Northern Adams's Blog

After many months of moving, redesigning, and reorganizing My Light Catholic Children's Magazine, and giving it a whole new look, it's back up and running again!  If you're looking for the original site, you can click the link above and it will direct you to the new site, or you can just go directly to the brand new My Light website here!



I'm particularly proud of all our work, getting the new site together, and content is updated frequently so check back often!  Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Gladen announced the magazine's re-launch in a press release:



MY LIGHT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2013 ISSUE NOW AVAILABLE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

July 15, 2013 --
Jennifer Gladen, Editor-in-Chief of My Light Magazine, announced the latest issue of the magazine is now live online.  “We’ve made many changes and improvements this time,” stated the magazine’s founder, “and I think you’re going to love it!”

Ms Gladen announced several new departments including the new special nonfiction section titled God’s Amazing World.  “This is exciting,” the Editor-in-Chief said, “to highlight God’s creation like this and at the same time, teach the children all about how it works.”  In addition to this new department, there is also a section for Devotions, Bible stories, and Catechism studies.  “There’s something for everyone,” Gladen stated.
Perhaps the newest item to the magazine is the Children’s Submissions.   “My Light welcomes submissions from children in addition to our authors and illustrators,” Gladen said. “With a parent or guardian’s permission, children may submit a story, poem, prayer, or artwork.”  More information on submissions for children is available on the website.

The entire My Light team worked tireless hours putting the new look together.  “It’s been a rough road,” stated Gladen, “but like the winning team that we are, we pulled together and came out with another super issue of My Light Magazine.”
For more information about My Light Magazine, please visit www.mylightmag.com

And their blog

http://mylightmag.stblogs.com/

###



If you have children aged 4 - 12, check out the website.  There's so much to do and read and learn!

I go into the list of podcasts at Ancient Faith radio, and I admit it, I always go scrolling down, looking for my favorites.

Well, I keep seeing the same name coming up on my Twitter.  I keep seeing "Stump the Priest."  Sounds intriguing.  I read the post.  Always a good blog post.  I hadn't gone combing the internet looking for his name though.  Yet.  But he's persistent.  Keeps catching my eye.  Oh, wait, there he is again.  Who is this guy?

I've turned on Ancient Faith and just listened to podcasts in the order they're being broadcast.  I've heard most, if not all at one time or another, of the podcasts.  I have yet to hear a bad one.  But I have my favorites--Fr Joseph Huneycutt: Orthodixie, Fr Andrew Damick: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy/Roads from Emmaus, and Fr James Early: Teach Me Thy Statutes.  And Fr Patrick Henry Reardon: All Saints Homilies/Pastoral Ponderings is a huge favorite of mine.

Gotta give Fr Whiteford a listen.  He keeps poking his head up.  From the Amvon: Sermons from St Jonah Orthodox Church in Spring, Texas.  I'm just getting started on these. 

"Does Doctrine Matter?"

Outstanding.  Absolutely outstanding.

These will open your eyes like never before:

The Radical Reformation, Part 1

The Radical Reformation, Part 2

"Fr. Andrew turns his attention to some of the more radical expressions of the reformation that sprung up shortly thereafter including the concepts of 'believer's baptism' over/against infant baptism, anti-sacramentalism, and the 'invisible' Church.' "

I have my own list of favorites on Ancient Faith, and Father Andrew Damick is definitely in the top five.  His whole podcast series is best listened to while reading along with his book Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy, you're not lost without it. 

So I loved the old website and the old logo, but I can't say I don't love the new:





Here's the thing:  it looks just like him!  I can't say the old one didn't look just like him, too:




Amazing illustrator who should be up to his eyeballs in work.  Click on the new logo at the top to see his website.  Just as good as the old, but a few more skulls.  lol.

Mickey and the gargoyle (Book, 2012) [WorldCat.org]


I made the OCLC WorldCat library catalog!!

They don't appear to have my book's cover image yet--hopefully that will change soon--but that doesn't take any of the shine off of this at all.  I am Snoopy-dancing all over my apartment!!

I feel all 'big time' now!!

Face it, writers are coming out of the woodwork now, with all the ebook/self-publishing avenues creating inroads for everyone with a laptop and an internet connection.  Can you afford to buy all of them?  Of course not.  So this is a prime opportunity to read this one for free.  Nearly every public library now has a website, and on that website, you can request that your local library order a particular title.  Just click on that option, and you can read my book for free--all you need is a library card.

I'm having way too many good things happening to me right now.  If anyone wakes me up, they're going to get a hard slap! 

Yay me!!!

I've been trying to comb the internet for sites that serve writers, and found JacketFlap.  Pretty decent site.  I really didn't want to go the route of nagging and spamming friends on Facebook--"Yeah, yeah, I wrote a book.  Now, if you'll permit me to run advertisements up all of your respective walls, I think I can browbeat most of you into buying my new book...."

