Xavier's Nest

New Keychains from Copper Cockeral

2010-01-09T05:32:00.000-05:00

Photography, Art, and Designs by Maine artist and photographer Wendy C Allen aka EelKat © 1978 - Present

The postage stamp choices below represent some of the different designs and themes created EelKat for Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts A Twighlight Manor Company.

Please Click Each Keyring Below To View It In A Larger Size

Celebrate our 6 year anniversary with us! (Selling art on Zazzle since 2004!)

This is the sister gallery to The Pidgie Fund, both of which are owned by The Twighlight Manor Press.

Other galleries I run include: The Rabbit Hole and Old Orchard Beach, Maine Photography.

My mom and 3 brothers each have their own Zazzle Galleries, so be sure to check out their work as well @
Tiddledeewinks
FlashAllen
The Juiceman
Johnny 5 Allen

You can find out How I Became An Artist.

For those of you who have asked what I use to create my art work, here is info about My Art Equipment, and for those just starting out, I recommend using these books because they are the Best Art Instruction Books and the ones I use myself.

You can find out more about me @ Who is This EelKat Person Anyways?. And you can find out more about Copper Cockeral @Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts

Thank you for visiting my sites.

~~EK

Like my designs? Want to sew cloths, tote bags, curtains, and pillows to match? Now you can using my line of custom fabrics created using the same designs sold here on Zazzle! http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/eelkat Fabrics available in clothing, quilting, designer, or upholstery weights. Prices starting at just $18 a yard. Do you see one of my drawings that you like and want made into fabric? Let me know. All of my paintings will eventually become available as fabric, but it's a long process, so if there's one you want to see come out sooner than others, just tell me. Thanks!

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Photography, Art, and Designs by Maine artist and photographer Wendy C Allen aka EelKat © 1978 - Present

Etsy RE: Quit Your Day Job.....What Is Your Day Job?

2010-01-07T06:14:00.000-05:00

I just found out Etsy has a forum. You can expect to see me less often on other places for the next few weeks while I go through reading the entire site. ;) There 5 minutes and I'm already posting answers! :)

Quit Your Day Job.....What Is Your Day Job?

indiepin says:

Hello! well after a recent Storque reading binge, I read most of the QYDJ articles and it got me intrigued as to what most Etsians do for their "real" day job (if they've not already quit and gone full time on Etsy, that is). I'll start, and I'd love to know what you folks do! I graduated from University with a Psychology degree in the summer into the harsh economic climate of the recession and so at the moment Etsy is my main "job". However, I am also a professional magician, so I end up spending most evenings working events! Who's next?

Posted at 1:18 pm, January 6 2010 EST -

When people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them: I'm an artist and author. My blog's bio-intro reads: "You have reached the official blog of Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat. I am an author, artist, fashion designer, doll maker, rooster and feral cat rescuer, Squidoo addict, alien contactee, 5 time NaNoWriMo winner, CosPlayer, Steampunk life actor, huge Sesshomaru fan, vegetarian animal rights activist, and the original outspoken Proctor and Gamble Boycotter, who lives on a farm in Old Orchard Beach, Maine." Yeah, basically what it says there, that's my "day job". About 90% of my income comes from my art sales on Zazzle. My second largest source of income is Squidoo but this is keeping in mind that I am listed as one of Squidoo's top 10 highest paid members as well, due to the fact that I am there #3 member for having made the most lenses at 507 articles written and more on the way - I am in the extreme minority on Squidoo, most folks barely make a few cents per month, so don't go quit your day job than join Squidoo thinking you'll make a full time income there like I do, because out of 800,000+ members there are less than 30 of us that make that much money there! In addition to writing non-fiction and how to stuff online, offline I'm an author of short stories, chap books, novellas, horror, sci-fi, romance, The Twighlight Manor Series, and a couple of novels. I also write doll pattern booklets and non-fiction books about ufology, alien abduction, and crytozoology. I also have been an Avon Sales Rep since 1997, but I basically sell it so that I can buy their products for my own use at huge discounts, so it's not really a big source of income. Additionally I'm an on call temp/seasonal sales associate and fitting room attendant for Macy's, so I work there off and on for a total of about 8 weeks a year, usually during the Christmas season. The rest of my income is spread out across CafePress, Associated Content, eBay, Amazon, LuLu, LinkShare Affiliate Programs, and of course Etsy is my newest addition to my income stream and hopefully in the long run will become my top source of income. My goal is to have my Etsy store bringing in $5,000 per year by 2012, and expanding that goal to $20,000 per year in the long run once I've got it fully set up and established. In short, my career is to do whatever pops into my head at the moment and find a way to make money at it for a strange assortment of multi-streaming incomes, so I don't end up having all my eggs in one basket. Waiting for Emmett to come. http://twitter.com/EelKat http://www.facebook.com/EelKat http://eknano.blogspot.com http://eelkat.wordpress.com http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/132659 http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/user/132659
What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Photography, Art, and Designs by Maine artist and photographer Wendy C Allen aka EelKat © 1978 - Present

NaNoWriMo RE: Trying to earn money in alternative ways?

2010-01-07T00:40:00.000-05:00

RE: Trying to earn money in alternative ways?

[quote=DLDzioba]So, I work fast food for a living currently. I hate (with a capital hate) my job and I would love more than anything to get out of there. So this year I'm going to try and find another way to make a living. Phase one is I am making and am going to be attempting to sell jewelry both online and at the myriad of craft shows in my area. This scheme actually came courtesy of my mother and best friend who pointed out that since many people comment on the handmade pieces I wear I should try to sell something. Step two will be to find a bookstore or library that is hiring as I'd love to work in a bookish environment. Sadly I've been working on step two for a few years now and one of my local bookstores just closed. But one can dream and I've got a much more solid idea of what I do not want to do thanks to my years of slinging chicken. Step three is to quit my fast food job when the time comes. Can't wait for that. Very scary. Very Big. I hope I can do it. ---------- [/quote]

Your Big Scary is similar to part of mine. (Part meaning that my list had I think 15 different goals on it, this being one of the fifteen. =P) I don't know where I posted my list, I think it's on the second or third page of the sticky thread for lists. Anyways . . . I started making dolls in 1980. I make a lot of dolls. Big dolls, small dolls, from tiny micro mini doll house dolls to big 32" dolls and everything in between. Here's the kicker: I make my own patterns, so every one of my dolls is 100% one of a kind. It's an expensive and very time consuming hobby. Skipping ahead to Big Scary. For 2009, one of my goals was to open an Etsy account and start selling my smaller (thus easy to ship) dolls. I created a new doll pattern just for that goal. Life got in the way, seeing how the publication of my 2008 NaNoWriMo incited my LDS bishop to threaten to excommunicate me if I went ahead with the book publication. In the end I set up my Etsy store last spring, than spent the summer trying to deal with a lot of local hate and prejudices, and was not able to get around to sewing up the dolls until this fall, a few weeks before NaNoWriMo. I did complete my goal - I opened my store, I finished a few dolls, I started selling them. Goal complete. Now moving on to 2010. As a result of church members arriving at my place of work and harassing my manager, I no longer have a job. Thus the need to add job searching to my list of 2010 Big Scary goals. But than I'm thinking, you know what? I really, really, really, like sewing cloth dolls and designing patterns for cloth dolls, and well, why not instead of focusing on searching for a job, I focus on turning my doll making hobby into a full time career? So, the major goal of my 2010 Big Scary is this:

-- Take my Etsy store and turn it into a full time business -- Focus on patterns over dolls (they sell better) -- Get my patterns written down and printed up -- Design a new set of dolls/patterns each moth until I have a wide selection to sell

My goal is to turn this into a business that pays no less than $20,000 per year (I've checked user stats, this is not an uncommon income for Etsy sellers - at least not for the ones who are really serious about Etsy and handmade crafts as a career.) Of course, that is a big, big goal, because the average Etsy seller makes less than $1,000 per year! Not very many Etsy sellers reach the $5,000 per year income line, and only a few hundred are earning $20,000+ per year. However, the fact that others ARE doing it, means that it can be done if you have the will and drive to stick with it and the willingness to do the marketing and research and product development needed to finally find the item that people will buy. And I'm pretty positive I can do that. So, since I already had this idea, pretty well mapped out by December, I was ready to go once January got here, and as such, I am well on my way to getting this goal completed! Since January 1st I have done this:

So far I have got one pattern nearly completed, and the cover of the pattern book completed, the layout for the pattern book nearly completed, and am ready to have the first run printed up as soon as it's finished. In other words, my first pattern should be in print and for sale by the first week of February providing everything goes as planned. More dolls are made, several of them just got listed, with more to be listed soon, and more to be made after that. I've started sketching out designs for a series of fairy and mermaid dolls, which I will start sewing, in a few weeks, and writing the pattern as I go along.

