the family boatyard on his own.
His young wife dead and his business in tatters, he bundles his three young children into a boat and sets sail for the Isle of Wight to start a new life.
His dream to build a steam-driven ship of controversial design to conquer the waves is further complicated by juggling an embryonic business with the duties of rearing a young family.
This book is based on the real life story of Thomas White, a boat builder from Kent, fighting for his life at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in war-torn Britain.
Tom White was the author’s first cousin, seven times removed. He was the nephew of Mary White, her seventh great-aunt, a courageous woman who saved the lives of many sailors from shipwrecks off the coast of Kent. She also built ‘The Mary White’, a rescue boat that was the forerunner of many such boats built by Culmer White. You can read her story in ‘The Mary White,’ first published in October 2020 by Bowood Publishing, and also available from Amazon.

3 Important Self-Care Routines for Better Mental Health

June 26, 2022 by Lokesh Umak

Sometimes, it can be easy to slip into habits that do not benefit our well-being or mental health. Our habits and routines can easily make or break us. I understand how challenging it can be to overcome certain habits. However, I’ve also felt the joy that comes with finally putting my foot down and deciding to change the old repetitive patterns that were keeping me stuck in a feeling of hopelessness. Continue reading my self-care routines below.

Once I zoned in on my daily habits and began to weed out the ones I no longer needed and replaced them with better habits, I felt lighter, more confident, and more willing to go after my goals and dreams. It all started with changing my routine and caring about myself as I would care for a friend.

These tips may or may not work, but I hope they do. Especially, if you are someone who feels stuck in life. We are creatures of habit and patterning. Once we find out what our patterns are we can then figure out how to move forward with greater awareness than prior.

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Morning Routine

One of the first things I changed was my morning routine. I used to wake up, check my phone (scrolling for an hour or more on social media before getting out of bed), and then go to the bathroom and prepare for the day. Checking my social media right when I first opened my eyes was setting me up for information overload, comparing myself to others online, and losing a whole hour to mindlessly scrolling.

Once I took a step back and evaluated how I truly felt after doing this, I came to the realization I was causing my own unhappiness. In October 2019, I deleted all social media that was not related to my writing or art. I began to feel a little better after 2 months. At first, it was hectic, and I wanted to check my feed constantly.

I replaced scrolling social media with waking up, thinking of 3-5 things I was grateful for, spending the rest of the hour with my son, and getting dressed for the day. My son also started having fewer tantrums.

I didn't realize he was throwing tantrums because he needed more time with me. While I did spend time with him, it was in small spurts, 10-20 minutes here and there. I hate looking back and realizing how much time I lost with him, all because I was too focused on a silly social media app.

I also started writing out a list of things I needed to do in a day the night before. Seeing the list and crossing out the items gave me a sense of direction that I did not have prior. I’ve been doing this method for 2 years, and it has helped me accomplish a lot of the things I thought I never would.

It’s important to set up your day for success. There may be challenging situations, but when you set yourself up in a positive manner you are more likely to handle the situation with a clearer head.

Your morning routine may look different from mine. You know what works best for you.

Here are some ways to see how your morning routine is affecting your day:

Write down everything you do within the first hour when you first get up.
Ask yourself how you feel after the hour.
Ask yourself if you are charged and ready for the day, or are you dreading the day to come?
Ask yourself if there is anything that you may need to change or add to help you feel your best.
Listen to your body and emotions, they can be your best guides if you learn to pause and reflect for a moment.
Write down things you want to try to implement into your day and give yourself a month to try it out to see how you feel.

We all have our morning routines. Personally, I think how we start our day is very important for the rest of the day. Setting ourselves up for better days is highly beneficial for our future selves. After all, one day we are going to look back and see how far we’ve come, or we are going to look back and regret we didn’t take the steps sooner. The time is going to pass either way.

Alone Time

Another influential self-care routine is how we spend our alone time. Which can be hard if you are a parent. Still, there needs to be a time when you can breathe and relax, even if it is after the children are in bed.

When we don’t allow ourselves alone time, we can become overwhelmed, stressed, and burnt out from day-to-day life. This can lead to depression, anxiety, and even physical symptoms can appear.

Here are some relaxing ways I, personally, enjoy alone time:

Take a relaxing bath with Epsom salt. Lavender is one of my favorites
Reading a good book.
Playing video games
Writing poetry
Sitting in silence and just being
Yoga
Getting in my portable sauna box
Drawing

There are many ways to enjoy alone time. When you do things you enjoy that are relaxing to your mind and body, you begin to fill your own cup in life. We cannot pour from an empty cup. We need time to recharge, do things we like, and take a little time to nurture ourselves, so we can nurture those around us fully.

