Author Archives: Shawn E. Bell

Camp NaNoWriMo 2 Officially Starts Today!

If you are a writer – especially one who can’t seem to find the time, set goals, or who suffers from writer’s block – you should head over to campnanowrimo.org and sign up to write during the month of April.  if you’re REALLY serious, make sure you sign up for NaNoWriMo in November!

From the website:

Based on November’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Camp NaNoWriMo provides the online support, tracking tools, and hard deadline to help you write the rough draft of your novel in a month.

Camp NaNoWriMo was established in 2011 as a project of the Office of Letters and Light, the parent 501(c)(3) nonprofit to National Novel Writing Month and the Young Writers Program. 2013 Camp sessions will take place in April and July.

To find out more, head over to Camp NaNoWriMo‘s “What is Camp NaNoWriMo?” page and get started!

Howard Hughes 1937 Sikorsky S-43 arrives at Kermit Weeks’ Fantasy of Flight

Kermit Weeks and his Fantasy of Flight team are back at their home base in Polk City, Florida, after spending a week earlier this month prepping Howard Hughes’ Sikorsky S-43 for transport.  This is the plane that Hughes had originally planned to use for a record-breaking around the world flight. CAA delays and the arrival of a faster plane made him leave this beautiful seaplane on the ramp.

While Hughes was using the Sikorsky for some water landing tests on Lake Mead, a crash landing send the plane to the bottom of the lake, killing two other passengers and almost killing Hughes as well.  He had the airplane salvaged and refit it as his personal executive transport business and (ahem) Hollywood starlets to exotic (and not so exotic) locations.

There are only three of these beautiful planes left in the world.  Kermit plans on restoring the aircraft to airworthiness.

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June 30, 1864 – Yosemite Grant

 

On this day in 1864 President Lincoln signed a bill drafted by both houses of the 38th Congress of the United States officially creating the Yosemite Grant.  While Yellowstone ultimately became the first National Park, this was the first instance of park land being set aside for preservation and public use by the federal government.  The grant was the result of citizens like Galen Clark and Senator John Conness advocating heavily for protection of the area.  John Muir later led a successful movement to establish a larger national park encompassing not just the Yosemite Valley, but surrounding mountains and forests as well.

Yosemite presented a series of firsts for the national park system we enjoy today; first to have land set aside, paving the way for other parks like Yellowstone to carve out protected areas for future generations to enjoy; and first to build on the national park idea, and put in place a system for the future United States National Park Service.

Today marks the 149th year since the Yosemite Grant was signed.  2014 promises to be a banner year at Yosemite, as the park celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Yosemite Grant.  You can find out more about the events celebrating the 150th anniversary HERE.

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From ALLi: Commonwealth Book Prize Regional Award Winner Ezekel Alan tells all

ALLi is the Alliance of Independent Authors, the professional association for self-publishing writers.  They host an EXCELLENT self-publishing advice blog HERE.

Award-winning Jamaican indie author Ezekel Alan pens an article for ALLi’s ‘Top Tips from Top Indie Authors’ series.  From the article:

“My novel Disposable People became the first self-published book to win a major prize.” Jamaican indie author Ezekel Alan shares the story of his groundbreaking achievement.

What’s the secret of your success?

I wouldn’t as yet consider myself successful, but I hope I am getting there. Winning the Commonwealth Book Prize Regional Award gave my novel a major boost and drew a lot of attention not only from readers but also publishers and agents. I hope this will not only propel the existing novel to greater success, but also future novels.

In terms of what I think worked well for me it is the voice in my writing. Readers say they enjoy the uniqueness of the voice, it is compelling and refreshingly different. It is also very blunt and real. I try to push boundaries a bit, and I combine different forms of story-telling into a novel. I think this helps to set my work apart and creates interest. Some writers write with the reader in mind and it works for them; I come at it from the point of view of what I would like to read. I read a lot, and much of what I read, while good, is generally conventional. I aim to do something innovative. Continue reading

Who Watches the Watchers at Mono Lake?

With their usual regard for conservation and the environment, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP)continues to display their professional ineptitude and scandalous behavior.  All efforts to protect and restore Mono Lake have been undermined by the DWP since they made a unilateral power-grab of lake monitoring operations and started diverting $10,000,000 in water per year.    Everything the DWP is doing is directly in violation of the rules set in 1998 by the State Water Board.

Guess the DWP had to find SOME way to pay all those ridiculously high salaries, right?

From the post:

A May 13, 2013 report to the State Water Board revealed that the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) failed to keep its promise to monitor the health of Mono Lake. DWP unilaterally took over operations of the lake monitoring program in August 2012, displacing the independent expert scientists who had run the program for 30 years. Since then a litany of issues has ensued. As a result, critical data—such as the salinity of Mono Lake—are not being collected, and key portions of the data that are being gathered are not usable. These failures are violations of the rules set in 1998 by the State Water Board.

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