Category: Belgium

My Bday Res + COVID Vax2, and Christoph Weigert’s DIY Book Promotion

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It was my birthday a few days ago (COVID-19 style: quiet and sweet) and yesterday I received my second COVID immunization shot. For anyone like me and my husband who had COVID, the side effects of the vaccine can be worse than for most. Both shots have been a doozy for me. If the U.S. had taken the pandemic seriously from the start, countless lives would have been saved and fewer people would feel as horrible as I do after getting their shots. Which is to say, mask up and get your vaccine — side effects are way better to experience than wrangling COVID.

In my side-effect addled state, I’m announcing here that I’ve promised myself to complete my novel, “Flamenco & the Sitting Cat,” once and for all by my next birthday (and hopefully lots sooner). That said, I’ll keep this short so I can go back to bed. Thank goodness my dear doggie is more than happy to lie about with me.

Update: I wrote the above after a night and day of relentless nausea, severe headache, and fatigue. However, besides waking this morning with wringing wet pajamas and bedsheets, I slept pretty well. Fever and aches are gone, moreover I’m not nearly as light-headed, tired and nauseated. Fingers crossed, this time I’ll recover from Vax II way quicker than Vax I. Regardless — please, please, please get your vaccines. I’ll take Vax over actual COVID-19 any day. In Iran, where my dear in-laws live, they don’t even have the luxury of choosing whether to get vaccinated. Despite whatever outlandish “news” Fox News and their ilk tell us, Iranians continue to be hit extra hard.

K-D with da-AL.
Forgive the weird hair bump at the top of my head — the result of showering yesterday, then not having energy to comb my hair until this morning. Today I managed a little lipstick and blush, plus a few moments of doggie backyard cleanup. The fiendish grin is due to torturing my dear husband to snap this pic for you.

Here to share book promotion know-how is Christoph Weigert, author of “Imagination: the Secret Nobody Talks About.” He’s from Bavaria and now lives in Berlin. To learn more about him and his book, check out his site.

Getting the Word Out About Your Book by Christoph Weigert

Writing a book is one thing, publishing and pushing it out into the world is something quite different, yet they are inextricably entwined. Pictures of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde come to mind. Publishing — ignoring this often unloved and unasked for task would be a great disservice to ourselves as writers. 

In the following I want to touch upon different efforts I currently deploy for my debut book Imagination: The Secret Nobody Talks About. 

There is a company I admire and whose content on YouTube I cherish. One day one of their coaches remarked he creates his own audio version for books he likes, and he was the editor for a book the company’s CEO wrote. My instincts were on full alert and a few e-mails later, mixed up with weeks of waiting, he became the editor to my book. Eventually he also narrated the audio version, and I even included an interview with the CEO.

Soon my book will be offered as a free bonus to participants of an online course that Jon, editor to my book, will host. This adds to the book’s exposure to the public.

The question here is: can you cooperate with people and integrate them into your next book project, or at least write about them? Being part of a book project seems to be flattering, and it can open new doors for you as a writer.

Another of my publicity efforts is the creation of a so-called funnel. For a deep dive into this topic, I recommend Dotcom Secrets by Russel Brunson. A basic description of a funnel is that once someone is already interacting with your product, or is on your webpage, then you offer them other products. A waiter offering you dessert, or a automotive dealer selling you an insurance on top of your new car are examples from daily life for this type of business consideration.

What could be additional offers of an author, besides obvious ones like an e- or audio format that accompany the book’s physical version?

Maybe art has inspired your book? Or a bundle of interviews with experts that shine even more light onto the topics you love to elaborate on?

A basic theme of my book is the power of creativity and imagination, as well as how to connect with it and train it like a muscle. Hence I came up with the following additional offers for my funnel: 

  1. A guided imagination meditation and an audio that contains a wide range of additional imagination exercises.
  2. As another step, I’m offering a training video that enhances physical power and flow, because a strong mind (an empowered imagination) needs a strong body.

These are my two cents on furthering the good cause of your book, making it work for you and getting rewarded in return. I hope you can get something out of it and I wish you happy creating and writing.

Do you make birthday resolutions?

Happy International Women’s Day Pt. 1 of 2 by Denzil

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Early poster for International Women’s Day. (Thanks to Wikipedia.)

International Women’s Day, initially proposed by German revolutionary Clara Zetkin, was initially honored on the streets of New York, March 8, 1909. It was decidedly socialist until feminists embraced it in 1968, and the United Nations joined the festivities in 1975.

This Wiki diagram shows where… hey, wait a minute — why, why, why is the United States blank? How do you celebrate International Women’s Day?…

Red: official holiday. Orange: holiday for women. Yellow: non-official holiday (gifts for women). (Author: Artemka at Wikipedia.)

