Celebrant, Vlady Peters, Redcliffe, Qld.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Submission Nightmare
Writing a book takes effort. Getting published even more. There are literally hundreds of well-known authors who were rejected repeatedly before finally being published.
To name a few
Harry Potter by J K Rowlings was rejected
12 times.
A Time to Kill by John Grisham was rejected 16
times.
Lust for Life by Irving Stone was rejected 16
times.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding was
rejected 20 times.
Dune by Frank Herbert was rejected 20
times.
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle was rejected 26
times.
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
was rejected 38 times.
Carrie by Stephen King was rejected 80
times,
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, was rejected hundreds
of times.
Judy Blum had to wait 2 years before being
published.
Agatha Christie had to wait 4 years before being
published.
Alex Hailey had to wait 8 years before
being published.
Gertrude Stein had to wait 22 years before being
published.
In some instances, with the rejection slip the authors received comments which often were quite personal and highly uncomplimentary about the work submitted.
These days, when publishers are being overwhelmed by manuscripts, instead of receiving a written response, you may be told that if you don't hear anything within so many months, assume that your manuscript has not impressed.
Share your expectations and experiences in submitting your work.
Compliment of Cartoon Stock
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Friday, April 26, 2024
Sunday, February 25, 2024
His, Hers and Theirs
It used to be, 'They
married and lived happily ever after'. Now, what with his, hers, and their
children, the wedding day itself is a challenge. His children don't like her.
Her children don't like his children. And their children don't know why the
other children don't go home where they belong instead of hanging around.
Convincing everyone involved that marriage is going to be the happiest time of all their lives is hard enough. Having the wedding ceremony without some explosive incident is a miracle. But no sooner does the couple sigh with relief, that the wedding went off better than expected, then comes the problem of the honeymoon.
Should the honeymoon be postponed for some weeks, or months, or even years until the various members of the family have accepted each other as a family? Or should the couple actually take the children with them for a family holiday? Even if money is no object, will anyone, including the children enjoy this togetherness?
Even if the couple decide not to take their children with them - which most won't - if the children are at all interested, give them the opportunity to plan the honeymoon with you. That is tell them why you've chosen the particular place. What is so special about it? Do a little bit of research on it so that if it has as any history worth recounting, you'll be able to share it with them. Know enough about the children's interest to give them the details they crave rather than the details that interest you.
Although there is a desire, especially of the couple inundated with problems other than the theme for their wedding, to leave for their honeymoon just as fast as they can, resist this urge. While the urge, especially with an embattled couple is natural, give yourself a day or two to recoup, relax with all your children into a more comfortable mode, and then leave. It won't seem to your children the flight that it is if you don't make such an urgent mission of it.
Incidentally, while on your honeymoon, don't avoid the subject of the children you've left behind. Without being anxious or morbid, of course.
If money is no object, one of the best ways of starting your life together as a new family, is to buy a new house before you leave for the honeymoon. Apart from the anticipation of moving house when you come back from the honeymoon, all your children can take an equal interest in it because it belongs to all of them rather than only some of them.
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Sunday, January 7, 2024
Honeymoon and Toes
Compliments of
Feet Fetish Bumper Stickers - CafePress
Remember the
frenzy of the paparazzi when they caught Sarah
Ferguson, the Duchess of York, having her toe sucked at a beach? What was
the big deal? Was it that she was so well-known? Or was it that this piece of
fore play was being conducted in a more or less public place? Or was it the toe
itself that did it?
When it comes to love-making, we thought we’d seen it all.
We know people do
it in showers and baths, on board tables or under them, horizontally or
slightly perpendicular, and vertically flat against a brick wall or against
something anchored to the ground. But in all this, the toe just didn’t
figure.
Sure, we do seem to remember that guy who toasted a beauty of his time by drinking out of her slipper. But we didn’t really believe that it happened. Or if it did, we could only assume that the gallant had already had a few drinks before he came up with the idea.
But as queasy as we get thinking about using a slipper as a glass, the imagination boggles at the thought of a toe as a snack. After all, when we look at our shoes in the dark recesses of our wardrobe we know where those toes have been, and are not entirely reassured that they’re worth any attention at all, let alone the intimacy of a suck or two.
