CULLUM ON "CIRCLE OF IVY" A FAT LADY

John reads the opening chapter of Emily Frankel's novel, which bluntly, realistically tells the story of a fat lady jeopardizing her life by excessive dieting.

Click, get a free copy--CIRCLE OF IVY" (it's free till Dec 18th)

AUTHOR MOAN

Hey, almost nobody is buying my e-books -- my six novels are just sitting on emilyfrankel.com.

Why?                                                                                                              
 why?                     

Why?

Gee, the titles are good, book-covers are good!! The plots -- gee -- they're very good stories. My writing has been praised by critics ... Lotta friends on Facebook and Twitter read my blog ; they say they like my ideas, my humor, my honesty. Why aren't they buying a book?

The $2.99 price is too high?

I dug up facts hoping to comfort myself. According to Pew Research: One out of 10 American adults, 72 percent of adults, read some kind of book last year. That's a steep decline from 1978, when 92 percent of Americans made that same claim. But when e-books exploded into popularity -- driven by the launch of the Kindle in 2007, the Nook in 2009 -- books sales jumped from $61.3 million to $1.54 billion, and  e-books accounted for an increasingly large share of the total trade revenue. Pew and Gallup say the revenue from e-books has been "flattening" -- end of last year e-books totaled $1.37 billion and accounted for not quite 20 percent of total revenue.

Numbers dumberate me! LOUDLY I'm moaning -- I am, I am -- I don't write novels to study percentages, market shares, I don't really care about money.

Okay, audiobooks are getting popular. Researchers said they accounted for the strongest portion of adult book sales in  2015, bringing in $205.6 million, a 38.9 percent increase from 2014. My husband, John Cullum, who has a voice that thousands of fans love, wants to record my books.

Hey ho, haha -- I haven't been able to sell my e-books! Even with Cullum's name, the same thing will happen with audiobooks. Gee -- if I could just get my books in a store window, I'd post this sign.

Hey, here's a video that a critic who wrote a book published. It sums up my moan perfectly.

A PRINTED HOUSE FOR XMAS?

Yep, a 3D Printer can build a Printed House in 45 days, or 24 hours.

Here's tech talk about this 3D Printed House in China, and its thick, strong walls that can withstand a major earthquake.


In the next video, you can see more details, and watch a 3D Printer layering on cement like it's decorating a birthday cake. I'm not sure what the boss-owner of this 3D Printing Company is talking about with excited gestures, but he's obviously proud that 10 houses were built in 24 hours.



It's amazing -- the 3D Printer, amazingly economically, can create different style houses, and the basic cost for any of these houses is about $4800.  

A Double House

A Sun Room.

Golly, maybe 3D Printers will help solve the problems of the world's expanding population, and homelessness. My husband and I could even build a house in the courtyard behind our home -- maybe a tiny house like Texan Alex Le Roux built -- an 8 x 5 x 7 foot structure. We could paint its 7 x 4 square-foot interior bright pink and orange!

I'm already wondering whom I could contact about local 3D Printers, builders, permits -- an extra space would be wowy wonderful!!! I could have it ... well, probably not for Xmas, but maybe for New Year's. 


Hey, it's the wishing time of year. What about a castle?

There's a guy in Minnesota who built himself a castle in his backyard. I must say it would be lovely to have an Andrey Rodenko castle on our premises -- bet I'd write lovelier, better blogs.

TRACKING YOUR FITNESS

IS fitness tracking helpful?

Sure! Having a tracker helps, like wearing a nice outfit helps, and taking a quick look at the tracker is a way of encouraging yourself to keep going. The most expensive one is $849; a more typical, less expensive tracker will help too. ($29.00 to $89.99).

Even so, the manufacturers of FixBit, (one of the most popular trackers), says that only 10% of the purchasers wear it for a year.

The fact is, the tracker just helps you stick to your exercise routine. No matter what you do to keep in shape, the repeated routines get boring. Based on my background as an ex-dancer who stays in shape, I think you need to find a way to make each exercise session special.

My husband, John Cullum, hates exercise. He vocalizes, when he's getting ready to perform as a singer; he rehearses the lines for a play and exercises that part of his brain, but physical exercise -- abs, stretches, jogging, biking, weight-lifting -- none of that stuff is for him.

Sometimes he shops for groceries. We live on the 4th floor. There's no elevator; the stairs tire him. Maybe he'd be less tired if he exercised his stair-climbing muscles. He could do the stairs while holding in his abs; or climb the stairs with his shoulders arched back. He might try standing extra tall, or raising each knee as high as possible as he climbs; he could try holding the banister for one step, and not holding for the next step. Any of these simple physical things might make stair-climbing easier, and become a way of exercising that's not boring.

With or without a fitness tracker, I'm suggesting that you review what you do every day that you can possibly transform into a more challenging use of your body.   

Could you transform making a phone call into an exercise, and stand or sit tall, stretch, or suck in your abs before you input the number? If you're in a hurry, you'll probably think to hell with this routine. But you could certainly transform bed-making, dishes, sweeping, laundry -- any tidying routine could become an exercise as well.  

Almost every day (for more than ten years), I exercise -- I do a dance ritual, using a recording that I fell in love with many years ago. Before turning on the sound system, I warm up with stretches, standing tall, and sucking in my abs -- the warmup isn't fun, but it enables me to move confidently, full out. Playing the music, I perform choreography which I've had to simplify somewhat over the years, but the movement fits the rhythms and crescendos of this music perfectly. 




This painting expresses how I feel when I'm dancing.

Charles Darwin once remarked, “If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.” Albert Einstein declared, “If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician.” Jimi Hendrix called music his “religion.”

Fellow exercisers, find some music -- rap, classic, rock and roll, a song, or sounds you love -- and play it. Exercise becomes dancing.

You dance -- yes -- dance -- to wonderful music.