31st Dec2008

Yet Another Writer Busted for Lying

by Aaron

Polygraph

Good Wednesday Copious Notes readers. Yesterday CNN broke the news that yet another book based on a true story is a hoax. You may remember a couple of years ago how James Frey was busted about his book ‘A Million Little Pieces’ and how the book, which seemed like an amazing story, was significantly embellished. This time it’s Herman Rosenblat and a book that was set to come out in just a few short months titled “Angel at the Fence”.

The story is simple in that Rosenblat was in a Nazi concentration camp and claimed a little girl would throw him apples over the fence each day. A chance meeting 10 years later lead to them marrying. It sounds extraordinary and it was. The only true part was that he was really in a Nazi concentration camp. His publisher has pulled the plug and demanded all their money back from his advance. The book was to be made into a movie and that, interestingly enough, is still slated to be done at this point. The final nail in the coffin is that people have reported his real love story was good enough where he didn’t need to lie for the book.

Below is an excerpt from the story but feel free to click the above link to read the whole story.

Finally, I’m going to tag this post in my ‘Tips’ area because here is a tip for all writers: Don’t Lie! How’s that for a concept?

Holocaust ‘greatest’ love story a hoax

(CNN) — Oprah Winfrey once dubbed it the “greatest love story” she had ever heard: a boy held at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II and a girl on the outside who tossed him apples to keep him alive. They eventually married and grew old together.

It turns out the story of Herman and Roma Rosenblat isn’t true.

The two had told their love story for years and years, inspiring a book deal, an upcoming movie, and stories across the globe on television,……

30th Dec2008

Having Fun by Being Smarter

by Aaron

I had a somewhat frustrating day today with writing, so I wanted to post today some fun that I think will make you guys chuckle and let us have a laugh. At times I’ll check out Fail Blog which is a site similar to LOL Cats but just has people failing in a funny fashion. Naturally for us here at Copious Notes we’ll focus on spelling and grammar.

I hope you all enjoy.

fail owned pwned pictures
see more pwn and owned pictures

fail owned pwned pictures
see more pwn and owned pictures

fail owned pwned pictures
see more pwn and owned pictures

29th Dec2008

Emerging From the Holiday Fog

by Aaron

Forest

Hello and happy Monday everyone! I hope everyone is well rested and coming out of the crazy holiday week with some rest and fun gifts both given and received. For me, I worked most of the days but I did get Christmas Day off, which made everything A-Ok!

So… on to writing!!! Wait, I have none. Hmmm. Well that’s where I’m going to pick things up for this week and start to work on something I think I’ve needed for a while: a schedule or deadline. Recently I signed up with Suite101 to freelance because I felt I would work better under conditions where things are due by a certain date. So far this has worked well for me and I’ve written two out of the ten articles needed in a three-month time span.

Right now I really need to get moving on Spirit Hackers and I also want to write some a couple of Flash Fiction pieces to send out for submission. I’ll be posting a ‘to-do’ list within the next few days.

Finally, I want to welcome Jen and her Scribbling blog to the Blogroll party you see on the right-hand column. Jen is a fellow Absolute Write member who I’ve been talking to for a bit and we decided to help promote each other’s blogs. I highly suggest checking out her site and seeing what interesting words she has to share. Welcome Jen!

23rd Dec2008

It’s a Major Award!

by Aaron

Christmas Story Leg Lamp

Happy Tuesday everyone! I’m going to keep it short and sweet for everyone: happy holidays! For this week I’m just posting today to wish everyone safe travels, good times with family and even maybe hopes for fun gifts.

I won’t be posting this week at all since everyone including myself will be busy and the internet will (OMG, I can’t believe I’m going to say this) take a back seat for the busy days we are in. I am thankful for you, my readers, and the friends I have made along the way of this writing & blogging journey. I hope the holidays are great for everyone.

Happy HanaChristmaKwanzadan! I’ll see you guys in a few days.

19th Dec2008

Freelancing: Article #2

by Aaron

Suite101 Logo

Happy Friday everyone, and if it’s happening near you: happy snow! I know it’s getting to be crunch time with the holidays and so I’m just going to post a quickie here.

This week I worked on my second Suite101.com article and thought I’d be in the clear with no problems. Apparently my skills with writing in the third person are lacking and I had to re-work the article a couple of times. I have realized that I naturally speak in the first-person for blogs and in articles I speak directly to the reader. Suite101 wants all articles in the third-person, making me have to go back into the article and edit it to fit properly.

Today I was notified that the article was approved and now it’s ready to go! If you’re so inclined, head on over here to read the article.

I hope you all enjoy it!

