Love in Dark Settings

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Annabel Candy of Get In the Hot Spot.

Did you know that moving house can be one of the most stressful times in your life? It’s right up there with losing your job, divorce or the death of a loved one, as one of the biggest causes of stress.

I’ve been there. In 2007 my husband and I sold our house along with most of our belongings and moved from New Zealand to Panama with our three young kids. We ended up spending 18 months in Central America and lived in Costa Rica for over a year during which time we moved house three times.

Moving house was easier in Costa Rica, because by then we’d got rid of most of our possessions and had less to cart around with us. We got good at giving things away, selling them or just chucking out all that rubbish that clutters up our lives.

Moving out of our home in New Zealand was the big one. I certainly felt the stress could come but managed to change that pressure into a buzz so I could enjoy the excitement of change and new beginnings. In the end moving house and countries was a fun way to declutter our lives.

Tips for a stress free move:

1. Get organised in advance. If you leave everything until the last minute it will be stressful. We sold our house five months before we left and then rented it back from the new owner. That way we could relax with the cash in our bank account and not worry about how we were going to finance the move.

2. Start selling non-essential items three months before you leave. Clutter and things you don’t use much build up in any house, especially if you have kids. You’ll find that there are plenty of things you can off-load two or three months before your move. Stuff like toys, tools, kitchen equipment, many clothes and everything that’s broken, or that you never use but have been saving for a rainy day.

3. Organise your personal belongings and paperwork. Get a concertina folder for essential documents like passports, birth certificates, and other certificates and keep them all together. Sort out your personal photos – put them in albums and chuck out all the blurred and boring ones. Give all the kids a memory box – a shoe box will be about the right size for them to keep all their school reports, photos, pictures and keep sakes in. Keep the box small – they will fill it!

4. Maximise this opportunity to minimalise. There’s no point in keeping too much stuff if you’re making a big move. Sending it overseas may cost more than replacing it and this is the ideal time to become more minimalist and get rid of all the possessions that are compromising your freedom. Make a list of everything you want to sell but need to keep until you leave: furniture and big electrical items such as the fridge, washing machine, stereo and dryer.

Write an email with title, description and price. Just sell everything for half what you bought it for. Remember, you want to get rid of it. Now email this to all friends and colleagues who live nearby. I predict a feeding frenzy. Print out the email, ask people to commit to buying something and add their name by the item. Ask them to swing by on moving day and pick it up. Simple yet effective and your friends will be delighted.

5. Have a huge garage sale for smaller items. Think of it as being paid to clean out your house and declutter your life. Again, remember to sell everything for a low price because your main aim is to get rid of stuff. If you’re not comfortable making money from selling your old clothes, toys, crockery and books then mention in the garage sale ad that all proceeds will go to a worthy cause, like Guampedia or your favourite charity.

By now your house, cupboards and garage should be looking nice and empty which will make cleaning easier. Don’t pack or store any breakables unless they have sentimental value or are not replaceable. Things like crockery and glasses can be picked up when you get there.

6. Packing. You can start packing up things you’re taking early too. Buy a big roll of bubble wrap, masking tape, cardboard corners for pictures and some tea-chests from removal company then pack a few things each night or blitz the lot in one day.

Give the kids one small box each for toys they want to keep. This will focus them on not over-packing and on getting rid of everything they don’t need any more. Tell them you’ll use some of the proceeds from selling their old stuff to fund a great family outing from your new home.

7. Moving day. When your friends come round to collect all the stuff they bought offer them all the crockery and glasses you needed until the last moment. If they don’t want it ask them to drop it off at a charity shop for you. They’ll be so pleased with the great deals they got from you they’ll be happy to oblige. Finally have a good clean up or use some of your garage sale money to hire a cleaner.

Boom! You’re out of there.

With less clutter tying you down, the world is your oyster. Just imagine if you were really good and got rid of it all, you’d be free as a bird.

If you’re like me you’ll enjoy the process of clearing out and moving house. Plus, it’s great knowing that your friends will think of you every time they open that beautiful old trunk you spent weeks restoring.

So you thought moving would be stressful? No way. Just adopt these zen habits before making a move and debunk the myth that moving house is stressful forever.

Read more from Annabel Candy at her blog, Get In the Hot Spot, a virtual treasure trove of inspiration, information and idiosyncrasies for people who want to live their dream. Or make her day and keep yourself updated on the latest articles, by subscribing to the free RSS feed.

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/thoughts-on-craft-cannegardner.html

If I can see an ending, I can work backward.
-- Arthur Miller

Yes, I am going to talk about NaNoWriMo, and, yes, being the realist that I am, I am going to talk about the delusional aspects of this beloved 10 year strong spectacle of bad writing. My opinion here in no way reflects the opinions of the other podpeople, nor does it reflect the opinion of writers as the majority. It's just mine, and I am sure there are other writers out there who share my position and others who disagree with it. So, I'll start with: I am not a fan of the “daily word count” mantra because the mantra often makes the writing feel forced, and we all know that forced writing is contrived writing and that is just plain old bad writing. Even worse, trying to force the words onto the page compromises the artistic flexing of muscles and the emotive response we should be feeling towards what we are writing. We are working against an arbitrary and unrealistic deadline, and most serious writers know what happens under that kind of pressure: a convoluted shit story or total vapour lock.

I am sure the likes of Stephen King can crank out a novel in a month, though he seems to fall in the line with a three month schedule for his rough draft. Then there is curing time, and then editing time, and depending on your story, the editing and revising part can take years to produce something decent. Any serious educated writer knows this. We all know the first draft sucks ass. Sure, we wrote the story in thirty days, but we haven’t actually experienced the story’s subtle nuances yet. That happens in the revision and editing part of the process, which often takes a whole hell of a lot longer than the actual writing of the basic storyline.

Now, as an exercise in endurance and discipline or as a fun writer camaraderie sort of thing, I think NaNoWriMo is fine, as long as the participants understand that this -- the slapdash pressure cooker race against the clock method of writing -- is not the way good books are written: The Gargoyle took 7 years to write -- though there is some dispute as to whether it is good or not. The Last Witchfinder, also 7 years. Wisdom of Crocodiles, 11 years, and below is a quote from Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Juno Diaz from an article discussing his trials and tribulations as a writer.

