REDUCED TO A PILE OF ASHES

The title is what my heart feels like right now, and I am struggling to overcome such negativity and be able to write in a positive manner, but it is just not happening today.

The good news is in from Outskirts Press. The editor that goes through your book with a fine toothed comb looking for errors, typos, and the need to re-write the book, e-mailed me a letter on Friday. She said that the book passed with flying colors and she felt it was a great little book that kept you deeply engrossed from beginning to end. She particularly liked my characters and how they interacted between themselves and with the reader.

So onward and upward. It will take about three months for the book to be put together and then get put on sale. So probably at the end of May or beginning in June of 2013.

I'm sorry that I did not get a blog done yesterday. I was emotionally and physically drained and feeling very ill, so I stayed in bed for a day, and today I am feeling well again, so off we go.

When I was finished with the Legend of Kor, I started on the second book right away. It is Heaven & Hell, and is a prequel to the first book. I had finished writing it about a year ago, but it needs a lot of revision and rewriting and I think that it will take another 6 months to complete it; up to 1 year if I get boggled while doing it.

I seem to be very emotional again and range in moods from very happy, to desperately alone and depressed. I can't understand what is happening to me. I should be on-and stay on-the great silver cloud that is publishing a book. But I am severely stressed by the technical part of this work and not being able to quite get what needs to be done, done. I need to know how to set up a folder to hold only the chapters (files) of this book. 1) How do you make up a new folder in Word? 2) what is the formula to use to put new files into this new folder?? 3) can I then take and attach the folder to an e-mail and have it be sent  as just one attachment per e-mail? Please, if you know how to do this, e-mail the instructions to me at davalenehirsch@comcast.net  If you would do this, I will send you a copy of my new book as soon as they are available, and sign it and personalize it for you; your own "first edition."  HELP! Brain freeze.

Tomorrow will be a better day. I will spend the night seeking a worthy topic for all of you to enjoy. In the meantime my brain is working in ultra-slow motion and I cannot think of anything positive to say today, except to say that I love you and things will be back to normal in the next day or so. Thank you for your concern and understanding.

CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME!!

I LIKE THIS LIFE!!

Today, feeling absolutely great. I received an e-mail from Larry at Outskirts Press (OP) and he said that there would be no problem getting the 24 files into one big file so it can be evaluated. Everything is going right on schedule, so I was very relieved and spent the day organizing and cleaning. Now, this weekend, I can begin to revise Heaven & Hell.

So we can begin a new subject. On March 28th, David, William, and I are going to San Diego, our old home town, to visit my daughter Debora (Debby) and her adult children, Laura, Sheera, and James. We will be staying at the Days Inn in Mission Valley and plan on showing everyone a good time by going to Sea World and the Zoo, Balboa Park, the wooden roller coaster on Mission Beach, Julian and a drive into the mountains to see the old gold mining claim we once worked and lived on.

We will be gone for 10 days, until April 6th, and are traveling by airplane and then renting a car to use for the whole time we stay there. We will be seeing a lot of old friends since we were all born and raised there-except for William who is a Philadelphia young man.

I believe that I will be able to continue blogging during the trip as Debby has a good computer and I will use it every day that I can, to keep in touch with you. I shall also still be able to Tweet if you happen to follow that.

I shall also be visiting my step-children, Anders and Scott, and spend a day with them. They are my dear Ed's children-Ed is such a prominent character in Legend of Kor-and I will be discussing the book and royalties with them. Any royalties I should receive from all of my books, and anything else that I should create in my lifetime, is going to be spread in a very fair way by each person receiving an exact % of the royalties. That is the gross amount after taxes, business expenses, and the executor's fees, and most importantly after the first deduction of 10% for tithing. I think that I am ready to handle money-for the first time in my life (which may be why God has not had me handle much money-up to this point-as I have a poor track record). I have investment plans-Treasury Bills and a flexible small percentage for investing in stock options. Ed was a stock broker and he taught me how to figure out a spread sheet that computes when and what to buy, and when to sell options (puts and calls).

