The Money Update ? How To Avoid Sabotaging Your Retirement

Throughout life there are many financial pitfalls and mistakes to be made that could negatively impact your savings and your retirement fund, avoiding some of the mistakes now could save you some serious financial headaches later on life.? For example, some of the common pitfalls include:

Spending Your Retirement Savings To Bankroll Your Children

Children are some of the single most wonderful blessings a person can have during his or her lifetime, but can also be one of the most significant financial drains on your retirement savings.? Often times as parents it can be difficult to prioritize your own future and you may push off your own retirement savings for little Bobby or Suzzie who needs thousands of dollars every year to pursue dance, or karate, a new car, college, not to mention the $30,000 wedding they?ve always wanted.? These are all wonderful things, and as parents we desire our children to have the best, but it should not come at the expense of your own retirement planning and savings.? Bobby and Suzzie may not care as much about dance and karate as adults, when their own parents have become their financial dependents due to inadequate retirement savings.

Single Currency Homes Often Are Behind In Retirement Savings

According to statistics 1 out of 4 single income homes are well behind where they need to be in saving for retirement, vs. 17% of dual income homes.? This could be a simple factor of more households are choosing to have both husband and wife work causing the standard of living bar to be set a little higher, or it could be due to inflation and a struggling economy making it nearly impossible for single income home to get by. Regardless of the reason, your retirement portfolio will be easier to manage if both members of the family contribute to the family income.

?Paying Off Debt Instead Of Saving For Retirement

Often times people make the mistake of paying off their school loans, car payments, or dream home mortgage before they even begin to salt away money for retirement.? While it is important to be debt free, if you avoid all savings for retirement you often miss out on many years of compounding interest by not starting to save young.

Not Calculating How Much You will Need To Save For Retirement

Many couples have no idea how much they will need to save for retirement in order to maintain their pre-retirement lifestyles.? If you have a healthy pension plan on average you will need to plan for 60-80% of your preretirement income to be able to live at a desirable standard of living in retirement.? Also, you need to save enough for at least 25-40 years of retirement.? You want your retirement savings to outlive you, not the other way around.

Choosing Inappropriate Investments For Your Age And Risk Appetite Can Sabotage Your Retirement

The younger you are when you begin saving the more risks you will be able to take in your investments.? As you age you will need to reduce your risk exposure and make sure that you do not put all your eggs in one basket.? This will ensure that your retirement money will be at your disposal when you most need it.

Retirement savings can be really tricky, especially in an economy where no investment appears ?safe? and very few are generating the desired profit many would hope for.? For more information on retirement planning and on retirement designated investments visit theannuityupdate.com?

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Source: http://themoneyupdate.com/how-to-avoid-sabotaging-your-retirement/

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Reducing CO2: Research shows chemical and economic feasibility for capturing carbon dioxide directly from air

ScienceDaily (July 23, 2012) ? With a series of papers published in chemistry and chemical engineering journals, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have advanced the case for extracting carbon dioxide directly from the air using newly-developed adsorbent materials.

The technique might initially be used to supply carbon dioxide for such industrial applications as fuel production from algae or enhanced oil recovery. But the method could later be used to supplement the capture of CO₂ from power plant flue gases as part of efforts to reduce concentrations of the atmospheric warming chemical.

In a detailed economic feasibility study, the researchers projected that a CO₂ removal unit the size of an ocean shipping container could extract approximately a thousand tons of the gas per year with operating costs of approximately $100 per ton. The researchers also reported on advances in adsorbent materials for selectively capturing carbon dioxide.

"Even if we removed CO₂ from all the flue gas, we'd still only get a portion of the carbon dioxide emitted each year," noted David Sholl, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. "If we want to make deep cuts in emissions, we'll have to do more -- and air capture is one option for doing that."

The Georgia Tech research into air capture techniques was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Papers describing the economic analysis and new adsorbent materials were published in the journals ChemSusChem, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters and the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Carbon dioxide from large sources such as coal-burning power plants or chemical facilities account for less than half the worldwide emissions of the gas, noted Christopher Jones, also a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. Much of the remaining emissions come from mobile sources such as buses, cars, planes and ships, where capture would be much more costly per ton.

