May 10, 2010

Consider the three main religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam. It is said from each that they believe in one God. In fact, the Catholic church has it in the mass, ” I believe in one God….”.

Yet, this God can be interpreted in so many ways, even within the same religion! Baptists, Catholics, Methodists have different beliefs and they are all Christian beliefs. One islamic belief encourages a disharmony with other religions where as others belief in religious tolerance.

We hear, “God loves you,” and “Fear your God.” Which is true? We even ‘kill’ in the name of God. What does God think of all this? If there are so many opinions about God and what ‘He’ says, can it be said that anyone has ever heard or seen God and, if so, which is true? Who can say so? Which church do we believe? Do we believe because of ‘convenience’ or is there ony one true church that is interpreting the word of God? If so, is this God the same God as the other churches?

I’ve heard it said, ‘it doesn’t matter which church you follow, we all believe in God.’ Is that really good enough? I wonder if God isn’t confused by all the different beliefs about ‘Him’, and come to think of it, haven’t many churches ‘de-sexed’ God? Ask a womans libber!

“Love thy neighbour.” Is this true for all religions? If so, why do many Islamic groups form terrorist groups against Christians? For that matter, why to the Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics hate each other? After all, they believe in the same God.

Ah, but we are only human. God wouldn’t have gotten it wrong, but we have free will so we can interpret Gods word to suit our needs. Na, the church wouldn’t do that.

May 3, 2010

Have you ever thought about ‘heaven’? If you believe in God, then you must believe in heaven, after all, it has been said that, when we die, we go to heaven to be with God. So, where is heaven? What does it look like?

We live in a three dimensional world and we are told that ‘time’ is the forth dimension so, heaven must be outside of our realm which places heaven outside of our universe. Hey, if God has been around for ever, then God must be outside of time, therefore, heaven must be outside of time since our universe has a life span which is dictated by time.

So, heaven must exist in another dimension. Can this dimension overlay our current world? Can it exist with this world, but not dictated by time? Is heaven only for earthlings? If so, why do we have such a large universe if all that matters is us?

Our Muslim friends tell us that heaven is multi-leveled. There are degrees of heaven. Are they interconnected by another set of dimensions? I wonder if I’ll get to heaven and be surrounded by seven virgins. Do they stay virgins? Where did they come from? There are a lot of questions aren’t there!

Now, what about hell. If we can believe in heaven then surely we can believe in hell, yet, the church now says that there is no hell. Nor is there that in between place called ‘limbo’. Why? How can we suddenly get rid of hell and limbo? For years people have lived believing in these places, if it was thought that they might have gone to hell, where in fact are they?

And those people who have never believed in God, where will they go, now that hell no longer exists? Think of all the good people who knew nothing about God, where are they? Not in limbo, it doesn’t exist either. That means, we must all go to heaven or, cease to exist.

Can our heaven have a solidity much like our earth, and again, where is it located? Will our spirits have a solid form and will it look like our earthly form?

I know I have posed a lot of questions but they can’t be answered by ‘faith’ alone. Blind faith, to me, is ignorance. If I believe in heaven because of faith, then why can’t anything else I believe, because of faith, exist? I would love to read your opinion. Remember, those who do not believe in God have no thought about heaven, to them, it simply does not exist. It gets back to the question, where is heaven placed within the structure of our universe and our lives?

April 25, 2010

If you are reading this site to understand a little more about my book, ‘Stay: The Search Begins” then go to ‘you tube’ and type the title as a key word search. I have posted for videos, all designed to entice the viewer to buy my book. Do it. Look and buy, you will be so glad you did.

PS: Book two of the trilogy will be out soon, when I get over the edits. Look for it. “Stay: All is not what it seems”.

April 12, 2009

In the last blog, I began with the idea of keeping the writing going. “Don’t procrastinate,” I said. Huh! look who’s talking. I have procrastinated for two months now on getting this, my next blog up and going. But I still believe that if you want to get published, you have to keep writing. At least with regards to my book, I am keeping up to date and writing regularly. Well, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Now that you are writing, keep an accurate record of events, character names, place names and so on. If you don’t, you will be forced to scroll through the pages in search of a name or spelling. Let this record be in writing and on paper. This way, you will always have essential information at hand. And while your busy writing, stay true to the character. Don’t change their behaviour or the way they think- unless you have a plan.

If you use abbreviations, use the same abbreviation style throughout the book. For instance, doctor can be written as: doctor, Dr, dr or Doctor. If you create an abbreviation for your novel, stick to this rule. You might understand the reason for a change in abbreviation, but your readers will get confused.

While we’re on a bit of a spelling thing here, don’t rely solely on the word processor spell check, or grammar check for that matter. Your word processor can be set using a wide variety of ‘English’ styles. There is British-English, Australian_English, US-English and so on. If you are planning to publish in US, set the spell checker to US-English, but check the spelling with a dictionary, and do not rely on the word processors grammar check. It can be wrong very often. Go back to your old English text books, or go on line to check your grammar.

Remember, you are in charge of your book, but poor grammar and spelling errors will not help to get you published. Keep the ideas flowing and stay mentally fit. Your book idea is worth the effort. Keep it up. Write to me if you get confused or if you need a push. Go for it.

