MSI Press Blog

Excerpt from  Publishing for Smarties  by BL Ham  Appropriate Responses  Instead of feeling and expressing resentment, there are four much more useful things that you can do. These are:  become excited; analyze the letter for educative information;  revise your manuscript, if warranted; and  find another publisher who might be interested in your book. Become Excited  Why should you become excited? Because finding a publisher is a lot like selling a product. Actually, you are selling a product: your book. Just as it usually takes about ten cold calls to sell a product or get a donation for a worthy cause, so, too, it takes many rejections (typically, dozens more than ten) before you will get a nibble from a publisher, especially if you are a first-time author. So, count each of those rejections as an indication that you are getting closer to an acceptance, just like salesmen do.  Analyze the Letter  Analyze any information at all that is in the rejection letter for any enlight

  Excerpt: The Three Cornerstone [of Joshuanism] Humans have become isolated creatures. They spend most of their time alone, behind windshields and computer screens. Christians are not immune to this increasing isolation. Even when they come together for small groups or Bible studies, there is still a very private element to the way they communicate with one another. How many people actually tell the truth about what is really going on in their lives or their minds? How many people really admit how messed up their world is? How many people divulge their needs of the moment? Very few. Why is it only a few? Because no one wants anyone else to know that his life is not the picture perfect scene that it appears to be on the surface. Christian churches are just as isolated as the people in them. Most of them sequester themselves away from other churches just a few blocks down the street. Why? Because one church does things one way, and another church does things a different way. God forbid

  Excerpt A Real Home and Food For the first time, Intrepid had a limitless supply of food and water. He understood that he could eat whatever and however much he wanted. He did not understand the limitlessness of the supply. So, he hunkered down beside the cat food bowl in the kitchen, never leaving it except to use the litter box.   How he knew to use the litter box was an enigma. Perhaps he saw the other cats using it. Perhaps something about it came to him instinctively. From the very first day, he was always a clean cat.  Ultimately, after a number of weeks, he realized that the food would not disappear, and he ventured out to explore our other rooms, all of them very large: two bathrooms, three bedrooms, a dining room, a living room, and a closed-in sunroom. One by one, he explored them all.  In the living room, he discovered tall plants. Somehow, he discovered that though the plants were five and six feet tall, if he could get a running start, he could take a kamikaze

  Excerpt from Everybody's Little Book of Everyday Prayers Introduction   This book is for you— whatever your religious affiliation—even if you have no religious affiliation at all. This book is for you, whether you’re a Protestant, Jew, or Catholic, a member of one of the many other religions of the world, or an unaffiliated believer, long away from the religion you were brought up in but still a believer in God and desirous of communicating with Him. This book is for you, whether you’re a devout and regular church or temple-goer or a person who hasn’t set foot in a house of worship for years but sees God in every field of flowers and every glorious sunrise—whether you are a person who, in a recent times of trouble or joy, is rediscovering a need to communicate with the Almighty or a person who is raising a small child and wants that child’s life to include a relationship with God, whether or not your child also attends formal worship services.             This is a book mad

  Excerpt from El Poder de lo Transpersonal EL COMIENZO DE LA AVENTURA “Hay algo que, una vez conocido, permite conocer todo lo demás” (Upanishad)  Tan sólo conocía o tenía referencia de esa pequeña parte de mi historia desde allí: donde hubo dolores, abandonos, desengaños, desilusiones, tristezas, maltratos, en fin… una serie de situaciones que sólo permitían el descubrir esa parte de mi vida que había sido desde la oscuridad y de cómo andaba por las calles del mundo, en una eterna búsqueda de un faro de luz que iluminara el camino de una manera distinta. El denominador común de todas estas circunstancias parecía ser la palabra crisis. Los chinos digiriendo el tao te Ching en sus diversos capítulos, me enseñaron que en la crisis es donde empieza un proceso de búsqueda interna, de investigación y de profundo análisis, los cuales me permitieron seleccionar los elementos comunes de mi consciente biográfico, para llegar a entender en qué campo o nivel de conciencia me encontraba, fr

Excerpt from Diary of an RVer during Quarantine: Day 7 (Tuesday) Today, I decide to figure out why the front burner of our propane stove is not lighting with the clicker switch (Finally, a real purpose for getting out of bed!).  Have you ever taken the top cover off your stove?  Me neither!  Not once in the six years we’ve owned this rig!  Underneath were scattered pieces of dried spaghetti, macaroni, and rice that would have provided dinner for four.  The instructions on how to light and shut down the stove are posted under the cover, but I had to remove grease with dish detergent before I could read them.  A pleasant surprise!  They are in three languages, which provided an opportunity to see if my weekly Spanish classes in Arizona paid off … they didn’t!  However, I was able to understand ONE word (highlighted) in the first sentence: “Abra el suministro principal de gas a la estufa.”   Well, look there … the ignition tube to the front burner had rusted and was hanging down aw