Writing & Publishing Archives - Page 20 of 28 - Sonia Marsh

Join the “My Gutsy Story” contest.

October 24, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

After the huge success of our first My Gutsy Story® Anthology: True Stories of Love, Courage and Adventure From Around the World , we’re now accepting submissions for our second Anthology.

Every Monday we feature a My Gutsy Story®, and at the end of each month we ask our readers to vote for their favorite My Gutsy Story®. Audience participation, comments and votes are encouraged.

Submissions for My Gutsy Story®:

A story about something that either:

Changed you.
Changed the way you think about something.
Made your life take a different direction.

What we’re looking for:

A well-written story
Something gutsy
Inspirational
Unique
Motivational
Engaging
Humor

Submission Guidelines:

The story should be no more than 1,000 words.
100 word bio with your website.

How to submit:

Please e-mail Sonia@soniamarsh.com

How we select the best story:

Readers vote each month for their favorite story of the month.

What do you get from sharing My Gutsy Story®?

Links to your books, website or blog.
An opportunity to share your work with new readers.
More readers
More comments, Tweets, FaceBook comments, fame.
One winner per month gets a prize from one of our monthly sponsors.

We launched our first My Gutsy Story® Anthology: True Stories of Love, Courage and Adventure From Around the World on September 26th, 2013, at the Regency South Coast Village, Santa Ana, California, with “gutsy Traveler” and keynote speaker, Marybeth Bond, and a panel of indie authors, including: Linda Joy Myers, Jason Matthews, Sonia Marsh and Marla Miller as our moderator. You can see the photos and learn more about our event here.

Would you like to sponsor the contest? If so, please contact us.

I can only be me.

October 20, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

” Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see a bird that has the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.” Dale Carnegie

It’s Wednesday night and I’m cooking dinner wondering, “What the hell am I going to post tomorrow?” (I apologize, I do swear once in a while.)

Does this happen to you or are you so organized that all your posts are prepared weeks or months ahead of time?

Please don’t answer if you’re one of those because you’ll only make me feel like a loser. OK, I admit, I’ll feel happy for you and perhaps a smidgen of envy will creep in wishing that I could be more like you.

So while I stir the mushrooms, let me take a moment to think about what to write next.

I have a confession to make. I’m still working on the rewrite of my travel memoir. I know, I know, why is it taking me so long to finish my travel memoir?

Do you want to know the real reason?

Here it is. “I finally listened to agents, editors, a memoir teacher I had three years ago, and someone important: my husband.”

“Start with the action in Belize,”

“Sonia, too much fluff in the beginning, get to Belize faster.”

It has taken several years for me to hear them, and as I mentioned in the truth about writing a book, publishers are looking for unique stories.

Unless you’re a celebrity, it’s highly unlikely that an editor will be interested in publishing your manuscript if it relates to any of the following problems:

raising a difficult teenager
an alcohol problem
an autistic child
you’re a cancer survivor
you suffered abuse as a child
you left your abusive husband

At least that’s what I’ve heard over and over again. I’m sorry, it sucks, but that’s a fact today and I realize it. That’s why I’m trying very hard to become a celebrity. (Please don’t laugh.)

OK, so here’s something else I want to talk about. I’m very confused about the way I was taught to write in Europe, and the American way. I used to say, “I learnt this,” and it’s taken me almost twenty years to realize that in the U.S. it’s, “ I learned this.”

I also have comma problems. I truly believe the British use more commas than the Americans. At this point I’m so confused, I add a comma just to be on the safe side.

Let’s not get distracted here; I know you care more about other things than my grammar issues. I would like to find out a few things about you.

Do you find it a challenge to stick to the theme of your blog?
Are there times when you’d like to write whatever, just like I am today?
Once you hit publish, do you get nervous what readers will think of your post or should I say you?
Do you wake up at 2 a.m., in a sweat (ladies you know what I mean) and panic because you don’t have a topic to write about, and you work yourself into a tizzy because you realize your book is more important than your blog, so you start worrying about your kids, your marriage, your life, and global warming? Then by 3 a.m., you finally relax enough to sleep until you decide to get up and write your post before you forget what you wanted to write about.

There are days when we think we’re on a stage, performing for an audience, and in a way being a writer/blogger is the same. Even if we think we wrote a brilliant post, article or book, we can’t be happy until we know what our audience thinks of our “performance.” Of course we can judge by the number of comments, Tweets and reviews we receive, however, this shouldn’t matter as much as what we think of our self.

Photo credit above

My blog was hacked. Why me?

October 10, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

My website was hacked last Friday and I felt sick to my stomach. It felt like an intruder entered my home, stole my belongings and left me naked and vulnerable.

How could this happen to me? I’m not a corporation or a business selling products; no I’m Sonia Marsh, author and blogger who enjoys a community of people from around the world.

So here’s what happened. (I am not a professional website designer or coder who can offer technical advice.)

