All Things New by Lauren Miller (a review)

All Things New by Lauren Miller

Published by Three Saints Press(August 1, 2017)

ISBN: 978-0998511115

After a car accident Jessa Gray finds herself wallowing in a bout of questions and insecurities along with a new disability: aphantasia. She can no longer visualize imagery in her mind, but once she moves to Colorado to live with her dad, not only does she meets new friends, she begin to learn that maybe this disability is not a disability, but unique and useful.

This book is incredible as far as imagery and ideas. When Jessa finds her boyfriend cheating on her, it throws her into a panic attack while driving and then some car speeds past a red light and hits her causing her entire world to change. As you read, you get the feeling Jessa has always relied on her beautiful  looks in the past to cover up who she really inside- which is broken. The author does an amazing job slowly peeling back the layers of Jessa’s life and helping us to see why she thinks and behaves the way she does.

The beautiful takeaway in this story is that panic disorders are real but with the right support and love, you can heal.”

The shining light is Marshall. His attraction to Jessa seems instant. Even with her scars he see her as beautiful and wants to spend time with her. He tries to see the best in everyone and even though he has a hole in his heart, his love for Jessa could repair her own. Their romance buds pretty fast and that was unexpected, however their interaction was all marshmallows and hearts.

My eyes are on his chin, his forehead, then, finally, his eyes, which leap at me…swallowing up air between us…let go of me. But he isn’t holding on to me…He’s just looking at me.” (All Things New, 2017)

What is also interesting about the book is the references to “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde. The book seems to mirror the story as far as perception and the soul is concerned. It piqued my interest in reading Oscar Wilde’s novel.

In summation, the book was definitely good if you are into serious existentialist talk, Van Gogh, and teen issues. An overall good story.

Learn more about Lauren Miller and then if you’re feeling super geeky, check out this link on existentialism and learn more about that too and click Aphantasia to learn about that as well.

This book was received for free from Netgalley!

 

The 8-Hour Sleep Paradox, Surprising Facts About Your Sleep

The 8 Hour Sleep Paradox by Mark Burhenne, DDS

Are you having a brain fog?

Can’t concentrate at work, feeling dizzy?

Gaining weight?

The cause of your afflictions may be as minor as you think but still so critical.

It is sleep.

The very first chapter of Mark Burhenne’s book The Eight Hour Sleep Paradox begins with the question:

Why is a dentist writing about sleep issues?

It begins when his daughters complain about his snoring one day, but come to learn it was his uber health conscious wife who had the sleeping problems. More specifically, interrupted sleep breathing.

“The people who suffer the most are perhaps the people who seem the healthiest.”(pg. 17)

Mark warns us that it is our teeth and their placement that literally affects how we breathe at night. For example, “the placement of your teeth in your mouth affects the placement of everything else including your jaw, tongue and facial muscles…among other things crowded teeth reduce the amount of space you can use to breathe.”(pg. 5)

Now we understand in part, how teeth affect our sleep.

The power of this book rests in the caring tone Mark Burhenne have for readers; born from care for his own family. He was saddened by the loss of his father in 1996 who suffered dementia, and Mark wondered if sleep could have changed his dad’s fate. Now that there is more research conducted on the topic, is there more we can learn from sleep? Can it save us?

What you should know about the sleep paradox now

• Common types of people with undiagnosed sleep disorders are: athletes, allergy sufferers, children with ADD/ADHD, petite women(?) and those who grind their teeth.
• Monitor your sleep(there are apps for that, by the way).

One key takeaway I got from the book is that it is not about getting 8 hours of sleep, it is the quality of how you are sleeping. If you are getting up in the middle of the night or after hearing your own interrupted breathing via a monitor, chances are you will not be at your optimal self the next morning.

Word of advice? Don’t end up like The Sleepless!

I highly recommend this book!

Thank you again, to Mr. Mark Burhenne for gifting me this book!

~The Write Web

 

 

A Note About “Street Fiction”

A Thug’s Love by Jessica N. Watkins

Little Miami Girl by Diamond Johnson

A Dopegirl Needs Love Too by Shan

For the last week or so, I ventured into a category I thought I laid to rest in 2006.

Street Fiction, or Urban Fiction.

It is gritty. It is real. It can be…nasty, sexually explicit, I mean.

Today I want to briefly explain what Urban Fiction means to me and why I decided to read more of it lately as well as some pitfalls of the category that should be cleaned up by now(I do this with love for black writers and their craft).

