Preschooler Dances to Her Own Tune

I have fallen in love with this adorable video. This beautiful little girl has got spunk, charisma and a great spirit. This video put a smile on my face. I chuckled and I hope you do too. Enjoy!

Happy Wordless Wednesday! Don't forget to add the link to your Wordless Wednesday post on the Linky list below. 

Happy Birthday to Me!

Hubby took me to my favorite restaurant, Monell's, in Nashville, Tennessee for my birthday this past weekend. They have the most delicious food. The hostess sat us at an oval table that seats 12 persons maximum. Then the servers bring out large bowls of food, one after another. You take as much food as you want from the bowl and then pass the bowl to the person on the left. There are no cellphones allowed at the table. The no cellphone rule fosters fellowship amongst everyone at the table. I used my cellphone to take photos. (Shhh, don't tell anybody) My table had 12 people and each person or couple was from a different state visiting Nashville. After we finished eating, everyone at my table sang happy birthday to me. I was so full afterwards, spiritually and physically. It was a memorable birthday.


Happy Wordless Wednesday! Don't forget to add your Wordless Wednesday post to the Linky list below.

Location:Happy Birthday to me!

15 Motivational Quotes

Happy Wordless Wednesday!
Don't forget to leave a link to your Wordless Wednesday post on the Linky list below.

People You Might Meet at Starbucks

I spend a lot of time at Starbucks, I haven't seen anything quite as strange...yet.

Don't forget to leave a link to your Wordless Wednesday post on the Linky list below. Happy Wordless Wednesday!

Anthony Anderson and Lena Sledge at PVIFF

Here's this week's Wordless Wednesday photo. This photo of actor Anthony Anderson and myself was taken at the Peachtree Village International Film Festival (PVIFF) in Atlanta this past weekend.




Hope you have a great week! Happy Wordless Wednesday! Don't forget to add your Wordless Wednesday post to the Linky list below!

Wordless Wednesday with Linky

3D Pavement Art. Amazing!

Wordless Wednesday with Linky

Book Dress: Wordless Wednesday

I was surfing the internet and found these photos of a book dress made by Jorimoo. She modeled the dress for readers at a writers festival. The site doesn't give any additional details. I wish it did because this dress is amazing, the attention to detail is incredible.

Happy Wordless Wednesday! Don't forget to add your Wordless Wednesday post to the linky list below!

Wordless Wednesday w/ Linky

By Slawek Milanowski

This photo evokes so many feelings for me. I can remember being a single parent with my oldest daughter and walking to the grocery store because my car had broken down. I walked a mile to the grocery store, carrying my 18 month old toddler on my hip and three or four bags in my other hand. It's amazing what moms and dads go through for daily survival. And now when I look at my daughter, who is now a college sophomore, I get overwhelmed with joy and elation. She probably has no inclination to the trials and tribulation I faced as a young, newly divorced single mother, but I think that's what good mothers do, we shield them from the harshness of our everyday struggles and we give them the best we have to offer. I also look at myself and think girl....we have come a mighty long way. :)

So what do you get from this week's photo writing prompt?

Don't forget to add your Wordless Wednesday post to the linky below.

Armchair BEA: Introductions First!

I was hoping to attend Book Expo America this year, but unfortunately I wasn't able to make it. But for the last several years I have participated in Armchair BEA, a virtual conference for book bloggers who can’t attend Book Expo America being held in New York this week. 


Every day this week, I’ll post according to the daily themes given by Armchair BEA. Bloggers will then visit each other's blog and comment, which by the way, is an excellent way to network. I met most of the bloggers I know through Armchair BEA. So make sure and stop by the Armchair BEA and participate by visiting the list of blogs participating that are listed on the linky at the Armchair BEA website. Introduce yourself at each blog and leave a nice comment. Perhaps, they will reciprocate and come visit your blog as well.

Everyday this week, there is a new theme for bloggers to post according to. Today’s theme is “Introductions First!” Participants were given a list of 10 questions and asked to answer 5 of them, so that we can all get to know each other a little better. So here’s the five I chose to answer. 