If I continue at the rate I'm going now, by the end of the year, I should have 7 or 8 or maybe more patterns finished, printed, and for sale. That translates in to a least 500 sales at about $10 each for a total of $5,000 minimum income by December. (I don't plan on reaching the $20,000 goal in the first year, but I think by 2013, I should be bringing in no less than that per year via my Etsy store.) Of course, the $20,000 goal is not just figuring in sales of doll patterns, but also the dolls which sell for $30 to $2,000 a piece, as well as selling other items I sew, including dresses, CosPlay outfits, and Halloween costumes, however, I don't plan on adding those sections to my Etsy store until 2011 and 2012. Like I said, this is a long term goal which I plan on progressively expanding in small steps, until I eventually reach the point that this is my full time income. Most of 2009 was spent in market research and writing up a projected 5 year business plan, while setting up the basics. Now that those things are out of the way, 2010 is going to be spent in product development and "laying the groundwork" while bringing in a supplemental income. 2011 and 2012 will be spent expanding out of a start up business into a full fledged business, and hopefully by 2013 my sewing/pattern making/Etsy career will be seeing big time profits. So, there you have it. My long term Big Scary. Waiting for Emmett to come. http://twitter.com/EelKat http://www.facebook.com/EelKat http://eknano.blogspot.com http://eelkat.wordpress.com http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/132659 http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/user/132659

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Photography, Art, and Designs by Maine artist and photographer Wendy C Allen aka EelKat © 1978 - Present

RE: Your Zazzle Gallery - ACCOUNT VERIFICATION (Copyright laws)

2009-12-24T01:32:00.001-05:00

Your Zazzle Gallery - ACCOUNT VERIFICATION

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meowee

Posted: Thursday, September 03, 2009 10:39:39 PM

Groups: Member

Joined: 7/27/2007
Posts: 13

Hi all. I had a question. I keep getting an email from Zazzle containing the following.....
Dear Zazzler, Thank you for becoming a contributor at Zazzle.com! We at Zazzle.com abide by all intellectual property rights (such as copyright, trademark and rights of publicity) as noted in our user agreement: http://www.zazzle.com/mk/policy/user_agreement,and Content Guidelines: http://zazzle.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/zazzle.cfg./enduser/std_adp.?p_faqid=143. We just had some quick questions about the designs submitted in our marketplace:
1. What are the sources of these images? Where did you find them?

2. Do you have permission to use these images for commercial resale? Failure to respond to these questions may result in the removal of your products from our marketplace and account being suspended by Zazzle. We look forward to your response! Best Regards,Content Management TeamZazzle.com, Inc.

I answered them and said that most images I had scanned and some had been given to me. This still hasn't satisfied them, so now I get a letter today saying.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you. Subject---------------------------------------------------------------Your Zazzle Gallery - ACCOUNT VERIFICATION Discussion Thread---------------------------------------------------------------Response - 09/03/2009 01:21

Thank you for your email. What are the original sources of the images that were scanned or given to you? Do you have permission to use these for commercial resale? Best Regards,

I wrote and said yes. I have asked 3 times if there is a SPECIFIC item to which they refer, but they won't say.

I have 100s of images I have saved over time and I cannot account for each and every one that I have since its been 10 years or so..

Also, I get another letter saying someone returned a shirt of mine. I asked them to go ahead and delete the item, altho I had not sold one of those shirts in well over six months.

Do they do this on a regular basis just to remind you or am I in big trouble??

Thanks very much

I had this happen to me a couple of years ago because I have all the book covers and character illustrations from the Twighlight Manor series on one of my galleries. I of course am the creator of the series as well as the author of the books and the artist who did all of the illustrations.

I was stunned and pleased to get their email, because the books have been out of print since the 1980's and they were pretty obscure to begin with (pretty much only fellow Mormons had access to them, and not many Mormons are into horror, so the series didn't have a big following, even when the books were in print).

However, as I said, I was quite pleased with the fact that Zazzle recognized that these were copyrighted images and characters, and was quick to ask if I was in fact the owner of the copyright (which I am). I would hate to think that people could copy my art and sell it, because Zazzle was not doing their job and making sure that only the copyright owner sells their art.

My characters may not be as popular as Disney's or StarWars, but that doesn't make the copyright any less important. You wouldn't steal from Disney would you? Than why do you think it's okay to steal from others?

You can be fined $150,000 PER ITEM SOLD, and YES, if I found someone copying my art off Google and selling in on Zazzle (or any place else) I would contact Zazzle find out how many items they sold, multiply it by $150k and take them to court, because I have no tolerance for vile low life thieves. Sorry to sound harsh, but yes, if you are selling some one else's art, YOU ARE A CRIMINAL and you BELONG IN PRISON with the rest of the murders, thieves, drug dealers, and thugs who think nothing of disobeying the law. Sorry, but that is a fact, and no amount of "but I found it on Google" is going to keep you out of jail once the copyright owner is contacted by Zazzle and told that you are stealing their art.

Play it safe - don't steal from others and don't use art that you have no permission to use. Believe me - you can not afford a lawsuit and the jail time is not worth the few pennies you'll earn from it.

Waiting for Emmett to come.

http://twitter.com/EelKat
http://www.facebook.com/EelKat
http://eknano.blogspot.com
http://eelkat.wordpress.com
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/132659
http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/user/132659

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

RE: Your Zazzle Store » Lucky, or unlucky?

2009-12-24T00:43:00.000-05:00

Your Zazzle Store » Lucky, or unlucky?

savileislove

Posted: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 6:22:57 PM

Groups: Member

Joined: 8/26/2009

Posts: 94

Are you guys lucky or unlucky on zazzle? Im feeling quite half and half because i get around 70-90 views A DAY, but never end up selling anything! Ive got 3 sales so far on zazzle, and im hoping for more.

What do you consider yourself?

Back to top

I don't see it as luck.

When I first joined in 2004, I had 15 products and no editing to my store front, and did zero marketing. I averaged $3 in sales per month for the first 3 years.

Than in 2007, Zazzle did a huge overhaul, and it became easy to create products (the old Zazzle was just hell to create a product.) By April I had 2000 products in my store, had begun a marketing program, and by Sept I was getting monthly checks for $25 - $30.

In April of 2007 I started creating Squidoo lenses for my Zazzle products. Each of my galleries has it's own lens, and each of my paintings, has it's own lens, and I made a series of how-to lenses for artists, each of those featuring my Zazzle products. All together I have created 507 Squidoo lenses, with nearly 200 of them being devoted to my artwork. After creating these Squidoo lenses, my Zazzle sales skyrocketed.

On my master gallery are links to each of my smaller galleries, so much of the traffic trickles to them from my master gallery. Each of my smaller galleries pays $25 - $75 about every other month to every 3 months.

Today, I have 8000+ products in my master gallery, plus several thousand more across 7 smaller galleries. I spend an average of 8 to 10 hours a week painting and drawing. Another 10 or 12 hours a week scanning art, uploading art, and than I spend4 or 5 hours per day 4 or 5 days per week creating new products. I average about 10 to 30 new products added to my gallery each week. And now my monthly checks from my master gallery are rarely less than $75, with a few being over $200 and sales continue to grow each month. My master gallery get 100+ visits on "slow" days and and over 1,000 visits on "busy" days. If my earnings continue to rise at the rate they are right now, I will be a "ProSeller" by Spring of 2010.

In short, there is no "luck" in my success on Zazzle. My first couple of years on Zazzle, I spent only a few hours a year on Zazzle and made only a few dollars. In my last 2 years on Zazzle I spend and average of 20 - 30 hours a week working on Zazzle, and now make a full time income here. So, no, not luck, but hard work. You get out of Zazzle exactly what you put into it.

Waiting for Emmett to come.

http://twitter.com/EelKat
http://www.facebook.com/EelKat
http://eknano.blogspot.com
http://eelkat.wordpress.com
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/132659
http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/user/132659

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

Repost: In Memory of Spot

2009-12-22T18:10:00.001-05:00

New From The Pidgie Fund: "The Bemen Town Musicians" staring: Spot Utopia Junior Thunder-Puff watercolor painting by "Wendy C. Allen"

The Bemen Town Musicians-staring-Spot,Utopia,Junio by pidgiefund
Shop for stamps at zazzle

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Photography, Art, and Designs by Maine artist and photographer Wendy C Allen aka EelKat © 1978 - Present

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Photography, Art, and Designs by Maine artist and photographer Wendy C Allen aka EelKat © 1978 - Present

Copper Cockeral Info - 6th Anniversary

2009-12-21T05:57:00.002-05:00

Photography, Art, and Designs by Maine artist and photographer Wendy C Allen aka EelKat © 1978 - Present

The postage stamp choices below represent some of the different designs and themes created EelKat for Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts A Twighlight Manor Company.

Please Click Each Stamp Below To View It In A Larger Size

... . . .. ...........

....

............

Celebrate our 6 year anniversary with us! (Selling art on Zazzle since 2004!)

This is the sister gallery to The Pidgie Fund, both of which are owned by The Twighlight Manor Press.

Other galleries I run include: The Rabbit Hole and Old Orchard Beach, Maine Photography.

My mom and 3 brothers each have their own Zazzle Galleries, so be sure to check out their work as well @

Tiddledeewinks

FlashAllen

The Juiceman

Johnny 5 Allen

You can find out How I Became An Artist.

For those of you who have asked what I use to create my art work, here is info about My Art Equipment, and for those just starting out, I recommend using these books because they are the Best Art Instruction Books and the ones I use myself.