Do I Purchase These Books Because I Am Black?

This is not a tough question. The answer is that I love the books because they are just so darn good and the bonus is that the authors and characters look like me and write from a place of understanding what we as African Americans go through- or at least those from low to middle income neighborhoods. I just finished Little Miami Girl, books 1 and 2 and even though I’ve never been to Miami, the reality of aunts hating their own flesh and blood, men who carry guns on the regular and even the reality of rape is so common in some or most of the impoverished black neighborhoods that you feel as if you are reading about someone you know or even yourself.

I read Flyy Girl by Omar Tyree in high school and more of his urban fiction that I could not stop reading. Later on after college I gobbled up Zane, Eric Jerome Dickey, and even Octavia E. Butler books because it interested me. All of this during a time I was falling in love with Amish fiction and medical thrillers.

Can Urban Fiction Be Defined as Real Literature?

A quick Googling will reveal the definition of literature meaning “a work of lasting merit”.

Who deems a book lasting or of merit?

Time.

Walter Dean Myers, Tanarive Due, Octavia Butler’s books will prove to have lasting quality in the future.

Then again, does that mean any good book can be considered literature?

I am a huge fan of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, James Patterson and most recently Julie Lessman. I believe whatever these writers write, at least half of their stories will become classic literature. But again, it depends on time, lots of it.

The “hood books” I read now are quick reads with drug abuse and sex as the main themes but there are also some which surprised me. A Dopegirl Needs Love Too and A Thug’s Love feature strong, sexy, smart women who make moves in their communities while making mistakes along the way.

But there are problems I see already with current Urban Fiction.

A Competitive, Popular Market

With self publishing being as simple as uploading your manuscript to Kindle or CreateSpace, or even Smashwords and Lulu, one can immediately send off their book.

One problem.

I have this problem too sometimes: self editing.

Many books and not just Urban Fiction included, requires heavy editing- some typos may escape and that is okay, but some Urban books I have been reading have so many hiccups in grammar, it can be trifling.  I am speaking as a bookworm though and not a grammarian.

Also, the pricing of Urban Fiction can be better. The ones I have downloaded cost Free or at least 99 cents with the highest being 3.99 but there are a couple I have seen where the Kindle version is ten bucks! I think that is way too high for a pricing model.

It burns me up badly when I enjoy a series and I find out that the final installment is ten dollars and the magic in all this is that people have paid the money and in their reviews they gripe about it, but they still paid.

All of this to say that street/urban stories has come a long way with more African American publishing companies and editors opening up their doors and the ease of buying them online is also a plus.

I will continue to read and promote these books because they are truly addicting if you can get past the language and “rawness” of the streets in these works. Their redeeming quality is that even though the bad stuff seem glorified, there are real consequences for the characters involved and the messages will be clear to any audience.

If you enjoyed this post, don’t be shy! Like it. Share it. Subscribe to this blog and share The Write Web 🙂

~Ericajean

 

 

 

D.K. Cassidy Writes About a Nation that Can No Longer Sleep

Image courtesy of Pluvio Press

 

I just reviewed The Sleepless(Insomnolence Book 1) over on Amazon, so check out the full review there! I’ve also written a neat haiku review over on Goodreads that quickly sums up my thoughts on the work.

The Sleepless was a very interesting story. What I learned from the author is the power of characterization and not being afraid to test premises.

In The Sleepless, the main character Kate has to navigate life not being able to sleep anymore, so she has to take on odd jobs like cleaning up dead bodies and the another horrible job she refuses: prostitution.

Thank God she has Decker, a dear friend(who could be more than a friend at this point) who does the clean up duties for her. He is actually a sleeper. One of the ones unaffected by whatever event happened a decade back. What I like most about him is that he is an artist and never had much liking for Smartphones and social media. He prefers touch and face to face communication.

D.K. Cassidy’s fearless approach to tell a story about a nation who can’t fall asleep makes the book appealing and to be honest gave me pause. I feel this nation is heading to that point now. Think about it: I can barely sleep because I am always scrolling on my phone trying to find the next Tweet, or next comedic Facebook post and when not doing that, I am reading an eBook.

By time I have to go to work, I am still up- no choice now.

When I come home, I hop on my laptop. I do real work on there, but social media takes up 80% of that time.

D.K. Cassidy is currently working on Book 2: The Dreamers. If you have not already, please subscribe to this blog and check out D.K. Cassidy’s amazing books! 🙂

~The Write Web

 

My One Week Experience With Blogmutt

Source: Photo by Caio

Geesh. I never ever learn, do I?

