Regular followers of my blog will know that I am concerned about words fading out of the English language. So imagine my dismay when I read recently that the Oxford University Press has expunged several words from the Oxford Junior Dictionary. And no, the deleted words are not out of use or particularly outdated, they are just apparently not ‘relevant to a modern day childhood’. The missing words include acorn, adder, bluebell, dandelion, kingfisher, otter and even conker. And the words taking their place in the new edition include broadband, blog, bullet point and, wait for it, celebrity!

It worries me that so many of the excluded words refer to our countryside, our fauna and flora. Do we really want to educate the next generation to give priority to cut-and-paste, voicemail and chatroom, over pasture, cowslip and cygnet?

Of course it is not just the younger…

The Solution To Use The Classic Editor

If you are blogger at wordpress.com, this post here will help you to solve a big problem. As you have noticed, the decision makers at WordPress want to force you to use the recent new editor interface that is purely designed for mobile devices and for users who only create short-form content. This is of course a pain if you are desktop user and if you like to create long-form content as well. In this post you will learn how to get back to the classic editor permanently.

In the new editor form, we had a link back to the classic editor but that link is now gone too. WordPress does not have the intention to give us the link back as you can read here in the forums. If you go through this huge forum thread, you will find out…

Schools visits are magical…most of the time.  My very first school visit started with technology issues. After struggling for half an hour, I decided to give my presentation without slides. At that point, of course, the presentation suddenly started working! Talk about stressful. But in the end, it’s your connection with the kids that matters.  How do we inspire and encourage kids during our school visits?

I thought through this question as I recently prepared for my visit to St. Augustine’s school, where I spent the day leading workshops for K-8, pictured here. There are the three basic rules that work for me. I share personal experiences, get the kids involved, and use questions.

1.  Share personal experiences.  Kids like hearing about your triumphs and downfalls.  They want to hear something silly or what gives you ideas for books.  I share my pile of rejections, a silly picture of myself at…

One Realm Beyond, book 1 in Donita K. Paul’s new series Realm Walkers

I am honored to have interviewed Donita K. Paul about her new book series Realm Walkers. Donita is known for being a pioneer in Speculative Christian Fiction and she brought dragons to life in a phenomenal and God honoring way with her best-selling DragonKeeper Chronicles. Now she brings us an exciting new series. I hope you’ll enjoy this brief look into her sure-to-be-best-selling series. Now onto the interview.

Brock: What inspired you to create Realm Walkers?

Donita: One day I was thinking about Christopher Columbus. Then I thought about all the people who thought the world was flat. And I wondered what would happen if your world was flat? How would you get from one pancake world to the others? Is there a federation to demand your allegiance? Are there dragons? Of course there are dragons!

Brock: Yes dragons! Can…

Today I wanted to share an infographic I found on Pinterestthat breaks down a Book Marketing Timeline.

The infographic coincides with the article “Why A Book Marketing Timeline Is Important” by Stefanie Newell on TheWriteOneBlog.

In the article they have included a great video titled “What They Don’t Tell You About Successful Product Launches” by Darren Rowse that is definetly worth listening to.

Enjoy!