Is Recycling a Good Thing?

Of course it is, unless you are committed to writing a blog post every day in 2016 and you are drawing a blank. No, not drawing a blank, what is really happening is there are so many things you want to write about that you can't focus on just one of them long enough to craft what you really want to say.

I'm a writer and that paragraph above is not even well written, it's not you who is committed to writing every day, it's me. When I feel like I can't find what I'm looking for to put words to paper, I start to think about the hundreds of thoughts and ideas I've already posted that likely have not been read by anyone. Yes, I've been writing and blogging for a really long time. I started my Monday Motivator as a weekly email back in 1999. I uploaded it to a blog in 2007 (I think) and tried to upload as many previous emails as I could find. My MMs have all been read, but my Intentional Winning in Life blog posts have not all been read - I'm sure of it.

But I'm not going to recycle my writings unless I want to share and add to an earlier life thought. Reading back through old posts I find that as I continue to live and learn, some things change, while some things remain the same and I think, man, that's good! Did I really write that? Nice! 

With that, check out my earlier posts here and on my Monday Motivator and see what you think.

Write About Sailing

If getting on the water is not possible right now, start a "I Dream of Sailing" blog or journal. Write about what inspired you to want to sail, what were your early experiences that fueled that passion and why did you stop pursuing the dream. Were there people who were instrumental in encouraging or discouraging you? While you get all of this in writing, look up different avenues, or Orange Roads that you might like to take in the Sailing world. Keep in mind, creating a life that includes your dream can manifest in ways that have nothing to do with actually being on a boat. I would venture to guess however, that ultimately you do want to be actually sailing.

If you take the time to journal your dream and the journey thus far, you may find the inspiration that rekindling those early feelings creates is enough to fuel you to take action faster. Whatever that action may be, I know it will be worthwhile!

What Do You Think?

Has this month inspired you to find ways to get published? I hope so! I don't want to say it's not easy because I really feel that it is easy, but possibly it's not as easy to get to the top as you would like. Let's define the top as the place you see as your ultimate goal.

I say it all the time, if you are enjoying your time on the Orange Roads, it won't seem like it took as long as you dreaded it would. In fact, you may find these treks off the beaten path more fun that you thought and doors you never knew were there, are now open for you.

Please let me know if you submit something for publication. I would love to post updates on all of your progress through the year. Happy Friday and have a wonderful weekend!

From Kevin P.

Dear Kathy,

I completely get what you mean about the Orange Roads and maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I think I can write a great book without doing all kinds of other "little" writing projects. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but my book idea is really great. I honestly feel like it's just a matter of getting it in the right hands. You even posted it yourself telling us we have to believe in our work and toot our own horns.

Kevin P.

Kevin might be right, he may have a book that is accepted on the first submission. There are names for things like that; a hole in one, that's the name for it in golf. Winning a lottery jackpot playing just one dollar. I'm sure you can think of plenty one-in-a-million examples as well.

Kevin, I would say that doing what you love and believe in is paramount to success. Write your best selling book and submit the manuscript. In the meantime, I know you are doing all kinds of "little" writing projects because writers write. Whether it's a blog, a story, a book, or a newsletter for your business, writers write.

I stand behind my posts on this subject as some of the ways to get published. I am learning more every day and loving it. I can't stress enough the importance of proper English and grammar and having someone who knows as much as (or more than) you do to edit your work. I wish you the best and hope you will let me know when you get that "Yes!" and your book is available for me to purchase. Happy writing!

Meet The McKowen's

There are many aspects to making your living as a writer and I want to introduce you Ken and Dahlynn McKowen.

Ken and Dahlynn are Authors having many tittles to their credit (see below). Not only do they write for a living, but they provide writers with wonderful information about how to get published, where to find writing opportunities, and so many more pertinent topics. You can subscribe to their monthly Wow Principles Newsletter here. Not only can you sign up to get their monthly e-mail, but you can even go back through the past issues dating all the way back to 2005.