Yes, we have heard that toes, like other body appendages, are sensitive and can be as arousing as the more recognized erogenous zones. But we also know our feet. So long as we remember that the soles are like sandpaper, the nails as hard as a rhinoceros horn, and about as sweet smelling as a three or four day old fish, love-making and toes will never be an equation in our books.
We’ll nibble the ears, kiss the fingers, make a few detours down the length of the body, stopping well beyond the danger zone of the toes.
It has been said that the man who first ate an oyster must have been the bravest man on earth. The same must be said of the man or woman who first decided to try out the toes.
So if you consider yourself a hot lover, and have never tried out your partner’s toes, you’ve still a long way to go.
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Sunday, December 17, 2023
10 Easy Steps to A Great Relationship
You've found the love of your life. Now make sure that it's yours for the rest of you life with these ten easy steps.
1. Be Kind.
Kind seems a light-weight sort of word, but unlike love, it's a word we all understand. Kind is feeding a stray cat, or giving a complete stranger a helping hand. Its greatness likes in the fact that you don't have to do it, it's not required by law that you do it, it's not a matter of politics, or religion that you do it. You do it out of the fullness of your heart. You could say, kindness is love in action.
Kind seems a light-weight sort of word, but unlike love, it's a word we all understand. Kind is feeding a stray cat, or giving a complete stranger a helping hand. Its greatness likes in the fact that you don't have to do it, it's not required by law that you do it, it's not a matter of politics, or religion that you do it. You do it out of the fullness of your heart. You could say, kindness is love in action.
2. Be nice - in the old-fashioned way - that is don't be crude, rude or obnoxious. As my neighbour used to tell her two daughters, a dirty, slovenly, foul-mouthed young man will become a dirty old man - only more so. I guess that goes for the ladies too.
3. Don't enter a partnership with the idea of improving him or her. It's hard enough for you to ensure that you become everything you want to be, without doubling up on the job.
4. Be yourself.
Tricky that. One person who was himself with a vengeance was Socrates. He used to run around Athens day in and day out, being a great philosopher. Mrs. Socrates, in the meantime, used to run behind him screaming, 'For crying out loud, Socrates, get a job! Your kids are starving and my taking in neighbours' washing isn't cutting it.'
Tricky that. One person who was himself with a vengeance was Socrates. He used to run around Athens day in and day out, being a great philosopher. Mrs. Socrates, in the meantime, used to run behind him screaming, 'For crying out loud, Socrates, get a job! Your kids are starving and my taking in neighbours' washing isn't cutting it.'
Socrates was being himself, but as a husband and father, he sucked.
Think of yourself on your own as a circle. When you're in a relationship your circle intersects with your partner's circle. There is still a lot of circle that is you as an individual, but that intersected bit has to be both of you. Here is where you negotiate, mediate and accommodate each other. Here's where your life together takes precedent over your life as yourself.
5.Be honest.
This is another tricky one. Tolstoy, the great Russian writer, on his wedding night, gave his very young bride his diaries. Here she learned of his life up to date, which included numerous interactions with women, one of whom still lived and worked on his estate, and was looking after a little Tolstoy they had produced some years back.
This is another tricky one. Tolstoy, the great Russian writer, on his wedding night, gave his very young bride his diaries. Here she learned of his life up to date, which included numerous interactions with women, one of whom still lived and worked on his estate, and was looking after a little Tolstoy they had produced some years back.
I wonder how he would have reacted if his bride had returned the favour by giving him her diaries which included her goings on with the butler and their little offspring.
The moral of the story? There's honesty and there's ego tripping. There's honesty which enlightens your relationship and there's honesty which makes you feel better by dumping your undesirable actions for your partner to carry.
6. Do things together and apart.
Don't give up all your friends and activities you enjoyed as a single person just because you are now in a relationship. Ideally, you'll be making new friends and taking up new activities as a couple. But as the wise man said, it's nice to make new friends, but even nicer to still keep the old ones.
Don't give up all your friends and activities you enjoyed as a single person just because you are now in a relationship. Ideally, you'll be making new friends and taking up new activities as a couple. But as the wise man said, it's nice to make new friends, but even nicer to still keep the old ones.