"It wasn’t that I couldn’t write. I wrote every day. I actually worked really hard at writing. At my desk by 7 A.M., would work a full eight and more. Scribbled at the dinner table, in bed, on the toilet, on the No. 6 train, at Shea Stadium. I did everything I could. But none of it worked. My novel, which I had started with such hope shortly after publishing my first book of stories, wouldn’t budge past the 75-page mark. Nothing I wrote past page 75 made any kind of sense. Nothing."

The manuscript he was speaking of in the article later became The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but Diaz found, looking back on the unpublished manuscript that:

"There were no sudden miracles. It took two more years of heartbreak, of being utterly, dismayingly lost before the novel I had dreamed about for all those years finally started revealing itself. And another three years after that before I could look up from my desk and say the word I’d wanted to say for more than a decade: done."

So what I am trying to say here is that even though with NaNoWriMo we have a deadline to work backward from, there won’t be any sudden miracles. Anything rushed is sure to be faulty. And the more seriously a writer takes this exercise the more they will feel the futility of it in the end. You won’t come out of NaNoWriMo with a great book, not even a mediocre one. What you “might” come out of the excersise with is a mess of a rough draft, one which again “might” show potential after many more months, even years, of work. I wholeheartedly agree with the organization’s mission to support young writers through their charitable programs, but I just sincerely hope that the exercise is teaching young writers the right skills and not just selling delusion to impressionable creative minds.

They seem to understand the principle behind my concern as stated on their About Page: National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

1. Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
2. Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
3. Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

And yes, they readily admit that they are not interested in “painstaking craft” and the program is for everyone who has thought “fleetingly” about writing a novel. Well, you know what: writing IS about learning the painstaking craft, and all the serious authors I have ever spoken to would consider their thoughts on the craft to be anything but fleeting. Again, I hate to shit all over someone’s sunny day, but I hope this isn’t the mindset they are instilling in the youths involved in their writing program, as that would be an insult to real writers everywhere, not to mention the utter egregious manipulation resulting in the perpetuation of a publishing delusion. We all know how that shakes out, just look at the lulu community message boards. Or maybe I am just a cynic who hates anything fun: I suppose the home lobotomy I gave myself recently has cured me of the need to get all wrapped up in hype of any kind, especially the kind where "lowered expectations" and "poor quality" are encouraged.

Cheryl Anne Gardner, the cynical blonde who takes the word way too seriously.

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“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.” - Albert Einstein

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

Very often you’ll see blog posts or books teaching you to “master” a skill in only 10 days, or 3 days … in fact, it used to be 30 days but the time frame to master something seems to be shrinking rapidly.

I’ve even seen tutorials claiming to teach a skill in just a few hours. Pretty soon we’ll be demanding to know how to do something in seconds.

Instant mastery of skills and knowledge! Hey presto!

Unfortunately, the reality is something a little less magical. Or maybe that’s a fortunate thing.

There’s only one way to become good at something:

1. First, you must learn it by reading or listening to others who know how to do it, but most especially by doing.
2. Then do some more. At this point, you’ll start to understand it, but you’ll suck. This stage could take months.
3. Do some more. After a couple of years, you’ll get good at it.
4. Do some more. If you learn from mistakes, and aren’t afraid to make mistakes in the first place, you’ll go from good to great.

It takes anywhere from 6-10 years to get great at something, depending on how often and how much you do it. Some estimate that it takes 10,000 hours to master something, but I think it varies from person to person and depends on the skill and other factors.

Want to be a great writer? It’s possible to be great within a few years, if you have the God-given talent of Fitzgerald or Shakespeare, but most of us toil for over a decade and are still trying to get better. We’re still learning, to this day, and if we look back on our first few years of writing — of any kind — we’ll tell you we sucked (for the most part) back then.

Want to be a great blogger? Same deal. I’ve been doing it for almost three years, and I’m still only competent. Gruber’s been doing it for, like, 7 years and he’s still only … well, he’s pretty great by now. You have to do it, make mistakes, learn, really begin to understand it, and someday, if you stick with it, you’ll be great.

There’s no one who is great at his profession who hasn’t been doing it for at least 6 years — no designer, no programmer, no carpenter, no architect, no surgeon, no teacher, no musician, no artist … you get the point. I dare you to name one. Most have been doing it for over a decade, and are still looking to improve.

It takes desire, it takes drive, it takes lots and lots of doing.

So here’s the thing: don’t get discouraged if you’re just starting out. Have fun, like we all did in the beginning. If you have fun, you’ll learn to love it, and THAT’S when it clicks. When you love something, you’ll want to do it all the time, sometimes late at night and often, you’ll jump out of bed and want to do it before you move your morning bowels.

THAT’S how you get great. By loving it so much your morning bowel movement takes second seat.

“Everybody has talent, it’s just a matter of moving around until you’ve discovered what it is.” - George Lucas

Find that desire. Do it, don’t just read about it. Don’t buy a single product or book or magazine that claims to teach you something in minutes, hours, days. They’re lying to your face, with a hand in your pocket at the same time.

Do it, keep doing it, then keep doing it some more. It’s the only way to get great, but the good news: anyone can do it. It just takes some time and some doing. Hey presto.

When the world says, “Give up,”
Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”
~Author Unknown

—

On mnmlist: The sweet science of less mail & Simplicity is the path, not just the destination

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/lulu-opens-ebook-sales.html

Only a few weeks ago, Lulu got their search system working again. It took them only... well, about four months to repair a system that would not find a book even when you typed in the correct title or author's name. But, well, credit where credit is due--you can now do this successfully (key word or genre searching remains somewhat hit and miss).

But now I wonder for whom this repair was made? Recently Lulu searches started bringing up all kinds of mainstream books. This was not, of course, explained on the website or in the Lulu forums--but an online Press Release dated yesterday explains:

"Lulu ... today announced a vastly expanded selection of eBooks, adding 200,000 titles from authors such as Dan Brown, Malcolm Gladwell and Emeril Lagasse to a catalog of content already among the Internet's most diverse ... "It's time for a new era in publishing, one that treats all content equally and gives all authors an equal shot at success," said Harish Abbott, Senior Vice President of Products at Lulu. "We've built an open content marketplace that lets everyone get their ideas to all readers in all forms, print and electronic. And we mean everyone."

I guess it is a bright day for Dan Brown. I wonder how else he would ever manage to sell his books?

On one level I think more books, means more customers, which means more sales. One the other hand Lulu is never going to compete with Amazon, B&N and Powells. So it seems more likely to me that they are maximising their own profits and their authors can either accept a smaller slice of the pie or go to hell.

p.s. if you go there to buy my books, that of course is fine. [/hypocrisy]

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-does-podpeep-read-cannegardner.html

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

One hot spring evening two men sit on a bench at Patriarchs Ponds: Berlioz, editor of a literary magazine and Ivan Nikolayevich, a poet. The editor is lecturing his poet friend on the err of his ways in portraying the fictional Jesus in his recent poetic endeavour as a man, albeit a flawed man, but nonetheless a man who did in fact exist in the most mortal sense of the word. During their heated conversation, a tall foreign stranger, who goes by the name Woland and professes to be a professor and an expert in black magic, approaches them as he is very interested in their debate on the existence of Jesus and claims to have been on the balcony the day Pontius Pilate condemned the prophet to death. After a lengthy discussion, Woland prophesizes Berlioz’ eminent demise, and then all hell breaks loose.

I have wanted to read this book for many years, and it just kept slipping out of my head until a few months ago when I stumbled upon it while browsing at a small Indie book store. I am a huge fan of Russian Literature, so I am a little embarrassed to admit that I kept forgetting about it all these years, but there was no time like the present to read it. Banned Book week was upon us, and Bulgakov’s masterwork was banned in Russia and not released in English until the 1960’s in a censored version. We don’t have to worry about this anymore and can now read one of many wonderful translations. I do suggest that if you are hunting down a copy, make sure you get a decent translation. The one I purchased, pictured above, had a lengthy commentary section that goes over some of the finer points of Russian Politics during the 1930’s, and so it made the read more enjoyable.

The story is a complex allegory: part social satire, part contemporary historical, part romance, part farce, part political irony, part theological pontification, yes, this book, written in the theatrical style of a playwright, is magical realism at its finest. The book moves back and forth between three converging storylines: Woland, or rather Satan, and his retinue’s descent upon the unsuspecting citizens of Moscow; the heartbreaking unconventional love story between the Master and Margarita; and The Master’s own novel, which explores Pontius Pilate’s great guilt. However, Woland is not your conventional Satan, often appearing very sympathetic and thoughtful; Yeshua is not the Jesus we are accustomed to; and Pilate manages to redeem himself. I won’t say how, because that will ruin it. Now Woland doesn’t come to Moscow to reek havoc, nor does he come to whisper in the collective Muscovite ear in order to bring out the worst in people, he merely allows Moscow’s disingenuous to come face to face with their own hypocrisy. Where Yeshua teaches, Woland provokes, but in the end, their goal is the same, and that’s the religious rub of the story: the two are equal and share the same hope for humanity in the end. There is a lot of allusion to the New Testament as well as folklore representations of Pilate and other Biblical characters as Heresy in all its many forms is the main theme running throughout all three plotlines. Each Moscow miscreant, much like in Dante’s Inferno, receives the punishment fitting for their crime. Even The Master’s punishment fits his crime. In this Faustian part of the tale, the Master is condemned to an insane asylum because of his cowardice. Cowardice, Yeshua says, is the greatest of all sins. The Master, having received negative commentary in a review of his unpublished novel, broke under the weight of the criticism and lost faith, in himself and his work, and only through Margarita’s sacrifice, would he finish the novel and achieve peace, which Yeshua, as requested by Woland, grants him in the end: Peace not Light, or rather not salvation.

This story explores a lot of odd and awkward existential angles and does it with finesse and a black humour blacker than the fur on the pickle-eating, vodka-drinking, gun-toting Behemoth, Satan’s Black Cat. The story has a full on narrator who interjects with a vengeance, and the narrative style is operatic and slapstick all at the same time. Besides the main characters: Woland, The Master, and Margarita, there is a litany of other minor characters within the main narrative and also within the Master’s inner novel, and all the characters reflect nicely the main themes of the story: Good and Evil, Heresy, Cowardice, Faith, Death, Freedom, Guilt, and Sacrifice or devotional love among others. And so the characters are deliberately grotesque and superficial, ordinary and archetypal. Satan’s retinue is particularly diverse: the grotesquely dressed valet Koroviev (Fagotto); a fast-talking black cat who walks on his hind legs and is big as a hog, Behemoth; the fanged little wall-eyed hitman Azazello; the demon Abaddon; and the naked red-headed witch Hella. There is a lot of anti-religious propaganda of the day weaved into the narrative, and so there is a lot of parody: Margarita’s stations of the cross as she welcomes the guests at Satan’s spring ball, and The Massolit writers’ last supper of a sort as they argue over who will go to the summer retreat being two of them. To write a proper review of this book is an exercise in futility because there is just so much going on thematically, philosophically, and theologically, it would take extensive study of the text and essays of great length to capture all its nuances. But you don’t have to do all that to just plain old enjoy the story. It’s heartbreaking, horrific, action packed, confusing, hilarious, and if you didn’t have faith in the cosmos before you read it, you just might afterwards. You don’t even need to know much about Russian politics of the time to enjoy the satire, and the language is sublime:

Gods, my Gods! How sad the earth is at eventide! How mysterious are the mists over the swamps. Anyone who has wandered in these mists, who has suffered a great deal before death, or flown above the earth, bearing a burden beyond his strength knows this. Someone who is exhausted knows this. And without regret he forsakes the mists of the earth, its swamps and rivers, and sinks into the arms of death with a light heart ...

I highly recommend that all writers read this book: the lessons in structure, language, characterization, and theme are well beyond what one will get in a style guide. Bulgakov’s articulation of his thesis is flawless, even if the original manuscript has been butchered over the years by clumsy editors and translators.

Podpeople featured author Jim Murdoch just finished reading the book as well and has a rather lengthy review over on his site that is worth the look.

