Pictures from the California Coast

I love the Pacific coast. It's simply gorgeous from Mexico all the way to Alaska. Over my last trip to California I was rewarded with some really nice sunsets. Here are my latest pictures, and as always, you can get prints from my website www.elenaegiorgi.com

Enjoy!

Goleta, CA

Goleta, CA

Cambria, CA

Cambria, CA

Pebble Beach, CA

Point Lobos, CA

And the best part? As we were strolling along the beach in Carmel we spotted bottlenose dolphins! Aren't they adorable??

September IWSG: have you been taking care of your newsletter?

This is a monthly event started by the awesome Alex J. Cavanaugh and organized by the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Click here to find out more about the group and sign up for the next event. You can also sign up for the newsletter. Our cohost this month: C. Lee McKenzie, Rachel Pattison, Elizabeth Seckman, Stephanie Faris, Lori L MacLaughlin, and Elsie Amata.

Hello fellow writers, my big news this month is that we launched the new anthology Beyond the Stars: at the Galaxy's Edge, featuring my story The Quarium Wars, and it was a great success! I'm really excited and stoked to be part of this project. Now onward to finish the book that's actually set in the world of my short story.

Which brings me to this month's question: How do you find the time to write in your busy day?

My answer is very simple. I don't. Fall is particularly busy for me because on top of my daily work I get a lot of requests for portrait session -- which is VERY good, don't get me wrong, I LOVE doing portrait sessions -- and so guess what happens to my manuscripts? They're left behind. Le sigh.

In other news, I'm working on revamping my website and newsletter. Newsletters are very important when you are trying to grow your business. In fact, they are like plants: you have to keep watering and nurturing it. There are many providers out there, and so far I've used MailChimp, which has been very good except for two drawbacks: (1) emails to gmail users go to the promotional tab and may never be read/seen; (2) when you start getting more than 1,000 subscribers it becomes very expensive.

So I've looked into other providers, but it's a bit of a pain migrating. The good news is that for most of them you can sign up for free and test them out before you start paying. What provider do you use? And are you happy with it?

Until next time!