Jones is collaborating with a startup company -- Global Thermostat -- to establish a pilot plant to demonstrate the direct air capture technique. The technology for capturing carbon dioxide from the air would be similar to that required for removing the gas from smokestack emissions, though CO₂ concentrations in flue gases are dramatically higher than those in the atmosphere.

Flue gases contain about 15 percent carbon dioxide, while CO₂ is found in the atmosphere at less than 400 parts per million. That's a factor of 375, notes Sholl, who said the difference in capture efficiency could be partially made up by eliminating the need to transport CO₂ removed from flue gas to sequestration locations.

"Because the atmosphere is generally consistent, you could operate the capture equipment wherever you had a sequestration site," he said. "I don't think air capture will ever produce carbon dioxide as cheaply as capturing it from flue gas. But on the other hand, it doesn't seem to be wildly more expensive, either."

Based on his work with Global Thermostat, Jones believes that the costs of an optimized process will prove to be even lower than the estimates of Sholl's team. "Sholl's paper is important because it shows that direct capture of CO₂ from the air can be up to ten times less expensive than had been estimated by others," he said. "Process improvements based on their initial modeling study could bring costs down even further."

In its economic analysis, Sholl's team considered all of the energy that would have to be put into the capture process. The cost estimates did not include the capital cost of establishing the capture facilities because the technology is still too new for reliable projections.

The batch extraction process modeled by the Georgia Tech team involves blowing air through a ceramic honeycomb structure coated with dry amino-modified silica material to capture the CO₂, then flowing steam through the structure to release the gas. The technique could produce carbon dioxide that is roughly 90 percent pure.

"The technical challenges are similar to those of flue gas capture: demonstration at scale, demonstration of long-term adsorbent stability and demonstration of process feasibility and stability," Jones said. "Increased funding for air capture work is needed, because most of the funding invested in carbon capture over the past decade has been directed at flue gas capture."

Sholl and Jones have also been contributing to work on flue gas treatment, conducting research into adsorbent materials, including theoretical and experimental research into adsorbent alternatives such as metal-organic framework (MOF) materials.

Among their recent papers on direct capture of CO₂ from the air are:

• A Journal of the American Chemical Society paper that described the role of zirconium in producing more efficient amine-based adsorbents. "Past work has focused on maximizing the amount of CO₂ captured per gram of adsorbent by adding ever-increasing amounts of amines," Jones explained. "We are the first to show that an alternate strategy is to change the oxide support that the amines lay on, and for a fixed amount of amine, each amine works more efficiently."
• A paper published in ChemSusChem describing the role played by primary, secondary and tertiary amines in capturing carbon dioxide from ultra-dilute gases like air. "We showed conclusively that primary amines are responsible for CO₂ capture from the air, that secondary amines work to some degree, and that tertiary amines don't absorb from air in any appreciable amount," Jones said.
• A paper in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research that describes detailed cost estimates for the air capture process.

Jones believes air capture should be among the options developed to address global warming produced by increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"Initial demonstrations of the air capture process will probably be targeted for applications that can use the carbon dioxide for commercial purposes," Jones said. "As the technology matures, we envision implementing CO₂ capture from the air as a climate stabilization strategy, in parallel with CO₂ capture from flue gas and enhanced utilization of alternative energies."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology Research News. The original article was written by John Toon.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120724104647.htm

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Tips To Navigate The health Insurance Maze | ApostolicCM.com ...

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://answers.apostoliccm.com/2012/07/tips-to-navigate-the-health-insurance-maze/

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Syria acknowledges it has chemical weapons

Adem Altan / AFP - Getty Images

A Free Syrian Army soldier rips a portrait of President Bashar Assad at the Bab Al-Salam border crossing to Turkey on Sunday.

By NBC News staff and wire services

Updated 11:05 a.m. ET: The Syrian government threatened Monday to use its chemical and biological weapons in the event the country faced foreign intervention, marking the first time Bashar Assad?s regime has acknowledged it possesses weapons of mass destruction.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi stressed, however, that Damascus would not use its unconventional arms against its own citizens. The announcement comes as Syria faces international isolation, a tenacious rebellion that has left at least 19,000 people dead and threats by Israel to attack to prevent such weapons from falling into rebel hands.

