KDP Select Update

Thanks to all who participated in the fee promotion on Wed. 2/15/12. I have gone into more detail on my news page at my official website. I have finished chapter seven. Cough, last week. Have been on vacation from my post office job and thought I would have more time to work on the book. Not necessarily. I spent one day looking for an agent again. So far, not promising. But that is okay. Even though that is the only way to get my book in the brick and mortar stores, I may have to rely on Amazon and B&N. Of course, B&N will have to wait til my KDP Select time is up. But until then, this endeavor has actually been a good thing. The rest of my vacation has been spent with kids and cleaning out my coupons. Wow, have I got behind. There is a reason to stay on top of things. There is nothing else to really write home about; my vacation has been rather quiet, which that is a nice thing. It is good to slow down and relax, letting the world slip by with not a worry on your mind. You should try it.

Blank Page

I sit here at my computer, staring obsessively, wanting to see words fill on the blank page. But it doesn't happen. How easy writing comes to some. There are days it does for me, and then there are the days I may write a few words, a chapter or only one page. Images fill my mind, conversations take place. And yet somehow these moments don't make it past my fingertips. Very frustrating. But have no fear. The story will find its way out. Still working on chapter five.

Why can the people not believe?

I read in the newspaper this morning that the number of people who don't believe in God or religion is growing. Not that they are atheist but that they just don't care. I'm saddened by this. I'm not sure if it is because they don't believe or the fact that they don't care and don't worry about it. To them, things are just as they are and God has no purpose for them. How sad. Does an unbeliever not look around them in wonder? Or cast an eye to the sky in awe? Shiver at the power behind a drop of water? How can a person look at each individual, whether it be human, animal, or nature and not see how different and complex we all are and that chance does not create this. To think that it is only by chance that the earth and each planet, spins in their own spot, never wavering from where they are suppose to be and that the sun does not extinguish and send us and our entire solar system into a dark, cold existence, is a belief I do not want to hold dear into my heart. God is in control. Why is it so hard for others to not let go and hand the reins of their life over to him? Will they faint on the spot that there is one greater than we can ever truly fathom? I tell you this. They will one day. It is said every knee will bow. Believing in God will not change who they are inside. That person will still be that person. We still live and we will still die. I have seen others change for much worse ideals or actions. It may change, to some point, what they do in life or how they react. But they will still be who they are. Would that be so bad? How wonderful to have someone more powerful than us help us through our day. How more wonderful to know that, in the end, we will see him. I would rather God was with me than against me. So if the percentage of the unbelievers are gaining, reducing the numbers of us praising God, at least, the tiniest pebble will.

Luke 19:

³⁷ Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, ³⁸saying: 


      “‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!’^[d]
      Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 

³⁹ And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” 
⁴⁰ But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”

All new: barbaragarquharsonscott.com

I have a new website to go along with my blog. Check it out and let me know what your think. Click on this link: barbarafarquharsonscott.com There is also a page with free dragon games. Emily loves that page. She is always asking to get on my new site to play. Makes me glad I added that page.

KDP Select

Just joined KDP Select program on Amazon. So for the next 90 days, you will be unable to buy the ebook for your nook from B&N since the KDP Select program does not allow other outlets to sell the ebook. Sorry for those with nooks, but Chasing Dragons has not sold well there. This is a platform that I am hoping will jump start Chasing Dragons and get it known to more people. There are so many books it is easy to get lost in the sea. This is a 90 day experiment with the option to renew. Amazon will allow me the option to offer my book for free to readers for up to 5 days every 90 days. Hopefully all this to people who may normally not have heard about it. I will keep you posted with my experiment. If all goes well, I will open the B&N back up and then maybe later in the year rejoin KDP Select. Who knows, I may stay in. Then again, I may not need to. I am to use the word once more; Hopeful!!!

