The final full week of August already!  I know many of you are wondering where the summer went, thinking you may have caught a glimpse of it in the corner of your eye as it whizzed past.  In my corner of the world, it was a hot, dry summer with more than its fair share of forest fires and cracked earth!  However, in spite of the heat, it was an adventurous summer as well.  Those of you staying up with my monthly newsletters will have learned about July's adventures already.

The adventures for August were closer to home, but prompted me to write about the joys and challenges of setting up my grown kids to make names for themselves in their own particular niches in life.  Those efforts are ongoing as we speak, but they began in earnest this summer.


BACK TO SCHOOL!!!

Things stayed quiet on the book front until this very week when I launched a two month book bundle good from now through to October 31st.  The way the savings go, its as if you are getting two books in the bundle for FREE!  Due to how various retailers around the 'net have priced my books, this is more true than you might realize!  Get all the details here:


Month Five prayer cards for "A Year in Prayer With Jesus" are now completely scheduled through to September 10th.  That means I have to get my own tail and complete more months in the prayer card series.  It's been hard to concentrate on all the copy and pasting required to turn the book into this series with the weather being so hot this summer.  But I will get this series of prayer cards completed.  I promise!

These prayer cards will not be shared on LinkedIn any longer, as I can't force LinkedIn to accept both an image and a courtesy link via hootesuite, without the courtesy link taking over.  The focus is not to be the link, but the image.  So LinkedIn is now axed from seeing these cards.

When Month 6 is completed, Months 1 - 3 will go on sale at 25% off.  All decks, whether 30 days or 31 days, sell for $20 each and are useable as desktop backgrounds, in your screensaver app (randomly), or printed at 300 DPI on your colour printer.  You may purchase one copy for home, a second work, another for your office at church, etc.  If you have a Bible study group you wish to purchase for, contact me and we'll discuss special pricing.

Month One: https://gumroad.com/l/PC-YPWJ
Month Two: https://gumroad.com/l/PC2-YPWJ
Month Three: https://gum.co/PC3-YPWJ
Month Four: https://gumroad.com/l/PC4-YPWJ
Month Five: https://gumroad.com/l/PC5-YPWJ


Another Book Project!

Efforts on my daughter's books are coming along, particularly one we are doing together where she will be listed as co-author in order to ensure that I have my facts straight and effective sources quoted.  This book is entitled, "Horsemanship According to Xenophon" and will not only feature the translated work as done by Morris H. Morgan in 1893, but include many of Morris's own translation notes.  Ashley and I are huge lovers of history, so with so many of Morris's notes giving historical context either for Xenophon's comments or Morris's own translations at times, the historical value was too great to pass up!  A cover for this book still has to be drafted, but the interior is so far coming along nicely.  This will be the equivalent to a softcover coffee-table book due to its size and the full-colour interior.  Many of the images in the book feature both Ashley and her horse,  Bella Svanna.  

Our goal for this book is to bring Xenophon's writings into the modern day first as Morris saw them in 1893 and then as we see and interpret them now.  Our presentation will draw from Ashley's 9+ years of experience around horses both caring for and riding them English-style, as well as quotes and references to manuals, guides and other sources showing the modern adaptation, interpretation and execution of many of Xenophon's admonitions from 350BC.

Due to his various references to how the Persians handled equestrian concerns, an additional writer's influence from 1350BC in the country of Mitanni is included in Chapter 4.  This is important to note as Mitanni was overtaken by the Hittite Empire; yes, that same empire that was driven out of Canaan when Israel moved in.  In turn, the Hittite Empire was overtaken by the Persian Empire against whom Xenophon joined the Greek army to fight long before he began writing.  Many authoritative references to Xenophon's works state that there doesn't exist any writings related to the care, feeding and training of the horse that survived prior to Xenophon's book.  I'd say 5 cuniform tablets from the ancient Hittite region certainly qualify as prior writings!  

So if you are into horses and into history, you'll want to stay tuned on the progress of this book!

 
News Related to the Songdove Books Affiliate Program

Have you signed up as a Songdove Books Affiliate yet? I know some of you like to share my books with your online friends from time to time, so why not get 20% kickback for your trouble?

Click2Sell and JVZoo only offer this percentage on my two e-courses, however the recent additions this summer of Gumroad and Payhip also let you earn this percentage on sales of my books too!

Check out this link on my site for more information.  Help me get word out about my books and e-courses, and get paid for every sale made from your efforts!

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Wrap-up

I'll close off today with encouragement to check the blog links below.  I've been saying that a lot in recent newsletters, but the truth is, that these newsletters have been coming out shortly after major thoughts have already been written.  Being one for efficiency, why write them twice, right?  My blog has been quite varied this summer ranging from devotonal thoughts to family life to at least one all-out rant!  I actually do rant occasionally.  Remember that I process things through my fingers on this keyboard.  That means when God is speaking, I process via writing, when I'm puzzling something out I'll process via writing, when an issue grates on me too strong I'll resort to writing about it to get it out of my system for awhile, etc.  So my blog is a reflection of these various types of writing this summer.  If you haven't stopped by in awhile, you'll want to click one of the posts below and then look at the left-hand sidebar near the top to see recent blog posts.  Alternatively, you can click the site banner to go to the home page and scroll down to see the variety of blog posts this summer produced.