Assad's forces have launched fierce counter-offensives, reflecting his determination to hold on to power even at great cost and he has dismissed an Arab offer to grant him a safe exit in return for a swift step down.

"Any chemical or bacterial weapons will never be used ... during the crisis in Syria regardless of the developments," Makdissi, speaking in English, said.

"These weapons are stored and secured by Syrian military forces and under its direct supervision and will never be used unless Syria faces external aggression,? he added.

A first? Helicopter gunships bombard Syrian capital

Desperate regime?
Damascus has not signed a 1992 international convention that bans the use, production or stockpiling of chemical weapons, but officials in the past have denied that it had any stockpiles.

As violence escalates in Syria, insurgents have said they fear Assad's forces will resort to non-conventional weapons as they seek to claw back rebel gains across the country.

Government troops launched an offensive against opposition forces in Syria days after rebels killed some of President Assad's top deputies. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

Syria's decision to reveal the long suspected existence of its chemical weapons suggests a desperate regime deeply shaken by an increasingly bold revolt that has scored a string of successes in the past week, including a stunning bomb attack that killed four high-level security officials, the capture of several border crossings and sustained offensives on the regime strongholds of the capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, the country?s most populous city.

Syria is believed to have nerve agents as well as mustard gas, Scud missiles capable of delivering these lethal chemicals and a variety of advanced conventional arms, including anti-tank rockets and late-model portable anti-aircraft missiles.

A senior U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press on Friday the Syrians have moved chemical weapons material from the country's north, where the fighting was fiercest, apparently to both secure it, and to consolidate it, which U.S. officials considered a responsible step.

But there has also been a rise in activity at the installations, so the U.S. intelligence community is intensifying its monitoring efforts to track the weapons and try to figure out whether the Syrians are trying to use them, the official told the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the still-evolving investigation.

NYT: Both sides claim progress as Syrian violence continues

Syria's uprising began in March 2011 when the government violently tried to quash protests calling for political reform. As dissent spread and the death toll rose, scores of rebel groups formed to fight government troops, and the conflict evolved into a civil war.

Threat from Israel
Western countries and Israel have also expressed fears that chemical weapons could fall into the hands of militant groups as Assad's authority erodes.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he feared that chaos following Assad's fall could allow Hezbollah, which seeks Israel's destruction, to access Syria's chemical arsenal.

Netanyahu told Fox News Sunday that "this is something we'll have to act to stop if the need arises."

No evidence has emerged of Hezbollah involvement in Syria's unrest.

Two more Syrian generals flee into Turkey

Defying Arab foreign ministers who on Sunday offered Assad a "safe exit" if he stepped down swiftly, the Syrian leader has waged a counter-attack in the capital to defeat rebels district by district.

Arab League ministers meeting in Doha urged the opposition and the rebel Free Syrian Army to form a transitional government, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told a news conference in Doha.

Makdissi condemned calls for Assad to step down during a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Qatar over the weekend, calling it a "flagrant intervention" in Syria's internal affairs.

Complete international news coverage from NBCNews.com

Fighting in Aleppo
On Monday, the army shelled rebel forces in Aleppo and stormed the southern Damascus neighborhood of Nahr Aisha, breaking into shops and houses and burning some of them, activists said.

Assad's forces have reasserted control over several Damascus areas since they seized back the central Midan district on Friday, following a devastating bomb attack that killed four of Assad's top security officials.

Government forces have lost ground outside cities, ceding control of four border posts on the Turkish and Iraqi borders.

In Aleppo, activists said residents were fleeing the rebel-held districts of Al-Haideriya, Hanano and Sakhour after army shelling and clashes between rebels and government forces. ?

The fighting in Damascus, Aleppo and the eastern city of Deir al-Zor has been some of the fiercest yet and showed Assad's determination to avenge last week?s bomb attack.

NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin answers your questions about Syria

Fighting continued for a fifth day near key government installations, indicating that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's control is faltering. As the opposition advances, Russia and China still refuse to support a resolution calling for tougher sanctions. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.

Bashar Assad's father, Hafez Assad, seized power in a 1970 coup and ruled for three decades until his death. Originally an Air Force officer and member of the Syrian Baath Party, Hafez al-Assad gradually introduced Alawite rule into every sector of Syrian government and society.