January 9, 2009

So you have started writing a story. Great! Keep the momentum going. The number one enemy of many writers is ‘procrastination.’  Put anything off until another day and the result is usually an incomplete task. If you have a story to tell, them it is important to make a start, you know this, but what is more important is to keep the writing going. If you have made a start on your big block-buster novel and have stopped to ponder over the next step, congratulations, you have entered the procrastination phase. I’m sorry to sound sarcastic, but stopping to ‘ponder’ over an idea that hasn’t been developed suggests that you may be feeeling more comfortable about the idea of producing a book than actually doing it.

Now don’t take this idea incorrectly. Yes, make a start on your book as soon as possible. Yes, keep the momentum going. Yes, take time to think about what you want to write or which direction to take, but do it all in writing. Don’t stop and ‘think’ about writing, do it.

A plan is an essential part of any book development, but it is best done in writing. So what, if you change direction. Make the change in writing, not just in your head. Thoughts about writing a novel are pipe dreams, making it a reality requires action. Wrting ‘is’ action.

I suggest that you write your plan on paper rather than on a computer. You can access a paper copy readily, keeping it handy to develop new ideas while ensuring that you remain on task. Your plan is very important and should never be neglected. Your plan can be in point form, short sentences, roughly written but above all, written. You should know where it is at all times and review it often. There is no point in writing a plan for your novel if it can get lost. There is also no point in writing a plan if it isn’t going to be accessed by you during the writing phase. So, plan and keep on writing.

Share you ideas with others. Talk to friends and family about your ideas. Tell them your story and ask for advice, but above all, listen to your heart. If the advice given doesn’t seem to fit your story, don’t use it. Remain faithful to your true intent, even if you change your mind along the way. The main idea here is that you develop the story line. Yes, use ideas suggested by others but only make the changes because you believe that they suit your plan.

Plan to write and write to plan. Keep working on your book and make the pipe-dream a reality.

December 28, 2008

It all started when the most significant, smart and funny baby was born on the 17^th of June 1996. Straight away the parents of this fabulous baby Darren and Jackie saw that Zac was special.

During the time space of 7 yrs Zac became one of the most talented beings in the history of everyone. His parents to him to an amateurs acting group to try out but he was denied because he was a professional.

So he went to the tryouts for various movies and they accepted him straight away after seeing his exceptional abilities. But then unfortunately his parents decided to try and have another boy just like Zac but were disappointed when it turned out to be a girl. She was very UGLY and had a big ego. They named it Hannah and they started to like it until she pushed a granny into a car.

They saw that she was uncontrollable so they locked her to the train tracks and she died… But she came back as an earthbound spirit and Zac could see the devil child because he had a very special gift to see ghosts like Jennifer Love Hewitt in Ghost whisperer.

He crossed her over and the family lived a happy life with riches and holidays galore thanks to Zac’s various abilities.

TO BE CONTINUED…

December 21, 2008

It all started with Hannah, our life changed. They were all paying attention to her, It all started when Hannah came out of the womb. Then Gracie came along, HANNAH AND GRACE WERE LIKE TWINS. THOSE TwO TROUBLE MAKERS, THEY MADE THE PARENTS LIFE hAPPIER AND HAPPIER. when they were 1 year old, for Christmas, Uncle Greg got us a toy pony each. Hannah’s was purple and graces’ was pink.

Then they were 2 and hannah moved to Queensland the sunsHine state, it was sad! When They were 3 we got pink and blue Barbie buckets. Hannah’s got stuck on her head it was sooooooooooooo funny! They are 4 now it just got better and better, Hannah went over graces house and they had pancakes for breakfast. Hannah had 4 pancakes grace had two. when we turned 5 it was Christmas time and grace and Hannah got a doll. at 6, gracie came to queensland , she said “ its toooooooo hot!” Zac, hannah’s brother, was teasing Her. mum got angery and said ‘zac go away from the girls’ and he chucked a wobbly. Then we turned 7 and Hannah came to Melbourne, we got a Barbie DVD.

We turned 8 and hannah came to melbourne Again. we got shoes and a dress. now we are 9 the Newbegin family came to melbourne again. now gracie and hannah are sitting on their bums and writing this story.

The End

Written by hannah and Grace, the nine year olds.

December 1, 2008

So you want to write a book! The first thing you need to do is to make a committment to work on the book and to make a start, no matter how small.

I developed an idea for a book about fifteen years ago. Fifteen years! And where did it go? No where. I was comfortable with the idea of writing the book. I could say to people, “I’m going to write a book,” “What about?” they’d ask. “Oh, mind travel. I haven’t started yet, but I will. I just need to get the ideas.” Ten years later, I started. I procrastinated for ten years on an idea that had gelled in my mind and which remained comfortably in the deep recesses of my brain, waiting for the magic moment.

In the mean time, I completed my PhD and studied of all topics; procrastination. This jolted me into making THE start on the book which was doomed to stay in my mind. Go to my home page. It’s there and what’s more, there is a section for book 2 which has also been written, but not yet published.

I finally got off my backside and started to write, now I can’t stop. It’s fantastic, ideas keep flowing in.

So, if you are thinking about writing a book or telling a story. Don’t wait. Do it and do it now. The idea while in your mind remains just that: an idea in your mind. Make a start by writing key ideas, develop characters, get some flow happening. My major mistake was not committing anything to paper. It was all in my mind and was going nowhere fast.

I will write more about writing later, but the first task for you, the inspiring writer, is to make a start- on paper (or your computer). Create a folder which is for the exclusive use of developing your book, this way, you are more likely to stay on task. Save often, but keep writing.