I logged onto my hosted WordPress website and noticed that the photograph on the most recent post on the landing page had disappeared. A black dot had replaced the photo. The photo was still on the post, so why wasn’t it being “pulled” onto the home page? (My website designer and coder had written code to do this automatically.) I experimented uploading another photo hoping this might be the solution. After deleting photos from my Gallery, and uploading them directly into my post, nothing worked. Within an hour or so, all photos on my home page were replaced by small black dots. I felt like my blog was slowly crumbling in front of my eyes just like the frightening photos of the Twin Towers on 9/11.

I checked all three of my domain names and my website never popped up. The directory no longer had an index file. I no longer existed on the web. As I mourned the death of my website with hundreds of posts, photos and comments gone forever, my immediate reaction was the most common one: panic, which can also be the most dangerous one. Douglas Karr explains in his article “WordPress Hacked? Ten Steps to Repair Your Blog,”

“Stay Calm! Don’t start deleting things and installing all kinds of crap that promises to clean your installation up. You don’t know who wrote it and whether or not it’s simply adding more malicious crap to your blog. Take a deep breath, lookup this blog post, and slowly and deliberately go down the checklist.”

Call your web-hosting company, if you use one, and ask them to look into it.

Act fast. Get immediate professional help if you don’t know how to fix yourself.

I went from panic, to mad to Gutsy, and said, “That damn HACKER is not going to get away with this. I’m not giving up after all these years of blogging, I have to get it back.”

I e-mailed my web-designer who got back to me right away and said, “Sonia, you’ve been hacked. Call your web-hosting company immediately and find out what’s going on.”

She is not a coder but put me in touch with a fantastic guy who informed me the problem lies with a script called: timthumb.php. That script had a ‘hole’ in it that would let people take over WordPress sites.

From there it infected almost every other file in WordPress, the plugins and the theme.

In order to reduce your risk here are a 5 steps to take if you use WordPress:

Keep your themes and plugins updated – #1 cause of malware infections and hacks independent of any platform!
Only download from reputable sources (WordPress.org).
Only use plugins and themes that are being actively developed and have good, trusted reviews. Do your homework
Keep an eye on WordPress security news to see if there are any issues with the plugins or themes you are using.
Don’t just disable, remove any software that you’re not actively using. Just because it’s not active doesn’t mean it’s not vulnerable

I lost two pounds on Friday from nerves and not eating and had an event to attend in the evening. Fortunately, when I returned, Loren, the tech guy, left me this message.

“I pretty sure I’ve got it clean

I had to completely re-install WordPress
Delete all plugins
Re-install all plugins
clean every theme file.”

I clicked on my website: soniamarsh.com and I was back online. I celebrated with a glass of wine, and deleted a couple of plugins I don’t use. I hope this never happens to you, or to me again.

Don’t forget to change your passwords frequently.

Have you been hacked before? How did you react?

Above Photo Daniel Conway

From Frugal to Regal thanks to Buick

October 6, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

My cell phone rings, “We’re here to deliver your car,” the guy from Page One Automotive says. I have no idea what to expect, and run down the hallway to open my garage door. There, parked on the street, sits a gorgeous silver 2011 Buick Regal Turbo Sedan. A little intimidated, I stop half way down my driveway. The delivery guy hands me the remote, requests my signature on his paperwork, and within seconds he’s gone. Now it’s just me and my luxury car for the next four days.

Buick Regal Turbo charged — Buick Regal CXL Turbo charged

It takes me a while to pluck up the courage to check her out. First I have to get my heart rate back to normal and make sure my hair and make-up look just as polished as Regal, before I take her for a spin. Her flowing lines and sculpted body deserve to be seen, so what better place to take her than the upscale Newport Beach Library, where I’m editing my travel memoir.

As I roll my computer case through the garage, my Kia Rio looks concerned. “Don’t worry, you’re still mine,” I say.

Regal is outside, waiting for me, and as I click on the remote to open her trunk, I realize, “OMG, I lost the key.” I back track through my garage, eyes focused on the cement floor but I can’t find it. I ask my 23-year-old son to help me look for it. He inspects the remote and all of a sudden, this metal prong ejects. “There’s the key,” he says. Now I feel dumb.

Buick Regal retractable key — The silver button releases the metal prong key

I head back to Regal, open the doors and slide into the soft leather seat. I already feel pampered, wondering if this seat will start pulsing and kneading my back like the one at the nail salon. I insert the key and the engine purrs ever so smoothly.

Everything is elegant inside, from the leather steering wheel to the ebony trim with its piano-black accents. But like any woman, I need music to get in the mood, so I play with the sound system first.

I’ve never been inside a car with a seven speaker sound system, and once I discover XM Radio, I’m hooked. I find my favorite dance hits on “The Groove,” and start wiggling to the beat, reminiscing over my night club days in Paris where I’d dance to Donna Summer and other disco hits. Now I’m relaxed in my elegant interior when I hear a tapping on the window. It’s my neighbor from across the street.

“Got a new car?” he asks.

“GM offered me a car to drive to Speed Fest this weekend,” I reply.

