According to strangers that email me, I’ve had a handful of rich relatives or someone who just wanted to leave me money die in foreign countries.  I deleted the messages right away.

Recently, I received two invitations to link my blog to leading ink cartridges blog sites by I assumed from the way the email read a employee of those companies who just happened to read my blog and found it interesting enough to have on their website. In the one link, the address turned blue which was a sign to me that there was such a link. In the next email link I received a week later with the other ink cartridge company name mentioned the address was not blue which should have been a red flag. I did search for a blog site for that company and didn’t come up with one. But I excused that as my failure because I didn’t know where to look. I put the links in a couple of my blogs. One of those blog web sites red flagged my blog as having a virus in it and didn’t use the entry. At that point, I still wasn’t getting what had happened. You see as an author, I was thinking the more places on the internet I have my blog means more exposure so more people become familiar with my name and my books and buy them.

I got another email from the one link. The woman said she couldn’t find the link on any site. I replied that the link didn’t light up so she might send me the link again if the one she sent wasn’t working. I didn’t hear from her. Until a few days ago that is when I recieved much the same type email with the hype that the site had thousands of bloggers and thousands of viewers. The woman used the same name as before which wasn’t too smart. Now I’m finally suspicious that something is wrong. She requested me to link up to yet another name brand ink cartridge blog site. The link wasn’t blue in this one, either. I investigated and couldn’t find the blogs so I deleted and blocked that message. Maybe the links were just these companies way of advertising. If someone saw the links they couldn’t use them because they weren’t valid for good reason, because there isn’t blogs connected to the company sites but the ink cartridge brand mentioned is a way to remind them to buy.

I’m not sure what was suppose to happen or what will happen as a result of my replying to the emails. Now I’m wondering about the first email with the legitimate website address. Anyone can type in a website address that works. That doesn’t mean the person who emailed me had the authority to invite me to be in the blog site or that I actually got in once I put the link in my blog. I’m now thinking that all three message came from the same person or persons.

The blog site that red flagged my blog has let me back in to post. I appreciate that the website managers are willing to give me a second chance. So from now on, one lesson I’ve learned is if the link isn’t blue delete it and before you accept an invitation investigate to see what you’re getting into. I’m going to go back to my blog entry with the links in them and delete. For right now, if I were you I’d put emails with bad links to name brand cartridge ink blog sites on the top of your list of emails to get rid of fast. If anyone can tell me what was or is suppose to happen now that I stupidly replied to the email, I’d appreciate hearing comments.

Think that is the end of my virus or spam woes. Think again. A couple weeks ago, I took myself off a social network. I enjoyed emailing family and friends through that website. However, they all have my email address and can contact me anytime they want, but it makes me angry that I should be the one to leave in order to stop a problem created by someone else. My email was being used in a link that was thought to be a virus. I didn’t have a clue that the link was circulating on that site until a member that wasn’t on my list of contacts so wouldn’t have been someone I would have known how to contact emailed me. She sent me the link with my email address in it. This was a long line of letters and numbers with my email address in the middle which by the way wasn’t lit up. She said she had received the link many times for a period of time. The link looked like a virus to her, and she wished I’d quit sending it. I replied that I didn’t know anything about it or her which should have made her suspicious. She should have notified the website managers right away after the first time she got the email. I didn’t like what was happening any better than she did so I told her I was going to leave the site, but before I did I turned in the problem and hoped she did, too. The website managers answer was for me to delete myself until they found out what was going on. Right after that I received another email from a man who had gotten a link he didn’t like. I didn’t know him, either. A man he did know was sending this link to him so he deleted that man from his list of contacts. He thought that would be the end of it for him. He was hoping that would solve my problem so I wouldn’t have to leave the group. Might have but I didn’t know the person the link came from or what was behind it so I couldn’t delete anyone from my list of contacts. The damage was already done and would continue if I had stayed on the site. Who knows, my email link may still be surfacing to unsuspecting members of that social group if the person or persons sending it hasn’t been caught yet. For me, it means I will never use that site again.

Lesson number two, don’t be like the woman who suffered in silence as she deleted emails from me, a stranger, with my email address in the link and no other message included. Alert someone at the website involved, tell it to whoever will listen so a virus doesn’t happen to them. Stop whatever was suppose to happen. I know that won’t stop the bad guys from coming up with something new to pull on us, but hopefully as we keep each other informed, we become more alert and wiser. So if anyone out there wants to leave a comment about this happening to them or something similar I’d appreciate hearing from you. The more educated I am, the more prepared I am to end the next attempt at scaming me or putting a virus in mine and other computers.