Nightly Self-Care Routine

Nightly routines are just as important as morning routines. Setting ourselves up for the next day by getting into a routine before falling asleep can help us feel more refreshed in the mornings. Before I made my own nightly routine, I would be on my phone… You guessed it, scrolling through social media until my eyelids could not stay open any longer. I would wake up so groggy and unmotivated.

To combat this, I started plugging my phone into its charger around 7 pm in my craft/workroom. This helped with not being tempted to grab it and redownload social media just because I was bored.

I then began to add things like 30 minutes of meditation before going to bed, reflecting on the day, while figuring out if I needed to be doing something different to better optimize my days, and I would write down the next day's tasks. This helped set the foundation for the following day, so I could spend the mornings with my son with no interference.

Ways you can start a nightly routine:

Evaluate where you are and if you feel as if you wake up refreshed and recharged
Ask yourself if there are any habits that could be making you feel drained
Start by replacing one thing at a time, if there are multiple things you wish to change

I started small by taking away a bad habit and replacing it with a better one. I let myself adjust, and then I would add more. I did not want to overburden myself with so much change at once. In the past, I would go all in and not let myself unwind the patterning naturally. This led me into giving up soon after I started something new. Another pattern I had to let go of.

Occasionally, we take on too much and give up before any real change takes place. It’s significant to pace ourselves.

Conclusion

As you can see, these changes in my own routines have helped me greatly, and I hope they can help others too. It starts by becoming aware of our own patterning and then figuring out a better pattern to fall into. It’s not easy and there will be times when we fall back into old patterns, but that is okay. Once we become aware of it, we can continue to move forward.

Getting into better self-care routines can benefit mental, physical, and emotional well-being by helping us build healthy habits that propel us forward in life instead of going in circles with old unhelpful habits.

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Telling the True Stories About Honesty is what Readers expect from the Writers

July 25, 2024June 24, 2022 by Lokesh Umak

True Stories About Honesty: Kevin Miller talked about how and what took him to craft his debut true crime novel, “Heart of Steel” to live. Indeed, it was a success of his hard work and dedication.

Air Force veteran and Award-Winning Best-Selling Author, Kevin D. Miller woke up one day to learn his last name wasn't the name he used his entire life. His name wasn't the All-American Miller, but the very Polish Puchalski. Some old newspaper articles he stumbled across revealed a deep family secret and a tragedy that occurred in a farm in rural Ohio in 1920. This sent him on a search for the truth.

Have you written any fiction yet as your book, “Heart of Steel” based on a true story? If not, do you have any upcoming projects for fiction lovers?

My second novel, White Skies Black Mingo, was released in November 2021 by Headline Books and was inspired by my great, great-grandparents. She was Native American, and he was the son of Irish immigrants and a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War. The book has won nine major book awards that include, Winner of the Regional Fiction Category at the 2021 Next-Generation Indie Book Awards and Gold from the 2021 Mom's Choice Awards. The book is Historical Fiction and follows the life of a young Native American girl who faces extreme hardships but discovers a forbidden love. All of my books can be found on my website at: www.AuthorKevinMiller.com.

My third novel, Eyes of Morpheus, is Visionary Fiction and was just released this month by Headline Books, Inc. It is a FINALIST in the International Book Awards for 2022. It is the story of a neuroscientist who invents a cryogenics process that actually works. She is later diagnosed with a fatal form of cancer and must decide to fight the cancer or enter herself in the very program she created. Eighty-seven years into the future, she will learn the consequences of her decision.

To write “Heart of Steel”, how many days you took to gather ideas and craft it. Most of the writers said, writing non-fiction takes numerous efforts, is it true?

In writing Heart of Steel, I spent a lot of time researching the facts of the case and the history of my grandfather's life. It took me three years to complete my research and publish the book.

Tell us more about the book on whose life it has written?

Heart of Steel is set in 1920 rural, Ohio and is based on the true life story of my grandfather, Stanley William Miller. When he was thirteen years old, he awoke to discover his father murdered in his own bed and his mother bound and gagged. It was said that their farmhouse was robbed by three men, but the story later breaks down and shocking, dark family secrets are revealed. My grandfather was taken to an orphanage along with his four siblings, and he later escaped and hopped a train to Chicago, where he found work in a steel mill and as a bootlegger as a young boy. He saved his money with the idea who would return to Warren, Ohio, and rescue his siblings.

The book was optioned by GKg Productions in Hollywood to become a motion picture. It was also optioned to become a true-crime TV docu-series.

