Inspiration!

I love inspiration! I get it from quilt shows, group chats and PEOPLE! I meet a lot of people online and I love that so much – I *love* getting emails from new and old friends

I also read a lot of books (paper and and electronic). I’ve read Jack Canfield’s books The Aladdin Factor, Goals, The Success Principles. They gave me great inspiration and I re-read them regularly, but on the recommendation of a friend, I bought Book Yourself Solid.

I am hoping to do some traveling and teaching in the future and this book is helping me in that goal as well as sparking some great ideas! (I’m also reading online A Brief Guide to World Domination.)

Alaskans in my area are keeping a weather eye on our erupting volcano, Mt. Redoubt. This is a webcam aimed at the building lava dome.

Redoubt is a pain in the neck. She’s disrupting air travel and making everyone up here nervous about ash and winds and more ash. {I was very tempted to call her a pain in the ash!} But, I never argue with Mother Nature, she gives me the best inspiration of all! What inspires you? What do you read for inspiration?

My little writing secret

I wrote a quilt book (with my daughter as co-author). That’s not the secret I have also written a novel, and after letting it sit for several months and re-reading, I realize it’s crappy. BUT! I can do better! This summer, if all goes well (knock on a fat quarter) I will write a second novel (and try to write better). I already have the outline. But that’s not the secret either.

The secret is: I have always wanted to write a screenplay. I figured that writing a non-fiction book, like a quilt book, would be a good start to writing (it was) and I read a lot about the process of writing and the discipline it takes but I know almost zip about writing a screenplay, so I don’t feel like I am ready for it yet- -I put myself in the “I am still learning how” category.

So, here’s one way I am trying to learn. I make videos on YouTube. Now, I used to think that people just stood in front of their cameras, yapped a bit, uploaded and *boom* they are YouTube stars. Not so – at least not the good videos (and I am not talking about vloggers here – - the whole point of vlogging is to be spontaneous).

For a loooooooong time I have wanted to teach a few things and I would like to reach a wide audience, so I chose YouTube. I have a few vids up and have learned quite a bit along the way and gotten some good feedback from great people who take the time to tell me what they think would make my videos better – - and I listen very closely to every one who emails me. I learn as I go.

For weeks I’ve been planning a video just on doing Stitch in the Ditch quilting. It sounds easy – -but it is quite a challenge!! Writing the script! There is *so much* to remember!! Yikes! If you watch my videos, I hope that you will consider giving me your impression and telling me what I should have done differently. I really, really appreciate every single person who emails me and listen closely to what they have to say. Now I am off to work on that SID script some more

Let me know if you want the “behind the scenes details” or if you just want to see the film version when it’s released – - LOL {I want to know – - are you a writer with a secret dream?}

Sharing Expertise on Squidoo.com

I love to share info and trade tricks and tips with sewers and quilters, so when Seth Godin posted on his blog about Squidoo and described its function, I went a built a few lens’s. Here’s one of my lenses (that’s what they call the pages at Squidoo) on how I built my cheap quilting table and I recently inserted my new You Tube videos there too, for a really good tutorial.

A couple of things attracted me to Squidoo. First, it’s a static page, not like a blog where after a while posts are archived. This lens is always up, front and center, for anyone to see. Second, it generates money for charity. The folks at Squidoo put ads on pages, relevant to the page content, and the lens writer can choose to get a cut of the money or donate their share to charity. Mine goes to charity and it says so right on the page.

I believe that millions of people have valuable experience or talents and that many of us like to share information and help others. If you have a subject near and dear to your heart but don’t want to start a blog just to get the word out, try Squidoo and see if you like how it looks and works, and if you need some help building your lens just email me and I’d be happy to lend a hand.

Also, Seth’s blog is one of very few that I consider a daily “must read”.

WordPress

I’ve been playing with ones and zeros again. While in Portland I was desperate to go to Powells Bookstore, for both the experience and for a book on HTML. I found a book that I liked but I’ve only read 1 chapter. Why? Because I have discovered WordPress.

