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Online Book Club Review Einstein’s Compass

In Einstein’s Compass, by Grace Blair and Laren Bright, Albert Einstein receives a compass from his father. What he doesn’t know is that it possesses magical abilities and great power. A dragon monster named Raka, wants it to control people and have power over Atlantis once more. Albert then becomes friends with a boy named Johann. Werner von Wiesel, who has been psychologically manipulated by Raka, kills Johann. Albert and Johann’s spirit must work together to keep the compass safe from the evil and greed of Raka.

This book has beautifully captivating details, the authors were good at explaining the setting and trivial things like architecture or the perception of how a place made the characters feel. The book was beautifully written, and it had a great storyline and concept. The details in the story help the reader get an enthusiastic sense of what is happening. The space/time concepts are superb, and the science fiction elements are great. Additionally, the concept of the compass is creative and original. The writing style has many historical fiction elements (event descriptions, Einstein’s life). The historical fiction elements are beautifully written, especially the details, Einstein’s life, and the accurate science concepts. Readers will get a profound sense of the characters and their actions and personalities.

I would recommend this book for anybody who likes a lot of detail in the books they read and a nice blend of fiction elements. I think fans of A Wrinkle in Time (for its complex world and science fiction elements), and Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation (for its textual organization and historical fiction elements) would enjoy this book.

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Einstein’s Compass a YA Time Traveler Adventure Buy on Amazon Now

Americans are more anxious than before

File 20180509 34018 5fzs8z.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
39 percent of Americans report feeling more anxious than this time last year.
by Pathdoc/Shutterstock.com

Jacek Debiec, University of Michigan

Americans are becoming more anxious about their safety, health, finances, politics and relationships, a new online poll from the American Psychiatric Association finds. Compared to the results of a similar poll a year earlier, 39 percent of adults in the U.S. are more anxious today than they were a year ago.

As a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, I believe studies and polls like these help to identify individual and group vulnerabilities. They may provide clues for providing better clinical practice, implementing more effective public policies, and designing research projects that yield a better understanding of the causes of anxiety and better treatments.

Although anxiety is rising across all age groups and demographic categories, there are notable distinctions between certain groups.

For example, millennials are more anxious (especially about finances) than Gen-Xers or baby boomers – though boomers’ overall anxiety increased more than the other age groups. Women reported a greater increase in overall anxiety in all dimensions than men, and non-Caucasians’ overall anxiety rose faster in the preceding year than did Caucasians. Sometimes, anxiety occurs without clearly defined worries or awareness, suggesting the poll may have only captured part of a rise in adult Americans’ anxiety levels – and those adults’ anxiety may be affecting children and teenagers too.

While this poll was not designed to detect or diagnose anxiety disorders or pathological anxiety, it does indicate that people are perceiving greater potential danger to many elements of their well-being.

Anxiety is a lower-grade version of a fear response. Severe instances of fear – such as actual direct threats of pain, injury or death – can cause very real physical reactions, including a release of stress hormones into the bloodstream and changes in heart rate and blood pressure, as the body prepares to react rapidly.

Anxiety-triggered physiological responses are slower to develop, but can last longer. Rather than being caused by an immediate threat, it can happen as people adapt to changing situations, such as visiting new countries, starting a different job or experiencing major life transitions such as marriage, parenthood and aging. Often, anxiety dissipates as a person becomes more familiar with the new situation. Short-term and mild-to-moderate anxiety states are adaptive as they increase our alertness and prepare us for new challenges.

Although our genetic makeup controls much of our fear and anxiety responses, recent studies also implicate our social environment. Children are especially sensitive to their caretakers’ emotional states, which means that if more adults are more anxious, the same is true for kids.

But if it lasts, anxiety, like fear, can bring long-lasting physiological changes such as prolonged muscle tension, chronic high blood pressure and sleep disorders. Some groups may be particularly vulnerable to long-term anxiety, such as people with physical or cognitive limitations that make it hard to adapt to new situations.

For others, worrying can become so overwhelming that a person does not focus on other important areas of life issues such as work, school or relationships. An especially anxious person may become excessively sensitive to minor concerns, which may be manifested by overreacting or avoiding people or situations that are not dangerous.

The ConversationAlthough regular exercise, relaxation, healthy eating and time with friends and family are all known to reduce anxiety, these fixes may not be sufficient. To quote Martin Luther King Jr., given the social nature of anxiety, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” This suggests that addressing actual threats and communicating carefully about perceived ones can have a beneficial impact on anxious Americans.

