Success

A Journey of Decisions.

Ronovan Journey, Thoughts , , , , , ,

We are a pitiful lot, aren’t we? We look around and see things we want. We want that car he has, or the job she has, and don’t forget the hair she has, but then you can buy that. That’s just the beginning of the wants. Can you imagine if there were a true Want Ads section of a newspaper?

I am about to do something that will help make me a successful and happy man. This something that a small percentage of humanity will do in order to reach that pinnacle of life. I am going to begin a journey.

This isn’t a journey to Disney World or the Grand Canyon, although for some, that may be the journey chosen. No, this journey, this Route of Life starts at my current existence and choosing my chosen point of happiness and success, making decisions along the way to make it all come true, before parking my Ferrari Portofino at the final Exit of Life.

You are thinking that we all do this every day of our lives. That’s not true. You see, we all have this GPS of Life we start out with at birth. Point A is the day we are born. Point B is when we should start making decisions about our future, and Point C is the end.

Point A you can’t control, you’re strapped in your car seat in the self-driving car that carries you through life and head to Point B. Most of us, when we turn 14 or so, the Age of Decision Making, move from the back seat to the passenger seat for a better view, just so we can see things we want. You are delivered to your high school advisor and she asks what classes you want to take, what school sports or activities you want to be in, and what are your plans for after graduation. You push the well-worn button number one, then as the window of your car rises, you fall in line behind your best friend and the other lemmings.

You enter Point C, the Exit of Life, into the GPS of Life with adequate restrooms available along the way and the trip continues. The car of your life drives along and when obstacles appear, it picks the easiest way around that obstacle and continues along the way with no side trips or new point C in your trip. All easy and simple.

You graduate high school. Sadly for you, your best friend is accepted to a college out of state because she made decisions you didn’t know about. You enter the college nearest to home. While you get your Business or Education degree you meet someone, because that is the GPS of Life’s most used route from your point B. You stare wide-eyed like a deer caught in blue tinted halogen headlights as you walk down the aisle because you are supposed to do that after you graduate college, even though you aren’t certain that you even have feelings of like, let alone love, for your future spouse.

Now you are at least happy your high school advisor suggested you enter the “adequate restrooms” into the GPS of Life, because if you are a man, you have married a woman, who at one time drank five margaritas and three shots of something that was never identified and danced for three hours without stopping, whose bladder has now suddenly become the size of a raisin or if you are a woman, you need to get warm because your husband doesn’t understand that normal humans need to use heaters during winter, not air conditioners, which means you need coffee every 30 minutes, and of course that means you need to pee, and the cycle continues. And let us not mention what happens once the children come along. And the dog. The incontinent dog that your wife just won’t allow you to put to sleep although it can’t walk or even poop without you helping it stand, and you sometimes have need to poke the poor thing to start its breathing again. Try to look cool in that grassy area at the convenience store holding up the back end of a Boxer so it can poop. That’s the Success Life of Happiness.

I think you probably see what the GPS of Life is all about. You are simply a passenger that makes the stops and visits the places between points B and C that are most common for people in your general area and demographic, which your high school advisor helpfully programmed in for you at Point B, the Age of Decision Making.

That describes a very large percentage of the world. For some, they can’t get off that GPS of Life route. They are born in to a world where there are very few stops between Point A and Point C, and there is no Age of Decision Making. But for people that are reading this, very likely you can reroute. And thank God, Oprah or BTS for that.

For me, a journey is a series of decisions you make. The first decision is often the hardest decision to make but it is the one that frees you. It could be you quitting a job to start your own business while you have no guarantee of success or income for the next month or six. It could be moving thousands of miles away from everyone and everything you know. It could be a change of your current family life package.

One piece of advice at this point, an aside if you will, tell your doctor about your beginning a journey, because it is very likely your blood pressure will be rising at first due to stress, unless your rerouting is a fabulous opportunity with nothing to leave behind. For the rest of us, read me, you don’t want to get misdiagnosed and end up doing a nuclear stress test.

People that can sit down, analyze their life and then say they are truly happy are those who have taken journeys and achieved success. You need to define what your success will be. For me, that journey is beginning late in life. But, is it ever too late to become happy? Is a person ever too old or too far along the GPS of Life route to swerve in to that next exit, take a deep breathe, and reroute?

