Writers Symposium Ezine Is Hot

Utah author Paul Genesse and friends, put out a great ezine, about once a quarter. This is for writers, by writers. Why is it hot? Let me tell you.

Paul rocks at providing assistance to other writers. He has a good mix of contributors, and the content is always refreshing. In the latest edition he covers GenCon, pegged as "The Best Four Days In Gaming". But Paul contests it should also be called "The Best Four Days In Writing". Some 70 writing seminars, panels and workshops will be given at GenCon. There are two tracks, game writing and fiction writing.

If you're a writer, you need to check out the ezine. It can easily be found at Paul's website, http://paulgenesse.blogspot.com, or the Writers Sumposium website, http://writerssymposium.blogspot.com.

Photos by Ant Smith

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Learning The Value Of A Hot Story

Today was Breaking Dawn day. One of the hottest days in the book business. A day that compares to a Harry Potter day. Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, released book four today. Just to give you an idea the number of people who wanted to stand in line to get a copy, my wrist band said number 800, and that was just at one book store.

Needless to say, I was not going to stand in line while I watched 799 other people complete their purchase. So I did some reconnaissance. I found that several smaller stores were carrying the book, and so early this morning I trekked to a Wal-Mart and purchased 4 copies, and there was no line, and no one to fight.

The reason it was so important for me to get this book, was a daughters insane attachment to the story characters. The male character, Edward, is apparently hot. Every woman whose read the book wants their man to be Edward. It's hard to live up to.

The reason I'm telling you this story, is that word of mouth has basically driven the success of this book series. In the tween age group its a hot story. Vampire love stories are all the rage. Every author should be so lucky as Stephenie Meyer. Don't get me wrong, she is a very good writer, and tells great stories. But the readers have created the frenzy. Its been truly amazing to see it happen.

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One Hot August Day

It's August 1st. We are in the dog days of summer. The time where you're just about fed up with hot weather, and ready for the fall cool down to happen. Not to mention you're ready for the kids to go back to school. Pools are your best friend, and you get up early just to go for a run

NaBloPoMo theme for August is HOT. So, I'll be writing post about things that are hot. And they won't necessarily be about the weather.

Play along if you would like, visit the web site here.

Photo by PieterMusterd

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The Most Bizzar Political Message I've Ever Heard

A couple of days ago I found a message on my home phone from a local guy named Dell Schanze. It was one of those automated messages that political candidates use when they are running for office, and want to get their message to as many people as possible.

Dell, or Super Dell, as he likes to be called, started slinging mud almost immediately at two other candidate, all of which are running for the Governor of Utah. When ever someone leaves a message on my phone, Vonage provides an audio file I can download and listen too on my PC. I thought hey, this is too good to pass up, I wanted to share the message with a few friends.

I created a Twitter post which included the URL to the MP3 file of the message on my web server. A few people responded, and apparently Robert Gehrke, a writer for the Salt Lake Tribune, wrote a story about Schanze and his message, and included a link to my MP3.

While I think it's cool that the Trib writer used the link to my file, I would have appreciated a heads up, and even some attribution (as I'm doing in this post). Thanks to Russ Page, I was able to move the file to an Amazon S3 server so my blogs bandwidth isn't all chewed up.

The audio is interesting, funny, and has since been changed to be a little less abrasive. Sorry Super Dell, you won't be getting my vote.

superdell.mp3

'Super Dell' launches Super Attack against Huntsman - Salt Lake Tribune

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Nerdtacular 2008 Was A Blast

I'm in this video a few times, and so is Tyler Whitaker. I really want to thank Scott Johnson for a great time. Please take some time to visit Scott's website, MyExtraLife, read the comic, watch a video cast, buy some stuff.

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