On a final note: Since I read a lot of Russian Literature, I found some striking stylistic resemblances between The Master and Margarita and modern author Sergei Lukyanenko’s Nightwatch series. Specifically in the interplay between the Watch Bosses, who reminded me of Woland and his retinue. There are similarities in theme as well.

Cheryl Anne Gardner

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http://zenhabits.net/?p=4941

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

Reader Carolyn recently asked, “How can an achievement-motivated workaholic learn to back off, relax, de-stress, and feel good about doing it? I am too driven!”

This is a common problem, and one that has several parts we should look at separately:

1. Being achievement-motivated.
2. Being a workaholic.
3. Learning to relax and de-stress.
4. Learning to feel good about it.

Let’s start by saying that there’s nothing inherently wrong with work — it can be fun, exciting, fulfilling, rewarding. I love my work in a way I never did for most of my life, until a few years ago, and work is one thing I live for, that I jump out of bed each morning to do.

However, the reader recognizes that there’s more to life than work, and that relaxing is important, and that stress is a major problem. When work takes over your life and causes problems — with your relationships, health, happiness — then it’s time to step back and figure out a better way.

Each person needs to figure out what that better way is, and I can’t offer one solution to fit all, but here are some thoughts on the four parts of the problem outlined above.

1. Stop being achievement-motivated.
There’s nothing wrong with achievements or being proud of them — it’s a natural thing to feel good about what you’ve accomplished. But it shouldn’t be the only thing that motivates you.

What’s a better motivation? Doing things you love, creating something great, being with people you love, doing things that are exciting.

If your work is something you love, something that excites you, that’s great. You’re better off than most, actually. But there’s gotta be more — what else gives you joy? Do you have hobbies you love? Do you like doing anything outdoors? Do you have family members or friends you love?

Figure out 4-5 things that truly make you happy and excite you — at least one of them should be a person or persons, and one of the others must be non-work-related. You need some balance in your life.

Get excited about these things, and be motivated by your love for them. If you have a spouse and kids, for example, let your life be motivated with the thought of spending time with them.

2. Stop being a workaholic.
What’s a workaholic? Someone who overdoes work — long hours, can’t stop working even at night, obsessed with work, to the detriment of other parts of his life.

If this is you, you might need help — beyond the help I can give you in an article. You might need to reach out to family members, to a therapist, to a group (online or off). There’s no shame in this — sometimes this is what’s needed to conquer an addiction.

But if you aren’t so far gone, you might be able to implement a few steps to stop from working so much.

First, stop working after a certain time — say 5 or 6 p.m. Make this a hard line: tell your office not to call you after this time, and don’t take your work home. Once the clock hits this time, you’re done for the day. The rest can wait until tomorrow.

Second, don’t check email or do other work-related communication after this point. Turn off the Blackberry or iPhone, even turn off the computer at home, and do something else. Also don’t take your mobile devices to non-work events such as vacations, your kids’ activities, family parties and so forth.

Third, schedule other things into your life. Exercise with a friend after work. Make dates with your partner. Take your kid to soccer practice. Set aside time for a beloved hobby. These things will stop you from working.

This should be good to start you out. The other steps are below, but for now, focus on these three things and be firm about them with yourself. No exceptions!

3. Learn to relax and de-stress.
This should be the easiest step (it’s fun, after all) but for many people it isn’t. There are many ways to relax and de-stress, but we’ll just touch on a couple of points.

First, take it in small steps. If you have a hard time relaxing, you don’t need to take a whole week or a month to do it at first (later, you might want to try this). For now, just try it in 10- or 15-minute increments. You’ll get used to it, and be able to do it for much longer.

Second, schedule a physical activity just about every day. This could be walking or running or cycling or swimming or playing basketball or soccer or whatever. As long as you’re doing something, preferably outdoors if weather permits. Again, just start out with 10 or 15 minutes a day. It might take some experimenting to find an activity you enjoy, so feel free to try out different things.

Third, schedule some solitude. This could be 10 minutes of reading alone, or walking quietly, or relaxing with a hot bath, or meditating. You should do it in silence, alone, with no distractions. A peaceful setting is best, without clutter or people knocking on your door. Ask your co-workers (if it’s at work) or family members (if at home) to please help you out and respect this time of solitude. Slowly stretch it from 10 minutes to 15, 20, 30 and so on until you have 45-60 minutes a day.

4. Learn to feel good about it.
This step is hard to comprehend for those who love relaxing, but for those who have a workaholic mindset, feeling good about relaxing can be tough. This takes a change in mindset.

We have to stop thinking that hard work is the only virtuous way. Sure, hard work is good, but so is being lazy, so is relaxing. We need to give ourselves permission to do this, and to feel good about it.

Relaxing and being lazy are necessary to good health and happiness. Our bodies and minds need to recuperate each day and week, and if we don’t have this downtime eventually something will go wrong: we’ll burn out, ruin our relationships, have deteriorating health. So think of it as a necessity, and a good thing.

Do things that are pleasurable. Forget about all the things you have to do and really be in the moment as you do them. Focus on how enjoyable the activity is, and how great you feel. Breathe deeply and feel the tension leaving you.

Give yourself time. It takes time to learn to enjoy relaxing. You’ll adjust, slowly, gradually. But you need to do it, in small steps, and block out negative thoughts and thoughts of work. Let those thoughts go, and focus on what you’re doing now.

This transformation won’t happen overnight, but it can happen. And it’ll be great.
—
A note to my readers who are interested in decluttering their lives:

The fantastic Erin Doland of Unclutterer.com (a must-read blog) has just published a book that I love and think you’ll all enjoy very much: Unclutter Your Life in One Week.

Erin really knows her stuff, and this book will help you to:

• Unclutter your closet
• Learn how to part with sentimental clutter (often the hardest type to get rid of)
• Get ready for the onslaught of holiday guests with tips on how to prepare for guests
• Organize your home
• Organize your office
• Build an effective and personalized filing system
• Get rid of mental distractions

You can order the hardcopy or get the Kindle version. Really essential reading.