By this time next year, I should be at a Point C in life, that new Starting/Current Life point working on a Point D, Success and Happiness. No one make any assumptions about what that C is. I am an odd one and it could be anything. I am the amnesiac who wrote an historical fiction novel about pirates and met a blogging friend from Australia, who was born in Malaysia to Chinese parents, at a Cracker Barrel in Georgia for breakfast and introduced her to grits for the first time in her life. In my life, anything can happen. And I want anything to happen. I am going to have fun until that Point E, the Exit of Life, comes along. Bring it on world, I got your GPS right here.

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Getting into a habit is a B*@#$!

Ronovan Blogging , , , ,

4 years? Yep, that’s how long I’ve been running this blog as of today. I’ve learned a lot during that time. I’ve gone through phases of being this person or that person in Blogland as I call it. Or did I used to call It bBogworld? Maybe now I’ll stat calling it the Blogiverse. Yeah, I like that. Anyway, I at one time was writing multiple articles a day about how to blog, poetry, writing, and anything else I could think of. Then I hit the wall. I made a mistake and didn’t even know it until way too late.

The mistake I made? I took a break from blogging except for my weekly haiku challenge. Even the challenge was a challenge to get out each week. Sometimes it would be 7:45 AM and the haiku is supposed to go out at 8 AM and I am barely able to find the energy or will to get the laptop and log in.

At first, I took a break to unplug for a while. I wanted to experience a bit of what normal people did. I wanted to watch at TV show, take a nap. I even wanted to work on writing my next book. Up to that break I had a daily habit of not only writing my blog but also being creative in working on book ideas. Then I developed new habits.

One habit was a good one, I read books. But then that turned in to an obsession almost, an addiction. Last year I read over 300 books. Now I can barely read a book. I start one and within a couple of chapters I already see where things are going, and I stop and then move on to the next book.

Oh, and then there were the naps. But then I have Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia, so I just end up sleeping whenever and often don’t sleep for a couple of days at a time.

Then there is the manic binge watching. I have this addictive nature, it runs in the males in my family, it’s why I don’t touch alcohol. Once I watch the first episode of something then I must see them all. Or if there is a genre of film, I just gotta see whatever else I can find in that genre or by that movie star.

Now here I am a year or so later and I’m trying to develop that writing habit again and thus find my friends once more. I did a little reading about developing habits and some of it is a bit daunting.  According to actual scientific studies it took people in the studies anywhere from 18 days to 254 days to create their desired habit. Now some habits are easier to achieve, and people are all different regarding ability, strength of will and determination, but it really is realistic to expect a habit to take anywhere from 2 to 8 months to create a habit. So, if you are as couch potato and you want to run an hour every morning before work, well look forward to a long haul but just realize that it’s normal to take a while AND if you skip a day you don’t have to start the months over again.

So here I am on day one of my new habit, or should I say old habit? I tried to do this last year, but I bombed. I chose to simply do a haiku in response to my challenge, just 3 little lines of poetry, and I couldn’t do it. Now I have no idea where to start except to write SOMETHING at least once each week.

I’ve put this out there to let all you newer bloggers and perhaps even some of my veteran friends know the dangers of taking that break. If you do take a break, set a time to start back up and stick to it.

The one good thing I realized after my break from blogging is … YOU CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT BLOGGING! So all you addicts out there, just remember, the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem. I did, and now here I am better and more sedate than ever.

See y’all next time.

Eddie Cantor-Slow down and enjoy life.

Ronovan #BeWoW, Quotes , , , , , , , , , , ,

Eddie Cantor Quote about Enjoying Life.“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going to fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.” -Eddie Cantor (September 21, 1892-October 10, 1964)

During research for a book I’m writing, I ran across details of a man I knew of, but did not know about. A great many people don’t know the man I’m about to mention. But they know something he’s responsible for. Something I was surprised about.

Eddie Cantor was an entertainer in the first part of the 20th Century. A star above stars. With his own radio show, hit records, and was an actor, dancer, musician, and comedian. And don’t forget, author. His autobiography Take My Life went through multiple printings in the first six months of its release alone.

He was a member of everyone’s family back in during his days. He was that type of a man. Some of you will remember his hit songs.

  • Yes! We Have No Bananas
  • If You Knew Susie
  • How Ya’ Gonna Keep ‘em Down on the Farm

But why I mention him today is something completely unrelated to entertainment. There used to be a newsreel program shown in movie theaters called The March of Time. Eddie Cantor decided to create a campaign to fight polio in America. He called it The March of Dimes. He asked people listening to his radio show to send President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a polio sufferer, dimes at the White House. 2,680,000 dimes later in 1939 the first March of Dimes was a success. $268,000 in 1939 would now be $4,370,112.22 today.