In any non-fiction story, does the writer try to get justice to the victim, being the writer in charge? What is your view on this?

In my opinion, when writing a non-fiction true-crime story, the writer should tell the story honestly and include all the facts of the case. Heart of Steel is written in the style of a novel instead of a documentary to give the reader a cinematic experience as the protagonist. The reader lives the story through the eyes of the thirteen-year-old protagonist.

What was the first crime story you have ever written, and was it fiction or non-fiction?

The first crime story I have written is Heart of Steel: Based on a True Story and available on Amazon. The story is based on real events and the real life of Stanley William Miller.

Please tell us how many crime storybooks you have read and written. Enlist your favourite books and writers.

Heart of Steel is the only crime story I have written so far. I plan on writing more crime stories in the future. I enjoy books by David Baldacci, Dan Brown, Michael Crichton. Absolute Power is an excellent book by David Baldacci. Origin was well done by Dan Brown.

What are the names of your motivational authors and one of the favourite quotes charge you every time to write more.

My favorite authors include Michael Crichton, David Baldacci, and Blake Crouch. My favorite quote is “Story trumps structure.” by Donald Maass. It means that a great story told is more important than the structure and prose. Without a good story, there is no story.

Nykaa | A short story

November 11, 2022June 24, 2022 by Srishti Dutta

The sweet fragrance of rain drifted to her window, where she stood as still as a statue, making the moon her spotlight. Our heroine, or ‘Nykaa’ as she was dotingly called by her friends for the dramatic flair she had to her movements, was fond of the rain more than anything else, and she had good reason. It was raining when she fell in love. The tenderness with which the ground received the droplets was the same as the tenderness her lover showered her with. She extended her hand to catch some of the drizzle and feel their gentleness.

It was nature who comforted her after our Nykaa felt the numbing stab of abandonment and the harsh tranquillity of life. It was her belief that both of them shared the same sky, the same rain and the same sun that consoled her when she felt her heart close in. In a way, she supposed nature became her lover.
But tonight was different. Tonight, she wanted to remember everything so that she can forget. The mist on her hands made her all the more aware of her recollections. Our Nykaa remembered the early days of her love, when everything the poets wrote came true.

Flowers bloomed when they walked by, and the stars seemed to dull when they looked at each other. She reminisced about the moments which seemed to last forever. The promises they made, the smile forever they gave each other. She recalled the time when her love started to fade. How gradual and unnoticeable the inevitable changes had been. The flair she had, the joy she enjoyed, the affection she let herself get lost in started to lose its brightness. Her life revolved around her love, but now it was consumed by it.

But she could not in good conscience think that her love had grown rotten. After all, how can something so pure ever turn into anything putrid? Our Nykaa was losing the very reason she was called a heroine. And then it happened. It happened and she didn’t even know. Her love went away telling her that he would be back, telling her that when he is back they will live in a house far too big for them, making promises of an eternity together to her, telling her to wait for him, and she did. She waited for him with all her will for as long as she could.

There were letters, for the first few months at least, and her heart swelled whenever she read them. She was the character of a great love story and nothing, nothing can make her feel otherwise. Until, they stopped coming. She waited, wearing her best saree and her magnificent bangles, for another flicker of hope that insured her love, but she never received one. She has a ghost of a smile on her lips, which shines through her tears as she reminisces about these moments now. She was angry. She was angry because with him, he took away her spirit, he snatched her Nykaa from her when he abandoned her and without her spirit, what was she? Without her spirit, she, could not even answer to her name that everyone so affectionately called her.

She re-lived all her pain that night. She wanted to let go, she wanted to snatch back what he took from her. She wore a beautiful saree and magnificent bangles that night too, just as she had when her heart broke. Furthermore, she realised how at those moments, she deceived herself into thinking everything was everlasting because facing the temporary nature of life was too overwhelming. She let herself cry, she let out her heartache, she let herself remember, and then she allowed herself to forget.

There was a time when she loved him more than she missed him and there was a time when she hated herself more than she hated him, but now, right now, she loved her more than she loved him. She loved her tears, her being, her spirit more than she had ever loved him for she had let him go, our heroine had found her Nykaa again.
Her tears stopped, and so did the rain.

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Poem Catharsis

July 25, 2024June 23, 2022 by Eshitha Barua

In the poem Catharsis, urging of a dream, love, ambitions, and goals

But tears are meant to be silent
Freezing in depths of heart,
Thickening layers of crimson pain
Soaking merrily in drizzling lanes,
Piling on every hour.
Away, away! For I will fly,
and spread my wings across the azure sky,
Shredding off hopes and plausible goals,
to try with all my heart, behold.