You can find out more about me @ Who is This EelKat Person Anyways?. And you can find out more about Copper Cockeral @Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts

Thank you for visiting my sites.

~~EK

Like my designs? Want to sew cloths, tote bags, curtains, and pillows to match? Now you can using my line of custom fabrics created using the same designs sold here on Zazzle! http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/eelkat Fabrics available in clothing, quilting, designer, or upholstery weights. Prices starting at just $18 a yard. Do you see one of my drawings that you like and want made into fabric? Let me know. All of my paintings will eventually become available as fabric, but it's a long process, so if there's one you want to see come out sooner than others, just tell me. Thanks!

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

NaNoWriMo RE: The Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things Together 2010 Edition

2009-12-09T05:11:00.000-05:00

Well, it's that time of year again. NaNoWriMo is over, Script Frenzy is a few months away, and that can only mean one thing:

It's time for: The Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things Together contest!!! YAY!

Home » Forums » December and Beyond! » The Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things Together

kaliawai512	Big, Fun, Scary Lists
250,065 / 50,000 Official Participant Joined: Oct 17, 2007 Location: Denton, TX, U.S.A. Posts: 239 Posted on: Dec 1, 2009 - 20 08	I noticed that there are a lot of individual BFS lists on this forum, so I thought maybe I could start a thread for everyone to list their BFS lists, if they haven't done so somewhere else already, and if they would like to here. :) What do you want to do for 2010? What challenges do you present to yourself? What are you undertaking? Here is mine for 2010:

[quote=kaliawai512]

What do you want to do for 2010?

What challenges do you present to yourself?

What are you undertaking?

[/quote]

The 2 that I know I will do are:

- Win Script Frenzy 2010
- Win NaNoWriMo 2010

Those two are the easy things on my list, that there is no question that I can and will do them. ;) They are both big and scary and definitely fun, but small compared to the rest of my list.

As usual, I will give myself a nice long list and hope I'll get at least one or two things checked off. And, as usual, some of the things on my list are *little* big scary things and others are *huge* near impossible big scary things. All are things I want to do, and who knows, maybe this will be the year that I actually get then done!

=============

* * * MY LIST * * *

=============

(NOTE: The goal numbers are not in order of importance, just in the order that I thought of them.)

Goal #1:

- Continue my multi year winning streak, by winning again next year:
- - - - Win NaNoWriMo 2010.
- - - - Make 2010 my first ever win at Script Frenzy.

- Become the local ML for Script Frenzy

Goal #2:

- Expand on my 2009 Big Scary Winner. Last year I started an online Etsy store, sewed up a few dozen voodoo dolls (and 2 voodoo owls), and have made a few sales. That was my goal and I did it. This year, I want to expand that by:
- - - - Make more voodoo dolls to sell.
- - - - Design *evil voodoo Santa dolls* to sell.
- - - - Design *voodoo cat dolls* to sell.
- - - - Design *evil voodoo bunnies* to sell.
- - - - Design *voodoo chicken dolls* to sell.

- Expand my line beyond emo/goth dolls by:
- - - - Design some none emo/goth dolls to sell. (That may be hard! LOL!)
- - - - Reteach myself to crochet (it's been 20+ years since I did it!).
- - - - Make crocheted Granny Square/Hippy Bags to sell.
- - - - Figure out how to make a beaded necklace I designed, than make a bunch of them to sell.

- Expand my line of custom fabrics (which are used to make my dolls.)
- - - - Start selling the fabric yardages to customers.
- - - - Come up with more craft items I can sew out of my fabric lines.

- Find a way to reach more customers and make more sales.
- - - - Via online marketing.
- - - - Via off line marketing.
- - - - Find a way to make enough income via Etsy, to never have to work a day job again.

Goal #3:

- Celebrate my 6th year on Zazzle:
- - - - Create a new line of paintings, drawings, and photography.
- - - - Restock my art supplies: get new brushes, paints, etc.
- - - - Find ways to reach more customers.
- - - - Advance my sales from a level two seller (selling $100+ per month) to a level three seller (selling $500+ per month).
- - - - Focus more on photography, taking photos of famous local places.
- - - - Find a way to make enough income via Zazzle, to never have to work a day job again.

Goal #4:

- Get The Rabbit Hole off paper and into production.
- - - - Set up an online store for it, possibly on Etsy.
- - - - Make patterns for my dress/fashion designs.
- - - - Create even more dress designs.
- - - - Design a new line of fabric just for these dresses.
- - - - Sew up and than sell the dresses online, possibly on Etsy.
- - - - Continue to work on my goal of turning The Rabbit Hole into an actual brick and mortar dress shop in Portland.

Goal #5:

- Celebrate my 3rd year on Squidoo:
- - - - Update and refresh my old articles.
- - - - Write several new articles.
- - - - I just reached my goal of having 500 articles on Squidoo before the end of 2009, with 507 articles published; expand that in 2010 to at least 600 articles published.
- - - - Find a way to make enough income via Squidoo, to never have to work a day job again.

Goal #6:

- Find a way to make enough income via my writing, art, and sewing to never have to work a day job again, so that I can focus on working from home as a full time writer, artist, and craftswoman. (See Goals #1 - 5.)

Goal #7:

- Move to Portland and:
- - - - Buy the 1700's sea captain's mansion at 300 Danforth Street and turn it into my private studio where I can work on even more books, paintings, dolls, and dresses.
- - - - Focus my energy of getting my plays produced at several of the dozens of theaters in Portland.
- - - - Expand my feral cat rescue operation (The Pidgie Fund) so we can house more than 20 cats at a time --- thinks of those huge bedrooms in the Danforth Street Manor, any cat's dream come true!

Goal #8:

- Make more money so I can afford to rescue more cats.

(No, 19 cats is NOT enough - there are so many more homeless cats out there who need my help. Yes, I AM going to try to save them ALL. No, I'm not Wonder Woman, but heck, you can't stop me for trying!)

Goal #9:

- Get my car paid off.
- Than have it restored and pimped out.
- And have a Trans Am hood bird put on it's hood.
- Continue to ignore people who laugh at the fact that this car is an ancient Volvo "not worth restoring".
- Get a Peugeot 505 to likewise restore and pimp.

(Yes, I do like metal flake and shag on types of cars you'd least expect to see flaked and shagged. No, I don't care what any one thinks. Yes, I like little European cars. And who says only big Cadillacs can get pimped out? I'll pimp any car I feel like pimping.)

Goal #9.A:

- Get driver's license. This has been on my BFS List every single year.

(Yep, I'm almost 40, have two cars, plan on getting a third, and I have never yet gotten a driver's license. HUGE phobia's need dealing with here.)

Goal #10:

- Continue to expand on my writing career:
- - - - Continue writing, editing, and publishing short stories and plays.
- - - - Work on getting a novel published.
- - - - Continue my multi-year goal of writing a minimum of 1,000 words a day no less than five days a week.
- - - - Figure out a way to salvage my mangled up 2009 NaNovel so it can be published.
- - - - Become a "professional/produced" playwright, as opposed to my current status of a "hobbiest/unproduced" playwright.
- - - - Make a serious effort to actually finish writing SHIVER (an anthology of 13 one act plays).
- - - - Spend the summer/fall trying to get at least one of the "SHIVER" plays produced at a local theater.
- - - - Revise and re-release my long out of print Twighlight Manor series, possibly combining it's dozens of chapbooks, pulps, and short stories into an anthology.
- - - - Work on my idea for rewriting the Twighlight Manor series into a series of short one act plays.

Goal #11:

- Read one book a week or 52 books in 2010.

Goal #12:

- Take a trip to Bar Harbor and take lots of pictures.
- Take a trip to France and take lots of pictures.
- Take a trip to Papua New Guinea and take lots of pictures.
- Think of other places to visit and go.
- Sell pictures from trips on my Zazzle store.

Goal #13:

- Get another dog. (My Buddy died during NaNoWriMo 2008.) Preferably from the Cocker Spaniel Rescue.

Goal #14:

- Try to obsess about things less.
- Keep depression under control.
- Try to obsess about things less.
- Keep OCD under control.
- Try to obsess about things less.
- Find ways to overcome at least a few of the things on my mile long list of phobias.
- Try to obsess about things less.
- Continue working on my Agoraphobia problem. I'm now a "recovering Agoraphobic" - I actually have left the yard a few times this year. Need to become a "recovered Agoraphobic" now.
- Try to obsess about things less.
- Think happy thought and avoid suicide temptations.
- Try to obsess about things less.
- Find ways to deal with the fact that "normal" people are never going to be able to come to terms with the fact that I have Schizotypal Asperger's Syndrome (This means I'm an Autistic person who also has Schizophrenia and Obsessive Complusive Disorder.)
- Try to obsess about things less.
- I really need to try to obsess about things less. It's a huge problem.