Eddie Cantor Quote about Success“It takes 20 years to make an overnight success.”

For more Writer’s Quote Wednesday posts, visit Colleen Chesebro’s bewow-network-badgeSilverThreading  post for this week by clicking HERE. This is also for my #BeWoW campaign of Writers writing positive and encouraging articles each Wednesday. Links of a #BeWoW nature can be shared in the comments below and tweeted with the obvious hashtag.

Ronovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in December of 2015. He shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

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@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by Ronovan Hester 2015

Plan for Success!

Ronovan Blogging , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Did you read my 10 Tips to Make Blogging Enjoyable. Traps to Avoid? If not, it’s still there…waiting. Why do I mention it, other than hoping those of you that missed it go and read it? There is actually an 11th Tip. Unfortunately I didn’t think of it in the 11th hour, I thought of it after that. But that just means I get to write another Blogging Tip article.

Plan, Organize, Organize, oh and Organize!

We think we organize, but we don’t. We have some categories we click the little box next to for each post but we begin to write things and come up with random categories. Before we know it we have countless categories or we have posts in an existing handful that don’t make sense.

Organizing from the very beginning of blogging makes for a lot of great benefits.

  • Easier Reader Navigation
  • Better Reader Enjoyment
  • Easier SEO Results
  • Less Headache and Mess for You, The Blogger

This isn’t my first go around with an article about organization. My 3 Best Blogging Tips for a Successful Blog  was one year ago discussing menu structures, how to do drop down menus and create real PAGES and fake ‘pages’ as headings for drop down menu sections. Yep, step-by-step.

Now, if you’re new, the Category is basically like a folder you place a post in and you can then actually make a page in your menu using that category. You can look at my menu around my header image to see what I am talking about.

Mine looks simple, right? In reality, mine is a mess. I have over 1300 articles now, posts, poems, tips, videos, and whatever other random things I’ve come up with. I tell you that so you know when I talk about a need to organize I know from experience.

The problem? The mess?

I realized too late my system for organizing was not adequate. Why? There was no system. For someone who spent years organizing and mapping out things for Plan Your Blog for Successlocations around the country, I can’t stand the condition things are in. But the process of correcting all the mess is overwhelming. I’ll do it, slowly, but slowly is the key word.

If you are a veteran blogger, take a handful of minutes a day and do a page of your content in the Dashboard each day. No more than that. If you do more, you get tired of it, disgusted, and it becomes work. Blogging should be an enjoyable part of our lives, even if we do it as a job.

Now, I have great articles, and I’m not tying to be all boastful. People have truly enjoyed some of my work, but people can’t find those articles. I can’t sometimes unless I go into my Dashboard. (Sorry, Dashboard is blog-speak for where all of our tools and useful things are.)

So organization leads to easy Reader Site Navigation.

To organize your content you need to:

  • Look at what the post you’re doing is at its general level. Is it a Tip, a Writing Piece, Music. What is it? Now you have your Headings/Page Names.
  • What is the post specifically about? Is it a Love Poem, a SciFi story, or a Blogging Tip? Now you have your Categories.
  • Now, for Tags, you go into all the wide and varied things people might think of when looking at the post; Poem, Romance, Desire, Paris, Ocean. I only mention Tags because we are talking about naming of things. This has nothing to do with organization so much, but does in a way when people do a search of a word or you use a Tag Cloud. (For WordPress, don’t use more than 13 Tags or your post might not show up in the WordPress Reader.)

There are countless tips out there about how to organize and boost traffic by managing your content. Not long ago I met Janice Wald of MostlyBlogging.com. The topic of blogging seems to be something she is passionate about and seeks out things to know. As I wrote the article I thought it would be great to ask her for some articles she thought might be of use about the subject of blog organization. Here are some related articles from her site you MUST READ:

The first thing you need to read is; How to Build the Perfect Blog Even if You Don’t Know How This will give you a basic checklist to go through to make sure you have prepared a post worth posting and being read. What you post is your reputation, image, brand. You want to get it right from the beginning. Some readers will never come back if you are bad from the beginning.

Perhaps you are wanting to know if you are doing things right. You think you are but how do you find out? Well, teacher Janice has a report card for you to go by. How to Grade Your Blog  (By the way, I got an A.)

What is another form of organization? How do you know for sure you are doing a good job of it? The report card above won’t tell you if you are getting the results from your efforts. And really there are some less technical aspects that you need to look at. How to Get Loyal Visitors to Repeatedly Return to Your Blog Here you will find a real success  story from a real success blogger.