A few months ago, I wrote a pretty detailed post of my experience with Fiverr and how it stacks up to creating your own  writing career freedom, away from these “gig sites and content mills”.

Well, a little over a week ago I began to have the “writer’s itch”. I wanted to create content for the web like I did with Examiner and Helium(both sites have since moved or changed completely!)

I spotted a site called Blogmutt.

Blogmutt allows you to write content, submit it and you get paid $8 for 250+ words. More words could have you earning $72 per post- if the customer buys your article.

This all sounds good right? I was amped and ready to go. Before I could officially become a Blogmutt writer though, I had to go through the rituals.

• Take the grammar exam. Passed.
• Writing and Plagiarism test. Passed.
• Gave blogmutt my personal info for the W-9 form.

After all this, I received an email that read, “Congratualtions! You passed the exams! Now you have to write your first post. If your first post  is not accepted, you will be denied access to Blogmutt and can never write for us again.”

I wish I was exaggerating here, folks.

I wrote a pretty good article about Spanish language jobs and uploaded it to the site. I spent days on it, perfecting it, making sure it sounded just right.

Well, yesterday I go onto my Blogmutt dashboard and it reads, “ATTENTION: Your account has been suspended. We will not answer emails regarding the reasons.”

The creator must get off knowing he is an a%#@hole. The language spoken is unprofessional and the rules are not professional at all, and yet there are people, supposedly earning from this site.

This is what I mean by staying away from content mills. They take your work and then ban you for no apparent reason.

The only one I can blame is myself and maybe businesses.

If businesses want content for their sites, there are so many great writers out there and me making $8 per article is great if I write enough articles, but not enough to do the writing and then get banned.

I am not sure what tips I can offer here besides marketing yourself online and offline. Let people know you provide great web content services.

Until next time, keep writing! 🙂

The Write Web Evolution- It Had to Happen

 

Source: Unsplash.com

Yes, I am evolving and this blog will evolve right along with me LOL!

My first priority and job is as an author(actually my first is loving my amazing man, but you didn’t ask for all of that, did you?)

I am always revamping something on this blog.

I will continue to review books.

However, as an author, I have to think about my platform and what my readers expect from me.

Some new content I will be introducing soon, is a brand new way to review books  that I am sure everyone will adore! This new, fun method will be helpful in many ways for writers and readers.

Secondly, I will try to reduce posting a lot. I understand many people add me to their WordPress Readers or on Twitter which is good. For those of you subscribed to my email, I hope I have not been placing too much in your inboxes(truly sorry!)

Third, I am working on some amazing writing projects and I welcome- no- URGE you to participate in upcoming polls and discussions. In order for me to know what you’d like to see on this blog and how you feel about my books, I need feedback because, well, I do care about what your eyes consume.

Fourth- More notification about my novels, what I am working on, submission contests and more.

That is it for now. In the next coming weeks, I will be shifting and rearranging things on here. Good luck to you all and have a great day 🙂

Learn Chemistry Concepts in Under a Minute With This Book

Image courtesy of WellFleet Press

Know-it-All Chemistry by Nivaldo Tro

Wellfleet Press(2017)

ISBN: 978-1-57715-151-7

Grab Know it All Chemistry on Amazon today!

______________

As I always say, any book on science and math that uses colorful images, charts and illustrations, automatically gets an A+.

Know it All Chemistry has this and more going for it; I highly recommend it- but only as a companion to studying chemistry on a deeper level.

If you are looking for a simple, easy to understand book for help on areas dealing with tough topics like ionic bonding and chemical equations, this book is for you.

I wish this book was available when I was taking honors chemistry in the tenth grade years ago. The class was tough. Thank goodness for sites like Khan Academy  and  Thought Co.  where you can learn this subject and more for free. There are also several books you can buy to help you with chemistry.

Earlier, I mentioned that this book is better paired with a deeper study of chemistry.

I say this because the book is broken into one minute bites- chapters that give you the bare bones about specific topics and even runs down the timelines of famous chemists and theorists.

A fascinating fact I learned from reading the book was about the Yew Tree. This tree is very special even though on the surface it seems it may not be. Chemists have found out that its bark actually has cancer fighting agents in it.

In summation, I find this book to be very much needed as a companion to whatever you are using to study chemistry now. Highly recommended!

*Book received for free from Netgalley.