WP intimidated me when I first started blogging – so I went with simple and easy (and I like Google a lot) but WordPress has enticed me. I was frustrated at first, not understanding the differences between WP.com and WP.org and WPmu (WordPress multiple user) so I did what I always do, went looking for a book. I like to read Amazon.com reviews on books and I found that the book WordPress for Dummies (I have never liked the “for dummies” titles just on basic principle – I’m not a dummy) but this book had much better reviews than all others, so I bought it. It lives up to it’s reviews.

I’ve practiced blogging in WP, and importing my blogs from blogger to WP and I am coming to like it more and more. And now, at the end of the book, is a section about using WP as a web platform – hallelujah!! I hate my web software with a passion (Front Page and Web Expressions) and I can’t wait to try WordPress for my website. I’ll keep you posted

Blog Ring – update

I have created a new blog ring for quilt designers and I invite every quilt designer, pattern designer, quilt book author and anyone in the business of quilting (who blogs) to join the ring and have some fun!

Go here and put in your blog address and then install the code in your sidebar and Whoopeee!!! We’re surfing again!

Sharing Information on Squidoo.com

I am, at times, overwhelmed with what is available for free on the internet. Squidoo is interesting to me because they give you a nicely formatted place to share information on subjects that you are passionate about – and they give you a choice of donating any profits from the page you create to charity.

I am pretty passionate about some aspects of quilting and I like to share information for free and I am a firm believer in helping others. Squidoo.com looks like a good fit for me. Unlike a blog, where after about a week a post is lost in Label/Archive limbo – my topic is always there, easy to find and always available for anyone looking for it. That’s kind of neat

If you are passionate about a subject and you want to share it with the internet world, head on over there and create what they call a ‘lens’. Here’s mine on different machine quilting systems.

On Writing by Stephen King

Everything you need to know and hear about writing and getting published. I am regularly asked about writing books and being published, and I always recommend this book as a start. The man has a talent for the written word and he shares everything in this book. Regularly re-reading it is what kept me going through the years of rejections until I had a manuscript accepted.

I’ve read it about 10 times, underlined, highlighted and memorized parts of it, and I won’t lend my copy out so go buy your own. If you don’t, you’re not really serious about being published.

A Good Life Wasted by Dave Ames

This book is laugh-out-loud funny! It purports to be about fly fishing, something you’ll never catch me doing, but really encompasses life and it’s so well written that I just couldn’t put it down. It’s a great gift for the fishing fanatic in your life.

Quilt Photography

I learn so much on the internet, and the tutorial and tips from Holly Knott really helped me a lot. I modified some of her hints, using things I had at home and I continue to work on my quilt photography skills every time I take a pic.

For the book I flew to Wisconsin to work with the staff photographers at Krause and what an experience! Those photographers must have had several hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, excellent professional training and the creative nature to do so many photos justice. I was in awe.

Because I wanted to submit a few of my own photos for the book I tried to learn as much as possible. So, here’s a little tour of my quiltroom/bunny room/photography studio.

The wall has a piece of rough textured fleece stapled to it; there’s a photography grey card pinned to that and all I usually do (for small scale photos – not full sized bed quilts) is smooth the fabric onto the fleece, or put it on with 3-4 pins. The poles that you see are from a rolling closet rack purchased at WalMart for about $11. I like this a lot because I can use it for storage too, when it’s not being used for lighting. Suspended from the ceiling are 2 cheap florescent lamp fixtures with daylight rated bulbs. Clamped to the rolling closet rack are 2 cheap clamp lamps with expensive daylight rated florescent bulbs. All this is connected to a power strip with an on/off switch so it’s only turned on right when I take a photo.

When I’m done with the pic, I unplug the clamp lamps and drape their cords over the top of the rack (remember, this is also the bunny room and bunnies chew cords) and roll it aside. You can see my Quilting Table in there too. The bins against the wall store my threads and the shelves on the wall have a few scrap bins.