Now, one final thing from Janice I like is, How to Increase Blog Traffic with Content Curation. It’s not about organizing but how to get more out of those old posts you wrote that no one sees these days. No amount of organization will get all of your work seen. But if you know how to spread that content around, you can get results, maybe even better ones at times.

But not all success of a blog has to do with organization or spreading the word. I for one can vouch for that on some level. Sometimes a blog achieves success not by organization but by personality. My friend Hugh Roberts of Hugh’s Views & News focuses more on the personality and feel of blogging, a blog, and the blog life to be successful. Yes he does the organization but he likes to provide tips on a personal level. One popular article to check out  is, Is Your Blog As Friendly As You Think It Is? It is one of his most recent but high on his most popular post list.

From me you can check my Most Popular list at the bottom of the blog, currently. There are two that seem to get attention the most over time, How to Survive the Blog Life. and Blogging Personality: The Key to Success.

BONUS TIP!

While I was writing the above and reading old articles of mine another tip came to mind.

Leave Your Post to Marinate

We write a post and want it out NOW. Big problem with that is the ugly word TYPO. Nothing worse than doing a Writing Tip article and you have typos everywhere.

Let your article sit a few days, a week or more if you can. Then you come back and read it and you see the problems, and read it in the Preview window, like it would be on your blog, NOT in the Post Editor. Post Editor windows allow for easy skipping over words and even sentences. Our eyes are more accustomed to truly reading something on a Blog page as opposed to the Editor page.

(All images created by Ronovan unless otherwise noted.)

REBLOG, TWEET, FB it, or GOOGLE+ it. Share it however you like so all those linked get clicked.

Much Respect-Much Love

Ronovan

Ron_LWIRonovan is an author, and blogger who shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer though his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.WordPress.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015

The dream of a writer; the reality of an author.

Ronovan Inspiration & Motivation, Writing , , , , , , , , , , ,

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”~C. S. Lewis

I believe every person passes through numerous dreams and down many roads on the way to what they will finally become. For some of us we find the roadblocks, the forks in the road, the detours, and at times a dead end. I’ll be using several quotes from famous individuals today, as I am prone to do , however I also enjoy using quotes of my own.

“There is no such thing as being lost. We’re simply taking a more scenic route.”~Ronovan

I have taken many forks in the road in my life on the road to becoming an author. I’ve even sat stalled on the side of that road, but I always find my way back. Those moments of “adventure” add to the experiences my characters are able to struggle through or joy through.

“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.” ~Ayn Rand

Not having a good memory after the concussion, I’m not certain if I ever wanted to rule the world of writing. These days I like the sense of accomplishment when completing a novel and submitting it. Even those form rejections are okay these days. Rejections means I tried. Lots of rejections means I tried a lot.

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”~Confucius

Having that memory problem and other health problems means it takes me a bit of time to complete things. I’ve had to re-read chapters to know what I was writing to begin with…short  term memory problems can be a bear for a writer. But just as time takes care of many things, makes many things better, and adds flavor, it also adds to what you can put into a project you are working on.

“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”~Norman Vincent Peale

When I wrote my romance, as a challenge to myself to write outside my comfort zone shortly after my accident, I didn’t know what I would do with it. I fussed over it for a time. Then recently with the downfall of my laptop I returned to reading that romance after some encouragement.

Not halfway through, I discovered I was an author. I read on the kindle screen a book. Not only a book, but a very good book. I was smiling and feeling along with the characters.

I am now working on that book and will not stop until it is in a state of submission, either through the mail or by headlock.

Time. There is nothing that can be successful without time. Even a race is won after hours and years of practice.

“Write what you know, but show what you feel.”~Ronovan

what-you-feel

Much Respect
Ronovan

Ron_LWIRonovan is an author, and blogger who shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer though his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.WordPress.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015

God and Meditation.

Ronovan Thoughts , , , , , , , , , ,

Are you a Christian or even an Atheist and afraid of Meditation because you think it will turn you into a Buddhist, turn you away from your belief in whatever you believe?

Don’t laugh. A great many people associate Meditation with Buddhism because it is such a central part of that philosophy and way of life.

You’re already meditating.

Meditation, for Christians should not be something to fear. In fact, if you are doing as you should, you are likely meditating and not even realizing it. Each morning you should be spending quiet time preparing for your day by praying or talking with God. You are preparing yourself to not allow the events of the day to sway you or influence you.