Jacek Debiec, Assistant Professor / Department of Psychiatry; Assistant Research Professor / Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience Institute, University of Michigan

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

What is the biggest misconception about being a successful author?

The biggest misconception about being a successful published author is that when you finish your precious manuscript an agent will magically appear, sign you to a large publishing house and the money will roll in. All you have to do is write something.

The truth is writing is hard work. I spent more than forty years in various business industries in marketing and business development creating public images. I won the Dallas Business Journal Award in 2000 Retail for a shopping center in Dallas, Texas The Centre at Preston Ridge.

Writing a book can’t be that hard or so I thought.

I began my author journey after 9/11. I had just won the Dallas Business Journal Award when I was laid off. It took me two years to write eighty-eight pages, “A Dream is a Wish the Heart Makes”. I wrote and tore up many times before I felt ready to publish.

Excited with my new baby no agent came forward, no big publishing house came knocking on my door. I was told you have to have an established audience of thousands before an agent or publishing house will even talk to you.

Instead, I self-published. In 2004, the concept of being an indie author was unthinkable. When an agent heard you were an indie author they said you were a heretic and should be banned from the publishing world. Self-publishing was a new concept on Amazon. The self-publishing company I spent my hard earned dollars with did not follow through on their promises. Over the time of my contract, I lost a great deal of money and would years later assist a list of indie authors like me to sue them. Under several different publishing names, the company still exists making promises they cannot deliver.

The writing was still calling me to express myself. I wrote a series of self-help books that are based on forty years of my life where I explained how to use spiritual practices to change a life from fear to fun. In 2014, I rewrote my Dream book now called, “Do You Have a Dream 5 Keys to Realize Your Dream” which is available as an audiobook in my voice, an eBook and a workbook all available in bookstores and online. I won the 2016 bronze Spiritual and Inspirational Global Ebook Award, 2017 Texas Non-Fiction in Spiritual and Inspirational Award, 2017 Best Books Finalist Award. Still, no publishing house or agent has come calling.

While writing my non-fiction books I began the journey of writing fiction. If I thought writing a self-help book was hard, making up stories to entertain was three times as hard. Storytelling has a lot of rules that I am continually learning.

In 2014 after a trip to Jerusalem, Israel I chose to write an alternate history of Albert Einstein, “Einstein’s Compass a YA Time Traveler Novel”. Again, using my many years of exploring mystical teachings I wondered what if Einstein met spiritual beings who assisted him with his miracle theory? After four years of research and empty white pages on my computer, my novel has a completed first draft. God willing the book will be out by the end of 2018.

Now that my novel is in the hands of an editor, I spend my days on social media marketing my books. It is a full-time job. I spend as much time on my books as I would have to work for a company. Now the company is me, Modern Mystic Media.

There are millions of books on Amazon. Finding the right audience in the sea of good books and famous authors so people will find me and my baby is a hard work. Yet I am determined to have my work read. I love writing and connecting people with ideas that entertain, that make them think and maybe learn something.

When I write a press release of my new books or awards and send it to local and national media, most ignore me because I am self-published. You have to be with a well-known publisher for newspapers and media to pay attention.

The hallowed halls into a publishing contract are so slim there are many so-called experts that want to sell you software, textbooks, THE shortcut to publishing success. I have taken many seminars over the years in writing and publishing to where I think I can spot a scheme. Still, I have to monitor the impulse to buy that one thing that promises to sell more books.

In the future, you will see a lot of me everywhere. And, no agent or publishing company is helping with a big check or has opened doors. I show up every day and do what it takes to make my work visible.

Check out my books go to www.ModernMysticMedia.com. And, you can find me on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo in bookstores and online.

Sign-up to read a pre-launch copy of “Einstein’s Compass a YA Time Traveler Novel”, go to www.GraceBlairAuthor.com if you signup and read it, please review the book. The only way indie authors like me sell books is if readers will write reviews then Amazon and its algorithms will push my ratings to rise to the top of the charts. Finding one reader and one fan at a time may someday accumulate into thousands.

If you want to write books do it because you love it. However, you may spend more money than you make. Know its hard work and no one is going to chase you down to make you famous. You will be alone in your journey. You have to put the seat of the pants and the seat of the chair, staring at a blank page and find the story inside your creativity that will make the reader turn the page to find out what happens next. Then be responsible for publishing and marketing.

“The #writer must let his fingers run out the story of his #characters, who, being only human and full of strange dreams and obsessions, are only too glad to run.”

Ray Bradbury, The Zen of #Writing