Um, not.  I respect any writer who is considerate of their friends and family enough to keep separate author and personal FB pages--many don't.  I don't have any kind of what you'd call 'a following' to warrant two FB pages, but I am getting good use out of JacketFlap and Goodreads--right now, I'm preferring JacketFlap.



I've also discovered Writing Forums, Writer's Beat, Verla Kay, Catholic Writers' Guild, and LegendFire--excellent forums.  There have been a few others that I poked around in for a while and then left, for one reason or another, so if you notice that a site or two aren't included here, it's not necessarily an 'error of omission.'  I take many different factors and features into consideration.  And I'm still poking around looking for more sites.  

Just trying to increase my exposure a bit without allowing the 'personal' and the 'persona' to blur together on me or anyone else.  Sure, when you write a book, you like to sell that book.  But you're doing it wrong if friends and family start getting the impression they're only in your life now for what they can do for you.  You don't peddle to friends and family.  At least not to be constantly pushing your book in their faces.  When you start acting fake and trying to play 'the role,' it's time to pull back and compartmentalize.  You need to keep your friendships and personal life separate from your vocation.

I've gotten a bit off-track, but it's a point that I think needed to be made.  If you know of a good site, drop me a line.  I'm looking for more writing and writers' sites to check out.  : )   

And here I sit, patiently waiting and hoping that at least one of the giveaway winners will deign to post a review of Mickey and the Gargoyle.  Anyone that's pulled up my book's listing on Goodreads has seen by now that there's only one review in there, a gag review by me, the writer.  I'd love to swap that out for a real review some time soon. 

Personally, I think it's unethical to allow writers to review their own books--hence my 'prank' review.  If I'd leave that up once a real review was posted, mine would the skew the rating.  So I've vowed to remove mine even if the first review that pops up there is a scathing one-star commentary.

Right about now, I'd love it if Goodreads would provide giveaway winners with the ability to click a button verifying they've received the book, the same way they give writers a button to click when they've sent out the winning copies. For right now, I'm just checking daily for reviews.  :)

 

In the end, 958 people entered to win a copy of Mickey and the Gargoyle--I was surprised when it reached 100.  And I'm very anxious to get that first real review on Goodreads--even if it's a bad one.  I'll take my lumps. 

I had a few corrections to make in the book and so that delayed things a bit.  I had to wait for the revised copies to be shipped to me from the publisher but I got notice today they've gone out.  I should have them by the end of the week and be able to get those copies out to the winners by the weekend--Monday at the latest.

While I'm at it, I'd like to congratulate the winners on Goodreads:  Zena Petchey and Leah Cheung of Great Britain, and Kate Baynard, Candace Morales, and Amanda Guerra of the US.  Hope you all enjoy the book!

When I first got my book up on the Amazon website, I had to bail out of an ebook version of Mickey and the Gargoyle because of 1) changed titling fonts, and 2) wandering indents.

Well, Kindle still doesn't support the Matisse font but I did fix the indent problem.  I had to edit every single one of my 2,225 paragraphs one-by-one.

Now available for Kindle. Trying to get it up for Nook but PubIt! doesn't like my file size or the cover--neither will upload.  Odd.  The file size on the interior and the resolution on the cover file are both within their stated requirements.  I'll keep working on it. 

...and I can't help wondering, as I look over the entrants for the giveaway, if they've read the book's description prior to entering.


Way more entries than I anticipated, and I'm not operating under the delusion that people are breaking down the doors to get at my story, but I'm still tickled pink that the giveaway is so much more successful than I ever thought it would be: unknown self-published writer, debut title .

At this posting, 678 entries.  It does pick up as the giveaways wind down because Goodreads moves your title into that last tab, under "Ending Soon."  That gives you that good 'one last push.'

However, I did mark not only the giveaway but the book's cover itself very clearly:

"Middle Grade" - that means it's a children's book for readers aged 8 - 12
"Christian Fiction" - that means it will have faith-based content.

Both of those categories also suggest quite strongly that there will be no sexual or drug content, and that morality will be a message throughout.  Now I'm getting a bit worried.  I hope reviewers, if they feel disappointed, will first take into account that perhaps they were not the stated target audience for this particular story before they pan it.  Cringe.

One thing that has been discouraging to me, and to other Christian writers I've spoken with, is that kids are drawn to dark works--gothic and dystopian themes.  This is pulling kids out of the church and into secular works which lead to that dead-end culture which is concerned with little more than sex and drugs.  No hope, no higher purpose, no reason for living at all beyond partying and satisfying physical urges.  It's a soulless life that leads nowhere.

Well, popular culture trends like a madman, and our children are exposed to it daily.  Can we not have fun themes--even though they're dark in nature--and still foster love and faith in God?  I believe we can, and that was my purpose in writing this story.   If we want to stop losing our kids to this dead-end culture, we're going to have to learn how to have fun with gargoyles, even if we have to travel all the way to the dark, creepy underworld to do it.

Wish me luck.