During this time you are pushing the world out, those sounds and thoughts, and you are focusing on one thing, God. During these quiet times you may not even be thinking of anything but simply being at peace and calming your mind for the day ahead. Perhaps you are repeating the word “calm” or “peace” in your thoughts over and over. A one word prayer.

When you are in these moments you find things become clearer to you. All the outside stimuli are blocked away and central ideas come into focus and you discover solutions to problems or clarity of purpose, and even a clarity of scripture void of the traditions man has applied to them in trappings and rhetoric.

Jesus was a man who meditated.

“But Jesus did not meditate, so why should I?” What do you think Jesus was doing while fasting in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. While fasting he must have been doing something. Preparing himself for his ministry ahead? How? By talking with God, talking with the Father, by meditating. And through this preparation, at the end of those 40 days and nights, Jesus was prepared for the trials of Satan.

People forget a few things about Jesus. For one, he was a man. Yes, he was God in the form of flesh as man on earth. He had to be. For him to be a sacrifice for us he could not be the all powerful form of God without the ability to be harmed, feel pain, go through trials, be tempted, and all the other things a human could go through.

He performed miracles by asking the Father for His help. I mention that so no one thinks he had these powers on his own and thus was different from normal humans. But how did Jesus stay pure to be the perfect sacrifice for humanity?

Remember how Jesus would often go off on his own, away from his disciples? What do you think he was doing during this time? Remember in the garden on the night of his arrest and he asked the disciples to keep watch? What do you think he was doing?

Jesus was the rock star of his time of ministry work. Everywhere he went people wanted something from him. These things could be simply to hear him speak or to get some miracle from him. But there was a constant buzz around him. Jesus needed to get away from all of that and be alone. He needed to refocus and reenergize. He was human. He had a human body. He had a human mind, all of which were susceptible to fatigue and deterioration. He needed his quiet time.

The Bible speaks of meditation.

Meditation is not a religion. Parts of this article came to me during meditation. People want to be enlightened. For a Christian—as a Christian, I feel as though I am enlightened already. As I meditate in my quiet moments and refocus on God, He gives me thoughts and revelations.

Does the Bible speak of meditation? I know some of you are wondering. If it’s not in the Bible then you don’t want to hear about it being possible, even if you are a Christian or not. Joshua 1:7-9~“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Meditation is not just sitting quietly it is also a way of life. You can meditate through every moment of life. In the above scripture, Joshua speaks to this. The word meditate (hâgâh)  here has meanings such as; to utter, speak, muse, imagine, to meditate. To get the full benefits of the Word of God you need to be in it throughout your day, in all your actions. To get the full benefits of meditation you need to be in it throughout your day, in all your actions.

To prosper (tsâlach, tsâlêach), to make progress, to advance; all definitions of the word translated as prosperous above, you need to be in whatever it is you are doing and stay on the path of what you are doing at all times. Otherwise you are sidetracked and have to either start over or take time getting back on the track where you left off.

I’m a doer, not a sayer.

As a Christian, by combining these two the Word of God/prayer and Meditation that go hand in hand, written in the Bible, you can achieve a divine enlightenment and peace of mind. I don’t say this as some guy trying to get you to do something; I say it as someone who does it.

I did it before my accident two years ago, lost it for a while, and now you may have noticed in recent months a change in my writing. I live what I am talking about. I didn’t call it meditation, but that is what it was.

josuha-1-8

Much Love, Success, and Respect

Ronovan

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© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015

Don’t ALLOW people to control YOU.

Ronovan Inspiration & Motivation , , , , , ,

Check this article I wrote back in May of last year. It was one of the most popular at the time and considering the few followers I had then, it has a good number of likes. It will come in handy to have read as the weeks pass here on the blog with some things I have planned.

ronovanwrites

Don’t ALLOW people to control YOU.

by: Ronovan

 

Why are you not a success? You know why, because everyone is right about you. You give up every time.

Sounds a bit harsh doesn’t it? It does when put like I just did. But that’s the way we are told or the way we think it.

I wrote recently about Female Executivea lady executive from Coca Cola that I heard at a business luncheon. In that article I wrote about doing your best at whatever you are doing at a given time. Well I mentioned she gave two pieces of advice that day. I actually typed those pieces of advice up and saved them on my computer. What? You think I remember all this stuff?

As important as doing your best always is, controlling you is even more so. What do I mean by controlling you?

You LET others cause YOU to…

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A New Life Awaits

Akriti Opinion Articles , , , , , ,

Life is all about having your moments. Moments that sweeps you off your feet. Moments that take you by surprise. Moments that make you feel proud as an individual. One of my life changing moments happened some months ago when I was offered an opportunity to move abroad. I took my time, made an informed decision and took the opportunity. Now, a new chapter of my life will commence.

