Two Updates
#1 – a new Lone Star Rambler entry is here.
#2 – my Bookbub Author Page is now live. Follow me and leave a review!
Paris! Yes! “I don’t even care if the Germans snore.”
I’m headed to Paris. Follow along here or on The Lone Star Rambler blog.
http://adamholtwrites.blogspot.com/2016/01/headed-to-paris-next-week.html
Enter The Conspiracy Game Giveaway
Goodreads Book Giveaway
The Conspiracy Game
by Adam Holt
Giveaway ends December 04, 2015.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
#30forThanksgiving – develop your own writer’s notebook!
Ever wanted to write but haven’t had the time to start? Well, if you are reading this, the time is now. Join me this this November with #30forThanksgiving on Instagram. Use the writing prompts I post there to kickstart your own writing. https://instagram.com/adamholtwrites/
PROGRESS ON BOOK THREE!
Ice-Cream Wielding Robots and Tumblr
(from Adam’s blog – adamholtwrites.blogspot.com)
Dear Blog,
How am I just telling you? My work was featured on the Astronomical Wonders blog over the summer! I’m flattered and humbled (flambled maybe?) to appear on Tumblr’s most popular astronomy blog. It has over 150,000 followers, more than the population of Waco.
How did this happen?
A few weeks passed. I thought nothing of it until the young man emailed and told me he was enjoying my books. Then he asked if he could feature them on his Tumblr blog, Astronomical Wonders. I said sure and decided to look up the blog. When I typed “Astronomical Wonders” into google, it began to finish my words for me. That’s usually a sign of high traffic. That’s cool, I thought, the blog has good web presence. Then I clicked on the blog.
Candy, Poker, Faith, Hope, and Love – 9/11, My Grandmother’s Birthday
On September 11th I celebrate my grandmother’s birthday, as does the rest of my family. She had nothing but unconditional love and patience for her grandkids, as well as a jar full of Butterfinger’s, and a willingness to stay up until the wee hours of the night watching wrestling and playing poker for pennies with her squirmy grandkids. She had an easy laugh, great sense of humor that she used sparingly, a blind dog named Radar, and a respect (but absolutely no fear) of hurricanes. I couldn’t convince her to leave town during Hurricane Ike. “Don’t you worry about old grandma,” she told me. “I might get sucked out a window, but whatever will be will be.”
She was the best, and her birth, September 11 of all days, reminds me how to live.
September 11th broke her heart. Ever a patriot, the wife of a WWII veteran, she chose to honor the national tragedy and celebrate her birthday earlier in the week for the rest of her life. It was the sort of thing she always chose to do: to put the needs of others before herself, whether it was her grandson’s interest in wrestling and candy or her nation’s need to honor the fallen.
May our national tragedy and the memory of our loved ones inspire us to love our families, our neighbors, and our enemies. This is the best defense of freedom: to use it, to shun self-interest and strive to love others in the way that we love ourselves. It is a high calling, a duty to God, a respect for country, and a reflection of the best of what we have lost.
But it’s not about loss. It’s about rebuilding. Whatever was broken, let’s rebuild it in the image of all the soldiers that bought freedom abroad and at home, and in the image of the upright grandparents who shower their grandkids with candy, poker, faith, hope, and love.
The Space Writers – A Unique Writing Camp Ages 12-14
Great Day at Uplift North Hills
A rather awesome and totally packed day at Uplift North Hills. Take notice, world – writers are headed your way.
The 30-minute writing sessions gave students a chance to experience the writing process and discuss its joys and challenges. You know, those great days when “your hand moves of its own accord,” as a 7th grader commented. Then again, we all have those other moments, where that inner voice criticizes every key or penstroke. Quieting that voice is job #1 for the writer. Job #2 is pretty simple. “Keep the pen moving.” That’s all a writer tries to do on a first draft. A writer keeps the pen moving.
Want to be a writer? Well, those are your first two jobs. Done those? Then practice is possible. 15 minutes every day will get you started. Where will it take you? Why don’t you find out?
Go, and do not delay.
-A