Goal #15:

- Think of more goals to add t this list, because, you know, 15 just isn't enough. =P

Incubus: Fear the Night!

http://twitter.com/EelKat
http://www.facebook.com/EelKat
http://eknano.blogspot.com
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/132659
http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/user/132659
What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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Photography, Art, and Designs by Maine artist and photographer Wendy C Allen aka EelKat © 1978 - Present

Bear & Cougar in Old Orchard Beach, Maine - (A Tweet Repost)

2009-10-15T02:41:00.000-04:00

EelKat these animals are very angry and will likely kill the first human they meet - PLEASE STAY INSIDE AT NIGHT! Your lives may depend upon it!less than 5 seconds ago from web
EelKat the wildlife that living in the 26 acres of 200 year old pines have found themselves suddenly homeless this week - they are not happy2 minutes ago from web
EelKat and YES - this IS downtown Old Orchard Beach I am talking about here - the same forest that houses 3 Ivory Bill Woodpeckers is NOW GONE!3 minutes ago from web
EelKat and is leaving behind HUGE cat tracks that dwarf the bear tracks - it is very likely an angry displaced cougar - DO NOT GO OUTSIDE AT NIGHT!6 minutes ago from web
EelKat also - an unidentified NEW PREDATOR has come forward - it shrieks at night like a woman being murdered, is heard high in the trees - and8 minutes ago from web
EelKat a territorial male that is slashing up trees - is a VERY ANGRY AND HIGHLY DANGEROUS bear - please use caution when walking on the Ross Rd!10 minutes ago from web
EelKat the addition of "bear trees" means that there is a territorial male in the area and he's on the warpath looking for a new place to live11 minutes ago from web
EelKat they attacked a girl in 2007 under peaceful times - they are likely very dangerous now - due to the removal of their homes!13 minutes ago from web
EelKat BEWARE- IF YOU LIVE IN OLD ORCHARD BEACH - MAINE - these bear are dangerous and are now homeless! do not go out at night!14 minutes ago from web
EelKat apparently the mass clear cutting has displaced these 8 (or more?) giant predators and forced them into our yard15 minutes ago from web
EelKat 5 bear live in the woods - that fact has been known for 20 years; at least 2 wolverine are there as well - the cougar is a new discovery15 minutes ago from web
EelKat the sound of land movers has gotten closer each day - today we can now see them from the barn due to a sudden lack of trees17 minutes ago from web
EelKat the leg of a moose was found in the garden - shredded by an unknown animal - likely the wolverine17 minutes ago from web
EelKat there are now cat tracks measuring 6 inches across in the mud outside the barn - only cat that big is cougar19 minutes ago from web
EelKat something big - bigger than the wolverine - has been ripping boards off the barn wall and eating hens - there are now19 minutes ago from web
EelKat a bear family have been tearing walls off the barn, uprooting fruit bushes, and ransacking the grain bins all this past week21 minutes ago from web
EelKat for those who have not seen my tweets earlier this week - I'll recap22 minutes ago from web
EelKat needless to say, I'm not happy about any of this - nor are the giant now homeless predators (bear and cougar) outside my barn23 minutes ago from web
EelKat the sudden lack of trees has pout the sun full blast in my shade garden :(25 minutes ago from web
EelKat tree cutters are dumping sand in Etiole's Swamp and raising hell with our brook/water supply :(26 minutes ago from web
EelKat deer tracks everywhere - good thing the frost already killed the garden26 minutes ago from web
EelKat and raccoon have moved into the tent :(27 minutes ago from web
EelKat also why are there cougar tracks in the mud? YIKES!28 minutes ago from web
EelKat knows now why the sudden uprising of bear activity, some 20 acres of the Ross Forest was just clear cut sending the bear into our yard

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

----------
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author's Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
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. . .

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What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

A NaNoWriMo Post: On Evil Faeries

2009-09-15T02:33:00.001-04:00

I found today on NaNoWriMo this question, which really, it just needed my answer, what why the uniformed answers it was getting about Faeries.

[quote=Phyre]That's right. My main nano-villian is an evil Faerie. Big woop, want to fight about it?

Technically, my nanowrimo is going to be fantasy, but, like all great fantasy novels it shall have aspects of horror :D.

Any suggestions as to how to make my Faerie less tinker-bell-y and more Holly Black-y? I used to know all this faerie/folklore stuff, but that was in the fourth grade...[/quote]

Actually before Disney came along, the mere mention of the word Faerie was enough to send a grown man running - if you REALLY knew the folklore you'd know that. Faeries is plural for Fae which is a really ancient French word used to describe demons so bad that not even hell would let them in, so they were doomed instead to walk the earth preying on their helpless human victims. These creatures make Satan look like a saint, and that's exactly why people were so damn terrified of them.

There is a reason all Victorian children were taught these words BEFORE they were aught the Bible:

Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men

~William Allingham
The Fairies 1850

Faeries by tradition are blood thirsty creatures who haunt houses, swamps, lakes, caves, and trees. They wait for Humans to trespass and than they attack. The calmer Faeries limit their attacks to lashes with tree branches and and stabs with thorns. Most Faerie encounters however resulted in a violent and bloody death, often with the Faerie draining the Humans blood and using it to dye their clothen it's brilliant red color. (Note most all Faeries are reported seen wearing red - it is highly unusual the a report has them wearing any other color)

It was believed that they had very short tempers, but were also very vain and an attack could be countered by addressing them as "The Good Folk", and walking past them "without fear". It was also said that they could feel your fear and hear your thoughts and knew if you were afraid or not, and would only let you pass unharmed if you truely felt nor fear or malice in your heart.

Faerie Abductions run rampant in pre-flying-saucer history. Most Faeries being described as "Little Men" between 4 to 5 feet in height often with white or pale green tinted skin, large black eyes and carrying wands that were used to paralyze their Human victims. Older reports had them arriving in flaming chariots from the sky, while later reports had them coming in zeplens, hot air balloons, and air ships. They were famed for kidnapping children and leaving behind changlings (sickly, often dieing Faeries that shape shifted to look like the stolen child). There were hundreds of reports of young women and teenage girls abducted by Faeries and forced to have sexual encounters with them, usually returned home pregnant but abducted a second time a few months later to have the baby cut from her belly.

Most Faerie attacks happened in secluded areas - in the forest, in a swamp, in a deserted barn, etc. and often in a place with water near-by usually near a river, swamp, or ocean. The closer the attack occurred to water, the more violent and bloody it was, giving rise to the belief that water faeries were far more deadly that land faeries.

Faerie attacks stopped being reported in the late 1930's. Today a Faerie attack reporting is very rare. Oddly though in the late 1940's Alien/UFO attacks started being reported, describing near identical creatures and near identical tactis as the Faerie attacks had, giving rise to the belief that Alien Abductions of today are merely Faerie Attack of the old days, under a new name.

Another point worth mentioning is that there are almost no reports of Faerie attack reports prior to the 1300's. Interestingly, there are almost no Angel encounters after the 1300's, while from ancient times until than, Angel Encounters run rampant. Another interesting thing to note that Angels encounters by the ancients ARE NOT the sweet fluttery guardian angels we think of today. The Angels of the ancients were monstrous creatures that rode around on fire breathing horses, raped virgins, and rained brim stone and fire from heaven on the heads of any Human who disobeyed their commands (which often included sacrifice children and animals to the God).

Studying the actual history of these creature you will find that the Angels of the ancients, the Faeries of the middle times, and the UFO Aliens of today, are in fact one in the same.

If you are looking for a fast introduction to Faerie Folklore than your best bet is to read: Faeries by Brian Froud which is by far the best book available on the subject.

Another book to read is: A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angelsnd Other Subversive Spirits and also: Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins: An Encyclopedia.

And if you can find a copy of it (and believe me, this is a super rare book so finding a copy cheaply is NOT going to be easy, and the chances of you getting it through Inter Library Loan are thin, unless you have special access to the few universities that have a copy of it), but if you want to read, actual case reports and witness sightings of Faeries throughout history than you will want to read this book: Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds which is the result of years of one scientist/researcher sifting through diaries, police reports, scrolls, and other documents throughout history to find actual witness testimony of Faerie encounters.

If you want instant information (as opposed to searching for a book) on a present day real live encounter with a Faerie, you should read this site: http://www.squidoo.com/amphibious-aliens

Phookas are among the deadliest of Fae, you can find information about them here: http://www.squidoo.com/Phooka

And yes, Faeries are the only thing I study. I've devoted 30 years of my life to doing nothing but.

And for those who don't know the entire poem (which by the way is about the Faerie Abduction of a young girl) here it is:

The Faeries

Up the airy mountain
Down the rushing glen
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk
Trooping all together
Green jacket, red cap
And white owl's feather.

Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake
With frogs for their watch-dogs
All night awake.

High on the hill-top
The old King rests
He is now so old and grey
He's nigh lost his wits;
With a bridge of white mist
Columcille he crosses
On his stately journeys
From Slieve League to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget
For seven years long
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone
They took her lightly back
Between the night and morrow
They thought that she was fast asleep
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake
On a bed of flag-leaves
Watching till she wakes.

By the craggy hillside
Through the mosses bare
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men
Wee folk, good folk
Trooping all together
Green jacket, red cap
And white owl's feather!

~William Allingham
The Fairies 1850

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and another poem based of Faerie Abduction:

THE STOLEN CHILD

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake

There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats

Full of berries
And the reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters of the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.

~ W.B. Yeats
1866

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

Hey, you know what? I sell Avon! I'm an Independent Avon eRepresentative and that means you can buy Avon from me, 24 hours a day, from your computer, from anyplace in the world, and Avon will ship it to you.