As a child, the United States fascinated me as a nation. There was a prepossessing quality about it. Right from the landscape to the people to the culture to the expansion and advancement, I just loved it all. When I grew into a young woman, I loved the sitcoms. In fact I’m a diehard fan of a lot of shows broadcasted on networks like CBS, ABC, and NBC etc.  My current favorite is Louie. However, I never knew working with these networks and making it big would be in my future. Writing about it today makes me so happy.

Moving to a new place is always exciting. When the relocation takes place across hundreds of miles in not only a new country but also on a new continent, it becomes even more thrilling. I am someone who is a lover of travelling. More than travelling, I’m a lover of solo travel. I, my bag pack and my travel journal make an excellent combo. Exploring new places and wayfaring through different cultures is magical. Travel transforms a person. Travel offers an individual endless opportunity. It adds a new perspective in one’s life. It makes a person responsible. Most importantly, travelling makes a person a little more of who he/she really is.

Moving to United States will be an experience of a life time. I can vouch for it. Every experience counts – the good and the bad.  Each experience will be a bit of a teaching moment. Every time I think of landing there, an innocent but subtle smile shows on my face. I do have some friends and folks there but there is a huge difference between listening to people’s experiences and having experiences of your own. There is just so much to learn, so much to sink in. Moving out to another country is moving right out of your comfort zone and into a world that is strange but inviting.

My job profile demands me to spend the majority of my time in California. That is where I will be based. California is one of my favourite states in the USA. The others being New York, Florida, and Massachusetts. I am sure I will keep adding more places to this list. California allures me, and not just now but always. Cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose , San Diego etc. make it such a happening place. Top notch universities like Stanford, UCB and Caltech make it one of the finest hubs of education too. Not only is California the hub of the entertainment industry in the world but also the home to ‘Silicon Valley’.’ Not to forget, it is one of the most liberal states

Can’t wait to catch a plane and land there. I guess, my first weekend will be spent taking a tour of the city I’ll live in – San Diego. Oh the lovely city of San Diego along the coast of the majestic and beautiful Pacific Ocean with its delightful beaches.  I have been reading some journals on the place and am extremely happy to know that it has one of the best climates in United States. San Diego remains pleasant throughout the year. I come from a place in India that shares this feature so I feel comfortable. A combination of good weather and good landscape is pure bliss. As a kid I always wanted to be a part of the crowd watching dolphins performing some impressive aerial acts at Sea World. Back then I had no idea that one day I will be in that crowd.

After San Diego, Tinsel Town  – Hollywood is what I’d love to visit.  My first step in Los Angeles might give me goose bumps. That is my level of excitement. Walking on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, visiting all the studios which are world famous, taking a tour of the eclectic Hollywood Museum , all of these activities are on my ’To-do-list.’ Just writing about all this right now makes me so elated. Only God knows what will happen when I am  there in person.

Living on your own is a profound learning experience. Managing the smallest chore at your house to making last minute arrangements for a board meeting is all a part of that experience. Meeting new people every day with diverse ethnicities is exciting. Getting to know the most professional people and seeing them work is inspiring. They say, “If you’re the smartest person in a room, you’re in the wrong room.” I believe this is to be true. Seeing people much more established than you makes you want to move up in life too. Performance is the only key to step up that ladder of life. The more the challenges, the more is the growth in an individual. It does get difficult at times but I’ve always held the view that difficulties are like training camps. Every difficulty, every struggle makes you stronger and a little cut above the rest.

Being away from home, away from the people I love, away from my food, away from everything comforting is scary. But taking a giant leap of faith and trying something out of your comfort zone is always worth it. It refines you. It really does. My people will be missed but I know they are comforted to see me making it on my own. They are proud I am pursuing what I wanted to. I feel grateful that I have parents that have supported me like a solid rock all this while. I come from a family where empowering daughters is a priority. Growing up I didn’t really realize the importance of having a liberal family. But today, I can’t thank them enough.

Not everything will be perfect but I will hang in there getting exposed to new facets of life every single day. I will grow. I will evolve and I will adapt. I have always ‘Lived it real.’ I will continue to be this way even in a foreign land. This is my moment and I’ve waited for it for a very long time. Now it’s time to step out from one home to another.

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Photo credits:

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Akriti

akriti-mattu

The secret to a positive day.