On a very personal note, Ken and Dahlynn have been my dear friends for years, too many to mention without making us all feel old! I wouldn't be the writer I am today without their advice, guidance, and editing. Ken and Dahlynn are the real deal and if you want to get published, don't wait, get over to their site, grab a snack and read, read, read! Better yet, write, write, write!

Find Ken and Dahlynn on Facebook and follow them on Twitter: @WineWherever.

The Formal Scoop on the McKowens:

Together, Dahlynn and Ken McKowen have 50-plus years of professional writing, editing, publication, marketing and public relations experience. Full-time authors and travel writers, when they reached more than 2,000 articles, stories, and photographs published, they stopped counting!

The McKowens have been consultants and coauthors for Chicken Soup for the Soul for the last ten years, where they collaborated with series founders Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen on several books such as Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul; Chicken Soup for the Soul in Menopause; Chicken Soup for the Fisherman’s Soul; and Chicken Soup for the Soul: Celebrating Brothers and Sisters. They have also edited and ghostcreated many more Chicken books for this company.

For acclaimed outdoor publisher Wilderness Press, the McKowen’s books include national award-winner Best of California’s Missions, Mansions and Museum; Best of Oregon and Washington’s Mansions, Museums and More; and The Wine-Oh! Guide to California’s Sierra Foothills. They are currently completing the first book of their new series, Wine Wherever: In California's Mid-Coast and Inland Region, and are actively researching wineries for Wine Wherever: In California's Paso Robles Region, the second book in the Wine Wherever series. If that's not enough, they are also the creators of 13 iPhone mobile winery-destinational journaling apps under the Wine Wherever brand.

The McKowens are the owners of Publishing Syndicate, which publishes travel books and also provides writing and editing services for other publishers. The duo ghostwrites for CEOs and founders of some of the nation’s biggest companies, and have even ghostwritten for a former President and a few California governors and elected officials.

Grammar And Punctuation Count!

No matter if you want to publish yourself with a blog just for family or dream of one day being a New York Times best selling author, you have to know how to write. It's not simply knowing how to spell and put sentences together, you need to understand punctuation and grammar, current writing styles, and by all means, have someone edit your work.

Not all of you may know what I mean by current writing styles. An example of this would be for those of us who learned to type on a type writer. We were taught to put two spaces after a period to start the new sentence. This was because on a type writer all letter spacing was the same regardless of if you were typing an "i" or an "M." With word processing this two spaces at the end of a sentence isn't necessary. There are several style resources but in the United States, most most non-journalism writing follows The Chicago Manual of Style. C By all means, research this for yourself as it is certain that you will at some point reference a Style Guide if you want to be an Author.

Writing is a skill and a talent. Anyone with a basic education can write, but that doesn't mean they can write well. The best way to learn to write well is to read and write a lot -- a whole lot! Have someone who writes well edit your work and if you don't have someone in your life who can do a good job, pay for editing services. Getting your paper back with corrections is a great way to improve your skill.

Writing is like any other profession, you must have the tools to do the job and in this case, it's a strong understanding of the language you are writing in. Add your style and tell your story, there are many Orange Roads to travel as a writer or Author!

I Want To Get Published!

This dream came to me from several different people and each one of them had a different idea about what making their idea of this dream come true would mean. For Robin, it is to freelance for national magazines, and for Kevin, it's to have a New York Times Bestseller (non fiction is his genre). For me, I want my Intentional Winning in Life anthology published on the same scale as the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. That's not too much to ask now is it?

In today's day and age, being published is as easy as creating a blog (more details on the how-to of that in a separate post), but many don't see blogging as truly being published. That's neither here nor there, this month we are going to look at all the ways Robin, Kevin, you, and I can make our writing dreams come true. Whether it's to write a blog to simply document your life or to pen a phenomenal work of literary art, you can make it happen. Who knows, with lots of hard work and a little bit of luck, you just might make it all the way to number one on the New York Times bestseller list!

