Writer’s Guidelines

(version 1.7 ~ 21 December 2008)

Signs of spirit is a weekly blog and email newsletter, with new stories every Sunday morning. Readers may have a wide variety of different spiritual and religious orientations. Many may not know they are spirits and this will be an introduction to the concept.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this project is to make widely known the idea that we are essentially beings of spirit, with minds and bodies. It acknowledges we are beings of spirit, explores the experiences and abilities of spirit we each have the potential to enjoy, and encourages open communication about being spirits.

It identifies spiritual characteristics and abilities as belonging to spirit and demonstrates spirit in action in daily life. It’s aim is to expose to the general public a view that shows “I am a spirit,” rather than “I have a spirit.”

With this purpose, stories must be written from the viewpoint of a spirit. This is an opportunity to “give voice to spirit” and share this perspective.

SUBJECTS

Signs of spirit publishes true, real-life stories of people operating with an “I am a spirit” viewpoint in daily life. Subjects for stories could include, but are not limited to:

  • * Telling about use of spirit abilities
  • * Relaying observation of spirit characteristics
  • * Realizations you have had about being a spirit, and in particular the moment you realized you were a spirit
  • * “Magical” occurrences as the result of intention (aware or unaware)
  • * Recollections of past lives and meeting people in this life you have known before
  • * Expressing an idea from a spirit viewpoint
  • * Communicating with spirits without bodies and with other species
  • * Literally anything that relates to your own experience of being a spirit or an experience you directly observed or were told first-hand from the person who experienced it.

We also accept poetry, visual arts, songs, and any other form of communication that communicates spirit awareness, spirit viewpoint, or spirit abilities.

Because Signs of spirit is about your own experience as a spirit, and not religion or any specific spiritual practice, we do not allow mention of any religion, practice, teacher, workshop, or book in the text of the stories.

LENGTH AND STYLE

Stories may be as short as 250 words and no more than 1000 words.

Stories can be a “wow!” story that changed your life, or a description of a simple moment that moved you. Choose subjects that are inspiring, moving, funny. Try telling your story to others before you write it and note their response. The stories we want are the ones that make them laugh or cry or exclaim, “What a great story!”

Stories should be written as a story. Choose only one point to illustrate. Start with a little relevant background, describe what occurred, and give a conclusion. It’s OK to start by telling what characteristic or ability of spirit you are writing about.

Every story needs a title. If you can’t think of one, we can give it a title.

Use standard English words, not specialized terminology. Remember these stories are going to the general public. Write your story so it is easy and entertaining to read. If you need to use an unfamiliar word, work the definition into the text.

If you have a story but are having trouble writing it, just write it however you can and we will help you with it.

For some suggestions on writing a spirit story, see How to Write a spirit Story.

EDITING

We retain the right to edit stories to meet our guidelines, but we will not change the essential message of the story.

BYLINE

You may choose how you want to be credited for your story.

You may use your full name, first name only, last name only, or initials. You may use a pen name or a spirit name. You will be able to choose this when you register as a writer (See Step 5 under SUBMISSION below).

IMAGES, VIDEO AND AUDIO

You may submit images, video, and audio files along with your story. It can be a photo of yourself or a graphic that illustrates the story. For example, if the story is about something that happened when your body was five years old, a photo of you at age five is fine. If you want an “author photo” with your story, that’s fine too.

If you want to add an image, audio, or video, use the “add media” buttons, which are at the top of the field where you enter the text of your story.

SUBMISSION

All stories must be posted directly to the Signs of spirit blog. Here are the steps:

1. Register. All writers must register here: http://signs-of-spirit.com/wp-login.php?action=register You will be asked for a username, email, and password. After you submit the registration, an email will be sent to you with your username and password for your records.

2. Log in at http://signs-of-spirit.com/wp-login.php. Or you can use the “Log in” link at the bottom of any page.

3. Enter your username and password and click “Log in.”

4. The “dashboard” page will open.

5. Set up your name. The first time you open the dashboard page, click on “Profile,” all the way over to the right, near the top. Here you can set your personal options. Under “Name,” it has empty fields for First Name, Last Name, and Nickname, and then says “Display name publically as” and allows you to choose from a menu. If it displays only your username in the menu, scroll to the bottom and click “Update Profile,” then come back to the menu. It should allow you to choose from combinations of first and last name, user name, and nickname. If you want your name to appear in a certain way or use a different name or pseudonym, type it in the nickname field and choose it from the menu. Then scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Update Profile.” Then click on “Dashboard,” all the way in the top left corner.

6. Post your story. On the dashboard page, click on the “Write a New Post” button, way over to the right.

7. The “Write Post” window will open. Enter the title of your story in the “Title” field and your story in the “Post” field. Use the edit function buttons to apply bold, italics, and other text formatting. Do not add anything to the Tags or Category fields. You can save your story while you are working on it, preview it when you are done, and submit your story for review by using the buttons to the right. Please compose your story elsewhere and paste it in, then apply formatting, to safeguard against losing your story.

8. Logout using the link in the upper right corner of the page, or click on the “Visit Site” button to return to the Signs of spirit blog.

SUBMITTING YOUR STORY GRANTS US THE RIGHT TO REPRINT YOUR STORY ON THE SIGNS OF spirit BLOG AND IN OUR SIGNS OF spirit NEWSLETTER.

COPYRIGHT

We hold the copyright to the newsletter and website as a whole. However, we consider that your story is your own intellectual property, and place a copyright notice automatically on each story posted. If you wish to file a copyright with the Copyright Office, you will need to do that yourself.

EXCHANGE

This is a free publication. At the moment, your exchange for submitting a story is acknowledgement, being published online, and knowing you are inspiring others by sharing your story.

If we choose to use your story in a published anthology for which we recieve money, we will ask your permission and give you an appropriate pro-rated percentage of the author’s royalty. Typically the author’s royalty is 10% of the sales price. We will take some percent as the editors, and divide the remainder among all the authors, according to the length of stories.

If another publisher contacts us asking to reprint your story, we will contact you and get your permission. If you agree, we will take 15% of the fee for facilitating the placement.
Debra Dadd Redalia & Larry Redalia
Editors
Signs of spirit