Ronovan Inspiration & Motivation, Opinion Articles , , , , , , , ,

I wanted to do a Throwback Thursday Post, but I have so many I found it difficult to sort through them all to find one to share again. I did find this one in my folders on my computer. I didn’t find it in my posts and thought why not share it now. This is a favorite topic of mine.

How do you start your day? Yeah, I know, we all hit the bathroom first usually, but let’s say everything is set and good to go, what do you do?

More than likely you are beginning your day the wrong way. The way you start your day has an impact on the way you live your day.

“Bull, Ronovan. Other people dictate my day!”

I don’t want to hear it. When I wake up in the morning, I am the one in control of my thoughts and actions. I am actually in control of my reactions the entire day. If I begin with a positive and centered self, a truly focused self, then I can be positive in my interactions for the day and stay positive throughout the day.

If you don’t start out focused then you are simply reacting the rest of the day and often times with negative emotions attached.

“So how do we do this, oh great and wise Ronovan?”

Yes I hear the sarcasm in the voice.

It’s different for everyone.

What get’s you calm and focused?

Here are examples:

Mediation

Prayer or Reading the Bible

Exercise

A cup of coffee and:

  • watching the sun rise
  • reading the newspaper
  • listening to music
  • looking at the birds in the bird feeder
  • reading the next chapter in a book

Listening to podcasts, music, or talk radio

Mentally going through a checklist of your day

Just knowing what you have planned for the day, even if a routine day, makes it easier on you.

Beginning your preparation for the day the night before can help

I like having my clothes ready, and an idea of what my breakfast will be and if I am needing to prepare a lunch or not. I like to think about people I will come into contact with, that I know about, and if I have an appointment and be mentally ready for that.

There are little things we can do to take care of the parts of life that are in our control, so why not do it? If I can start my day off calmly then I am not beginning it running around already hectic and in a bad mood then that’s a great start.

There are numerous ways to become calm and centered for the beginning of your day. The point is to do it.

I have had to take control of my life more lately. Even being in the physical and mental state I am in, my life is hectic with two blogs running and basically life in general. I have felt life crashing lately, with the crashing even seeping into my writing, so I have taken control of it to the extreme for the moment. Do you know what happens to your life if you are not in control of it? If you don’t start yourself off focused? You lose it, and you could lose your friends. Before that happens I decided to refocus, like I once did, every day. I am prioritizing and organizing.

Some people may not understand it, as it’s difficult to explain, but I am fine with that. This is me, the most important person in my life. I am the most important me in the life of the people I know. I want to be here for both them and me for a long time.

Here is a quote from an ancestor of mine.

prepared

Looking at this post I wrote back in September of last year, it seems I need to once again refocus. I’ve lost a lot lately. And I lose more every single day. I received an email, an understanding email from someone, then they stopped following me on Twitter. Not certain I understand that, but I am coming to terms with something. I don’t have to understand everything. The best thing I can do is try to understand me and what I am about to do, whatever that may be at the time.

Preparation. Starting my day off the right way. It’s not only the secret to a positive day, it’s the secret to a positive life, a successful life. A successful life? That’s for another post.

Much Respect

Ronovan

 

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Success will follow happiness. #BeWoW

Ronovan #BeWoW, Blogging, Writing , , , , , ,

be-wow-bloggerBeing positive is a difficult thing to do at times. Even with a lot of practice, you still have to practice some more. A week or so ago I was in the hospital and I will be honest, blogging wasn’t on my mind. Now, I’ve added a blog.

Writing is my life. I can’t sit around feeling sorry for myself even when dealing with Fibromyalgia or a white cell count double the normal. While in the hospital I was thinking of how to do a new beginning to my novel. I wasn’t happy the previous 3 or 4 versions.

Sitting and dwelling in misery only increases the misery. Now I have been back a week and am busier than before. Three websites, four if you count one I don’t post on unless I am moved to do so. It’s that kind of site. I don’t force it. I am also posting daily, Monday-Friday, writing tips on my Facebook page.

Why? I have lots of reasons.

  • The more I write the better I get.
  • Leaving a paper trail of memories.
  • Supporting authors.
  • Making friends.
  • Supporting bloggers.
  • Inspiring people to try new writing styles.
  • Hosting a Challenge where people have met and become friends.
  • Writing to leave something for my son to be proud of some day.

I noticed as I finished I never mentioned wanting to be famous. Even as an author I don’t really want the fame associated with the success. I just want to be a success as a writer, an author.

I look at writing the way I look at blogging. Do your best, ignore statistics. Get the job done. Be happy doing it. Success will follow.
Let’s connect.

