Wednesday, May 28, 2014

#ArmchairBEA 2014 "Expanding Horizons and Short Fiction" + WORD NERDS!


Today is Wednesday, May 28th, Day 3 of the #ArmchairBEA today!

Today is about - (just the beginning is copied and pasted from the Armchair BEA website)

 "Expanding Blogging Horizons & Novellas/Short Stories"


Yesterday featured so many great conversations about interacting with authors as well as discussions and recommendations centering around books that use more than just words!  It just keeps getting better and better!

Daily Reminders:

Twitter Party TODAY at 10 AM EST

Instagram Challenge:  #CurrentBookmark

Expanding Blogging Horizons 
What do you think about when you think about going beyond blogging or expanding your horizons? Is it a redesign of your blog? Have you branched out into freelance writing or even published a novel of your very own? Or, have you moved into a different venue like podcasts or vlogging? This is the day to tell us about how you have expanded on blogging in your own unique way. 

Novellas/Short Stories 
Now it is time to give a little love to those little stories in your life. Share your love for your favorite shorts of any form. What is a short story or novella that doesn’t get the attention that it deserves? Recommend to readers what shorts you would recommend they start with. How about listing some short story anthologies based upon genres or authors? 

My Answers!
Expanding Blogging Horizons

I am always rearranging my blog to help make it as User Friendly as I can. I keep it consistent from week to week so my Followers know where to find thing they can count on finding. This has taken me a while to get down-pat as I compare it to when I first started four years ago! Oh! I have to laugh when I go back and read those first posts back when I first started! I can see I have definitely grown as a blogger! 

I would like to redesign the blog a bit, but every blogging platform doesn't allow you more space from what I have researched, so I have gone to using pages. I love using pages and adding the tabs at the top. That helps making navigating around the blog a breeze, and there is definite added space that way! The only thing that is not so great is you cannot generate NEW permalinks every time you post on the pages. You can post on the Home page, then steer people to the pages, which is what I do. I then have the permalink on my Home Post at least.

What I would really like to learn more about is HTML so I can make a button for my blog. I've been wanting to do this for a LONG time now. I would also like to make buttons for Giveaway Hops and other things. If I could learn how to do that in an EASY way, I would have it made! Instead, I have been immersed in reading books and writing reviews! I need to take some time for 'me' to learn some new things like this. 

I want to do a "Christmas in July" Giveaway Hop! This is where we HOP from blog to blog entering all of the giveaways they have to offer as prizes for people to enter! My halting point is I don't know how to generate the coding needed in order to make the button. It's so technical, at least it is for me, and that is with using photobucket! They are supposed to be easy.
My plan: I WILL figure it out so I can get that Linky List out there, advertise that Giveaway Hop, and I HOPE any of you reading this will mark your calendars for July, and the dates will coincide with Christmas! July 24th to August 1st! Christmas Eve to New Year's Day 2014! We will give away Christmas related books, or anything that is book related but with a Christmas theme.

You see, I LOVE reading about Christmas! I love the fiction of Christmas, the books about Santa, the books about Santa that tell us where he originated from, how other country's Santas work, and more! There is SO MUCH about Christmas in ALL of our countries around the world, I feel this is the PERFECT TIME OF YEAR to do this! We have NO Christmas shopping to do, no parties to attend, and it makes for a great break in the dead middle of summer!

So those are my plans for expanding my horizons!

Now, for Novellas/Short Stories 
Now it is time to give a little love to those little stories in your life. Share your love for your favorite shorts of any form. What is a short story or novella that doesn’t get the attention that it deserves? Recommend to readers what shorts you would recommend they start with. How about listing some short story anthologies based upon genres or authors? 

My Answers for Novellas/Short Stories
Short, sweet, concise little books to read, generally 100 pages or so, can be a very nice and quick change from what you usually read, and just enough of a book to help reenergize you!