My Ice Breaker Speech.

Talks too much. Gabby. Chatty. Loquacious. These are all words and expressions that have been used to describe me from the very young age of four. My mom boasts that I was talking in three and four word sentences before I was ten months old. Some say it’s the gift of gab while others simply think I talk too much. It’s no surprise then that I stand before you at a Toastmasters meeting.

I’m the wife of a Soldier, a winner, an author, and a baker. I’ve been in the military my whole life, I was born in and now I’m married in. Dave and I moved to Auburn in 2003 and we love it here. Shortly after we got settled in, I had Mason and in the same month, Dave got the call that he was being deployed to Iraq. To say it was a tough time would be putting it mildly. But being the optimistic sort, I put my sights on Dave’s homecoming and thought about what I could do with him while he was deployed. In our early telephone calls, Dave asked me to send him new release movies. “Are you crazy?” I asked him. I couldn’t afford to spend $24.99 every Tuesday on a new movie. The problem, Dave explained was that the movies that were available to him to watch, had to be viewed in the MWR (Morale, Welfare & Recreation) tent. He couldn’t take a movie back to his bunk and relax. I contacted Pat and Tom at KNCI country radio station and with News 10, Starbucks and Tower Records we launched Operation New Release, sending thousands of DVD’s, CD’s, and video games to Dave’s unit in Iraq. As the media was collected and sent over, Dave worked with his Battalion to put up a tent and build some shelves to create a rental station for Soldiers to check out a movie or CD, take it to their bunk to watch it, and return it to check out another. It was operated using the honor system and it worked! It worked so well, that the MWR facility at the nearby larger base, asked if they could take control and operate the shop. The answer was yes as long as they let the Soldiers take the media back to their bunk. What started out as a grass roots movement to get new movies and music to Dave, turned into a media library for all branches of the service from all over the world to use.

Having worked on ONR and knowing how important getting mail was to Dave, I realized that the time had come to resurrect a project I worked on nearly ten years ago. I’ve always been a talker, story teller and writer and I wrote a book called Creative and Memorable Ways to Keep in Touch. I’m the kind of person that sends little gifts through the mail. A few of my favorites are the classic care package, the “what if I won the lottery” letter, and even a comic each day for an entire week ending with the full color Sunday strip. We live in a world of instant this and immediate that and it seems to me that we need to touch each other more. When you send something through the mail, it has “you” on it. When it arrives, you arrive, too! I’ve written other things as well, like industry columns, company policy and procedure manuals, a weekly e-mail column for the last 10 years called The Monday Motivator, I manage multiple blogs, and many stories for Chicken Soup for the Soul. Speaking of chicken soup, I think what’s better for a cold is cookies!

I’m a baker but not so much with bread, I bake cookies and cakes. I worked as a cake decorator for years when I was first out of high school. I loved learning the tricks of the trade like freezing cake before you ice it. It makes it nice and firm so it’s easier to slice, fill, and ice and it actually makes your cake moister when it thaws out. Decorating cakes was a great way to feed my creative urges in addition to making a living. As I moved on in my life and on to other careers, I’ve found that my baking and decorating skills have served me in other ways, most notably as a mom. My mom always made lots and lots of Christmas cookies. When I was old enough to help her, my favorites were the kinds we cut out with cookie-cutters and then decorated with colored icing. It’s no surprise that now Mason loves to decorate cookies with me, the big difference is in our tool and techniques. My mom made basic butter cream icing and we would spread it on the cookies with a butter knife. The icing never got hard so you couldn’t stack the cookies or even let them touch each other. The butter knife didn’t allow much in the way of detail, either. Mason knows how to drive a pastry bag, when to use dragees and when simple sprinkles are better, and he knows that a little meringue powder in our icing makes it “set” so we can wrap, stack, or pack our cookie masterpieces for gifts. All of this information is really great, but nothing is as good as winning the praise of a 5 year old who boasts to all who will listen that his mom makes the prettiest cookies on our street! Has he seen anyone else’s cookies? I don’t know but winning Mason’s praise is right on target with the last 25 years of winning I’ve come to know. I win things.