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Sincerity & Integrity in Blogging & Life

Ronovan Thoughts , , , , , , , , , ,

sincerity-integrity

This is a rather unusual Thought this week. It rambled in my mind over so many areas that I decided to see how it rambled out in words. This will be about Blogging and about Life. For me the two are mostly the same. What dictates what appears on my blog is also what dictates my life.

The Reason

I don’t know about you, but I receive emails asking for tips on how to build a successful blog. They then go on to define successful by how to increase Followers, Likes, people to Comment on their blogs. Well they normally do it through the comment form on my About page but it shows up in my email.

Success is a term that is defined differently by each person. For some reason people think I  have successful blog. I am not exactly sure why. I don’t know really what measures you would look at for that. And in all honesty, I don’t concern myself with it unless I am doing tips. It’s not something I think about every day. People don’t know my numbers so I suppose they have an impression of what they must be. If you have been following me long enough you will have noticed I don’t do Follower milestones any longer. It’s just not a thing. Perhaps I should do Comment milestones but I don’t think WordPress has those.

The Secret

Anyway, here is something people might find surprising that I have done. I don’t look at my stats any longer. Well, I did once this past Thursday because of a recent hashtag movement I started and wanted to see what happened, but that was more out of curiosity than hope or gauging success because the hashtag part is secondary to what I am doing on Wednesday.

How do I know if I am doing okay with my blog in regards to reader visits? I look at ‘Likes‘ and ‘Comments‘ IF I have a desire to know. And I notice in the notifications if I have people ‘Following‘.

What does this have to do with a Sunday Thought?

“In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.”~Titus2:7-8

How I write and what I write about I do with honesty, sincerity. I don’t do that intentionally most of the time. I write what I think and see what happens. If I have an opinion I write I will go and check some facts before I move on with it.

Sincerity

I can read a post by someone and tell if it’s sincere or not. Or I suppose I should say I can get a feel of sincerity or not.

How? Well there is something you have to consider, does the post match the personality that’s been displayed? There are some great posts out there but when I read them I can’t quite fall in to the grasp of them because it doesn’t fit with the regular content or the actions, or the comments of the person. There is just something missing.

Integrity

Another part mentioned above is integrity. There are just so many ways you can say something about blogging. It’s difficult to be original, however I don’t steal ideas. I experience the things I put out there and then write about them. In fact I intentionally don’t read the experts blog tips because I want to discover things on my own.

And if you really want to know the truth, those experts aren’t so expert at times. I like to give tips the real bloggers can do, not those with nothing but blogging to do in their lives.

I write novels, so I can’t blog all the time. It seems like I am around a lot but I’m not here as much as people think. Also with my health issues I am actually unconscious for more hours than I care to comment on.

Many people can read tips from me and know who wrote them when they are on another person’s blog. Imitation is not the highest form of flattery when it comes to things like that. At least not so much to me.

The Work

Sure, people notice I can write an article in 10 minutes and put out 20 of them in a day with no problem so they don’t think I work at it, the thoughts behind it.

I think all the time. It has taken time to develop my style and voice in my writing and although I don’t say anything to people that copy me, I still am not a big fan of the blatant copying. You know, if you do something, if you copy an idea, if you even copy phrasing, why not put a footnote in the post giving credit? I’ve done that. (Yeah, remember I was a History teacher that graded reports and gave a zero to a kid for taking a book and writing word for word. And yes, it was 40% of his grade.)

I wrote a poem once that was inspired by two other posts I had read. I gave the two bloggers credit and linked back to their blogs right at the beginning.

The Why

Why do people click Like or Comment on my things and perhaps not the copycat’s? Everyone that visits my blog knows that I put every ounce of heart into every sentence. Even if it might make me look bad or it means the reader doesn’t agree with me, they are fine with it because they KNOW I am for real. That’s the only reason I can think of.

Sincerity and Integrity goes a long way in your life. If you follow those two things it’s difficult to be spoken against. We all mess up, but we all should try to get back to the S&I in our lives.

I’ve messed up over time but I’m good now. I stick to what I am and don’t stray from it, even when people are angry at me for being the who I am now.

Ronovan Writes

 

 

 

 

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Writer’s Digest: Self-Publishing to Success to Book Deal

Ronovan Writing , , , , , , , ,

Writer’s Digest has many great articles to read. I’ve been saving their articles for years. Being in a community of people who want to publish some type of work, be it writing or photography, I thought this article would be a good read for those who have the time.

How Hugh Howey Turned His Self-Published Story “Wool” Into A Success (& A Book Deal)