I haven’t blogged in a while. I haven’t done a lot of things in the last couple weeks. Instead I took some advice and “pressed pause” on the whirlwind of daily things that were keeping me from reflecting and figuring some things out. It was interesting really. While I felt guilty (sometimes downright anxious) for not being productive I did get a chance to figure out what I missed doing and what I couldn’t care less about. Don’t get me wrong I’m not in this utopia of a life now living my bliss but I am more settled with where I want my path to be and did I want it enough and believe in myself enough to take the more difficult path or the easy way. While both choices come with their own set of stressors I just kept coming back to the fact I want to live my life the way I want to live my life and not do things because I think I should. Money does make some aspects of life easier but it’s not the most important thing. Happiness is.

What’s your happiness?
Laina

Over the course of many of our “Writers Making Choices” Interviews, you’ve heard many Indie Epub Authors mention that it’s not just the sales boosts we get from fantabulous blogs like Pixel of Ink and Kindle Nation Daily, but rather the “long tail” of sales that will define us as authors.

But what is the Ebook Sales “Long Tail”?

Is it a dinosaur tail?

Sort of…LOL!…but to show it in Line Graph form versus T-Rex form, it looks something like this…

Ebook Sales Long Tail

read more…..

I am fabulous. So are you. In fact, we are all fabulous. I am always telling people how amazing I am and how amazing they are. Why? Well let’s face it. If I only talked about how amazing I am it would make me seem a bit conceited. Plus, I know from first hand experience it can be hard for others to realize how truly amazing they are so I like to help them to that realization.

I firmly believe you can have it all. A great relationship, marriage, be a great friend, a great mom, keep a good house (if that’s important to you, it’s not one of my top five), be a career woman, follow your dreams, work out, eat right, and many other things. With the right attitude I believe you can do anything. That’s how I came to publish my book, Stilettos & Scoundrels. I realized there were a few things in life I had not tried yet that I desperately wanted to do but didn’t mainly because of a fear that I wasn’t good enough, though I used the excuse of time rather than admit my fear. Then I looked back at other things I had wanted to do an accomplished and what I noticed is that there was fear of some degree prior to the start of these goals. Fear is normal. I then knew I needed to have confidence and to get that confidence I had to realize my full potential. My level of awesomeness to know that I could achieve anything I put my mind to.

The only true limitation is ourselves. It can be so easy to come up with a million excuses of why it can’t be done. Rarely do we sit and list all the reasons it can be done. So I challenge you today. Take that one thing you haven’t done and list ten reasons why you CAN do it. See how you feel after.

Laina

My friend thinks reading the Drudge report is fun where as I prefer Entertainment news. But to show I do know a little about world events and care somewhat I thought I would talk about something serious for a change. In my life as a college professor I teach classes about leadership. One of the best leaders of all times is Hitler. I’m sorry, but being purely objective as it relates to leadership accomplishments it’s true (incidentally, Alexander the Great is the best military leader of all time).
There is an article that discuss how Hitler may have had Jewish bloodlines so he was even more of a hypocrite than we thought. See …

Adolf Hitler may have been descended from both Jews and Africans, DNA tests are indicating, the Daily Mail reported.

As disgusting as Hitler was it is amazing that he was able to accomplish so much when he didn’t posses many of the characteristics that he promoted as THE way and THE ONLY way. Interesting.
Laina

Thursday, August 12
3 – 6 pm
Covered
1201 Lagoon Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55408
http://www.shopcovered.com/index.php
**Covered is offering 15% off of your store purchase if you buy a book!

Friday, August 13
3 – 6 pm
Bluebird Boutique
3909 West 50th Street
Edina, MN 55424-1203
(952) 746-8675
http://www.bluebirdboutique.com/

Saturday, August 14
4 – 6 pm
Buffalo Exchange
2727 S. Lyndale Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55408
(612) 871-9115
http://www.buffaloexchange.com/
**Buffalo Exchange is offering $5 off of your store purchase if you buy a book!

Why? Not because I didn’t want to but because I read an article in one of my writing magazines that said don’t spend time writing on your blog when you were trying to work on your book. I took that advice since for the last two weeks I have been very productive in completing the rough draft of Chiczofrenia and as of today the first draft is done. Yahoo!!!!

Now my next focus is catching up on my book reviews. I have so many wonderful books I can’t wait to dive in to! I am so lucky.

Laina

Related articles by Zemanta

• Feed Me Books Friday: What’s Mommy Reading? (fromthetrenchesofmotherhood.com)
• Sarah deVries: 1 of 20 women for whose murder Pickton will never be tried (theprovince.com)

Wow! Over a week without a blog update. Not acceptable but I am full of excuses. San Diego got the best of me. It was a non-stop flood of work and presentations. the the holiday and now today my inbox is exploding and I feel I will never catch up. But it’s good. It’s all good.

Met some fabulous people in San Diego and got great ideas galore. Now Amy and I are hard at work trying to follow up on all the leads, and people, and ideas we came up with.

One thing that is our focus is our social site for women Chiczofrenic.com. If you haven’t been on check it out.

Women rock and if agree also check out this blog Women’s Life Link

What an interesting week I had this week. I started the week of with losing a material thing and ended the week losing a person – I think, maybe, probably, I’m not 100% sure but it seems like it (although I hope not). Ironically enough losing the person made all the material loss so incredibly unimportant which really made me realize how little material things really mean.
A mentor, Rich Whiteside, once told me that education was important because you could lose everything but no one could ever take your education away and you could use it to start over. That’s true and I repeat that phrase on a weekly basis to people. However, people are necessary as well to enable you to rebuild whether with things or more importantly emotionally and mentally.
I’ve been working on a book this week about women being true to their authentic selves and how we can achieve anything and just need to be strong – you get the drift. But it is so much easier to talk about it than it is to actually do it when you’re in the middle of it. In any case, I do believe that all difficulty can teach us something even if we don’t want to admit it initially. Maybe it’s how we act, or react. Maybe it’s the level of importance we might put on someone’s feelings and our reaction to those feelings. Maybe it’s not giving up when that might be the easier path but not what you want. Nothing good is typically easy and if it’s worth it you can’t roll over you have to fight for it. Pride isn’t going to keep you warm at night or make you laugh.
Even if figuring out what went wrong doesn’t allow you to solve anything you can at last know what NOT to do the next time. Or as Penny says you will “rinse & repeat.”

Have a great holiday weekend!!!!

Laina

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
Aristotle

How many of us can say we really know ourselves? Honestly, and embracing all who we are? It can be hard to embrace your true self. People are messy and we all make mistakes and who the hell wants to admit making mistakes. I know if I ever made any I wouldn’t want to admit it (kidding). I know there is a saying that youth is often wasted on the young and the older I get the more I agree. By the time I really know myself I might be dead. HA!

In all seriousness it is a process to get to know oneself. I think that at many points in my life I have felt I knew myself but I then soon realized I didn’t. I’m sure that is true of most of us. Life is such a process and hard work.

Laina

The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.
William James

So much for ever being wise. I would like to say I don’t sweat the small stuff, and I don’t, unless the small stuff really pisses me off. Then I just can’t help myself. I wish I could but I can’t. Maybe I should take up yoga or something.

Sometimes when emotions get the best of us it can be hard to decide if you are being petty or if it’s justifiable to be annoyed. And to be honest sometimes I like to be annoyed. So do you – admit it.

How can one get past that little stuff. Do you think about things in a global sense or how many bigger problems you really have (you would think that one would work for me).

Laina