Feel free to share any posts that resonate with you too.  Each posting has a row of share buttons across the bottom to help you do that.  It's a shorter newsletter this month, but we are heading into the Fall season now, so who knows what's in store as we move forward.

 
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View past newsletters. http://songdove.fa-ct.com/wordpress-mu/songdovemusings/past-newsletters/

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Latest Content on the Songdove Musings Blog:


Relationship with God: Which One Do You Most Identify With?

My blogging lately has not followed my personal devotions.  The first chapter of Joshua had already been written about at length earlier in June long before I'd even finished the book of Deuteronomy.  I confess that today, my thoughts are not in the book of Joshua either.  Instead, my thoughts are straying toward the concept of how we approach God …


"Back to School Bundle for the Entire Family!"

Yes, it IS that time of year again!  For some, classes are already in session.  For others, classes are due to resume following Labour Day in September.  Regardless of when children and teachers are returning to the classroom, its hard not to observe all the sales going on in the stores right now!  Paper, pencils, rulers, backpacks, calculators, cellphones and …


The Cyclist, The Motorist, and the Law! A Rant!

It happened again!  This time while taking my daughter to work at 6:15am!  Yet another cyclist thought that a) they were in their right to be on the vehicular side of the bike lane's white line, and b) in their right to be riding tandem with the cyclist who was obeying the law and staying in the center of their …

Have your kids already returned to school?  Are you actively engaged in back-to-school preparations?  Songdove Books is offering a Back to School bundle for the entire family!  Click through to read more about it and to learn how you can take advantage of this book bundle until October 31st.

http://songdove.fa-ct.com/wordpress-mu/songdovemusings/2015/08/24/back-to-school-bundle-for-the-entire-family/

Eleanor stole my heart from the minute I began reading the book. Just this morning I was dealing with the brooding daughter who when growing up pulled the hoodies over her head, wore dull colors and just did not want to be seen. If she is noticed she is bullied and even if she is not she is sneered and laughed at. Funny I was dealing with my daughter this morning who started off her high school career like this. Growing up pulled the hoodies over her head and her bangs in her face, wore dull colors and just did not want to be seen. If she is noticed she is bullied and because she was thought to have an extreme learning disability even some teachers would bully her.  This is how Eleanor deals with it, but for more than your typical teenage reasons.

There are a lot of things this book can be said to be about. Above all I argue this books main theme is love, but again it is about so much more. As with many well written pieces of literary fiction, all aspects are well balanced and everything in it has a reason to be there. I will argue with many who have read Eleanor, including the author, that she is a monster. Again, for those of us who have read it, yes she calls herself one and technically… well I don’t want to be specific here.

For me, this is a book about the coming of age of a young woman whom the author has chosen as not just someone who is his daughter at heart (as mentioned above) but who’s unassuming because she works at it; who lives in the shadows of her own fears and on the edge of society (literally and figuratively). The only person she truly can trust is her surrogate mother Tabitha, who has her own darkness to deal with as she races against the time terminal cancer has given her to prepare Eleanor for… well, you will have to read to see. But when her own childhood friend moves back to town, she now must face having having the responsibility as well as the joy of the  friendship again and all that it entails, including social circles.

Eleanor never feels safe. Not safe from the state, because of mother’s health and their dependence on state aid; not safe in school, in case her peers or teachers notice the otherness she knows and perceives a bit too much inside her; not safe to really be the teenager she is now. The themes throughout this book are so intermingled with ribbons of darkness and light I felt like a whirling dervish with all the emotions it evoked: all those feelings from growing up as an odd duck and my feelings now as an adult. The aspect of “monster” is not just one literally but metaphorically**. Many times, at least for me, to show just how non-monstrous the monster is… ( yes, say that 10 times fast!).

With each turn of the page (or flick of the finger) the story unfolds and shines a bit more light into the mystery. Just when we think we know what is going on, we are given more info to realize there is even more to it and we maybe wrong. If this was a mystery book, my review would be based on keeping me in the dark during my rating decision. I was approximately at 90% before I had a complete handle on just exactly what everything was, and even then, the end surprised me.

The themes were pretty focused and having to do with love on so many levels. Ones of balance, familial, passion, self-love, first love, and in the end, even sacrificial love. With the First Nation mythological aspects so gently and eloquently layered within and the fact it is a coming-of-age story with plans to grow with your young adult readers ages as a series, you would think there maybe a few problem areas to weave within, but this was not the case. As I have argued in the past, young adults who read aren’t stupid. They desire books who treat them with respect. They want not just need this type of book. Johnny Worthen blended the conventions and tropes of the paranormal, coming-of-age, mythological and created such a powerful message young adults crave and adults need reminding of, Eleanor, The Unseen, cannot help but be impactful.

I recommend Eleanor to anyone. Don’t stop at the first chapter; I promise it will make sense. Such a clean, tight, well balanced, beautiful read. Anyone who wants a book that makes them feel… everything, or just a book to keep them excited to turn each and every page need to add Eleanor to your “Must Read” list!

Anyone interested in reading a stellar bonus content plus a recipe which I dedicate to all the unseen summer girls, check out the full review on Cabin Goddess!