“Looks great,” Jim says.

“I love it, but I can’t figure out where the hand break is.”

“Let me take a look.”

I get out and Jim gets in.

“See the red light with the P?” I say “Well, does that mean the brake is on?”

Jim fumbles around with various buttons, then pulls out the manual from the glove box and thumbs through to the correct page. He reads the instructions.

I’ve never heard of an electric park brake before, and once Jim figures out how to release it, I take off and start jammin’ to Ray Parker Jr. & Raydio playing, “For those who like to Groove.”

As my foot pushes down on the accelerator, I feel the turbo kick in, giving me the boost I need to pass a slow Lexus before the on-ramp to the 405 freeway. I’m in my own cocoon, happy and enjoying a luxury I’m not used to. What a difference from six years ago when my family lived a simple life on the island of Ambergris Caye. We would take our kids to school by boat.

My husband can’t wait to drive Regal to Speed Fest.

“Here’s the address,” I say, handing him the paper.

“Why don’t you enter it in the navigation system,” he says.

“I’m not sure how it works.”

It’s not as easy to figure out as I thought so I pull out my tablet for navigation. Too much technology to keep up with, and we’re running late.

The ride to Coronado is smooth, turbo-powered and luxurious. I head over to the Chevy booth where they are celebrating 100 years of Chevy + 100 years of Naval Aviation, and thank Dave Barthmuss and Sara Leeper for offering me four days of luxury driving.

Sara Leeper and Sonia at Chevy Speed Fest booth — Sara and Sonia at Chevy Speed Fest booth

Not long ago, I contributed to a blog post on GM’s the future is electric blog and was offered a nice car to drive, plus 8 tickets to attend Speed Fest in San Diego. Since my youngest son, 17, enlisted, I have been involved with Cell phones for Soldiers which Chevy is also helping raise funds for. Please contact me if you have a use cell phone you wish to get rid of.

Photos of Buick Regal above

Do you enjoy driving? What features are important to you in a car?

The truth about writing a book.

September 8, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

If you’re writing a manuscript and hoping to publish it, perhaps this post will inspire you to never give up.

A few days ago I had the pleasure of listening to two published novelists at the Pen on Fire writers series, hosted by Barbara De Marco Barrett. Two novelists, Heidi W. Durrow and Danzy Senna, shared the process they went through in writing their novels which made me reflect on the amount of time and effort it takes to write a publishable manuscript.

Heidi Durrow’s debut novel, author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, explained how she started her novel in 1997, and finished it in 2010. That’s thirteen years from start to finish, and here am I on my sixth year of rewriting my travel memoir, Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of gutsy Living on a Tropical Island feeling like something’s wrong with me, for taking so long.

When Heidi opened up with her honest statement of how long it took to write, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, I instantly liked her. It also helped when she said, “My mother is Danish, my father is black, and I grew up in Portland, Oregon.” This probably sounds silly, but I felt a connection with Heidi when she mentioned “dancing around the Christmas tree,” something my own Danish mother kept as a tradition. My childhood in Nigeria, although not related to Heidi’s background, also made me feel connected and I love Portland. It reminds me of Denmark with its coffee houses, friendly atmosphere, and locals riding bikes instead of driving, just like the Danes in Copenhagen.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, is Heidi’s debut novel and it tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy. Her novel won “The Bellwether Prize,” established by Barbara Kingsolver…the only major North American prize that specifically advocates literary fiction addressing issues of social justice.

Heidi mentioned she went through twelve massive revisions, and was rejected over and over. Because she wanted every sentence to be perfect, it took her six years to write her first draft.

I’ve put together a list of helpful tips, some from Heidi Durrow and Danzy Senna’s conversation with writers, and added some of my own, from what I’ve learned over the six years I started writing, taking classes, attending conferences and networking. They are in random order.

Don’t write to make money.
Only start writing if you are truly obsessed about your story and believe in it.
Write the book you want to read.
Be a completionist, not a perfectionist.
Let the first draft be messy.
The key is in the revisions.
It takes time to write and revise a book for publication.
Don’t hire an editor to review your manuscript too early in the writing process.
Don’t change your story to please everyone, especially others in your critique group.
Don’t give up if you know you have a unique story.

At this point in my writing, I thought I had a completed manuscript. Several “positive” rejections from agents, (positive means a rejection with specific feedback on what to change) have shown me that I have another rewrite to do. It’s taken me this long to understand what agents have been telling me, as well as small presses. They want to hear about an American family in Belize. As one agent put it, “What makes your story unique isn’t how you got to Belize, but the fact that you went.” So, I’m finally listening to agents and editors’ advice. The market is saturated with stories about the parents of troubled teens, just as it is with cancer survivors, autism, alcoholism, etc. So my new approach will be to start with the action in Belize. My Freeways to Flip-Flops page has been updated.

I think we can all get off track while writing a manuscript. Sometimes we try to please those in our critique groups. I know this happened to me.

As Heidi and Danzy pointed out, ask yourself: