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Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Arthritis / December 2006OTP: Where's Santa?
Where's Santa? Only NORAD Knows Each Christmas Eve for nearly 50 years, folks at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), deep inside a Colorado mountain, have tracked a portly man in a flying sleigh for thousands of anxious kids. NORAD-which watched for Soviet missiles during the Cold War and is an American-Canadian operation to monitor air and space traffic-got into the Santa-tracking business by accident. In 1955, a Colorado newspaper published a phone number for kids who wanted to speak to Santa. The number was off by one digit: Instead of getting the local Sears store, callers reached NORAD's command hotline. After the colonel on duty took the first call from a young boy, he told his staff to expect a busy night. Last year, they got 27,000 phone calls and 37,000 e-mails. But NORAD is better prepared now: It operates "Santa Cams" with honorary trackers in 25 sites around the world to tell children where the big man has been spotted. This year, Ringo Starr is one of the Santa-trackers, and visitors to NORAD's special Web site (www.noradsanta.org) also can hear some of the ex-Beatle's Christmas music. Or kids can follow Santa's progress at a special toll-free number, 1-877-446-6723, from 9 a.m. ET on Dec. 24 to 3 a.m. ET on Christmas Day. ... For a fee, I'll sell you names from Santa's list of naughty girls. Hi guys, I can't stop smiling like a blinking idiot! I've always been a voracious reader from a young age, and the years have not slowed me down much. Then I thought I could write a novel, just like the many novels I have read and continue to read. I discovered it is not so easy to write a publishable novel, and that it is hard to find an agent to represent me to help me get published. BUT I have managed to get published, by Five Star, an imprint of ThomsonGale Publishing in the US, and today I learned that my novel is being shipped out to those who had placed pre-orders for it. I'm so excited, I can barely speak coherently! I have run out of an audience, so I'm looking around desperately to share my wonderful news! Although I know it is bad form to advertise in this forum -- I can't help myself! Please, please join me in my wonderful present from Santa! I do wish I could have shared my "triumph" with Larry, our warrior angel. He was so kind and encouraging to me.  SignatureSanchona (author) sanchona@optusnet.com.au http://www.sanchona.com "A Family Of Strangers" ISBN: 1-59414-543-1 Published by Five Star/Thomson Gale Publishing This isn't advertising Sanchona the author! congratulations - great news and always share your triumphs with us. We always welcome good news and goodness knows you join some talented people here. what a great Christmas present. kelly > Hi guys, > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > I do wish I could have shared my "triumph" with Larry, our warrior > angel. He was so kind and encouraging to me. I joined this group some years ago, when I had a trigger finger and thought that was arthritis and that I needed a support group. I soon discovered my case of trigger finger is nothing like the devastation that Arthur unleashes. I enjoyed the company here and stayed for a while. Larry came to mean something special to me. He was ever the protector, keeping watch over the members who were less able to defend themselves against the "predators", always helping us with computer questions, and often sharing a joke to make the day brighter for us. I shall never forget how kind he was to me -- how he encouraged me in my writing, and in ways to come out of my "shell". Yes, I miss him. I see other familiar names here, and it is like "coming home". I seem to remember that someone organised a system for the circulation of some novels amongst a group of readers. I wonder if this is still going on. If so, I'd like to donate my novel to the group. Yes, I know Diane Chamberlain here -- I have read a number of her books and enjoyed them. Who is the third author? > What genre is your book? I consider it a historical saga, but my publisher has categorised it as women's fiction while some bookstores have included it in the "Romance" section. My novel is about a young Irish girl who is transported as a convict to Botany Bay (my neck of the woods) to serve her 7 year sentence in 1793. > Will it have international distribution? My novel is published by Five Star in the US and it is listed online in most bookstores across the US, as well as in some stores in Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Japan. And since I was born and raised in Malaysia, the Malaysian/Singaporean branch of Five Star publishing is making a push to sell my book there. Indeed just today I received a wonderful 1/2 page book review in Malaysia's largest newspaper! I'm thrilled to bits. Can't sleep because of all the excitement. I want to tell everybody, but there isn't that many people to tell. :-( > Will we recognize your name? LOL No!!! It is my first novel -- which is why I'm so excited. My publisher is only a small publisher. I doubt if you have heard of it either! Five Star sells mostly to the library market, although they are now trying to widen their market and work with the bookstores. > Thinking of writing a book.....I also learned that it is work...so I am sticking to my journal for now... If I had known how much hard work, and how long the road to publishing is, and the countless rejections you have to learn to absorb without flinching, I would have taken up something else as a "hobby". By the time I woke up to reality, it was too late. I couldn't toss aside all the research and hard work apread over 30 years. And persistence won the day for me. :-) Cindy, do you really want to spend 30 years doing this, when you don't have to??? LOL Thanks for the warm reception, and allowing me to share my excitement with you. Indeed, my family dismisses my "triumph" as just another bit of news regarding my "hobby". Disappointing? You bet! Best, SignatureSanchona (author) sanchona@optusnet.com.au http://www.sanchona.com "A Family Of Strangers" ISBN: 1-59414-543-1 Published by Five Star/Thomson Gale Publishing >If I had known how much hard work, and how long the road to publishing >is, and the countless rejections you have to learn to absorb without [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >the day for me. :-) Cindy, do you really want to spend 30 years doing >this, when you don't have to??? LOL I had rejections from four publishers then went the self-publishing route. I had done twenty-five years of work and interviews and wanted it published. It has done well and made the best-seller list in Nova Scotia four times. But it was hard work, satisfying though. --- Joan Hi Joan, Yours has a happy ending to your story. I have yet to discover if it will be the same for me. Nothing so grand as to be on some bestseller list. I'm only hopeful that my publisher will sell out it's first print run of 500 copies!!! :-) I see on tv how horrible the weather has been on both sides of the Atlantic this holiday season. Take care, Friends, and have a merry Christmas and may the new year bring great joy and and wonderful surprises for you and yours. :-) SignatureSanchona (author) sanchona@optusnet.com.au http://www.sanchona.com "A Family Of Strangers" ISBN: 1-59414-543-1 Published by Five Star/Thomson Gale Publishing > >If I had known how much hard work, and how long the road to publishing > >is, and the countless rejections you have to learn to absorb without [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > --- > Joan you know, joan, i remember you mentioning it, but i don't recall what the title was and if it was available here in washington state bookstores. your book always sounded very interesting to me. email me with the details, would you please? kate On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 01:36:12 -0800, Sanchona <sanchona@optusnet.com.au> wrote in alt.support.arthritis: >If I had known how much hard work, and how long the road to publishing >is, and the countless rejections you have to learn to absorb without [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >the day for me. :-) Cindy, do you really want to spend 30 years doing >this, when you don't have to??? LOL I had rejections from four publishers then went the self-publishing route. I had done twenty-five years of work and interviews and wanted it published. It has done well and made the best-seller list in Nova Scotia four times. But it was hard work, satisfying though. --- Joan >you know, joan, i remember you mentioning it, but i don't recall what the >title was and if it was available here in washington state bookstores. your >book always sounded very interesting to me. email me with the details, >would you please? It is called Tears, Trials and Triumphs and is available from www.chapters.ca or from me. :-) --- Joan > My novel is published by Five Star in the US and it is listed online in > most bookstores across the US, as well as in some stores in Canada, the [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > excitement. I want to tell everybody, but there isn't that many people > to tell. :-( Congratulations! Sticking it out to the point of becoming a published author is a real accomplishment. Even more so these days, I think, with computers convincing everyone and his brother to try it and driving the publishers crazy. lOL SignatureNann remove the Gator cheer to email me Simply the thing I am shall make me live --- William Shakespeare Hi Nann, Thanks for the support. I appreciate it. :-) SignatureSanchona (author) sanchona@optusnet.com.au http://www.sanchona.com "A Family Of Strangers" ISBN: 1-59414-543-1 Published by Five Star/Thomson Gale Publishing > Congratulations! Sticking it out to the point of becoming a published author > is a real accomplishment. Even more so these days, I think, with computers [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > -- > Nann Congratulations!! I believe we now have three published authors on the group. What genre is your book? Will it have international distribution? Will we recognize your name? lol I am excited for you! Rose @}>->-- Being educated means that rather than fearing the unknown, one seeks to understand it. RB Please remove "Ima" to reply. >Congratulations!! >I believe we now have three published authors on the group. > >What genre is your book? >Will it have international distribution? >Will we recognize your name? Well, there are four. I published a book a year ago on the history of my school of nursing in Halifax. <looking humble> --- Joan >Well, there are four. I published a book a year ago on the history of my school >of nursing in Halifax. <looking humble> >--- >Joan I counted you as one of them. Is there another? Rose @}>->-- Being educated means that rather than fearing the unknown, one seeks to understand it. RB Please remove "Ima" to reply. Whooo Hooooo!!!!! Thinking of writing a book.....I also learned that it is work...so I am sticking to my journal for now... Wonderful news for you... Cindy > Hi guys, > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > I do wish I could have shared my "triumph" with Larry, our warrior > angel. He was so kind and encouraging to me. Hi guys, I can't stop smiling like a blinking idiot! *** and well you should! way to go, sanchona! congratulations! what a great christmas present for you! i'm going to make it a point to read it! wishing you great success with it! kate I've always been a voracious reader from a young age, and the years have not slowed me down much. Then I thought I could write a novel, just like the many novels I have read and continue to read. I discovered it is not so easy to write a publishable novel, and that it is hard to find an agent to represent me to help me get published. BUT I have managed to get published, by Five Star, an imprint of ThomsonGale Publishing in the US, and today I learned that my novel is being shipped out to those who had placed pre-orders for it. I'm so excited, I can barely speak coherently! I have run out of an audience, so I'm looking around desperately to share my wonderful news! Although I know it is bad form to advertise in this forum -- I can't help myself! Please, please join me in my wonderful present from Santa! I do wish I could have shared my "triumph" with Larry, our warrior angel. He was so kind and encouraging to me. SignatureSanchona (author) sanchona@optusnet.com.au http://www.sanchona.com "A Family Of Strangers" ISBN: 1-59414-543-1 Published by Five Star/Thomson Gale Publishing congratulations, Sanchona! Truly wonderful news. I know firsthand how difficult it is to get published these days, and it's clear you've put your heart and soul, as well as time and energy, into writing your novel. I hope it's a smash! don't worry about tooting your horn here, either. ASA has been wonderfully receptive to my shameless plugs over the years, and many people here are voracious readers and welcome the publication by one of our members. diane Thanks, Diane. It is wonderful to hear from you, one of my favourite authors! Presently, I'm only concerned in selling out my publishers first print run of 500 copies. My book is listed in most bookstores with an online presence across the US, as well as in my neck of the woods -- Australia, New Zealand, and in most Commonwealth countries, even in Japan. But I suspect these online bookshops would not be holding a hard copy in their brick and mortar premises -- so I am a bit worried about sales. Most of my family and friends see my writing (it has taken me 30 years to research and write and then get my book published) as a "hobby" that has gone on for years and have shown little interest. Nor have their interest perked following my book being published. So I'm resorting to all sorts of places I have been -- like here -- to "let off" my excitement. Why I miss Larry so much. He had been so supportive. Sad, isn't it? I have joined MySpace -- as part of my book promotion efforts, and boy was I surprised to find many celebrities "setting up shop" there! Only last night I stumbled across "Naomi Watts" presence. I thought it was someone "pretending" to be her and thought that someone rather "cheeky" and interesting. So I asked to be his/her friend. Then I found, when my requested was granted, that the website does belong to Naomi Watts. Ooops! I have no answer to what she is doing there in MySpace -- and she is not the only celebrity there. She has her friends on MySpace listed and I see a lot of celebrities there! It's not like they need to boost their name recognition! Well, there are still plenty of stuff in this world I don't understand! And I'm trying to learn as fast as I can. :-) Best, SignatureSanchona (author) sanchona@optusnet.com.au http://www.sanchona.com "A Family Of Strangers" ISBN: 1-59414-543-1 Published by Five Star/Thomson Gale Publishing > congratulations, Sanchona! Truly wonderful news. I know firsthand how > difficult it is to get published these days, and it's clear you've put [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > diane i'm so sorry your family is not more supportive. i hope you have friends who understand what a huge milestone this is for you. i haven't yet gotten a page on myspace, though i know many authors who have them. maybe some day. it's all too confusing for me at the moment! the library market is a good one if you can get into it and may eat up your print run quickly--a good thing! best of luck, diane Diane, I joined MySpace a few months ago, and for lack of knowledge of negotiating my way there, I just set it up and more or less neglected my "account". Well, I've discovered, that's not the way to do it. You need to "Add Friends" to your account, on and on, and others will approach you to add you as friend, and so it goes on and on. That is how the networking works. Some people have more than 4000 friends. With this big number of people you can bulk email your announcements etc and apparently that is how you promote yourself and your books. You can also put up your blog (I have yet to do this for I know nothing about blogging, and I am hesitant about this too for I feel it is too much like bragging. As if anybody would be interested in my thoughts or my doings -- I'm not any celebrity that would attract a lot of interest!) etc. I was a bit surprised to find a lot of bestselling authors in MySpace. I have added a few as "my friends". The most surprising thing was to find popular film stars too have set up shop there. I saw "Naomi Watts" there and thought it was some smart alec playing a joke. Still I rather admired his/her guts in impersonating Naomi Watts, and thought he/she might be interesting to get to know. So I asked to be "added" to Naomi Watts friends. Guess what. Naomi Watts added me to her friends, and it is Naomi Watts herself (she has over 400 friends) because she has photographs of herself and her friends on her webpage -- which I don't think an impersonator would be able to do. :-) I have since shrunk away from taking too many things for granted. On Naomi Watts webpage, I could see a host of other popular film actors listed as her friends. I am in MySpace to make friends with "ordinary people" not to rub shoulders with the rich and famous! Am I being being the inverted snob. Never mind, these rich and famous people scare me! LOL I think you should head out to MySpace and open up an account there -- it is free. And to spruce up your webpage -- google for MySpace editor and go from there. > i'm so sorry your family is not more supportive. i hope you have > friends who understand what a huge milestone this is for you. Nope. Writers I have met on the internet and taken for my friends -- well, some of them have turned hostile, others have made themselves scarce since I sold my book. This is such a disappointing development. > the library market is a good one if you can get into it and may eat up > your print run quickly--a good thing! My US publisher sells their books to the libraries and schools. So I have that more or less covered. However many of the authors supplement our publishers efforts by making private approaches to their local libraries to buy their books. Yes, there is a networking effort to help put in a request to their various local libraries to buy each other's books. Apparently libraries get to pick what they will or will not buy from the catologue that my publisher sends out. A personal approach does get results. There is not much I can do from Australia. I can only work on the libraries here. :-) As for book signings. I freeze at the thought! :-( Best, SignatureSanchona (author) sanchona@optusnet.com.au http://www.sanchona.com "A Family Of Strangers" ISBN: 1-59414-543-1 Published by Five Star/Thomson Gale Publishing i'm so sorry your family is not more supportive. i hope you have friends who understand what a huge milestone this is for you. i haven't yet gotten a page on myspace, though i know many authors who have them. maybe some day. it's all too confusing for me at the moment! the library market is a good one if you can get into it and may eat up your print run quickly--a good thing! best of luck, diane Belated congratulations Sanchoma. I bet that big smile is still on your face and rightly so. This is such a big thing in your life after all those years of work. It must be like a child after holding it close all this time. It's too bad your family doesn't understand but you will get lots of support here. Just want to say your family will be going around bragging about you when it dawns on them that they have a published author in the family. Ann Thanks Anne. I wouldn't hold my breath for my family to go bragging anything about my book. Seriously! LOL I get better support from the members here. Thank you. :-) SignatureSanchona (author) sanchona@optusnet.com.au http://www.sanchona.com "A Family Of Strangers" ISBN: 1-59414-543-1 Published by Five Star/Thomson Gale Publishing > Belated congratulations Sanchoma. I bet that big smile is still on your > face and rightly so. This is such a big thing in your life after all [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Ann Sanchona, i belonged to a critique group for many years. As i published more and more--and they didn't--i felt resentment from them. They were and still are dear friends, but I began to realize they resented helping me with my plotting etc and i heard some comments supposedly made behind my back. I dropped out of the group at that point, although we are still all friends and have been for more than 20 years now. I'm very supportive of them and have tried to help them get agents etc--they are all excellent writers--but this business is HARD as you know. I then joined a small group of published authors who really understand the business end of things. there's still some inevitable jealousy, but also much more support. are there other published authors in your area? perhaps a romance writers chapter? whether or not your book is a romance, those ladies (mostly ladies) have their act together when it comes to the business end of things. diane > Sanchona, i belonged to a critique group for many years. As i published > more and more--and they didn't--i felt resentment from them. They were > and still are dear friends, but I began to realize they resented > helping me with my plotting etc and i heard some comments supposedly > made behind my back. I dropped out of the group at that point, although > we are still all friends and have been for more than 20 years now. I guess I'm going through what you went through years before. All the same I was so disappointed. If the situation was reversed, I doubt I would behave like they did. Sure I would feel envy and be jealous, and ask why not me, too? But all the same I would celebrate their success. I'd tell myself if they could do it, surely I can too! For me it is very hard to overcome my disappointment. There is always that fear, what next will they disappoint? Cracks that are mended, still remain, no matter how well-patched and disguised. :-( I'm > very supportive of them and have tried to help them get agents > etc Likely they don't think you are trying hard enough. :-( are there other published authors > in your area? perhaps a romance writers chapter? Yes, I've joined such a group -- they are mostly women, and most are writing romances, and very successfully too. They are very supportive -- full of congratulatory messages and making light jokes etc. I find this rather superficial, and I'm not at all comfortable in their company. I don't know why I don't feel the same with the similar messages I get here. There is more caring and sincerity here, I think. Best, SignatureSanchona (author) sanchona@optusnet.com.au http://www.sanchona.com "A Family Of Strangers" ISBN: 1-59414-543-1 Published by Five Star/Thomson Gale Publishing Thanks, Kate. This newsgroup's members are more supportive than my family!! :-) I don't feel so isolated anymore! :-) SignatureSanchona (author) sanchona@optusnet.com.au http://www.sanchona.com "A Family Of Strangers" ISBN: 1-59414-543-1 Published by Five Star/Thomson Gale Publishing > Hi guys, > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > kate
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