Activists: At least 20 men executed
In another development, government forces executed at least 20 men, aged approximately 20 to 30, activists said by phone from Mezzeh on Sunday.

"Most had bullet holes, one with as many as 18. Three had their hands tied behind their back. Some of the men were in their pajamas. Several had their legs broken or fingers missing. Others were stabbed with knifes," Bashir al-Kheir, one of the activists, told Reuters.

Analysts: Russia will be big loser if Assad falls

Opposition and rebel sources have also told Reuters the guerrilla fighters in the capital may lack the supply lines to remain there for long and may have to make tactical withdrawals.

The neighborhood of Barzeh, one of three northern areas hit by helicopter fire, was overrun by troops commanded by President Assad's brother, Maher al-Assad, 41, who is widely seen as the muscle maintaining the Assad?s rule.

Crucial role
Maher's role has become more crucial since Assad's defense and intelligence ministers, a top general and his powerful brother-in-law were killed by the bomb on Wednesday, part of an assault by rebels seeking to turn the tables in a revolt inspired by Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

Syrian rebels seize border post after fierce battle

Assad has not spoken in public since the bombing, but the Israeli military said it believed he was still in Damascus and retained the loyalty of his armed forces.

Regional and Western powers fear the conflict might become a full-blown sectarian war that could spill across borders, but have yet to find a coherent strategy to prevent that outcome.

NBC News staff, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

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Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/23/12901215-syria-acknowledges-it-has-chemical-weapons-will-use-them-if-attacked?lite

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2012 BASEBALL RECAP: Gehlen Catholic Jays (11-16, 9-11)

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Le Mars Daily Sentinel

Blake Wiltgen

Team stats

Dustin Kneip

Batting average	.259
On-base percentage	.352
Home runs	4
Runs per game	4.7
Runs against per game	5.4
ERA	3.41

Offensive leaders

Batting average

minimum 50 at-bats

Michael Whitehead	.354
Blake Wiltgen	.303
Zach Wurth	.302
Mitchell Flack	.263
Dylan Kneip	.261

Total hits

On-base percentage

minimum 50 at-bats

Michael Whitehead

Mitchell Flack

Michael Whitehead	.465
Zach Wurth	.406
Mitchell Flack	.392
Blake Wiltgen	.354
Dylan Kneip	.330

Stolen bases

Michael Whitehead	29
Zach Wurth	17
Dylan Kneip	4
Austin Herbst	3

Runs scored

Michael Whitehead	26
Zach Wurth	26
Blake Wiltgen	26
Dylan Kneip	15
Mitchell Flack	12

Doubles

Michael Whitehead	6
Mitchell Flack	4
Zach Wurth	4
Dylan Kneip	3
Solomon Freking	3
Austin Herbst	3

Triples

Michael Whitehead	1
Blake Wiltgen	1
Zach Wurth	1

Home runs

Zach Wurth

Zach Wurth	2
Eric Oetken	1
Michael Whitehead	1

RBIs

Mitchell Flack	13
Blake Wiltgen	12
Eric Oetken	11
Angel Chagolla	10
Zach Wurth	10

Pitching leaders

Wins

Blake Wiltgen	21
Eric Oetken	3
Michael Whitehead	2
Mitchell Flack	2
Solomon Freking	1

ERA

minimum 20 innings pitched

Eric Oetken	1.91
Blake Wiltgen	2.32
Mitchell Flack	3.65
Michael Whtiehead	3.90

Strikeouts

Blake Wiltgen	70
Michael Whitehead	69
Eric Oetken	13
Mitchell Flack	10
Austin Herbst	9

War Eagle Conference

First team

Mitchael Whitehead

Second team

Blake Wiltgen

Zach Wurth

Honorable mention

Dylan Kneip

Final standings

Remsen St. Mary's	15-5
Spalding Catholic	13-7
Hinton	13-7
South O'Brien	12-8
Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn	12-8
Remsen-Union	12-8
GEHLEN CATHOLIC	9-11
Marcus-Meriden-Cleghorn	9-11
Akron-Westfield	8-12
Unity Christian	6-14
West Sioux	3-17

? Copyright 2012 Le Mars Daily Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.lemarssentinel.com/story/1873519.html

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User:VirtualPBXswitch - LibraryCloud Wiki

From LibraryCloud Wiki

Virtual PBX Telephone Systems: Facts You Should Know in Doing the Transition

Virtual PBX (Private Branch Exchange) is modifying the communication landscape for small-scale and flourishing business groups. Better known as hosted PBX, it's an advanced phone system run by business voip services. With the continuing advent of new developments in the telecoms industry, companies finally possess options to pricey on-premise public switched telephone networks. A hosted PBX system gives exceptional cost savings in terms of funding, supplies, time and human resources. By just implementing VoIP technology, telephone service providers are ready to deliver high quality services.