One of the first things that new writers may discover when they start working is that there are certain times of the day that make for better writing results. Of course, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all sort of thing. No, each writer will answer differently if asked. (Some may not know when they do their best writing.)

There are writers that work better first thing in the morning and there are those that do better work at night when things tend to be quieter. You may even find that the middle of the day is the best time for you. There are also writers that work better dividing up their writing times into several periods throughout the day. Which of these are you? Better yet, what benefit is there to knowing when you write better?

For the working writer, the answer may come down to productivity. If you are working on an article with a deadline, you want know that you can make the most of the limited time that you have in order to get things done. If you want to work better then you should be aware of your tendencies. Make your writing time work for you rather than against you. There are some beginning writers that spent time trying to force themselves into a particular mold. They then wonder why they’re having such a hard time putting words on the page. Every article becomes a struggle to complete.

This is a reprint from Shaun C. Kilgore‘s website.

My post may appear to have nothing to do with being able to write a book, but guess again.  Where do you think I get my ideas and vivid details for the type of books I write?

My attention is split these days between the computer to blog and work on a book and the transformation outside from winter to spring. Sweet smelling purple and white hyacinths are in bloom in one of my flower beds. On a trip through a couple towns yesterday, I saw other flowers, but in the country, the temperature is cooler. We are not protected from the cold winds so country flowers take longer to come up and bloom. I just keep telling myself that my turn is coming to admire my flower beds.

Now we have most of the baby lambs and goats born and frolicking around the barn yard. City relatives want to see the newborn. A great nephew thought we ran a petting zoo. I gave him a bottle of milk to offer a lamb. The lamb came at him with such gusto it was all the little fellow could do to hang on to the bottle. After the bottle went empty, the nephew made a lap around the barn yard, chasing the sheep. They managed to stay ahead of him and not knowing his intention decided to hide in the barn until he left. I put a milk goat in the stanchion and offered to let him milk, but he took one look at what I had in mind for him to do and yelled, "Gross." After that he stayed fairly close to his father. He’s only five years old. The rabbit tour was more up his alley. They watched him from the safety of their cages, and he eyed them back.

That same day, a 36 year old nephew, a new relative by marriage, who wants to experience all he can about farm life came to visit. He is always eager to learn something new when he comes to visit. First, I had to dig out two new nipples so that I had enough bottles to go around to feed the lambs. Nephew was going to help me put the new nipples on the bottle. The hard new rubber nipples refused to stretch over the pop bottles. It took us half an hour to get the job done. Finally, my husband pulled his pliers out of his side holster, grabbed the tab at the bottom and stretched the nipples over the opening. Where was he thirty minutes before? Of course, the nephew thought I gave him trick nipples to use just to see him struggle. The next morning the new nipples went on the bottles as easy as the older nipples because they had been stretched. I haven’t told Nephew this yet.

He helped our five year old great nephew bottle feed lambs, but he wanted to try more of a challenge. For a year now, he has been asking me if he could milk a goat. I handed him the bucket and pointed to the goat in the stanchion. My instruction was to milk fast while she ate her feed, because when she finished eating, she lays down. The nanny is pretty smart that way. This is her statement. She gets fed, or she don’t give milk.

Nephew worked gingerly at something he’d never done before. I finally told him to turn loose of the bucket and use both hands. After getting half a cup of milk in the bottom of bucket, he told me to show him how I do it. As he got down close to watch, I pulled the trick that has been handed down through most families of farmers when they milked their cows. I missed the bucket and sprayed him. My aim was good. I splattered the back of his hand, thinking to not mess up his city clothes. He wiped his hand on his slack legs like a true county man. Unaware that I missed the bucket on purpose and this nephew being the teaser he is, he isn’t going to let me forget my bad aim for awhile. Not that a trick or two is going to stop him from coming back for more lessons. He loves being on the sidelines of what we do here. I know how he feels. It was bred into me from my ancestors to want this country life and to appreciate it.

This post originally appeared on the Online Degree Programs site, and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

For many authors, a great novel is simply one part of a larger lifetime of creative work. For others, however, a great novel is a once in a lifetime blessing, one that was never followed up with another due to creative stagnation or circumstances out of his or her control. The authors listed here wrote books that have been read in high school and college courses for years, many of which won numerous awards. These books mark the greatest literary achievements of each author’s lifetime.

1. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird: This notoriously reclusive author was terrified of the criticism she felt she would receive for this classic American novel. Of course, the novel didn’t tank and was an immediate bestseller, winning great critical acclaim, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. While Lee spent several years working on a novel called The Long Goodbye, she eventually abandoned it and has yet to publish anything other than a few essays since her early success and none since 1965. 
    
2. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man: Invisible Man is Ellison’s best known work, most likely because it was the only novel he ever published during his lifetime and because it won him the National Book Award in 1953. Ellison worked hard to match his earlier success but felt himself stagnating on his next novel that eventually came to encompass well over 2000 pages. It was not until Ellison’s death that this novel was condensed, edited and published under the title Juneteenth.
   
3. Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago: Pasternak’s inclusion here by no means limits him as a one hit wonder, as he was and is known as one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. But when it came to writing novels, Pasternak was to only create one work, the epic Dr. Zhivago. It was a miracle that even this novel was published, as the manuscript had to be smuggled out of Russia and published abroad. Even when it won Pasternak the Nobel Prize in 1958, he was forced to decline due to pressure from Soviet authorities, lest he be exiled or imprisoned. Pasternak died two years later of lung cancer, never completing another novel.
    
4. Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind: Margaret Mitchell never wanted to seek out literary success and wrote this expansive work in secret, only sending it to publishers after she was mocked by a colleague who didn’t believe she was capable of writing a novel. She turned out to be more than capable; however, and the book won a Pulitzer and was adapted into one of the best known and loved films of all time. Mitchell would not get a chance to write another novel, as she was struck and killed by a car on her way to the cinema at only 49 years of age.
    
5. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights: As part of a family of women who enjoyed writing, Emily did work on a collection of poetry during her life, though the vast majority of her work was published under a more androgynous pen name at first. While Wuthering Heights received criticism at first for it’s innovative style, it has since become a classic and was edited and republished in 1850 by her sister under her real name. It is entirely possible that Emily may have gone on to create other novels, but her poor health and the harsh climate she lived in shortened her life, and she died at 30 of tuberculosis.
    
6. Anna Sewell, Black Beauty: Sewell didn’t start off her life intending to be a novelist. Indeed, she didn’t begin writing Black Beauty until she was 51 years old, motivated by the need to create a work that encouraged people to treat horses (and humans) humanely, and it took her six years to complete it. Upon publication it was an immediate bestseller, rocketing Sewell into success. Unfortunately, she would not live to enjoy but a little of it as she died from hepatitis five months after her book was released.
    
7. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray: Wilde is best known as a poet and playwright, but he did make one attempt at a novel during his life, the sometimes controversial The Picture of Dorian Gray. While his plays brought him the most success during his lifetime, it is this novel that has secured a place for him in literary history. Yet it was a bit too racy for Victorian society at the time, with critics calling it everything from "effeminate" to "unclean", largely due to the book’s homoerotic and hedonistic undertones. Because of this criticism, Wilde revised his novel, but he was never to undertake the task again, instead sticking to poetry and plays for the rest of his career.
    
8. John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces: John Kennedy Toole was a well-educated and intelligent man who taught at Dominican College in New Orleans. It was during this time he wrote his comic novel. Unfortunately, the stress of not being able to get his work published–book critics didn’t think it was about anything in particular–as well as other factors took their toll on his health, and Toole quit his job and descended into a deep depression, eventually committing suicide in 1969. It was not until 1980 that his work was published, finally earning him the recognition he desired and a posthumous Pulitzer Prize.
    
9. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar: Sometimes a work of fiction can be a little too personal, as was the case with Plath’s The Bell Jar, published in 1963 under a pseudonym. While an accomplished poet, Plath struggled with bipolar depression, a condition made worse by an unfaithful husband and a miscarriage. In the acclaimed novel, the main character suffers a break and commits suicide, a fate Plath herself was to share, killing herself only months after the publication of the book. While this was to be her only novel, Plath did win the Pulitzer for her poetry in 1982, the first writer to ever posthumously do so.
    
10. Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things: This author is mentioned last because while she has to date only published one work of fiction–one that garnered her the Booker Prize–she is still working today. Much of the work she has published since her novel has been nonfiction and political essays as well as a number of screenplays. After a significant hiatus from her last book (13 years and counting), she is reported to be working on a new novel, though there is no guarantee that she will return to the novel-writing genre.