7. Have things in common.
Opposites might attract, but as an ongoing thing, it's hard-going. The Victorian marriages, where men and women had little chance of getting to know each other until they were married, were imbued with boredom at best, and a lot of unhappiness at worst. Both partners had to get along with someone they had no understanding of.
Opposites might attract, but as an ongoing thing, it's hard-going. The Victorian marriages, where men and women had little chance of getting to know each other until they were married, were imbued with boredom at best, and a lot of unhappiness at worst. Both partners had to get along with someone they had no understanding of.
No wonder George Osborne, in Vanity Fair, complains five minutes into his Honeymoon, that he's bored out of his skull with his sweet Amelia.
There are a lot of things that go into a happy, healthy relationship. Common interests and common backgrounds make a good start.
8. Fight Fair
Fight about what you're fighting about. Don't bring up every other argument and disagreement you've ever had. Just agree to resolve this particular problem only. And while doing this remember that not all arguments are worth winning.
Fight about what you're fighting about. Don't bring up every other argument and disagreement you've ever had. Just agree to resolve this particular problem only. And while doing this remember that not all arguments are worth winning.
Even the best military strategists knew that sometimes retreat was the better strategy. Don't set up to win every battle, only to find that you've lost the war.
9. Forget the words 'always' and 'never'.
Nothing is so annoying as being told, 'You always do that', or 'You never do this'. Let's face it, in real life, that is simply not true.
However, if in fact your partner never does what he or she should, or is annoying you by always doing what he or she shouldn't, why are you still in a relationship with this person? Get a life!
10. No ultimatum
If you value your partner or your relationship, don't ever issue an ultimatum unless you're prepared to live with the worst scenario. An ultimatum to a relationship is as a red rag to a bull. It makes your partner see red.
If you value your partner or your relationship, don't ever issue an ultimatum unless you're prepared to live with the worst scenario. An ultimatum to a relationship is as a red rag to a bull. It makes your partner see red.
Of course, if you've been trying to get rid of your partner, and so far your hints have been falling on deaf ears, you might need something less subtle, like an ultimatum to get him or her out of your life.
Friday, December 15, 2023
Dear Diary
I’ve often
wondered how this business of ‘Dear Diary’ ever started. I know some very
important people decided to put ink to paper their very impressive
thoughts, and somewhere down the track felt they had to share those thoughts
with the rest of the world.
And then along come authors of fiction who write the whole novel as a diary. One that comes to mind is ‘Pamela’ by Samuel Richardson. The main character is writing literally as the action takes place.
There’s a knock on the door. ‘Help!’ writes Pamela in her diary, ‘A team of mercenaries are breaking the door. Soon they’ll find and capture me. And, after throwing me over their shoulder will take me who knows where?’
Then she hides the diary in her voluminous clothes and waits for the inevitable.
I have to admit, that didn’t happen exactly as I wrote it, but that’s how Pamela manages to keep you interested in her adventures. She’s writing it as it happens.
But diaries have a longer history than used by fiction writers to keep the readers on their toes.
It seems they go as far back as the construction of the Pyramids. Needless to say, such a diary was more a catalogue of what was needed, and how it was transported etc.
One of the earlier personal diaries as we know it, was written by Marcus Aurelius. A Roman Emperor, who, in his Meditations shares his ideas on how to live your life. And even more personal is the Japanese diary known as PillowBooks. Written by a lady it’s all about the happenings at the royal court, which presumably includes pillow talk.
As we come closer and closer to 2024, we find all sorts of diaries waiting for us at Newsagents and other stores. The diaries are varied to help you concentrate on what is important in your life.
The obvious one is the personal diary, where you enter your personal thoughts, your daily tasks, and whatever else catches your fancy.
Then there’s the specific diary dealing with a specific aspect of your life. One is the Gratitude diary, where you concentrate on all the things you are grateful for in your life.
Others include health diary, food diary, hobby diary, travel diary, dream diary, secret diary, cooking diary, bucket-list diary, exercise diary, love diary (keep this one a secret, you don’t won’t your current lover to find out about the other lover), book diary, and last but by no means least work diary.
I’m getting ready to select mine, what about you?
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