Recent research have revealed that hosted PBX systems are now being put into practice rapidly. Such is the scenario among small and expanding business agencies in the United States and Canada. While more and more businesses gradually turn to virtual PBX (Virtual Private Exchange) for affordable business phone systems, a special question arises. Exactly when is the best time move to this kind of telephone systems?

What exactly is Virtual PBX?

Linking all enterprise communications to a hosted PBX system is a cheap way to take care of all telephone calls, faxes and e-mail.

Companies that sign up for hosted services seem to be a lot more professional. This sets the tone for future transactions with customers. If it comes to image, initial impressions have a massive impact. Small-scale and start up businesses may project a big business image by outsourcing phone services. By using a virtual telephone system, the service provider manages all communications in everyday business operations.

PBX is the term for the customary switchboard which deals with a business' communications. Business VoIP refers to modern-day services hosted on remote servers, not the actual location of the business. All these virtual services are comprehensive and may include voicemail, call forwarding, free online fax and a virtual assistant.

What should you consider just before converting your phone system?

Before you register for Virtual PBX, you have to ensure that you are making the perfect investment. Think about the subsequent ideas:

If you've determined your enterprise communication requirements, contact your telephone service provider to switch systems. The rewards you can get from Virtual PBX may help make the transition worthwhile. Even though professionalism and economics are both the reasons for taking the virtual path, they're not just the reasons. Connecting all enterprise communications to computers and the Web can help make all business far more efficient and viable.

Source: http://librarylab.law.harvard.edu/librarycloud_wiki/index.php/User%3AVirtualPBXswitch

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Writer's Fun Zone ? Blog Archive ? Creative Writing: 7 Ways to Get ...

I?ve decided to syndicate my ebook?Overcome Writer?s Block: 10 Writing Sparks to Jumpstart Your Creativity?on my blog, Writer?s Fun Zone, over the next 10 weeks. You can read the whole book here over the next 10 weeks, or buy the entire ebook at?Kindle,?Smashwords, and now,?AtContent.

** Enjoy Spark Five! And Happy Writing!**

??When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. The throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creating. We not only escape time, we also escape our self-conscious selves.?
? A Circle of Quiet: The Crosswicks Journal?Book 1 by Madeleine L?Engle

We must take action to create our art. We must play at it, as a child approaches playing. I love this Madeleine L?Engle quote, and want to share with you how we can escape into our art. How to open the door into the sumptuous world of our own creativity.

I?m assuming you know what your art is, that you know how you want to apply your creative energies, but you feel stymied in some way. If you don?t know what your creative art is, then I suggest you ?Remember and Identify? it. You could also read about Spark Seven: The Passion for Writing. (Coming soon! Or you can read it directly in Overcome Writer?s Block here.)

What was your favorite game or pastime as a child? Think back to how you spent your time. For example, I loved playing Olly Olly Oxen Free, a complex version of hide-and-go-seek, with friends and siblings. We loved playing Capture the Flag, exploring the nearby wine grape vineyards, and playing in abandoned fields full of burrs and blackberry brambles. I also loved curling up with a good adventure story, like Misty of Chincoteague or The Lost Prince.

Time to take action. Any action will do. Okay, almost any. If you need more clear direction, then below are six ways to get out of your own way. Do one, or do them all. The point here is to get out of your own way and create in a place of love, enjoyment and play.

Way #1 of Getting Out of Your Own Way ? Play

With reading, I loved, and still love, diving into another world, so completely different from my own, and coming out of the story refreshed and so in love with that other place, it makes this place, my own place, stand out as foreign, and intriguing. I?m always on an adventure and this I love.