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/10/review-darkness-within-by-joseph-s.html

Title: Mystic Quest: The Darkness Within
Author:Joseph S. Meraz
Genre: fantasy
Price: $12.99
Publisher: Tate
ISBN: 9781606964170
Point of Sale: Amazon
Reviewed by: veinglory

I wanted to like this book, but alas I comprehensively failed--so I will keep this mercifully brief. The Darkness Within is technically clean and well presented. However it has all the depth and pathos of a cut price fantasy war game. None of the characters, events or the entire world seem real. The names of people and places are jerked brutally from their historical context and feudal characters use language like "significant other" to refer to a girlfriend.

Characters referred to monotonously by some sobriquets like "the fair maiden" or "the warrior" move across a simplistic game board and engage in battles devoid of any kind of inconvenient topography or confusion, in which everyone can see exactly what is happening and only the actions of a half dozen people seem to be significant. Overall the book seems to be the work of a very undeveloped talent and, as such, at best a learning opportunity for the author. And given that the publisher is Tate (charging $4000 and up) it seems that it was an expensive lesson.

Rating: 2/10

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/free-book-friday-winner-francine.html

Congratulations to Francine for winning the brand new signed copy of Brett Williams "Family Business."

We have heard from the winner. We hope you enjoy the book Francine and would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Stay tuned for this month's Free Book Friday on Black Friday, November 27th. What a way to start the holiday shopping season. There is nothing better I like to do on Black Friday than stay out of the fray and curl up with a good book by the fire. But that's just me.

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/11/sunday-picture.html

Signup for Yuletide is currently closed, sorry! Please contact the Yuletide admins if there is a problem with your signup that needs to be fixed. If you are too late to join in for this year, you can still sign up to be a pinch hitter or write a New Years Resolutions challenge story.

NOTE: if signups have not officially closed yet, the script may just temporarily be down for some technical maintenance. If that's the case, try again in a little while! Check the yuletide admin livejournal for announcements.

...but I always do, every bloody year.

Ohwell. There's no clue on Yuletide Admin community (which I just added as an RSS feed) when signups are closing (and no announcement about when they opened) but... I checked earlier in the week and they weren't open yet then so ...

Attempted to sign up to mini_nanowrimo, but may have left it too late: still a member of wrimowrimo.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zenhabits/~3/CfJ_LvaomRw/

http://zenhabits.net/?p=4919

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Karol Gajda of Ridiculously Extraordinary.

“Is that all your stuff?”

While embarking on my current 100+ day sojourn I’ve been asked that question almost daily. Most people take more stuff for a 3 day weekend break than I’ve taken on this long trip.

If you’ve struggled to pack what you need in a carry-on I will show you the light. It’s not difficult and you don’t have to do everything at once. Remember the old cliché, slow and steady wins the race.

1) The first step to minimalist travel is to use a smaller carry-on.

If you don’t have enough room to pack all your stuff you’ll be forced to eliminate the unnecessary.

Personally, I use a 32L backpack, the Deuter Futura 32. If you can’t grasp the small size of a 32 liter pack, it’s about the same volume as most school backpacks.

I also carry a small messenger bag just large enough to fit a paperback book, an iPod, a small bag of almonds, and my Asus Eee 1000HE, a 10″, 3 pound netbook PC.

I can actually fit all of my things in my backpack, but the messenger bag is great to take out while exploring during the day.

The biggest benefit of a backpack vs a rolling carry-on is a backpack is much easier to carry around.

2) No matter how long your trip, pack no more than 3 shirts in neutral colors so everything matches everything else.

This way you never have to think about what to wear. If your shirts, pants, and jacket always match you simply wear whatever is clean.

I have 2 black T shirts, 1 orange T shirt, and 1 pair of khaki colored convertible pants (which I obviously wear on the plane and everywhere else).

In case it gets cold, I also have a black long-sleeved shirt in addition to my black jacket.

As for shoes, 1 pair of black shoes to wear and 1 pair of flip flops (in my case, Vibram FiveFingers) to pack.

Dark colors are also better for visible cleanliness reasons. If you spill sauce on light colored clothing it stands out. Unfortunately I couldn’t find dark colored convertible pants that fit me (I’m 6′5″), so I had to settle on khaki.

3) Multi-use soap minimizes your liquids considerably.

Dr Bronner’s organic fair-trade liquid soap can be used to wash your body, shampoo your hair, brush your teeth, and clean your clothes. Buy it in large bottles and fill smaller 3 ounce airline-approved bottles to pack in your carry-on.

3 ounces of Dr Bronner’s soap lasts me about 4 weeks and yes, I use it for everything.

If Dr Bronner’s isn’t available in your area you have 2 options:

First, check out your local health food store and ask them if they carry organic vegetable based soap. This will be similar to Dr Bronner’s.

Second, every outdoor/camping store I’ve been to carries something called camper’s (or camping) soap. This soap is also a good alternative to Dr Bronner’s.

4) Wash clothes in the sink.

Limiting your clothing to just 3 T-shirts means you’ll have to do laundry every few days. Wash them in the bathroom sink (using Dr Bronner’s or similar soap) and hang them up to dry overnight with an elastic clothesline. A common elastic clothesline is the Rick Steves brand available on Amazon and at most outdoors stores.

Your clothes will be ready by morning. If anything is still slightly damp in the morning wear it anyway as it will dry quickly. Read more: Wash
your clothes in a bag like I do.

5) If worst comes to worst, buy it.

Pack the bare minimum, but be prepared to buy what you need if you forget or can’t pack something. Unless you’re heading to the middle of nowhere, you will be able to find whatever it is you’re looking for.

Travel is supposed to be fun. If you’re bogged down with luggage it can be a real drag. Who likes lugging suitcases up stairs, escalators, elevators, and around town?

Packing light makes travel simple, so you can focus on having a good time, and not on how you’re going to avoid paying airline checked baggage fees. :)

Karol Gajda blogs about Freedom, Health, Travel, and Life at RidiculouslyExtraordinary.com. To read more about his quest to help 100 people achieve Ridiculously Extraordinary Freedom subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you like this post, please Digg it!