I have found some GREAT short stories that are exhilarating! They can be a fresh change of pace from the daily dull-drum at times, or something extremely important the author added after writing her/his novel that holds a LOT of info you really need to know in order to better understand their novel they just released. Generally that short story is released first, and sometimes as a simple teaser, yet other times they are extremely important to the novel itself, such as when I found Diane Chamberlain's "The First Lie" It had extremely important information for the reader to know prior to them picking up that large novel, "Necessary Lies". It gave information we didn't get in the novel which we really should, or in other cases, can be a teaser to the full length novel!

There is a 160 page Novella by Colleen Hoover called Finding Cinderella. That was a nice book, a fairy tale sort of book. Many people loved it, her diehard fans, such as myself! There were also others who did not like it at all, but they did not understand the reason WHY she wrote it.
This book was a teaser, a fairy tale of a book meant for her diehard fans. She was not trying to move mountains and write a piece of literature to stand the test of time and fight to win book medals, etc.! It was FUN! Others picked it apart instead of opening up and just enjoying it. I was pretty sad when I came across such negative people who were so upset about that book. I just ignored the negatvie myself. I like the positive anyway!
Sometimes there are just those books that are meant for FUN! ENJOY THEM! HAVE FUN WITH THEM!
Give Novella a try! They ARE worth it!
See you tomorrow and thanks for stopping by!
Laurie

Wednesday, May 28, 2014


SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: WordNerds Live Chat! LATER TONIGHT!

One of today's topics is Expanding Blogging Horizons.  This can mean a variety of things, from using different mediums to using your blog in some form in real life to just taking your blog on a path less traveled.  With this in mind, we wanted to provide you with an example of another world out there that you can take your own blog -- vlogging, all thanks to the WordNerds!


Who are the WordNerds?

Six YA writers/readers who vlog daily about writing, favorite reads, the publishing industry, inspiration, and whatever else comes to mind.  They also host live chats most Sundays at 7:30 PM EST, about anything from writing dilemmas to their book club pick of the month.


Where can you find the WordNerds?


Youtube

Tumblr
Twitter


WordNerds has graciously offered to host a live chat outside of their regular time in honor of Armchair BEA, and it is something you do not want to miss!  TONIGHT (Wednesday, May 28) at 9 pm EST to be exact.  We will have the direct link to the chat approximately one hour prior to the event.  Once we have it, we will link it up here as well as share it on our social media sites.  Mark your calendars and stay tuned . . .


See you all at the live chat tonight at 9 PM EST!

6 comments:

  1. I like reading a novella every now and then. Especially when I'm reading a few books that have 500+ pages in a row I can use a break. Thanks for writing about Finding Cinderella. I've downloaded it straight away!

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    1. Oh! COOL! You got Finding Cinderella! Awesome!!! This is GREAT! You'll LOVE it! Plus, it's FREE!!! BEST part! Thanks for coming by!
      Laurie

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  2. I recently ran across this site for button coding: http://www.mycoolrealm.com/sandbox/gbgen/ It works great.

    And since that sounded pretty spammy - I'm from ArmchairBEA. Reading your post reminded me of that site so I thought I would help you out. A Christmas in July hop sounds fun. Good luck!

    Girl Who Reads

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    1. Thanks SOOOO much, A Girl Who Reads! I'll check out that link you gave me, and it should be a breeze! Where I store the info for that link, I'll store your name there for the Hop! I have someone who'll co- or sponsor it with me!! Glad you want to do that! It does sound fun, doesn't it! We'll be sweating like crazy while reading about cooler weather! I find that works! LOL!
      Laurie

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  3. Making a blog button is relatively easy, I have done it using Picmonkey.com and then use photobucket to get the code to copy into your blog. here's an article i found. if you have questions, feel free to ask. i have seen lots of posts on it so just google "make a blog button using picmonkey". it's free and pretty easy. Good luck. visiting from ABEA! http://www.thesitsgirls.com/blogging/blog-button-picmonkey/

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    1. Hi Tanya! OH!!! You are SO lucky to be there!!
      Thanks for the info about the blog button! It has to be easy or how else would everyone make them! I'll Google it! Thank you!! Now, to come over to see photos of the BEA!!!

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