What did you love about the games you played? Dig beneath the pleasure and describe its elements.

Way #2 of Getting Out of Your Own Way ? Identify

I?m in love with my current piece of fiction: its characters, setting, and problems. I can?t wait to return to that world so that I can sit in the angst of the problems I?ve created and move my characters to some kind of resolution. I love that exploration. Because although I know where I want my characters to go, I don?t know exactly how they will travel there, or if they will really succeed in their missions.

Identify the thing you love about your writing, your art. Identify it and allow yourself to sink your teeth into it.

As Madeleine L?Engle, says, ?We must throw ourselves out first,? and become our art creating itself.

Way #3 of Getting Out of Your Own Way ? Time Limits

Set the timer for 20 minutes. (More or less is fine, though I?ve found 20 minutes to be optimal for writing.) Write about all the reasons why you can?t write. If you find yourself writing about other things, great. The point is to move pen across page without stopping until the buzzer rings. Or, write about what you want your writing project to really be like.

Way #4 of Getting Out of Your Own Way ? Tracking

You are ready to work. The computer is on, or notebook and pen or pencil in hand. Now it?s time to note your starting time, page number and starting word count. A spreadsheet can help you just do that, a tracking sheet that helps you, well, track. Not just what you?ve done and for how long, it tracks that you?ve done it! Breathe! Congratulations! Showing up and following through on your creating is what?s it?s all about.

Way #5 of Getting Out of Your Own Way ? MAP

As leadership trainer and friend, Greg Norte, taught me, a MAP is a Major Accountability Partner. Maybe this person is a life partner, a business partner, colleague or creativity buddy. Call them at the start and at the finish to report in, celebrate your successes and shore up any challenges. Weekly is best. I have MAPs in all areas of my life. Go team!

Way #6 of Getting Out of Your Own Way ? List of Twenty

This is one of my favorite exercises, appealing to both the left and right?brainers out there. This exercise can be used for any kind of creative project, and yes, of course, writing. It?s great, in fact, for story and idea generation in any area. There are five steps to implementing this simple yet powerful tool.

Step One: Set your intention for the list. In other words, decide what you?re going to use the list for. For example, you could decide to list out twenty possible plot ideas, terrible scenarios for your hapless characters to fall into, or twenty ideas associated with a big lifestyle change. Or the question ?What do I really want with this creative project??

Step Two: Get ready! Number your page down the left hand side, 1-20.

Step Three: Get set! Know that you will list twenty items, even if you repeat yourself, even if it doesn?t make sense what you write.

Step Four: Go! Write your list of twenty. Don?t stop until you?ve reached the end.

Step Five: Read your list with amusement and neutrality, then congratulate yourself. You did it. If you are so inspired, pick one item and work on it right now.

Way #7 of Getting Out of Your Own Way ? Fieldtrip

When I need inspiration, and something to jolt me into action, I take a little field trip down the hill to my neighborhood, Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, CA. Like today, I took a fieldtrip to one of my favorite coffee shops, Peets? Coffee, sat in the little plaza and enjoyed the mural, and the passersby while I wrote. Then went to that wonderful resource, the public library, and popped into a fun new store in the neighborhood, Issues, with their wacky and wonderful magazines and newspapers from around the world.

Where can you go to mix things up, get inspiration, spur yourself to action, feed your fire? It may only be a seven-and-a-half minute walk away.

Great! Hopefully by now you have been inspired to action, to choose one or a few or all of the above exercises to help you ?wholly concentrate? and ?share in the act of creating? with your art, and to lovingly and kindly get the hell out of your own way.

Go be creative! Go Play!

***

You can buy the whole 10 Sparks on the?Kindle,?Smashwords, and now,?AtContent, where bloggers and readers can help spread the word and sell the book.

***

Bestselling Author?s Coach,?Beth Barany?is dedicated to the notion that all is better with play.

An author too, she?s the author of the 2011 award-winning young adult fantasy novel?Henrietta The Dragon Slayer, as well as of the bestselling?nonfiction books for authors and aspiring authors.

Beth gives away 10 spots per month for a 30-Minute Complimentary Coaching Session.?First Come First Serve!?Schedule yours today! Click here now to schedule yours:?Beth?s Online Scheduler