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Make your own banner at MyBannerMaker.com!
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What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

Half Way Mark Report For: The Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things Together

2009-07-31T05:18:00.000-04:00

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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The Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things Together

The end of July marks the half way point for NaNoWriMo's Big Scary 2009. It's time for us to update our goals and give the half way progress reports. Have you guys been keeping track of your goals? Did you get anything done yet? Have you added any new last minute goals? Have any goals you planned been knocked off for whatever reason? Now is the time to head back to NaNoWriMo and let every one know how you are making out with this year's goals, if you haven't done so already.

Here's my progress report for this year:

Once upon a time I had a thread where I was going to keep track of my goals. I have no idea where it went and I think I only posted on it once since I made it! LOL!

I had several goals:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

one was to read a book every week. I've been doing that, but I forgot to write down the books as I read them and now I don't know if I'm on schedule or not, because I'm pretty sure I missed some weeks and I don't know if I read enough other weeks to make up for it or not. This is my standard goal, every year - read 52 books or one per week; I usually do pretty good at it, but I always forget to keep track of what I read. I need to keep a chart. As an add on to that goal I had a list that said "including these books . . . ." well, I did THAT part of the goal at least, I read the few books on THAT list within the first month

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

my second goal was to work on editing all the drafts I have laying around (I've got 6 nearly finished books and dozens of short stories scattered all over the place) and get at least one of them published by the end of the year. I'm good at writing lots and lots of stuff really fast, but I'm so terribly slow when it comes to editing, so I have ended up with more stuff to edit and not much editing done. I have however gotten one book and one play-script nearly complete and almost publishable, so I'm nearing my goal, but not sure if (at the speed I'm going) I'll get either published before next year, so this goal may roll over and become a goal for next year, but than again, I still have a few months to go, so there's still time, maybe I'll get a sudden burst of editing energy and get it finished right quick, who knows. In any case, I am seeing progress with the book now in it's 4th draft! (YAY!).

There has been a bit of an unfortunate side effect to this goal - the book I'm working on is the non-fiction autobiography one called "For Fear of Little Men", about my UFO experiences and how a local church group reacted to it (they reacted like a mob straight out a Frankenstein, accusing me of being a witch that consorted with demons and than took it upon themselves to destroy my property, kill my pets, and set fire to my house.) The first draft for this book went online shortly after the end of NaNoWriMo08 so that I could edit it with the help of some online friends. Parts of the second draft went online in early 2009 here: http://www.squidoo.com/Amphibious-Aliens

and here: http://www.squidoo.com/OnBeingHomeless2

and here: http://www.squidoo.com/Aspergers-Syndrome-and-Me

and here: http://www.squidoo.com/No-Meat This was so that I could get some various reader opinions on what I had written, as well as to get some feedback on what stuff readers wanted to know. (The book is being written as an interview and all of the interview questions are coming directly from my online readers, this way I can actually be answering questions people are actually asking about what happened.)

Well, in any case, last week, my dad, received a phone call (I don't have a phone) from the bishop asking me to meet him at his office. And I spent the next half hour being told by the bishop that I was a witch, an apostate, an evil caster of spells, and than he throew the ultimatum on me: delete my "wicked website of lies or be excommunicated". I was given 2 weeks to delete my "evil" websites, after which time, if it has not been deleted, he will be bringing in the church disciplinary council and start excomunication procedures! Well, if in 30 years, I have stood up against them never refusing to deny the existence of this strange creature, why would I suddenly do so now? I'm not denying what I saw, I'm not deleting my website, and I'm still going forward with this book, and it's still planned for a 2010 publication date. These people are so crazy, and this, is just proving it even more. Oh well, I guess I can always find a new church to attend, right?

well this whole being excommunicated this was totally unexpected and has made a mess of my life these past 2 weeks and has resulted in me getting more than 3,000 emails from various people - many of whom are fellow church members witting and demanding, not requesting, but demanding, that I not publish this book "or else"!!!! OMG! You know what? The more they tell me not to publish this thing, the more I really, really, REALLY want to get it published! LOL!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

my third goal was to open a store. I'm having my best luck with this goal, actually. I set up an Etsy account (nothing listed yet), next I built a website about my dolls (nearly finished), than I started a blog about what I was doing, but I sort of went off topic and now I need to start a new one, just for my dolls. I set out to designing an entire line of dolls, including to design the fabric to make them out of and had it printed up via http://www.SpoonFlower.com. At this moment, I have finish drawing up the patterns, I have 26 dolls cut out and waiting to be sewed up, and at this rate, I should have my store open before the end of August!!!!!! YAY! I can see the end of my goal in sight and it's just around the next corner! I should be able to come back in a couple of weeks to shout out that I've completed it! YAY!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had a lot of other goals - mostly small things - but, you know, life just keeps getting in the way and all sorts of unexpected things happened that my life was not planing for, so lots of little things got pushed aside out of necessity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One goal is still on going since I first added it (in 2006 Big Scary!) - find a job, has rolled over for 3 years now and may roll over to next year at this rate! - ICK the economy is terrible and as a result no body is hiring any body, because they are too busy laying off staff they already got! So, three years and counting without a "real" job, still relying 100% on sales of my art via Zazzle & CafePress and sales of short articles via Associated Content and Squidoo. (Hey, at least I can say I'm getting paid to write! Just wish it was higher pay and more of it!)

To date I've sent in more than 400 applications and gone to nearly 50 interviews and still nothing! In 2006 and 2007 I had a temp job for Macy's, but that was about 30 hours a month! I need a real steady reliably paying job, not a touch and go temp job. I was hoping to stay on at Macy's, you know get picked for full time or part time, but than they laid off all their temps and 50 of their full timers and that just crushed my goal. :( Sad about losing my temp job for Macy's because of every job I've ever done, I liked working for Macy's best of all. I'll keep watching for openings, and will apply again as soon as I see Macy's hiring again, because I really want to get that job.

However, on a better note, I am going to start selling Avon again. Got my meeting set up with the new district manager and I'll be all set to go in September. (I was an Avon rep for 7 years before a family emergency -a flood that destroyed our home, every thing we owned, and put my dad in a coma- turned our lives upside down and left us homeless and living on the streets for 3 years. We are FINALLY getting our lives back in order and picking up where we left off before the flood messed everything up.) So, by September I will have a part time job working for Avon once again, and that, should put a little relief on the income issues.

I'm really hoping that my online store will set off and maybe I will sell enough of my dolls so I won't have to look for a job any more????? Hoping really hard here, because going professional doll maker full time would really be a BIG dream come true. I just love sewing dolls and to have something I love bring in an income would be a big plus.

I'm hoping that, by multi-streaming my income resources (Zazzle, CafePress, Etsy, SpoonFlower, LuLu, Avon, and hopefully a part time retail job at the Maine Mall) I'll end up with a more or less steady and reliable income once again, and be able to put an end to the mess the flood made of our lives once and for all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And of course NaNoWriMo09 is one of my goals and thus I am currently working on my plot for this years contest and getting ready for November to roll around so I can get this one checked off the list. NaNoWriMo09 will be my 5th anniversary as a paticipant of the National Novel Writing Month Contest. I've won the last 3 years, with each year topping my previous year's word count. Last year I finished the month with a whopping 238,135 words written in 30 days! This year I'm going for a 4th win and an attempt to beat out my last year's win, by striving to top 250k in 30 days. Any of you guys want to try to beat me? Nows the time to start planning for this year's contest entry. Who knows, maybe I'll even beat Katy's 500k win. Hhhhm... 500k 2 years in a row . . . is there any one who can beat Katy? I can't wait to watch her word counts rise again this year and see if she can do it 3 years in a row!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, there you have, my half way through the year progress report for NaNoWriMo's Year of Big Scary Things 2009. I think, I'm doing rather well, all things considered.

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Do Animals Go To Heaven?
R.I.P. Michael Jackson
Poison vs. Motley Crue
Hayley Williams (Paramore)
Do You believe in faeries?

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
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I've been tagged: Job Interview

2009-05-28T05:04:00.000-04:00

I was tagged for this interview . . . well 2 years ago, and for some odd reason the backlink comment only just showed up today!!!! OMG! Why did it do that? Oh well, I figure I should answer it, better late than never, right?

Here is a copy of the MeMe I was tagged with:

In Richard Nelson Bolles – What Color Is Your Parachute?, Bolles wrote about Informational Interviewing. It’s where you contact your friends, family, etc and ask them for contacts in the field that you are interested in and gather information for your career change.

It can be a job you’d held in the past or currently. You can link back to this post but it’s not compulsory. The reason I post this is I’m researching on jobs and would love to know more about your jobs. I’ll comment on some of my job experiences too because I’m not a sucker that takes without giving :p

Job:
Co:
Duration in this position:
Salary & benefits:
Education:
Other factors that helped you in scoring this job:
The job is about:

How did you get this job?

What do you like most about it?

What do you hate about it?

What’s next? What do you need to achieve that?

Who else do this kind of work?