17th Dec2008

Stalled in Neutral

by Aaron

Shifter

I just discovered that I haven’t updated here in almost five days. That’s a long time to go without blogging. Even worse is that I haven’t touched Spirit Hackers. The one positive is that I did get my second article published on Suite101. It’s currently being reviewed for edits and then should go live soon.

I feel like I’ve been stuck in neutral for the past week, and not just with writing. I feel like I don’t have enough time for everything I want to do. Couple that with the desire to call out from work every day makes getting up the energy for anything tough. I don’t know if it’s the weather or the hustle & bustle of the holidays, but as my wife would say: “I’ve lost my pep.”

I totally slacked on my blog reading and finally got to catching up and posting some comments. Sorry to everyone who I’ve been out of the loop on.

I unfortunately don’t have any writing updates for you guys. I did come up with an idea for a non-fiction book but I’m not sure really if it’s something I should pursue and I have no clue where to even begin. Additionally, I don’t want to start any new projects until Spirit Hackers is complete (which at this pace will take years). I was thinking about the book the other night while driving home from work and I will need to consider re-working my outline and adding some major aspects to the book once the first draft is completed. I very well may need to start the book earlier in the timeline to give it more ‘meat’.

Finally, I was listening to a sci-fi podcast the other day and heard about this book called FlashForward. The Amazon description is A science experiment that unwittingly shuts down all human consciousness for two minutes is the catalyst for a creative exploration of fate, free will and the nature of the universe in Sawyer’s soul-searching new work (after Factoring Humanity).

This book seems to be right up my alley and I’ll definitely be reading it next. Anyhow, that it for now. Thanks for sticking around through the ‘blah-ness’.

12th Dec2008

The Freelancing Has Begun

by Aaron

Suite101 Logo

I mentioned last week that I had been reminded about the freelancing options out there on the internet and decided it would be a good start in establishing myself as a writer in some sort of published form. I would like to announce that my freelancing career has officially begun!

Late last week I was informed that Suite101.com had reviewed my application and approved me to be one of their writers. After a busy weekend I spent some time on Tuesday writing up an article and submitted it. With no surprise, it was retuned to me requesting some minor edits. Yesterday those were done and the article is now up on the site! You can read the article here.

One thing that does get me slightly down is that I cannot reprint the article anywhere for one year. This means that I will not be able to place them here on Copious Notes when I get new content out there. To help compensate for this, I have added a link at the top, right which will get you to all my articles. Additionally, I’ll post here with a link to the article whenever a new one goes up.

I’m pretty excited that I am actually writing for a site and it’s content that people may actually get to see. I don’t expect to get any real money out of it, so I’m not quitting my day job any time soon. :-) I hope you all enjoy it and I’ll let you all know when I get more content submitted and approved.

11th Dec2008

I’ve Got All the Answers

by Aaron

Who Are You

Happy Thursday everyone! Back in this post I decided it was time to give you guys the backstory on yours truly. I opened up the comments section to your questions and I’ve finally gotten around to posting my answers for you all.

I encourage any other questions you may have and thank everyone for their submissions and thank everyone who participated. So without further delay, lets get into it:

Colby asked So, aaron, I know you write…what else do you enjoy doing? Like hobbies, favorite movies, etc.

When it comes to hobbies, I’ll say it’s definitely computers, TV, movies and video games. I know this is typical guy stuff. :-) I also have a 1981 Delorean (the Back to the Future car) which I love dearly.

When it comes to favorites, here’s the quick run-down: Movie- Back to the Future, TV Show- Stargate, Lost, and too many to list, Band- The Smashing Pumpkins.

Rachel asked Um, well, this is my first visit to your blog (I wandered over from AW blog thread), so I don’t yet know what I don’t know about you. In the meantime…
Who is your blogging hero?

Rachel, I would say it would be Melanie, Janna and Auria. It’s because of their great feedback and sense of community that I strive to keep up with my blogging. They get updates out much more than I do and I hope to achieve their consistency at some point.

Creative A asked When and why did you start blogging? What were you hoping to accomplish? 


According to WordPress, I started blogging on January 4th, 2007. My goal was to achieve many things. First and foremost it was to write more often. Years ago I blogged just for friends to read and I realized that I did a lot of writing during the few years I had it going. Having Copious Notes allows me to be creative or post a ‘brain dump’ whenever it’s needed. Additionally, I want to use it as a networking tool so my name gets out there and I can meet interesting people to help further my writing career.

Melanie asked What are your most and least favorite words, and why?

This is definitely a tough question. I’ll start with my favorites I use when writing: reverberate, theoretical, objectively, copious. These words just sound nice and not too complicated. When it comes to words I hate, I don’t really have specific words. I really hate a deliberate use of complicated words for someone trying to prove they’re better than everyone.

So that’s where we stand right now. Additionally, I asked for writing prompts in that post and was happy to see a few come in. Look for those soon!

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