—
Elsewhere:

• On mnmlist: The beauty of small and The 400-word promise

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/10/halloween-free-book-friday.html

Title: Family Business
Author: Brett Williams
Genre: Fiction/Thriller/Horror -- Hardcore
Price: $ 16.95
Publisher: Lulu
ISBN: N/A
Pages: 268
Point of Sale: Lulu
Reviewed By: Cheryl Anne Gardner

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/10/thoughts-on-craft-cannegardner_29.html

If I hear the “Show Don’t Tell” mantra out of context one more time, I am going to blow an academic gasket. Why? Because the Show Don’t Tell catch phrase is bandied about without the depth needed for new authors to truly get a grasp of the concept that it is so often misinterpreted to mean: Strip your work of summary and write strictly in scenes. Any learned writer knows this is not accurate nor is it even remotely good advice. The best of the best writers use both techniques -- showing and telling -- in a complimentary way to increase the depth of the narrative. Yes, showing and telling are techniques, and Fiction cannot exist without both. Good writing shows as it tells and tells as it shows. The best written narrative summary is as alive and vibrant as a scene. It can deepen the theme, reveal character, set the mood, give us relevant back story, and it’s where the narrative voice rings out with authenticity. Narrative summary is about language, style, and tempo. It’s where the poetry of the narrative is brought to the forefront. So here is some clarification by a few learned professionals:

Janet Burroway in her book Writing Fiction says: Summary and Scene are methods of treating time in fiction. A summary covers a relatively long period of time in a relatively short compass; a scene deals at length with a relatively short period of time. Summary gives information, fills in background, lets us understand motive, alters pace, creates a transition, and leaps moments or years.

Robie Macauley, former Editor with Houghton-Mifflin, Fiction writer, author of Technique in Fiction, and founder of the Ploughshares International Writing Seminar, said: The traditional rule is that episodes meant to show important behavior in the characters, to make events dramatic as in theater, or to bring news that changes the situation should be dealt with in the scenic, or eyewitness manner. Stretches of time or occurrences that are secondary to the story’s development are handled by what is called a “narrative bridge.”

All good fiction needs a sense of time and space in order for the reader to make the associations necessary to understand the story, and that is where narrative summary comes into play. We should not be discouraging writers from writing summary. A clever writer is not afraid to use it because they understand its value to the overall foundation of the story. The tricky business has always been the where, the when, and the how to write narrative summary so that it comes across with just as much depth as a scene. Comes across with Impact. In order for Narrative summary to do that, it must have the same movement, emotional content, and descriptive characteristics that a scene has, give or take dialog. Narrative summary is where voice and style are of the utmost importance. H.P. Lovecraft is one of my favorite authors and one of the great writers of narrative summary, often blending it so seamlessly with the scenes that we never notice we are reading summary at all. Lovecraft is a master storyteller, and one of his particular quirks was that he rarely used dialog, even in scenes. His work is in the public domain, so I can quote freely here. In this excerpt from The Dunwich Horror, we can see how deftly he uses narrative summary to create mood, give us back story, and set the tempo for the scene to come:

Yet all this was only the prologue of the actual Dunwich horror. Formalities were gone through by bewildered officials, abnormal details were duly kept from press and public, and men were sent to Dunwich and Aylesbury to look up property and notify any who might be heirs of the late Wilbur Whateley. They found the countryside in great agitation, both because of the growing rumblings beneath the domed hills, and because of the unwonted stench and the surging, lapping sounds which came increasingly from the great empty shell formed by Whateley's boarded-up farmhouse. Earl Sawyer, who tended the horse and cattle during Wilbur's absence, had developed a woefully acute case of nerves. The officials devised excuses not to enter the noisome boarded place; and were glad to confine their survey of the deceased's living quarters, the newly mended sheds, to a single visit. They filed a ponderous report at the courthouse in Aylesbury, and litigations concerning heirship are said to be still in progress amongst the innumerable Whateleys, decayed and undecayed, of the upper Miskatonic valley.

An almost interminable manuscript in strange characters, written in a huge ledger and adjudged a sort of diary because of the spacing and the variations in ink and penmanship, presented a baffling puzzle to those who found it on the old bureau which served as its owner's desk. After a week of debate it was sent to Miskatonic University, together with the deceased's collection of strange books, for study and possible translation; but even the best linguists soon saw that it was not likely to be unriddled with ease. No trace of the ancient gold with which Wilbur and Old Whateley had always paid their debts has yet been discovered.

It was in the dark of September ninth that the horror broke loose.

What Lovecraft does in those few paragraphs is just brilliant. The sensory details leave us with a sense of foreboding, a bleak picture of the countryside and its people, and a lot of unanswered questions. Sure, he told us a lot of details, but what we are ultimately left with is a tense “want to know.” He has established intrigue by using the narrative summary to reinforce a very purposeful sense of ambiguity: Officials who just want to be done with the investigation. Details that were kept from the public. Ancient gold. Manuscripts with strange characters. A farmhouse with an unwonted stench and surging lapping sounds. Rumblings coming from the domed hills.

Sure he could have said it like this: Yet all this was only the prologue of the actual Dunwich horror. Formalities were gone through, details were duly kept from press and public, and men were sent to Dunwich and Aylesbury to look up property and notify any who might be heirs of the late Wilbur Whateley. They found that the townspeople were afraid of the Whateley's boarded-up farmhouse, so the officials filed a report at the courthouse in Aylesbury, and litigations concerning heirship are said to be still in progress amongst the innumerable Whateleys of the upper Miskatonic valley. No trace of the ancient gold with which Wilbur and Old Whateley had always paid their debts has yet been discovered.

Pretty flat and very boring. Here we are told everything we need to know, in essence, but what is missing is the emotive voice of the narrator and the descriptive content that makes well written summary compelling. The best written narrative summary can and does, often enough, feel like reading a scene: It has action, movement, dialog, and vivid character emotion without actually being a scene. The best written narrative summary has presence and authorial voice and style, which can be the author’s or the narrator’s. So a new author should not be discouraged to tell, nor should they be afraid to tell. It’s a technique that requires practice just like any other writing technique, and it’s in the telling that we find our voice. So the next time you hear that catch phrase about your own work, step back for a second and think about the real meaning behind Show and Tell before you strip one word from your manuscript, or heaven forbid, attempt to hide the summary in dialog. Just relax and ask yourself a few questions first:

1. Is the narrative summary relevant to the story overall, to a character, to a theme, to the moment?
2. If so, is it at the right place and the right time for it, and are you bridging the right amount of time and space?
3. If it is and you are, does it have movement and emotive descriptive content? Does it have style, voice, and presence?
4. If it does, does it give insight, or foreshadow later events, or does it create mood and/or a sense of intrigue?
5. Lastly, if you are combining techniques, as in, if you are using the narrative summary like a flashback or to temper the pacing of your story, are you giving too much, too little, or just the right amount. For me, I like to use narrative summary for back story, specifically to subtly reveal character motivations. I don’t like my characters to tell their stories in dialog to other characters. To me, it makes them seem self-absorbed. People don’t give lengthy dissertations about themselves, so I tend to wrap the narrative summary in the guise of a flashback, which, like in film noir, alters or obscures the linear sequence of events, and I never tell you everything. But that’s just me. Because I write novellas, I have to be careful to make sure only the most important moments are written as scenes. Everything else is kept to summary due to length constraints.