Well fact of the matter is, I have several jobs, all sort of helter skeltered together, so it's a bit difficult to clearly defin them all, but I'll try and see what happens. So here it goes:

Job: Writer/Author

Co: self employed; freelance

Duration in this position: since 1978; still working in 2009; 31 years!

Salary & benefits: varies from $0 - $200 per project

Education: I left public school at age 8; self taught after that

Other factors that helped you in scoring this job: it's a job I created for myself because I love to write

The job is about: writing (formaly I wrote fiction, but since 2006 I've only written non-fiction)

How did you get this job? I just started writing and than had it printed up (self-published) or sent to a publisher (traditionally published) or posted on a web page (web publishing) or posted on a blog (problogging). Being a freelancer, means I have a lot of ways to get published and I take advantage of every single one of them as often as possible. The more I write, the more I get paid.

What do you like most about it? I like that I can change my schedual to fit my needs: if I want to stay awake and write steady for 48 hours, I can. If I don't feel like writing for 2 or 3 weeks, I can do that too. I like that I can work around other jobs too. I guess you could call me a work-a-holic, because I'm not happy unless I've got lots of jobs all at once.

What’s next? What do you need to achieve that? Next? After getting approxamatly 600 fan requests for me to write an autobiography of my strange and multi faceted life with a focus on my time being homeless and the events that lead up to me becoming homeless and how I made it back up off the streets again, I started work on my book "For Fear of Little Men", to tell the story of how my sightening of what some called and alien and others called a demon (though I called a faerie) resulted in a group of religious fanatics taking matters into there own hands by burning me out of my house. Of course on the side libes of that, and as a result of their religious prejudices, I'm planning to get my 900 page rant about why I dislike religion, edited down to a magageable 250 book, and finally get it published - I started writing it in 2003, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger.

What do I need to achieve that? Not much. Pen. Paper. Word Processor. Memories of events in my life. Time to write it all down. And, since I own my own publishing house, well, I also need to publish it afterwards.

Who else does this kind of work? uhm, well, other writers, here locally we have Stephen King living near by, and you've more likely heard of him, so I'll use him as an example, only he's more focused on traditionally published novels, and I'm more focused on shorter self published chap books.

You can find out more about what I do for a living HERE.

Job: Artist/Painter

Co: self employed; freelance

Duration in this position: since 1978; still working in 2009; 31 years!

Salary & benefits: varies from $1 - $200 per project; no benifits; though I was working as a painter for 31 years, I did not recieve my first actual payment for my work until 2004, when I placed my art for sale online via CafePress and Zazzle.

Education: I left public school at age 8; self taught after that

Other factors that helped you in scoring this job: it's a job I created for myself because I love to draw and paint

The job is about: drawing and painting everything that pops into my head and asks me to recreate it on paper.

How did you get this job? I just started drawing and painting. I wrote a really long and highly detailed article about how I got started HERE. Be warned though it well take you a few hours to read, it's a small novella leagth article.

What do you like most about it? I like that I can change my schedual to fit my needs: if I want to stay awake and paint steady for 48 hours, I can. If I don't feel like painting for 2 or 3 weeks, I can do that too. Because I never sell my originals, only prints, this is a repeat sale job, which means that I can paint one painting, and than continue to recieve payments, via royalties for many years after I made the painting. As a result I only need to paint one or two pictures each month. I like that I can work around other jobs too. I guess you could call me a work-a-holic, because I'm not happy unless I've got lots of jobs all at once.

What’s next? What do you need to achieve that? Next? Just more of the same thing really. More paintings, more drawings, more uploading them to CafePress and Zazzle, more marketing and advertising, more getting the word out about my art so more people can find it to buy it.

What do I need to achieve that? Not much. Pen. Paper. Crayons. Paints. Pencils. Time to paint. A camera for my photogray work. Lots and lots of marketing and SEO skills.

Who else does this kind of work? uhm, Everybody else who sells stuff via CafePress and Zazzle!

You can find out more about what I do for a living HERE.

Job: Witch

Co: self employed; freelance

Duration in this position: since 1979; still working in 2009; 30 years!

Salary & benefits: varies from free volunteer work to $200 - $700 per session client; no benifits;

Education: I left public school at age 8; self taught after that - People have been calling me a witch, a poltergeist, or an evil demon possessed girl since I was 4 years old.

I had a very good teacher in the art of casting spells and making Voodoo dolls.

Other factors that helped you in scoring this job: It helps that I have Autism. Apperently as a result of my being autistic I am able to do things that non-autistic people can not do. It's a job I created for myself because I love to sew dolls, spend time with animals, protect those who can not protect themselves from harm, and listen to things my Faerie has to say to me.

The job is about: There are hundreds of types of Witches out there. So I must break it down so you know what type of Witch I am, as to not confuse me with other types out there. I have written articles detailing what I do and such, and I'm linking those to the words which match their topic, so if you want more info about my job description, simply click on each of the links to read what I do in more detail.

I am a Sea Witch which is a type of Hedgewitch. This means that I work with Familiars to practice Sea Magic, which is a type of Grey Magic (different that White Magic or Black Magic, meaning I'm also knowwn as a Grey Witch rather than either a White Witch or a Black Witch.)

In short, I I heal broken auras with the use of spell casting, voodoo dolls, color therapy, crystals, and by channeling the energy created by Etiole.

For those who saw the job title of witch and instantly thought Wicca, please know that Witchcraft is a career and Wicca is a religion, and though I am a Witch, I am NOT a Wicca. If you don't know the differance between a Witch and a Wicca than please READ THIS.

How did you get this job? I didn't seek out this career. It was sort of thrust on me when I was 4 years old. I was "born a freak", or so I'm often told.

What do you like most about it? That it has no schedual at all. I go where I'm needed and work when I'm needed.

What do you hate about it? I hate the vandalism at the hands of so-called "Good Christians" who claim it is their "God Given Duty" to "cast out my demons".

Lack of a steady income - you could end up going weeks or even months between pay checks; lack of any benafits: no social security, no retirment, no insurance, nothing, zip, nadda.

What’s next? What do you need to achieve that? Next? Well, because I'm always saying (preaching???) what people call "pretty radical" things, and because I'm always quoteing scripture, and because I spent 20 years studying the Bible, and because as a teenager my goal was to become a preacher, and because there is no religion that teaches the things I do, and because since 2003 I'v had more than 200 people tell me I should start a church of my own, that's what I'm going to do.

What do I need to achieve this? Well, a good working knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, which I have already. Knowledge of the laws regarding churches. In Maine you have to be legal ordained before you can start a church. As of yesterday, I am now an ordained minister, through a non-denominational church (therefor allowing me to start my own religion). I now have the title of Reverand in front of my name. Next step is to figure out how to actually start a church. In the mentime, though, I require a book of theogies, creeds, laws, and docrtines, and well, that's why the sudden move to publish my previously unpublished 900 page rant "Faith Not Religion" as mentioned in my writing job info above.

Who else does this kind of work? uhm, I've actually never come across another person who does what I do. I've encounted many "Witches" but none who are able to do the things I do. They just all seem to do rituals and chants and burn candels and stuff. They say I give other Witches a bad name and accuse me of being a poltergiest or working with a poltergeist. Christians call me an evil witch possessed by a demon, but when I turn to other Witches, they tell me I am evil too, and that I'm not a regular type of Witch like they are (whatever that means) that I'm some sort of freak of nataure. Sometimes they get mad because I do the things I do, without any rituals and such, I just say it and it happens, and me doing that freaks them out, because they say it's not the type of thing Witches normally do, they tell me I am supposed to be useing all sorts of herbs and rituals and candles. They point out that they studied Witchcraft for years and celbrate all the sabets and worship Goddesses, and get angry because they still can not do the things I do, and ask me how I do it, and I just say I don't know, because I've been doing these things since I was 4 years old and I've never studied Witchcraft, I don't know what Sabets are, and I'm a Christain who would never dream of worshipping a Goddess.

So, long story short, while I would like to find another Witch who was a natural born witch with REAL powers, I have yet to find one and am pretty much outcast by the rest of the Witch community because they think you can't be born a Witch they think you have to spend years learning how to do it. So I can not provide you with any one else to compare me with, unless of course you want to compare me with Jesus or one of the Old Testament Prophets or the ancient Priests of Egypt, because they are the only other ones I've ever heard of who did this type of stuff.

You can find out more about what I do for a living HERE.

Job: Avon Sales Representative

Co: Avon Products, INC.

Duration in this position: 1996 through 2003;

Salary & benefits: varies from 10% to 30% commision depending on ammount of sales that weekt; no benifits

Education: I left public school at age 8; self taught after that

Other factors that helped you in scoring this job: I had the $20 required to buy the starting kit. That's all there is to getting started working for Avon - no training, no interview, no questions; you just hand the Sales Manager a twenty dollar bill, she hands you the sales kit, and than you head door to door selling stuff.

(note - I sold Avon before they opened their web site and started selling online; when they first started the online store in 2003, they cancled the accounts of about 75% of their door-to-door sales personal, claiming that they were going to discontinue door to door sales, and that the few remaining sales reps were going to move on to regional managment jobs. A year later, they changed their minds, reenstated the door to door sales and wanted all their old sales reps back, but I never signed back up again.)

