March 11, 2007
Issue # 2

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In this Issue:

A Welcome
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Happenings
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Article: Organize to Write
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Recommended Reader Resource
AD
Recommended Writer Resource
My Contact and Other Information

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A Welcome:

Good afternoon to all of you, and welcome to the second issue of my newsletter. The newsletter will go out whenever I have news to share. At times this may be infrequently, but at least I will not be clogging your email for nothing.

The purpose of this newsletter is to inform you of what is going on with my writing career, as well as in my personal life.

My daughters and I are busy with homeschooling. We recently joined a gym with my sister and a friend, and I also joined a walking challenge.

I am busy marketing The Down Home(School) Gazette, The Pamper Me Weekly Tip, and The Adventures in Organization Weekly Tip. This is a time consuming job, but it will be worth it in the end. I am trying to find as many free ways to market the items as I can, then I will start marketing with ways I have to pay a little bit for. Let's face it, if I spend all of money on marketing, I will not be seeing any profits.

Request: If you know of any less known free and low cost ideas for marketing, please e-mail me at slb725writer@aol.com. Thank you.

Warmest wishes,
Shannon Buck
Author, The Down Home(School) Gazette

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Ad:

FREE Sample E-Book: The Homeschool Mom of 2 Sample Book: Containing Previous Articles and More from the Website. This sample book is free to anyone who wants a copy. E-mail at thehsmomof2@aol.com for your free copy today. It will come as a PDF attachment.


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Happenings


So much is going on here.

1. I am busily marketing my ebook, the gazette, and my websites.

2. I am listing all of the free and low cost ways that I can find to market my writings. Once I am done listing, I will combine all of the ideas into my WordPerfect program so that I can print a copy for each item that I need to market. I can then check off things as I do them.

3. I recently created a new website at http://www.adventuresinorganization.com. It is for those of us who are organizationally disinclined.

4. I have created a free workshop specifically for people who are new to, or who are considering, homeschooling. it is called 'Before You Begin'. New homeschoolers may also find this workshop helpful. The workshop can be found at http://www.thehomeschoolmomof2.com.

5. I have a MySpace blog at http://blog.myspace.com/shannonlbuck.

6. I am planning for summer, trying to come up with things for use to do.

7. I am losing weight.

8. I am creating a scrapbooking website.

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Ad:

The Down Home(School) Gazette
A quarterly print newsletter for homeschool families featuring articles, recipes, tips, crafts and more.
http://www.thehomeschoolmomof2.com/

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Article
Organize to Write by Shannon Buck - Copyright March 2007

I am not a born organizer. I am, however, learning to be organized. Here are a few parts of my life that I am trying to organize:

~ My Home, including my office area and craft areas.
~ My Writing
~ My Life
~ Me

To help me get all of these areas organized, I have created Adventures in Organization (http://www.adventuresinorganization.com). This site is a great motivational factor for my success.

There are two specific areas that I would like to mention in this article.

1. I am trying to organize my writing by doing a few simple things:

~ Making marketing and promotional plans.
~ Making a writing schedule for updating all websites, newsletters and The Down Home(School) Gazette, and a few books, while writing for pleasure whenever the ideas come to me in the form of short stories and whatever else.
~ Filing away paper copies of all of my writings.
~ Trying to figure out how to save digital/cd-rom copies all all of my writings.

2. I am also trying to organize my life. Here are the areas that I have organized thus far:

~ I now have a schedule each day.
~ Every month I make a list of things that I need to do - organizational chores, errands, shopping lists, extra things that need to be done, things that I hope to accomplish, writing goals for the month, etc. I cross each item off as I do it.
~ We have daily, monthly and season chore carts.
~ I am now trying to lose weight.

Adventures in Organization deals with all of these things, but I would like to elaborate on the weightloss aspect as it pertains to writing.

When I write, I write. A lot. It may be for days or weeks. Over the years I have gained a lot of weight, most of which is not due to writing. Let's face it though, how many of us are eating correctly and getting enough exercise when we are feeling creative? These are contributing factors to our weight gain.

My sister told me that even when we are very busy, we should be getting at least 10 minutes of exercise a day. I did this today, before I began writing. I actually did 15 minutes. I feel better now.

I also try to always have water near me so that I can drink it when I am thirsty. If it is not near me, I will not drink it.

Recently, my sister, my daughters and myself joined a gym with a friend. I was very intimidated at first, but I really enjoy going. It is a lot of fun. Monday I have a fitness design meeting there. If you have a Planet Fitness in your area, I highly recommend it.

I had an appointment in November with my doctor, who referred me to a nutritionist. The nutritionist has been a big help. If you can, I suggest visits with a local nutritionist on a monthly basis.

I also joined SparkPeople recently. If you should happen to decide to join, please use me as a referral (thehsmomof2). And if you are a mom who has to lose more than 50 pounds, please join my sisters SparkTeam while you are there, Moms with 50+ lbs to Lose. It is a great team.

SparkPeople.com is a place for people who are trying to lose weight. It is fr*ee. There are great resources for health, nutrition and weightloss, as well as a great community. Everyone is very supportive, and there are teams for people with many different interests. I am on one for scrapbookers.

Organizing our lives is a very important step to a sucessful life. We al1 have to get our lives in order so that we can lead the fullest lives possible.

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AD

The Adventures in Organization Weekly Tip

Some of us are not born organizers. This just not only affect our things, but our cleaning and our lives as well. Not to metion our health and body image.

I have been trying so hard, and have found a couple of sites that have helped me, but I have been unable to find the perfect site/book/system to do the job. While I enjoy a couple of these sources quite a bit, and am using certain things from them, I also have to figure out a lot for myself.

My way to cope with this issue (of mine) is by creating Adventures in Organization. It took me a couple of weeks to set up the website, but it will be well worth it.

Join me in my Adventures in Organization, and we can watch our lives bloom into organized havens for ourselves, our families, and all of those who visit us.


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Recommended Reader Resource:

Write from the Heart http://writefromtheheartwithshannonlbuck.blogspot.com/


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AD

The Pamper Me Weekly Tip

This tip newsletter is e-mailed to you on a weekly basis. Please sign up at The Pamper Me Site.

You will enjoy:

~ A weekly Pamper Me Tip delivered straight to your mailbox.

~ Bonus: A monthly tip will be added to your weekly tip - the topic will be Pamper My Daughters.

~ Bonus: Another monthly tip will be added to your weekly tip - the topic will be Me and My Friends.


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Recommended Writer Resource:


WritingPerc (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WritingPerc/)

This is a Yahoo group newsletter sent out once a week. It gives you a couple of writing prompts.

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My Contact and Other Information:

Shannon L. Buck, Author
slb725writer@aol.com
Author Website # 1
http://www.shannonbuck.com
Author Website # 2
http://www.authorsden.com/shannonlbuck
Authors Blog
http://blog.myspace.com/shannonlbuck
Adventures in Organization
http://www.adventuresinorganization.com
Write from the Heart Blog
http://writefromtheheartwithshannonlbuck.blogspot.com/
The Pamper Me Site
http://www.thepampermesite.com
The Low-Income Way of Life
http://www.thelowincomewayoflife
The Homeschool Mom of 2 Website
http://www.thehomeschoolmomof2.com/
The Homeschool Mom of 2 Blog
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thehsmomof2/