Enough business as I merrily count my chickens before they hatch! I may have a total in royalties of a mere $200 or so, and I realize that there are no guarantees about whether a book will actually sell, or not. But I am trying to get things in place so it will be seamless in case there is money involved. My goal has always been to be able to leave a legacy for my children and grandchildren and for the first time in my life I sense that it may be possible. One thing that they have all come to realize is that it takes hard work, time, and perseverance in order to reach your goals. I think that just having a book finally published-even if it is not a chart buster-demonstrates to the grandchildren that hard work is its own reward and goals can be reached if you just don't give up on yourself, or God.

My soul is at rest and I am ready for the Sabbath. Thank you for your prayers and your support. I will be back on Monday, after my meeting with Larry at 1:00 P.M. EST. I should have a lot of questions answered and will share with you as soon as the conference is over. I pray that I will be able to understand all that Larry has to say, and that I make good decisions. Have a wonderful and restful weekend and I will speak to you again on Monday. God bless you all!

WHAT IS THIS DEPRESSED HAPPINESS?

I am in a state that I have never been in before. It may have to do with being up for 48 hours straight trying to solve technical WORD problems. It seems to me that you used to be able to move a file from one folder to a new one and then send that folder as one attachment, but I could not find any such function and I was stuck with 24 different files (each one = a chapter of the book) that I could not find a way to send as one attachment. I was tearing my hair out in frustration when finally I hit upon an answer. Jubilant, I went ahead and sent what was (I thought) 24 files in one attachment. Outskirts Press (OP) received the e-mail with an attachment. The attachment was opened and it contained 24 separate files. Scream! Humiliation! I felt so stressed that I kept at trying to work out the problem for another 8 hours. Finally, I threw in the towel and consented to letting one of OP's technicians put them all into one file-at $50 an hour-about a 1/2 an hour project for that technician. I am definitely computer whipped and exhausted and have made a great first impression on my new Publishing Consultant, Larry. I meet again with Larry, on the phone as he is in Denver, on Monday at 1 p.m. Then I will learn more about the next steps. Now that I have groused your ear off with my personal frustrations let's talk about the truly great thing that happened yesterday.

After three years of writing, revising, correcting, typing, re-typing (about 10 re-typings), lots of sweat and tears and frustration, THE GOD GAMES: Legend of Kor, is now at the publishers and an editor is going over it to see if it is indeed ready to go to the printers (typos, errors in grammar or logic, properly formatted, etc.).

Legend of Kor is at the publishers!! I am only just beginning to grasp that notion. It doesn't seem real yet; I am pinching myself. My heart is slowly accepting unrivaled joy and relief, I think that sometime today it is going to hit me and I am going to be doing cartwheels.

I don't quite understand the dichotomy that my spirit is in right now. perhaps I am just exhausted after spending so many hours the last weeks typing, typing, re-writing, re-thinking, struggling with WORD.

But I want to make this statement of thank you so much to ONE, our dear Lord who walks beside you every minute through the good and the bad, for never leaving me alone and always giving support and encouragement. This is my gift of love to Him. I pray I may live long enough that I can give many more gifts to Him. Many more opportunities to speak of His love for all of His children.

Well, today will be a clean-the-house and do-the-laundry day. I can actually relax over the next 4 days, and then back to the business of publishing. My next project is the Prequel, THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell, which is basically written but needs a lot of revision to make it its best. So, another 6 months to a year and there will be a second book at the publishers.

Thank you so much for your presence and your support of the last 14 months. If I did not have you to write to I know I would not have had the strength to keep pushing to get the book done. The book is also yours.


Tomorrow we will discuss the trip that we are going on in 3 weeks. To California. Have a great day!

OUCH!