The job is about: being a fast talking door to door sales man who carries around a brief case of products and testers and catalouges and tries to convince people they want to buy make-up, perfumes, lotions, and gift products that they never would have known existed if you had not knocked on their door and told the they could not survive without your wounderful product.

How did you get this job? I had the $20 required to buy the starting kit. That's all there is to getting started working for Avon - no training, no interview, no questions; you just hand the Sales Manager a twenty dollar bill, she hands you the sales kit, and than you head door to door selling stuff.

What do you like most about it? I like that I can change my schedual to fit my needs: if I want to stay awake and paint steady for 48 hours, I can. Pretty much it was a one day a week job - one day I deliver all the products to my customers, they gave me new orders, I didn't have to do anything until the next shippment arrived for me to deliver. I guess you could call me a work-a-holic, because I'm not happy unless I've got lots of jobs all at once.

What do you hate about it? Lack of a steady income - you could end up going weeks or even months between pay checks; lack of any benafits: no social security, no retirment, no insurance, nothing, zip, nadda. The fact that you have to try to get people to reorder something EVERY SINGLE WEEK!! Avon would be much better if the shipments were once a month not once a week.

What’s next? What do you need to achieve that? Next? From Avon I moved to Macy's.

Who else does this kind of work? uhm, Everybody else who sells beauty products door to door.

Job: Macy's Sales Associate (part time temp)

Co: Macy's Department Store

Duration in this position: 2006 through 2008;

Salary & benefits: $7.50 an hour; no benifits

Education: I left public school at age 8; self taught after that; had 2 years of college for fashion design and merchandising; took the "Give Them The Pickle" sales seminar

Other factors that helped you in scoring this job: my years as an Avon Sales Rep, my training in fashion design and merchandising, my training in sales via seminars

The job is about: running cash registers, cleaning fitting rooms, help customers find the perfect outfit, stocking racks of dresses.

How did you get this job? I walked into the store and asked if they had any job openings, and they hired me about 5 minutes later (she liked the way I was dressed, said I looked like some one who knew a thing or two about the fashion industry - I was wearing a black business suit with my hair tied in an Olive Oyl bun, and make up expertly applied to match my skin tonelearned via my many years of appling Avon products during my sales rep career with them -- if I had learned anything selling Avon, it was that you need to look the part if you want to be a sales rep, and though it's not what I wear outside of work, I can pull off one hell of a professional career woman look, when I really want to) After hireing me she rememberd that she was required to have me fill out a job application.

What do you like most about it? I like that I can change my schedual to fit my needs: being a temp, ment that I was only working 4 or 5 hours a day 2 or 3 days a week, usually to replace some one who called in sick, and I could fill out a calander of days I was unable to work, and they only asked me to come in on the other days.

For the first time in my life I had a steady income and a weekly pay check I could count on. Loved that.

What do you hate about it? Actually, I haven't bee able to come up with anything I actually hated about this job. I loved it. I think it was my favorite job of anything else I've ever done.

What’s next? What do you need to achieve that? I have to reapply every year for this job, because it's a temp job and not a regular job. I didn't reapply this year, because my dog was very ill and required my constant daily care. He died a few months ago. Since than, I just seem to have not been much motivated to do anything at all. He was my constant compainion for 13 years, he was the one who stayed by my side through the flood, the fire, and the ordeal of being homeless and living on the streets. I've had a hard time not having him with me any more and some how that effected my going back to work at Macy's. Or any place else for that matter.

Who else does this kind of work? uhm, Everybody else who sells beauty products door to door.

Asperger's Syndrome = I'm an Artist & Author Too!

2009-05-08T02:14:00.001-04:00

I'm drafting out a new book, as yet untitled, about what it is like to live with Asperger's Syndrome(which I have) and I'm using my blog to run first drafts of sections of it. Second drafts are being moved HERE. This post is one of those draft posts, expect more to show up over time.

I got several books out from the library about AS. Unfortunately they are all just a bunch of speculation and observations written by doctors and parents who ask more questions than they answer.

One of the things I read most often is parents noting that their AS child is attracted to crayons, colors, and drawing. So much so that when they pick up a crayon and start drawing, they completely shut out the entire world, unable to see or hear anything that is going on around them. I can testify to the fact that this is true. I can not explain it, but drawing is a must. It's like eating or sleeping or breathing - I can't survive without it.

Aspies tend to grow up to be very quiet, but very creative adults. Many of the world's greatest scientists had AS. Many of the world's greatest painters had AS. Several famous authors and novelists have AS. These are the three careers most commonly chosen by Aspies. Oddly, two of those three are what I did become: an artist and a writer.

Why do Aspies become scientists, artists, and writers? I'm not sure if there is a reason, but I can tell you my personal theory on the matter. Aspies don't do well in jobs requiring a lot of contact with people, nor do they do well in places filled with loud noises. High traffic, lots of moving objects, phones ringing, lights flashing, people talking . . . all of these things are like stabbing an Aspie's brain with thousands of pins and needles. Noise is frustrating. Noise hurts. Noise makes me want to take a book and throw it at whatever or whoever is making the god awful offended noise. (Throwing things "for no reason" is another thing we Aspies do a lot, only we DO have a reason: NOISE HURTS! It causes sering headaches and make my ears ring and is no different than had you just hit me in the head with a hammer. I am often accused of being "overly sensitive", well, maybe I am, but even soft noises sound like cannons blasting through my ears and I can't take the pain it causes, so I avoid noise, things that make noise, and places where loud noise is, at all costs.

Well, for me at least, art, writing, researching, and building things are all huge attractions because I can go off by myself, in the garden or at the library or on the beach, some place relaxing and quiet, and I can read and write and draw and study without having to worry about loud noises or sudden movements or people bombarding me with questions. Being an artist, writer, or scientist are "safe" jobs because you can focus on your work without worrying about some loud noise hurting your ears.

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
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What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

Why Is Everyone Protesting the CPSIA?

2009-04-04T02:35:00.001-04:00

Was just reading up on the CPSIA law that's going into effect in August, and wondering why people are have such hysterics over it . . . Maine has actively enforced testing of all handmade products since the 1970's. (I know because my mom owned a craft shop and Maine required all sorts of testing done on her stuffed animals and dolls before letting her sell them to the public.) I just assumed every state did the same.

In fact I'm shocked to find out that most states DO NOT have such a law in place and required this national law to go into effect. It's only good business practice to test the contents of your inventory before you make products for sale to the public, esp if said product is intended for children. Why are thousands of crafters and home sewers protesting this law? I'm a crafter. I'm a home sewer. I've lived with this law my whole life, because Maine already had it!

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
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What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

More Flamingo Art For Sale:

2009-03-29T04:30:00.001-04:00

Three Flamingos by eelkat
Browse Flamingo T-Shirts

Photography, Art, and Designs by Maine artist and photographer Wendy C Allen aka EelKat © 1978 - Present

The items below represent some of the different designs and themes created EelKat for Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts A Twighlight Manor Company.

Please Click Each Image Below To View It In A Larger Size :

Three Flamingos by eelkat
More Pink T-Shirts

Frogs Rule! (pink) by eelkat
See other Merchbooth Mugs

Three Flamingos by eelkat

Flamingo Love (blue) by eelkat

Wading Flamingos by eelkat

Flamingo Love (blue) by eelkat

Wading Flamingos by eelkat

Three Flamingos by eelkat

Pink Flamingo #13 by eelkat

Three Flamingos by eelkat

Flamingo Love in blue by Wendy C. Allen by eelkat

Three Flamingos by eelkat

Wading Flamingos by eelkat

Pink Flamingo #13 by eelkat

Flamingo Love resize blue by eelkat

Three Flamingos by eelkat

Flamingo Love by eelkat

Three Flamingos by eelkat

Pink Flamingo by eelkat

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What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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Three Flamingos Basic 3/4 Sleeve Raglan

2009-03-26T03:58:00.009-04:00

Three Flamingos by eelkat
More Pink T-Shirts

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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Photography, Art, and Designs by Maine artist and photographer Wendy C Allen aka EelKat © 1978 - Present

pink, flamingo, birds, swamp, marsh, painting, art, wendy c allen, pink flamingo, spring, 458, nature, bird, beautiful, wedding, ocean, Florida, Africa, Maine, zoo, zoo birds, zoo animals, garden, leaves, spring, woods, forest, green, brown, nature, flamingo stamps, flamingo postage, flora, floral, bird postage stamps, stamps with birds, bird stamps, eelkat, garden stamps, garden postage, stamps with flamingo, flower stamps, flower, floral designs, Zazzle, art for sale on Zazzle, art for sale, art for sale online, Christmas gifts, birthday gifts, art for christmas, wedding, wedding postage, wedding stamp, bird postage, art by eelkat, wedding stamps, wedding postage, wedding stamp, weddings, love, romantic, romance, gardener, gardening, shade garden, summer, landscapes, leaves, foliage, pink t shirt, flamingo t shirt, birds t shirt, swamp t shirt, marsh t shirt, painting t shirt, art t shirt, wendy c allen t shirt, pink flamingo t shirt, spring t shirt, nature t shirt, bird t shirt, beautiful t shirt, wedding t shirt, ocean t shirt, Florida t shirt, Africa t shirt, Maine t shirt, zoo t shirt, zoo birds t shirt, zoo animals t shirt, garden t shirt, leaves t shirt, spring t shirt, woods t shirt, forest t shirt, green t shirt, brown t shirt, nature t shirt, flora t shirt, floral t shirt, t shirts with birds, bird stamps, eelkat t shirt, garden t shirt, t shirts with flamingo, flower t shirt, floral designs t shirt, wedding t shirt, art by eelkat t shirt, weddings t shirt, love t shirt, romantic t shirt, romance t shirt, gardener t shirt, gardening t shirt, shade garden t shirt, summer t shirt, landscapes t shirt, leaves t shirt, foliage t shirt,

Have you joined Magpie? I canceled my account :(

2009-03-13T02:57:00.000-04:00

I keep hearing how great Magpie is and how you can make tons of money on Twitter with them, but I have yet to actually find a member who has made a cent yet, and I've asked about 400 people so far!