Desire, Determination, Live Life Fully

There are too many external worries going on for me right now. Fortunately for me, I have my writing. When I write, I can go with my characters for a little while and the worries disappear. This world has enough worries and I think that is why people tend to read or watch television, or even go to the movies. Maybe too much. They can snuggle down in their comfortable chair or on their couch, and if you're a girl or a lady, I'd almost bet you have a warm blanket, no matter the time of year, to snuggle under as you read or watch in comfort, the words or the visual pictures allowing you to escape from everything stressful that is causing you to pull your hair out.

We might think that through these mediums we are able to experience great heights or lows, adventures or fantasies that could never take place in the real world. Even if to us it would be the coolest thing ever. How many kids wish they could do the things that Harry Potter and his friends are capable of? How many of you when you were younger wished you could wiggle your nose and make your bed, or sleep til the last minute and snap clean clothes on and arrive at your destination at a blink?

I myself have wished certain books could have been my life. Or that I was blessed with certain powers to clean my room. Now I am older and realize the impossibilities of this. Despite knowing this, there is a part of me that thinks being a dragon shape shifter or its rider would be exhilarating. Shall we say, "Pull our head out of the clouds." So even if we do, "pull our head out of the clouds," there are things we can do to enrich our lives, many that will take energy and desire to go out there and implement the ideas that come to us. Unfortunately, most of us lack the desire and determination to go and do. Especially those of us that seem to burn the candle at both ends.

My enrichment, besides my kids, has been my book. And, I hope I will continue to have the desire and determination to promote and push it until it is successful. And in the meantime, I hope my brain continues to desire to release my ideas to the computer so they will quit running around in my head. I'm glad to say my first book no longer does that. But until it was complete, my story made havoc until it was fully written.

So if you want to read, (shameful plug) read my first book in the Chasing Dragon's Saga, and then go out and make life full and fun. Read, watch television, or go see a movie, but all in healthy amounts. Don't let life pass by without the fullness and enrichment of living it. And when you're eighty, you can say "I did that." Or if you die before your time, others can never say, "He never..." No matter how my book does, I and others will always be able to say I did it, or at least I tried to.

"Good Lands"

As my Ma used to say, "Good lands." And really that's all that is needed to say as I look back over the summer and think how it flew by. She used to tell me that the older you get, the faster time will speed by, and she was right. It does seem only yesterday that my kids came home from the last day of school. And now, today, all four are enjoying the new experiences of the first day of their next year of school. I am actually excited about it myself. I have missed the stories of their experiences with their friends and their world outside our own. Especially my fourteen year old daughter. She usually has us laughing at herself or her friends with the things that happen to them. I can only imagine how many more she will have as a freshman in high school.

I love the beginning of school. It is like a new year to me. While summer, with its swimming, gardening, running around in shorts and flip flops slowly come to an end, the beginning of football, new shows and warm sweaters and boots sprout the start of fall. And I know that soon I will be buying Halloween costumes for at least four. If my fourteen year old daughter gets her monster or dinosaur costume she is wanting, I might have to get one for her older brother. They are both in their own club: "Team Alpha Wolf Squadron."

I enjoy each new day with them, knowing as they grow older, so do I. I don't mind so much. I'm not big on the wrinkles that are slowly making themselves known around my eyes, but I am a huge fan of the 'wisdom' that I am accumulating. I wish we could have had that wisdom when we were younger, but then how else are we to grow if we aren't 'stupid' at some point of our lives.

I am a writer now. I think it was always there in the recesses of my mind, waiting to be let out. But my children, being younger, needed me more than my stories did. Now it is their turn. Besides my older son and daughter, I also have a younger son and daughter, ages 11 and 8, but they know what I do and also know that at any point I will stop and take care of what they need. It is because of them that many days I do not write, but it is also for them, and myself, that I do. And one day I hope to have all my books on a shelf and they can each proudly point them out to their own children and say, "Your grandmother, or your great grandmother wrote these." And by the time I am old and with grandchildren, I am sure I will say as my Ma did, "Good lands," knowing that time sped by way to fast.