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself? How long have you been blogging and why did you get into blogging?

I'm Lena Sledge, author, writer, publicist, speaker and of course....blogger. I'm the publicist for the Alabama Writers' Conclave, one of the oldest writers' organization in continuous existence in the United States. I wrote a short story collection titled, If I Had My Way. It was released in February of 2012. It has done well. I'm very proud of my work and it was great to have my blogger friends discuss my book on their blogs and leave Amazon and Barnes and Noble reviews. I've also had my work in several anthologies. I started blogging because I wanted to share writing resources with newly published authors like myself. But I initially started blogging about books that I had read from my personal home library and from there my blog took on a life of its own. I hope to have my blog become a site for writers to find resources that may help them find what they need within the literary world and to share great books and bookish news for my book lovers and readers.

2. What book am I currently reading?

"Home" by Toni Morrison.

3. What is my favorite feature on my blog?
My favorite feature is Author Interviews, Giveaways and Writing and Blogging Resources.

4. My favorite post that I would want everyone to read?
It would be three posts actually, Top 25 Blogs for Writers, Armchair BEA (Building and Nurturing Relationships and Top 20 Sites for Free eBooks.

5. If I could eat dinner with any author or character who would it be?
In my fantasy, I'd have a luncheon with Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and Nikki Giovanni.

Feel free to participate and answer my five questions in comments or direct me to your blog post discussing your five questions for Armchair BEA.

Tomorrow's theme is Giveaways and if you've visited my site before, you'll know I LOVE giveaways! Matter of fact, I'm running one now for a $25 Amazon Gift Card or up to $25 in book purchases from the Book Depository. So scroll down to enter or click My Favorite Reads Giveaway.

Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to meeting and networking with you all. Happy BEA!

10 Ways to Increase RSS Subscribers

One way one bloggers gain readers is through RSS (Really Simple Syndication). RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish regularly updated works such as blog entries, news headlines as well as audio and video in standardized form. RSS feed benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. I use Feedburner as a my RSS feed and management tool. There are many feed and management tools to choose from. Just do a google search and you'll find one. I find Feedburner quite adequate and it is one of the most popular ones around. If you have a Blogger blog you may generally use your GFC (Google Friends Connect) plug-in to gain subscribers/followers as well as an RSS feed. But for other blog formats such as Wordpress, they use an RSS feed for their subscribers. In general, bloggers want more subscribers and more subscribers hopefully leads to increased readership. So how can you increase your RSS subscribers? Here are 10 tips.

1. Make sure your RSS icon is highly visible and is placed above the fold. Meaning on the top of the page without having to scroll down to view it.


2. Don't overwhelm your new subscribers with extraneous posts. You don't want their feed to be cluttered with posts they don't want to read, which could lead them to unsubscribe from your blog. So make every post count.


3. Use your RSS feed link when you comment on other blogs. Instead of using your blog URL, put in your feed URL and that way it leads people to your feed to subscribe.


4. Make sure to display the RSS icon on every page of your blog. That way people don't have to go back to your home page to subscribe if they decide to follow your blog. Remember people are busy, make it easier for them every step of the way.


5. Urge your readers to subscribe at the end of every post.


6. Make it easy for visitors to subscribe to your blog. Make the subscription button highly visible and easy to utilize.


7. Offer your readers something for free in return that they subscribe to your blog. This can be done with a free ebook, newsletter, giveaway or contest.


8. Offer category feeds so visitors can choose a specific category or topic that interest them. This way they don't have to subscribe to the entire blog.


9. Utilize cross RSS promotion. Get other bloggers to advertise and promote your blog feed on their blog and vice versa.

10. Make sure to explain to your readers or visitors what RSS is so they know why it's important to subscribe and utilize it. Some people have no idea what the RSS icon is for and thus they don't use it.

One helpful tip: Make sure to check your feed periodically to make sure your feed is working and your link is working.

Hope you found some helpful tips today. Now be a dear and please subscribe to my RSS feed in the upper right hand corner :-)