Now, how you use narrative summary will also depend on the story you are writing and the genre you are working in. Some genres and stories lend themselves very well to a good deal of narrative summary and some don’t. Mainstream fiction tends to have a much faster pace, and readers want action. They want a scene based story, they want it to move quickly, and the language should be invisible to a great degree. Literary and experimental fiction seem better suited to narrative summary. Readers want ambiguity, they want language and style, they want a unique voice, and they tend to want a more leisurely read, one that gives them things to ponder: a story where some things are left off the page. Summary can be used in some wonderful and very exciting ways to stunning effect. I am currently reading The Gargoyle and the majority of the book is narrative summary, where one character is telling our protagonist of his prior lives. There is very little actual scene and very little dialog: actually, there is very little movement in real time in this story, and the protagonist is one of the most loathesome I have seen. But I'll review it later when I am finished.

So, you will never hear me tell an author to Show don’t Tell. The craft is all about learning how to balance the two in a manner appropriate for your story, and the art is all about making both as compelling as possible. The books I mentioned in the article are good places to start if you want to learn more about writing narrative summary along with Deepening Fiction and Words Overflown by Stars.

The Book Cover shown is from Show & Tell by Dilys Evans. The book deals with the art of illustrating children’s books, but the cover copy actually applies here as well: Show and Tell teaches the reader (the author) how to look for the perfect marriage of art and text.

Yup, that about says it all, doesn’t it.

Cheryl Anne Gardner

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zenhabits/~3/JoiRAIXAjmM/

http://zenhabits.net/?p=4925

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

Great news for you Firefox minimalists: have you always wanted Minimalist Gmail in one click? There’s an extension for that.

After my post on creating a Minimalist Gmail experience using Greasemonkey scripts, programmer and artist Matt Constantine worked hard to create an amazing Firefox extension that did what I was looking for and a lot more: The Minimalist Gmail Firefox Extension.

You can install this extension and not worry about installing Greasemonkey or any of the many user scripts I detailed in my previous post.

This simple extension creates a barely-noticeable label in the top right corner that you click on to give you options to hide:

• The entire Gmail header, including all the links across the top, the Gmail logo, the search box, and other clutter at the top.
• The footer, which is a bunch of small links across the bottom of Gmail.
• All the ads that show up to the right of your email message — hiding ads gives wider screen space to your messages.
• Non-essential things in your sidebar, including the chat box and invite box. If you have other gadgets in your sidebar enabled, you can disable them in Gmail’s settings.
• Almost everything in the Inbox view, including the lines separating messages, buttons along the bottom, most buttons and links across the top.

You decide which elements to hide, but if you check all the options, the result is a very satisfying uncluttered Gmail. The best email program just got beautiful.

For those who normally use the buttons, Matt and I both recommend enabling the keyboard shortcuts and learning them. You can do all the things you do with the buttons, but faster, and it only takes a few minutes to learn them.

If you’re interested in reading more on how I use Gmail, the minimalist way, check out the steps I use at the bottom of my previous post.

I’d like to give a big “thank you” to Matt for creating this extension. Check out his site or follow him on Twitter.

If you liked this post, please bookmark it on Delicious. Thanks my friends.
—
Elsewhere:

• On mnmlist: On owning nothing

I am fairly sure I am just asking for woe and disappointment here, because we are running a bloody big event in November. How am I going to write even a hundred words a day? Eek, really.

However. At the very least, Nanowrimo is good for writing more. So I'm going to sneak into the local Kick-Off Party (31st October at 12.30pm - lunchtime) in the Library Bar in the Teviot (Enter Teviot, turn right until you reach the staircase, then in front of you, to the right of the downward staircase, there is a room which is part of the Library Bar, but separate from the rest of it). I may even sneak along to the Sunday Write-In (Sunday 1st, 4pm, back part of Starbucks, entrance above the Chinese medicine shop, just before the scaffolding in front of the obnoxiously loud souvenir shop). The Nanowrimo Regional Person identifies herself with a "highlighter-yellow shirt".

And! I know what I'm going to do.

I'm going to try and kickstart my Exhausted Brain which has been stumbling and braking towards the end of "The Games" and "Through The Mirror", by inviting you to play.

Please login and post a request for a drabble or a flashfic (it will be at minimum 100 words: if I decide I can't be arsed writing it as a drabble, it'll be longer...) in either one of those universes. I'll do crossovers if you like. (It, er, makes an alarming amount of sense that MirrorM*A*S*H and The Games are in the same universe, just fifty years apart.)

Rules:

1. You have to login. Get an IJ account. Thank you. (Give Squeaky some money! He's buying moar servers! Yay!)
2. Specify if this is MirrorM*A*S*H or The Games.
3. If you want a crossover, specify the fandom (essential) or the pairing (optional).
4. Give me a word.
5. (Optional) Give me a theme.
6. Do not ask for stories which are spoilers. I'm still trying to finish the damn stories... Ask for a missing scene, an AU, a crossover with a background character, a something.
7. There is no rule 7. Inspire me.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zenhabits/~3/Zy1CvB6fP-0/

http://zenhabits.net/?p=4863

“There is a meditation exercise in which you place a raisin in your mouth. You do not eat the raisin. You meditate and allow it to sit in your mouth unmolested. The raisin plumps up and becomes a juicy fruitness in your mouth, tempting you to bite it. This is a powerful example of how eating is different when you are truly aware of each morsel.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

When my family and I visited Tokyo earlier this year, it was a bit sad to see the rise of fast food in Japan.

It’s a beautiful country with a rich history of a traditional lifestyle, incredible food, and good health. They’ve perfected the art of food preparation, using the freshest ingredients to create small portions of beautiful dishes.

And while there still aren’t many fat Japanese people, especially compared to the U.S., I’d bet that will change with the insidious growth of fast food restaurants on many a street corner. McDonald’s is prevalent, of course, but so are many other Western food chains and an increasing number of Japanese fast food outlets.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written about the Slow Food movement, but I really believe it’s the answer to many of our problems: health and obesity, the hectic and stressful pace of modern life, and the lack of happiness in a complex and often burdensome world.

This is the Anti-Fast Food Diet — a way to not only lose weight and get healthier, but to change your life to one of simplicity, moderation, and joy.

Abandon fast food, and all the values it brings: mass consumption, mass production, the exploitation of workers, the destruction of the environment, the destruction of small local businesses, the corporatization of our culture.

Instead, embrace Slow Food. Here’s how.

1. Stop rushing to eat. Set aside more time for eating, for shopping and preparation, for enjoying life. Stop rushing to fast food places because it’s convenient — because it’s not so convenient to be hospitalized. Instead, make time, and take things a bit slower.
2. Prepare your own meals. I know, who has the time? You do. Make the time, and cook simple meals without a lot of ingredients or preparation time. It takes 10 minutes to whip together a healthy and tasty lunch or dinner. And it can be a lot of fun (get the family or your partner involved). Preparing your own meals is healthier, frugal, and you know you’re eating good food.
3. Eat real food, not processed. Buy fresh ingredients such as fruits, veggies, whole grains, nuts, beans, and the like. Use ingredients you can recognize, not things filled with chemicals. Don’t use prepared food if you can avoid it — microwaveable or boxed foods are not the best. Avoid processed food at all costs.
4. Eat slowly and mindfully. Too many people stuff food down their gullets these days. It’s not healthy, and you’ve just consumed food without enjoying it. Instead, take the time to chew your food, to taste it, to be present as you eat.
5. Enjoy the food. Fully savor each bite. Appreciate the miracle of the food you’re eating, and be grateful you have that bite at all.
6. Take time to breathe, and smile. Before you begin to eat, smile, and take a deep breath, reminding yourself to be present and enjoy the food. Between bites, instead of rushing to the next bite, breath, relax, enjoy. Savor the moment.
7. When drinking tea, just drink tea. When eating, just eat. Be fully present. Don’t read a book or surf the net or drive or work or anything else but eat and drink.
8. Good conversation. OK, the exception to the above rule: eating with friends and family. Fast food has destroyed the good meal and conversation, because we’re rushing as we eat and don’t have time for a good talk. Bring it back.
9. When you do eat at a restaurant, make it a good one. Avoid the fast food places, but also the chain restaurants (Chilis, TGI Fridays, Lone Star, Olive Garden, etc). Go to locally owned restaurants where they use real ingredients and really make good food. These may be more expensive, but you’re not supporting a corporation and your food will be better, and even if it means eating out less that’s OK — quality is more important than quantity.

“There are some people who eat an orange but don’t really eat it. They eat their sorrow, fear, anger, past, and future.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

“When you eat with awareness, you find that there is more space, more beauty. You begin to watch yourself, to see yourself, and you notice how clumsy you are or how accurate you are. … So when you make an effort to eat mindfully…, you find that life is worth much more than you had expected.” - Chogyam Trungpa

—
If you’re interested in a life of minimalism, check out my new ebook: The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life.

Or find more of my other books and ebooks.

http://podpeep.blogspot.com/2009/10/review-haunted-naperville.html

Title: Haunted Naperville
Author: Diane Ladley (author’s website)
Genre: history
Price: $24.95
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-7385-6122-6
Point of Sale: publisher
Reviewed by: Chris Gerrib

Please note updated information below

Diane Ladley is a fellow member of the Naperville Science Fiction Writers Group and she mentioned at a meeting that she had published a book about ghosts in Naperville. My curiosity was piqued, and she was able to send me an electronic copy of her work, Haunted Naperville.

Now, I do not believe in ghosts. However, I am interested in history, and that’s the vein in which I reviewed Diane’s book. As a work of local history, I found Haunted Naperville a perfectly lovely read. Diane opens the book with “The Amorous Apparition of Fifth Avenue Station.” Here, she tells the tale of a fatal passenger train crash in April 1946, which she then ties to the use of a nearby factory as a temporary morgue. The factory was converted to mixed use, and a pair of condo dwellers tells the story of a ghost who was apparently making advances on the lady of the condo.

Like I said, I don’t believe in ghosts. But Diane’s account of the train wreck, including several archival news photos, is an interesting snap shot into history. Diane also tells the story of how the factory came to be, and what led to its conversion into condos and mixed use. I’ve actually been in the building, having dinner in a restaurant converted out of the factory’s boiler room (which still had the original boiler) so getting “the rest of the story” was fascinating.

Diane’s attention to this detail flows throughout the book. Most ghost stories are of the “it went bump in the night” variety, but here we get pictures of the buildings and people, as well as a glimpse into their lives. For example, Diane talks about the “Halfway House” which originally stood halfway between Naperville and Aurora. Not only do we hear about the haunting, we get a picture of the building and the story of its existence and move from its original location.

Haunted Naperville is written in a conversational style, but well organized into sections and well-researched. I would estimate that a quarter of the 160 pages are illustrated, and overall the book appears to be a solid piece of history. Diane’s publisher, Arcadia Publishing, is a relatively new operation. They appear to be exploiting print-on-demand publishing to target very small niche markets, that of people interested in a specific town or region. It’s an excellent use of POD, and I hope that the other books in their catalog meet this high standard of excellence.

Update 10/27/09 PJ Norlander, the director of marketing for Arcadia Publishing, emailed me today. Norlander points out that:

1) Arcadia has been in business since 1993, thus they don't consider themselves a new company.
2) Arcadia is not a POD publisher. They are a traditional publisher, and have nearly 6,000 titles in print.

RATING 9/10

Note – I received a free PDF download of the book reviewed, which remains my property.