Well, I am embarrassed. There I was thinking I was so prepared and then the time comes when the publisher asks me to send the manuscript. There is a Browse strip and I opened what I thought was going to be all the files of the book and instead managed to only send one page, the Title page, period. There were no do overs, only a nice robotic message that Outskirts press had received my manuscript.

They have assigned a very nice Publishing Consultant to me but this was all done electronically and so I await a return e-mail telling me how to re-send the manuscript. What a way to start out.  But I must say that there is also no pushy salesperson. To this point.

So, I have been up all night, reading books to find out where my error was and I finally had the idea of how to do it. So I am ready to resend and expect to hear by phone from the Publishing Consultant later today.

I, meanwhile am going to go to sleep for a while as I am falling asleep at the keyboard.

Have a really great day and I might write again a little later in the day, after hearing from the publishing consultant, particularly if the news is good. OK, just fell asleep, so good night for now!

THE BIG DAY!

I am so sorry that it has taken me so long today to get to my blog. I woke up with a passion to finish polishing the book until it shone, and it is a good thing that I did, because it still had a raft of errors and typos in it.

Today is the day that I have my first meeting with my publisher. I am wildly excited and yet sick with dread of the unknown. It is just that this is my first time and as much as I have studied, read, and researched what I am about to do, I still don't really know exactly what they will require of me. What if I don't understand what they are explaining to me? What if I don't have the qualities needed, or the experience required to fulfill all that will be asked of me? The answer is, I don't care what it takes, I am pressing forward and am going to succeed no matter how much work and learning I have to do. Lord willing; if the Devil doesn't interfere!

Actually, my heart is happy because I truly believe that God has had a hand in this from start to finish and I believe that He will guide me and help me to understand what is needed to go forward.

This blog is going to be very short today because I have to go from writing it and posting it, to setting up the meeting with the publisher, which I must do in the next 15 minutes. So if I promise to tell you all of the gossip tomorrow, will you forgive me for the shortness of this blog? It is just that I am shaking so hard and my stomach is so on edge that I think I'd better give this up while I am still able to do something positive.

Thank you for your understanding and support, tomorrow will be a better day!

THE DEVIL'S WORKSHOP

Happy first day of the week to you!

After two days of struggle and strain, I have finally finished the "perfect" copy of the book that will be sent to the printers. After writing this blog, I am going to spend the day re-reading the copy that I think is so perfect, to see if it really is, or if it needs just a little more re-working. It seems to never end.

Saturday and Sunday I had set to finish typing this final copy, but every which way I was pulled away from the book. I developed such a nervous condition that I had to stop typing after every two pages and take a rest and some form of distraction. Chapter 23 was 11 pages long and rife with little errors. I just could not get my mind to concentrate and I began to get the uncomfortable feeling that my finishing this book was not on someone else's agenda. An agenda that hoped that I would crash and burn. I started having serious doubts about what I was doing and if the book was indeed worthy of publication; was I letting my readers down?

And then, I got a mysterious message from someone that I do not know, on Facebook. She purports to know me well and she wanted everyone to know that I was not miss Suzie perfect, indeed that I was a terrible person and what I write was coming from an insincere heart. She accused me of letting my daughter, forcing her actually, to live on the streets. It is obvious to me that she did not understand the situation for what it really was, and of course, she is right in a way: I am not perfect by any means.

In fact, I must make sure that you understand that I have done many wrong things in my life and did not always operate under the finest principles at the time. The worst things I have done were done when I was very mentally disturbed and not thinking in my right mind, however, I still did them and I must always remember my mistakes so that I don't repeat them. I have hurt other human beings and broken the law even a couple of times, and I am heartily ashamed of my actions and have repented their commitment.

The great thing is that God understands our actions and forgives our mistakes when we do teshuva (turn around from our evil ways and make restitution), and I know in my heart that God loves me and has asked me to write what I am writing, not because I am some perfect example of what a person should be, but because I have actually experienced doing very wrong things and yet have come to have a passionate love of God and am willing to put ideas out there that I believe come from the love He has for all of His children and His desire to let His children know that they are truly loved, no matter what their past has held; or holds.