I have an incredible history of winning things, primarily on the radio, but in drawings, all kinds of contests, and I even won a winning lottery ticket. People who know this about me often ask me how I do it. I tell them I win because I intend to win. I know I can, I play, I see myself being the right caller, or ticket number and I win. But don’t misunderstand, winning is like success, you don’t win every time and you have to play to even have a chance. You can’t succeed in business if you don’t set up shop or open your doors. Same same with winning. You can’t win that CD or those concert tickets if you are not listening and calling in when it’s time. I’ve won many things through the years that include trips to Hawaii, New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Mexico. I’ve won skis, dinners, expensive hand bags, backstage Meet & Greet passes with many artists, special events, and the list goes on and on. I’ve met Don Cheadle and had lunch with George Clooney, and one of my favorites, I was in studio with Sammy Hagar. That one took 10 years to pull off! I even won in my sleep once! Honest to goodness, I did! By far my biggest and best prize, the one that can never be beat is the day I won my husband on the radio. Dave called the radio station with an extra concert ticket and no date. He thought he was going to get to play a dating game and instead, he got me! That was in April of 1996, one of my luckiest days. I’ve been telling that story and talking about it ever since, lots of other things, too, but that one is a repeater…like me, it keeps going, and going, and going! Talks too much? Maybe. Has something to say? Definitely!

I Set A Mantra This Week

You all know I'm a firm believer in getting back what you put out. This week I have made my mantra, "How can I help you?" I've been learning a lot about social media and spending some time on facebook and twitter (@kdpartak) and I have to say, I've met some really wonderful people.

My intention for investigating this medium was to see how I could promote my gloves, my blogs, and my self as a writer. Here's what's come to me. I've met several really great ladies with whom I've spent many a late evening on the phone. One of these ladies knows the president of a large retailer and she is not only willing, but excited to take him a pair of our ZipperBack Gloves for consideration (www.zipperbackgloves.com). Another of these wonderful women is the neighbor of a large grocery chain and she's planning to take a sample box of twist caps (www.buytwistcaps.com e-mail me to buy!) to introduce me. My new friend Tania added polish and pizazz to my sell sheet to send to above mentioned president. I've also connected with the editor of a military magazine and a mom who writes a successful blog who I may be guest writing for in the near future.

This sounds like there's so much that's come my way, what have I given to receive all this love? I don't think I've given enough if anything at all, but it seems the women I've become friends with will disagree. I've been told that I've inspired, enlightened, and in a few cases, really helped them work through a tough situation. Is that enough? Only the parties involved can answer that, but for me, I want to do more. How can I help you?

What Is Your Intention For This Day?

Do you ever think like that? Do you actually intend for your day to be something specific? I do.

It's like your "to do" list only it's specifically about the energy of your day. I'm a list person. I might think it's because I'm getting older and my memory is not as sharp as it used to be, but I've always been a list maker. If I put it on my list, it likely gets done in a timely fashion. I can go about the tasks in my day not having to worry about forgetting anything. As I finish one, I go cross it off my list and start the next task.

I do this as I start each day in terms of, "what are my intentions for today?" I can review my list from yesterday and see what needs to happen, and I take a peek at my calendar and see where I need to be, and from there, I have a pretty good feel of what my intentions are for this special day.

Today I have a long list of things I need to do. I've already finished several of them.

My intention for today is to serve enough people with what I know that will help them, and in turn, see that energy flow back to me in terms of freelance writing work and Virtual Assistant projects.

In essence, you could say I'm listening to the wonderful Zig Ziglar, "You can have anything you want as long as you help enough other people get what they want." I love it.

Now, how can I help you?