Marie-Louise Habets went from nurse, nun, and war to fame. Here’s her story, courtesy of Belgian-British blogger Denzil Walton. He’s guested at Happiness Between Tails here and here. (He’s also a professional technical copywriter.) Among his posts about Belgium’s many wonders, he introduces us to the country’s incredible women!…

“Nature Cure” book review by Denzil Walton

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"Nature Cure," by Richard MabeyThe healing properties and potential of nature have always been known, but are finding a “comeback” these days, with hip terms like forest bathing now being recommended from psychiatrists’ couches. The book “Nature Cure” presents a personal re-discovery of the benefits of nature.

Richard Mabey is one of the UK’s finest nature writers. The first of his 32 books was Food for Free (1972), and his latest is The Cabaret of Plants: Forty Thousand Years of Plant Life and the Human Imagination (2016).

Unfortunately, between 2000 and 2002, Mabey suffered a severe depression. We find him at the start of the book in bed, blankly gazing at the wall. But encouraged by friends and realizing the need for a change of air, he uproots himself from the family house in the Chilterns where he and his sister have lived for 110 years between them, and heads off to East Anglia to live in a room in a farmhouse. His room is “like a small forest” with “more oak inside it than out.” And here he strings up a series of low-energy lamps and makes his nest, amazingly not with a computer but two manual typewriters.

Throughout, Mabey describes his breakdown and steady recovery with his characteristic laid-back style, like your favourite uncle relating exploits from a distant past. We get a glimpse of what may have caused his freefall into depression when he describes what it takes to be a full-time writer: “doggedness to be alone in a room for a very long time.”

His honesty is admirable. Owning up to depression is never easy, even these days, perhaps especially for a successful writer at the pinnacle of his career (he had just completed the epic and lauded Flora Britannica). Even more difficult was when depression robbed him of his desire to write: “it made me lose that reflex, it was like losing the instinct to put one foot in front of the other.” But obviously Mabey regained that reflex, and how he did is very touching – and through writing he began to unlock “pieces of me that had been dormant for years.”

His style is warmly conversational, making the book easy and pleasurable to read, despite the subject matter. He gently leads you from subject to subject, so that you forget where the conversation started. One moment he is describing wild horses on Redgrove Fen, and his musings about their origins leads to cave paintings in France and then to local Stone Age flint mines in Norfolk, and somehow to Virginia Woolf and moats. Is this what he refers to later as “free-range reading?”

Nature Cure is definitely a recommended read, for anyone interested in good writing about nature, and the cure he describes might well be of benefit to others suffering from depression too.

Denzil Walton writes two blogs: Discovering Belgium and Life Sentences.

Guest Blog Post: “Walking in the Forest is Good for My Soul,” in Denzil Walton’s exact words

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When I (da-AL) happened upon Belgian blogger Denzil’s lovely site, I could hardly believe it — I was the first to comment there! Yes, it is new, but it so beautifully filled with joy and heart that I doubt it will remain a secret for long …

A lush forest road
Photo by Denzil Walton

I know that walking in my local forest is good for my body. It’s good for my heart – it gets the blood flowing. It’s good for my lungs – it gets the air circulating. It’s good for my muscles – it tones them up.

But good for the soul?

Surely, to refresh my spirit I should head towards my local church or cathedral, not to my local forest?

autumn view of tree lined lake
Photo by Denzil Walton

Don’t get me wrong: if you like to visit a magnificent cathedral to get a spiritual lift, that’s fine. You might be enthralled by the architecture and the stained glass windows. You might be impressed by the flower arrangements. You might marvel at the beautiful sounds of a choir. All of these things might lift your soul and help you see the glory and wonder of the divine – whatever name you give it.

However, for myself, my cathedral is my local forest, with the enormous trunks of ancient beech and oak trees rising up and over my head. With its canopy of green leaves forming the roof. Instead of stained glass windows, I see the delicately painted wings of butterflies and dragonflies. Instead of bouquets and vases of cultivated flowers, I see wild celandines, wood anemones and foxgloves. My choir consists of the sweet warbling of the blackcap, the drumming of a black woodpecker, the bark of the roe deer.

gorgeous forest view from park bench
Photo by Denzil Walton

And just as you might enter a cathedral and experience a touch of heaven, I walk in a forest and experience the wonder of creation. And it lifts my spirits.

I’m not one for New Year’s Resolutions. Actually, if you read one of my blog posts, I even recommend postponing them to Spring!

But if you are into resolutions, here’s one you might like to consider.

Resolve to visit your local forest regularly throughout the year – maybe once a week or month. Experience its peace and beauty. Take time to stop and look at the wild flowers. Listen to the birds.

I am sure you will come out with a refreshed and rejuvenated spirit.

Denzil Walton blogs on walking and cycling in Belgium at Discovering Belgium. His new blog is called Life Sentences, which he describes as “random, positive and life-affirming musings on various topics and experiences.”