So, I am a sinner of the first magnitude, and I can relate and understand where everyone else comes from and have a strong testimony that God loves us exactly as we are; just as we are right now.

I will spend the rest of today getting all of my ducks in a row and then on Tuesday, I call the publisher to prepare to send him, or her, the book. My stomach is in knots, but I am so grateful to have made it through the final typing and correcting process. Now, on to the next step.


Tomorrow we will go over the next step with the publisher. I hope you are having great success with your own book. Thanks for listening and caring enough to return every day, or so. You are really a great help to me.

A MESSAGE FROM HEAVEN

What am I trying to accomplish with the three-book series, THE GOD GAMES Trilogy?

1) To let you and all of my brothers and sisters across this planet know that God loves you just as you are right now.

2) That there is one God, with as many names as He has children who call upon Him. I choose to call Him, ONE, because He...o.k., let's stop right here. I do not see ONE as being either male or female, but rather ALL. There is nothing that exists that is not ONE. I have chosen to refer to ONE, when using a pronoun to represent ONE, as A; which stands for ALL. So let me rewrite that last sentence: there is one God, with as many names as A has children who call upon A. I choose to call A, ONE, because A is the sum total of all frequencies, all energy.

3) That love is not a weak, ephemeral feeling, but the great FORCE, the great energy that designed, created, and directs the Cosmos; that is the Cosmos; that is ONE.

4) That there are human beings living across the Cosmos. That they are unique as to looks depending on the conditions that exist on their particular planet, but that they were also created by ONE and loved by A. That we all play life games while we are living on our particular planet and that we all have the same goal: to live our life game the best way we can and come to a place in our lives where we realize that we are all a part of ONE and are one with all of A's children, and that we are all made from the energy of ONE meaning that we all have ONE within us as does everything and everyone that ever existed. We see ONE in all matter and anti-matter and all speaks of the love that ONE has for each of A's creations.

5) That we all have the opportunity to win our life game (one lifetime on any of the planets in the Cosmos) before we die, by coming to a love of all of ONE's creations, and to know that ONE includes each one of us; that we are literally all part of ONE - as nothing exists that is NOT ONE. If we come to these conclusions before we die, we "win" our life game and remain in Heaven doing ONE's bidding for all eternity.

6) And all of this is couched in the adventures of four of ONE's energynauts as they travel from planet to planet helping to answer the prayers of ONE's children.

7) In the first book, Legend of Kor, we experience life on another planet and follow the adventures of four energynauts who have come to Kor to answer the prayers for deliverance from a mega-maniacal dictator, Gog, who is trying to exterminate the orange Wales because they are looked upon as being inferior, and enslave the rest of the humans on the planet in order that Gog has total control of the planet and can run people's lives as he sees fit.

8) In the second book, Heaven & Hell, we follow one of the four energynauts as she goes through the process of choosing the conditions of her next life game on the planet Earth, lives through Hell-which is life on any one of the planets in the Cosmos, and then returns to Heaven after a long, and difficult life game, to see if she has won her life game, or not. Does she get to remain in Heaven this time around, or must she go through the process of creating another life game again?

9) In the third book we take a long look at our elder brother, Satan, as he conjures up a new scheme for getting back into Heaven by challenging one of ONE's children to a contest of wills and to see if he will stay loyal to ONE in all that he does. This book tells why and how Satan has so much influence on our life games, and why ONE allows him to tempt us and lead us away from eternal truths. The name of that book is, Satan's Challenge.

10) All three books are about the reality of Love and its great power to transform our rather downtrodden lives into one life that is centered in Love and service to our fellow beings, and to all of ONE's creations.


I hope I have not frightened you off of the book. They are all filled with great adventures and a scientific bent towards what life has to offer us across the entire Cosmos.