Are you a ghostwriter? I am partially one.

And…

How do you know when a story needs one or both?

My current work in progress (WIP) has a short introduction (prologue.) So, I thought doing a little research on the subject might be in order. After all, I do want the reader to read past the first couple of pages. Right?

Here’s what I learned about the two.

• A writer can use both to bookend a novel or use just one.
• A prologue is where you can introduce something important to the story.
• An epilogue is the cherry on top. The ending after the ending.

What I learned about a prologue.

A prologue should include one or all the three elements.

1. Setting/fictional world and how the character came to be there.
   • Set the stage with a frame of reference for the reader.
2.  An event key to the story and a character’s response.
   • Describe with action and suspense, not just adjectives.

Time for another Monday Marketing post.  Now, this wasn’t a scheduled blog post.  However, I felt the need to write this after getting a little frustrated at some of my fellow writers.  Let me explain…

After the near disaster of my previous attempt to reactivate my ABN, I thought I’d better do a quick how-to for others.

FIRST!

The website you need to go to is:

https://abr.gov.au/

[Note: no www required]

That web address will take you to this screen:

Whether you’ve never had an ABN before, or want to reactivate an old one, this part of the process is the same: if you’re a sole trader, you have to click ‘For Business, Super funds & Charities’ [as shown above].

[Note: there are unscrupulous companies that hire people as employees but then force them to get ABNs in order to avoid having to pay entitlements such as holiday pay, sick leave etc. The government will NOT issue an ABN in these circumstances. In order to qualify as a sole trader, you must be carrying on some kind of business of your own…

Public Domain ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_Marriage#/media/File:FleetStreetMarriage_300dpi.jpg

Marriage ceremonies associated with the Fleet Prison is London were many in the mid to late 1700s. It is estimated that in the 1740s over half of London’s marriage ceremonies took place in “marriage shops” surrounding the Fleet Prison. By some accounts, 800,000 people named in the marriage records of the times were married in this manner. These were what some termed as “clandestine” or “irregular” marriages. According to GenGuide, “A marriage without banns or licence or conducted away from the parish of residence of both parties was considered ‘clandestine’ and a marriage that took place in one of the party’s parishes without banns or licence or away from the parish of either party by banns or licence was considered ‘irregular’. Whichever way was chosen, the union was in the eyes of the law a legally binding contract. Many nonconformists married in this manner often…

…this ol’ Scots Jurassic scribbler has long since realized that any complaining or whining from me, about anything, seldom achieves positive results… and that fact pertains especially to my publishing aspirations… over the past ten years, I’ve experienced the sum’time exhilarating, sum’time depressing, pendulum familiar to many authors… when my first wee literary baby came hot onto Auntie Amazon Kindle, I savoured the high that came with a successful first book sales volume… that tome reached #3 on Amazon (all titles) at the time… subsequent titles were equally well received… from a novice self-publisher, I graduated into having an excellent, small, hybrid publisher, but amicably parted company with them after a year, as the sales were not to my expectations, dropping to levels well below those that my own marketing and promotional activities generated… in between then and now, I’ve also dabbled with a freelance agent, but equally friendly severance…

Today is Earth Day … the 48^th anniversary of Earth Day, to be exact.  I am always surprised by people who say, “Yeah, so???” Or those who say “What the heck is Earth Day?”  So, please bear with me while I explain very briefly.

History – In The Beginning

The concept for Earth Day was conceived in the mind of then-Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Senator Nelson recruited help from Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey and others, and on April 22,1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the…

A few weeks ago, there was a big argument on Twitter on whether writers with little money should be kept out of publishing. There were those who wondered how writers not being able to pay the $20 PitchWars fee, how could they afford to be on the internet? Basically, they were saying that if you can’t afford to pay, you shouldn’t be trying to write a book or publish it. I’m on a fixed budget with mental health issues and I don’t think it’s fair that myself, or any other marginalized writer, should be blocked from publishing because of funds. I responded early when the post came up, not in negativity toward the PitchWars creators as they put up a voucher which I applied for, but then I heard about all that happened on Twitter as far as some writers arguing that $20 wasn’t much and if you couldn’t afford…