I did join a while back, and I had my account set so Magpie would post 1 ad for every 10 tweets I made. About a month and 2,000 posts later, I still had yet to see a Magpie add posted, and when I asked them why, they told me that the adds they post are topic related, and that I had yet to tweet on a topic they had an ad for! Well, I use twitter to talk about everything under the sun with my online friends and my tweets vary from music to movies to the weather to food to travel to video games to pets to cars to crafts to art to sewing to cooking to gardening to writing to authors to books and every other thing I talk about, so I had to wonder what kind of ads they were going to post if my topics of conversation did not match any ads they had available.

Well, I canceled my Magpie account about a month ago, because I decided the only topics I hadn't covered with diets, prescription drugs, and sex, and I came to the conclusion that if those are the only topics I'm not talking about, than those must be the only ads they had, and I didn't want them on my twitter account anyways.

The way I figure, if I'm talking about a million and one topics and they don't have an ad that covers a single one of them, than I don't need their ads on my account at all. If they had had ads that matched my topics of conversation, I would not have canceled my account, but I just don't like having accounts I don't use, and it was a waste for me to keep my account with them if they were never going to post any ads on my twitter anyways.

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
.
.

.

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

A question for fellow artists (and any other creative person too!)

2009-03-07T02:08:00.000-05:00

I just read this question on a forum:

"Something I ask myself is out of the thousands and millions of images on the internet or in galleries or art shows why would somebody stop and look at my artwork?"
That's an interesting thought. Why do people stop and look at your work? Do you ever ask? Do they ever say?

I know for me, the most common reason said, is the colors I use. Everyone is looking at art, and they see all the natural colors and than they see my art and they do a double take and than ask me, "What medium is this?" or "What in the world do you use to make your colors stand out like that?" or "Your colors pop off the page! How did you do that?"

My answer always stuns them too, because they are expecting me to tell them some big secret or the name of some expensive brand that makes odd colors, and I just pull out my $5 box of Crayola crayons and tell them I made it with crayons. Crayola Big Box gives me 120 colors to choose from and about half of those are very unnatural neon day-glow shades, and those are the ones I use the most.

So, yeah, I know why people stop and look at my art, because I use such extremely unnatural and alarmingly bright colors, so unlike any other artist is doing, that they can't help but stop and look, and than ask how I did it.

Do you know why people stop and look at your art? If you don't, you should find out, because it'll help you to create more art to make more people stop and look. Once they stop and look, your chances of making a sale are that much better.

This would apply to anything too, not just art. For writers, just reword it, Why do people read my work? ect.

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
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What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

My Brother's Art

2009-03-05T02:06:00.001-05:00

My brother has a Zazzle gallery now, be sure to check out his stuff

Buy merch from FlashAllen at www.zazzle.com/flashallen

[Copy this widget to your profile] [Create your own merch booth]

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
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What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

Best Selling Product on Amazon????

2009-02-23T02:50:00.001-05:00

You know how every body tells you to make money online by getting affiliate accounts and than promoting "the best selling items"? Well, I was on Amazon today looking for a book about faeries, when I noticed on the homepage, a big banner showcasing today's #1 top selling item on Amazon. Okay, it's Amazon, so you'd expect it to be a book right? or a CD or DVD? Nope. Sunglasses. In the dead of winter. Sunglasses. These sunglasses to be exact:

Now I ask you, does that look to you like an item that would be the best selling item of the day? That means Amazon sold more pairs of these sunglasses than any other item sold today. Really? Sunglasses? WOW! I wonder how many of them had to be sold to make it to today's #1 best selling item? They didn't say. Amazon should have a graph showing how many of them were sold, before they became the #1 selling product of the day. Don't you think so?

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
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What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

Weird threatening email from Zazzle shop owner

2009-02-19T05:20:00.000-05:00

Is anyone else getting an email "demanding" to know why they were deleted from your fan club?

I just got an email from another Zazzle gallery owner, saying that they tried to join my fan club, but that I had deleted them from the my list. They than went on and wanted to know why I have yet to join their fan club. They than demanded to know why I have not added a link to their gallery on my gallery. HUH? Why would I do that?? Than they started getting angry and threatening sounding and went on about how we should be focusing on art not politics and accused me of deleting them from my fan club list because they voted for Obama (who I also voted for btw, but what difference does that make? And why would they even say that to begin with? How am I supposed to know who they voted for?).

I'm confused. What is this weird email I got, and what are they talking about? I've never heard of this shop owner before, never had them as a fan, never deleted them from my fans (can you even delete fans from your list??? I've never heard of that before either!)

The email says it was sent to me via my gallery. Is it spam? Should I reply to him/her? Should I forward it to Zazzle HQ? Is this some sort of mass-email that's going out to every one on Zazzle? Are other members getting emails like this? Did they send this email to me by mistake, thinking they were sending it to someone else? I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. This guy sound really angry and I don't even know who he is or what he's so mad about.

Thanks

~Wendy

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
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What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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Photography, Art, and Designs by Maine artist and photographer Wendy C Allen aka EelKat © 1978 - Present

What would life be like if I was never born?

2009-02-13T02:48:00.000-05:00

What would life be like if I was never born?

It would be very different. Have you ever seen the movie "It's A Wonderful Life"? If not, go out a rent it. It's about an "insignificant" man living during the Great Depression. As a young boy he has big dreams of seeing the world and becoming rich and famous. Than his dad dies, so he "does the right thing" and stays home to take care of his mom and run the family business, and lets his younger brother go off traveling to see the world instead. His younger brother joins the war effort and become a famous war hero who changed the course of history. He sees his brother doing all the things he dreamed of doing, and gets depressed.
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Than the Great Depression hits and he loses what little money he has, and he watches his friends from school go off and become famous and wealthy, while he can barely support his wife and 5 kids. He gets more depressed.
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Next he takes out this huge loan to try to set things straight, but his best friend (and town drunk) loses the money, and in order to save his friend from going to prison for stealing the money, he takes the blame himself. Suddenly he looks at everything that happened in his life and he realizes that he's had a terrible life and it's just getting worse every day, and now he's about to go to prison and lose everything, so he decides suicide is the only way out, but just as he's getting ready to kill himself an old man falls off the bridge into the icy river and he forgets his resolve to kill himself in order to save the old man.
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Next thing he knows, he and the old man are talking and he's telling the old man every thing that has gone wrong and how he's had a terrible life and everyone would be better off if he had never been born. He says "I wish I had never been born." and the old man, says "Okay, you were never born. I'm an angel and I'm granting your wish."
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He laughs at the old man and goes home to find that the house he lived in has fallen down years ago; his children were never born, his wife is an old maid, his school friend who had become rich and famous were all bums and thugs and in and out of prison, the war ended very differently because his brother never became a war hero, everything was changed.
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Than the angel told him: when your brother was a kid he feel through the ice and drowned because "you had never been born, so that day on the lake, you didn't stop him from going out on the ice, he never grew up to be the war hero. Without you we never would have won the war."
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Next the angel says: "Your friends from school had been inspired by your hopes and dreams, to seek out their own. You had never been born, so now they never achieved their own dreams, because they needed you."
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The angel goes on like this about each person this man had meet in his life and tells how great an impact every word and every action in his life had on those around him. He ends by showing him his wife and telling how she never found love in her life because no one understood her the way he had, but now because he had never been born, she had never known love and never had the children. Because he had never been born, his children were never born, and their children would never be born, and everything in the entire world had been changed because this one small insignificant man, really did have great importance, even if he never became rich or famous. The angel ends by saying: "See George, you really did have a wonderful life."
...

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Well, that's the same thing with you. Everything you have ever said and done in your entire life has had a profound effect on every one around you, so if you had never been born, life everywhere would be very different.

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
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What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

Making New Stuff on Zazzle

2009-01-17T02:13:00.000-05:00

http://www.squidoo.com/coppercockeral

Don't forget to check out my new designs. I just added over 300 new products to my art gallery!

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

When Next You See Me I'll Look Like This:

Obsessed? I'm Not Obsessed... REALLY, I'm not!

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

-------------

Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress

Frogs Rule! (pink) Mugs by eelkat

2009-01-15T02:01:00.005-05:00

Frogs Rule! (pink) by eelkat
View other Merchbooth Mugs

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress