Outside-The-Box Strategies To Expand Your Audience And Gain Traction Marketing Your Writing Through Powerful Visual Imagery
According to a wise sage known as Google, there are precisely 129,864,880 books in the world. What is more, every year, globally, UNESCO estimates that 2.2 million books are published.
Needless to say, with those figures, it’s virtually impossible to stand out. The odds of making the best-seller list are probably not much better than the odds of hitting the Powerball Jackpot. Virtually everyone today has a book available for sale.
So what to do? I’ve come up with some strategies that might be…
Why Poetry Can Boost Your Overall Sense of Wellness And Keep You From Regularly Calling The Suicide Hotline
I used the initial lockdown period to write poetry. I’d come down with the Covid-19 and wasn’t feeling so hot, so I figured might as well scribble away. I guess it’s therapeutic.
There are other ways you can boost your mood of course: exercise, watching a movie, joining a cult where they make you chant “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama,” forty-seven times in a row while pretending you’re enjoying it. But poetry seemed most organic for me, most invigorating, most connected to who…
SAFE AND EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES TO DEFEAT CORONAVIRUS AND STAY OUT OF THE HOSPITAL
Whether you’re vaccinated or not, you can still acquire Covid-19. The CDC stopped reporting breakthrough cases, but there have been 988 breakthrough cases that have resulted in deaths as of July 6th. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html Hence, I thought I’d share some lesser known tips that may reduce the likelihood of contracting Covid-19 and/or ameliorate symptoms in the event you acquire it. (Note: I did not include social distancing, avoiding crowds, washing hands, or wearing masks, since these are well-established techniques.)
A Poem About Covid-19
Below is a poem from my third collection, “Notes From The Bonfire.” The link below also offers a video reading of the poem with imagery.
THE DEAD
The dead
are our friends
smoldering
pouring like lava
from the apertures
in the earth,
creaking,
the desperate yawls,
the miserable, wretched
twisting of bones.
They line up
the cemeteries,
are poured under
the hot cement,
tombstones as far
as the horizon,
crematoriums
pumping out
mountains of ashes —
our friends —
our beloved —
those we trusted —
those we planned
to have over the house
for goddamn tea.
Oh, dear…
A Poem From My Latest Collection “Notes From The Bonfire.”
Below is a poem from my third collection, “Notes From The Bonfire.” The link below also offers a video reading of the poem with imagery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSVgcOpfqCw
GUESS WHAT?
Guess What?
The whirlwind of a time
cannot contain
this mute despair,
these dangling participles,
these bats ate the wrong way.
Guess what?
Your childhood is gone,
the parables relied upon
now seem like broken staircases,
the limelight of heaven
is drenching you in acid rain.
Guess what?
Your brother betrayed you,
the lover you relied upon
is running into the arms of another man;
your bank account is burning
like an…
HOW TO OVERCOME WRITER’S BLOCK THROUGH POETRY
The Secret Technique To Overcome a Crippling Sense of Fear and Self-Doubt And Complete All The Projects You Start
I recently published my fourth book, a poetry collection, “Notes From The Bonfire.” I have three more books in various genres I’m hoping to publish soon. Still, I’d say I’ve had as problematic writer’s block as any other writer in history. My writer’s block isn’t the type where I can’t produce content. That never happened to me. I always could get words down on the page.
No, my writer’s block is more the type where I end up hating everything I’ve…
Create a writing landscape previously thought uninhabitable
When writing a novel there is often the opportunity to create a unique world. Certainly this is the case in sci-fi and fantasy, but even in historical fiction there often needs to be elaborate world-building.
To grasp what needs to take place let’s look at the famed red planet. One day, mostly through the aid of various sophisticated robots (who learn via neural networks), Mars will be terraformed.
To initiate the process, Elon Musk has suggested nuking the polar caps to release the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Sounds crazy. …
I had it. Was sick a month with Covid-19. Because it got so bad, at times, it can be frustrating hearing people say this is just like the flu. They usually start by suggesting the death total of the flu is similar to that of Covid-19. This is not accurate. H1N1 Swine Flu killed 12,500 Americans in 2009–2010 over a period of 12 months (61 million infections). Season Flu in 2018–2019 killed 34,200 Americans. In one month — ONE MONTH — the coronavirus has killed 42,000 Americans (March 20-April 20). …
How to remain optimistic during a brutal and crushing pandemic? Let me start by saying I really can’t stand people who do not take this seriously. This is a major public health crisis, a national tragedy, really, and the numbers, when it is all done, will be staggering. Already there are more than 30,000 dead in America alone and our best guess is these numbers are a severe underestimation (when people are found dead in apartments, or before getting tested, they are generally not counted as coronavirus deaths). One study, in fact, found that the death rate — outside of…
In The King of Comedy, Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro), a bumbling amateur comic living in his mother’s basement, stalks Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), a talk show host, and, with the aid of a friend (Sandra Bernhard), eventually holds him hostage in an effort to do a late-night set. Shockingly, the execs put him on and he somehow with zero experience gets a ton of laughs. He is whisked off to jail by the authorities, but still gets a book deal and becomes famous…probably moreso than he could have by any other means. …
Matt Nagin
Matt Nagin is a writer, comedian, actor, and educator. His latest book, “Do Not Feed The Clown,” is available on Amazon. More at mattnagin.com.
