I received a comment from Lloyd who said (para-phrasing) he would like to hear my comments about an article I had read.  Great minds think alike Lloyd, because I was thinking along the same lines of plucking a topic out of the headlines and putting my unique take on it. 🙂

Having said that, my two choices today were that WikiLeaks has been cut off from their paypal account or Sarah Palin has a show about going camping with Kate Gosselin.  Granted, I really do want to speak my mind about these two women, but tonight I am focusing on the WikiLeaks topic (the article can be found here Personally I think Amazon.com and Paypal are right in their decision to sever ties with the WikiLeaks organization. (For some reason the links button is not working, so the article can be found here http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/04/wikileaks.pay.pal/index.html?hpt=T2)

When I was in college I took a journalism class taught by a very bright woman, Susan Plese.  Now Mrs. Plese wrote a column for the local paper and was a steadfast journalist who truly believed in Freedom of the Press; the public has a right to know; yada, yada, yada.  I disagree with her.

There are some things the public should not know, let’s face it in today’s global world, when one person “knows” something, everybody knows it.  I think the Government has the right to keep certain information close to the vest and while I think there may be a need for a website like WikiLeaks to exist, I don’t believe they should necessarily be releasing that information to the general public.  One could argue that if the information they recieved were of vital importance or could bring justice to someone who was perpetuating a crime; then certainly that would be different than simply divulging all kinds of information about diplomatic ties and policies that could certainly do more harm than good.

So I applaud Amazon.com and Paypal for severing their ties with WikiLeaks.  The article insinuates that these two organizations were encouraged or pressured to severe their ties with WikiLeaks and perhaps that is true, but maybe just maybe Amazon and Paypal feel that WikiLeaks is in the wrong and they are taking a stand and saying, what you are doing is wrong and we will not help you do it!

So here I am at day three, I have the basic gist of the blog up and I send out the mass e-mail saying “hey check me out.”  I got a response back.  It was from one of the guys in the IT department where I work.  Besides the diabolical laughter which he inserted in my e-mail, my  friend (yes I am going so far as to call him my friend) says, “find your voice,” “worry more about your content than volume” or something along these lines.

What does he mean, I wondered.  So I asked my niece who is 16 years old and wise beyond her years, “What does he mean, find my voice?”

“Find something that you like to write about and put your own spin on it” was her response.

“But what do I write about?” I pondered.

“Write a bunch of random topics on a page and then pick one and write about it for 15 minutes” was her advice.

So here I am trying to find my voice, I thought I’d throw it out to you and see if you have any suggestions.  If not I am going to pick a topic to write about, it could be anything (hey, I think I’m pretty level-headed with common sense) it may be politics, it may be family life, it may just be something in the newspaper I read that strikes my fancy.  But I am going to write….everyday…for at least a year or until I find my voice.

So I guess a little background about me is in order.  The short version (see about me for the real details) is I wrote a children’s book about my dog and I think it is adorable (of course I do) and I want to get it published.  I have submitted it to a couple of agents and have received the lovely (read sarcasm) rejection notice.

Then in February I went to presentation about book publishing at a local library, that was put on by a woman who is currently running her own agency.  She has many years in the book publishing business and suggested one of the best ways to find an agent and generate some interest in your book is to develop a “web presence.”  She cited a woman who had approached a publisher and was rejected, the woman developed a web site where she put recipes up everyday as well as excerpts from her book, she self-published the book and got such great interest, she could approach the publisher again, but this time they wanted her book!

So truthfully I must tell you that this is my 5th website.  I have Auntie Jodi’s Thoughts,  I have Jodi Stone, Sampson and Delilah and Along Came Sampson, why so many you may ask?  I don’t really know.  Auntie Jodi’s Thoughts was the first site and is designed more for just random thoughts about whatever is running through my mind or if something has set me off and I want to vent about it.  Auntie Jodi’s thoughts was developed long before I met Jan Kardys.  But to get myself started developing a “web presence”, I started facebook pages for both of my dogs.  I really wanted to develop a website but wasn’t sure how to go about it.  Then my niece turned me on to the www.webs.com site and that is where I made an author page as well as a website for the dogs.

One of my friends told me he could help me get a .com website and so that is where Along Came Sampson (the title of my book) came in.  Now here I am on WordPress starting another blog that I hope will finally motivate me to write and work towards publication.

Please bear with me as I work through these “growing pains” of mine. I appreciate you “tuning” in and hope you will leave me comments or e-mail with what you like or don’t like.  Hopefully this is the motivation I need to jump-start my career.

Tomorrow I will write about the Pet Writing Conference I am attending, until them happy reading!