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Debra Dadd Redalia

Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.
-- John Milton

 

his blog is about acknowledging and celebrating the spiritual aspect of life, through the time-honored activity of sharing stories.
 

My husband Larry and I are both contributing stories and editing this blog together. Spirit is the center of our lives, and everything else that we do comes from this orientation. more...

 

 

White Dove

The white dove is a universal symbol of spirit, love, and peace. It is the most well-known of all doves. Because it is highly intelligent, they are widely used by magicians in their acts.

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Writer's Guidelines

(version 1.8 ~ 3 July 2010)

First, we simply want to say that we want you to write freely in your own way about your experience as a spiritual being. These guidelines are meant only to let you know what we are looking for and our policies.

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 appropriate buttons in the editor when you submit your story.

SUBMISSION

All stories must be posted directly to the Signs of spirit blog.

Here are the steps:

1. Click on "Submit Your Story" button in the left hand column.

2. You will arrive at a page that titled "User Account".

* If you have a username and possword, fill in the fields and click on "Login" button.

* If you don't have a username and password, click on "Create New Account" tab.

* If you have forgotten your password, click on "Request new password" tab.

2. When you login, you will arrive at a page titled "Create Blog entry".

3. Type the title of your story (or"needs a title") in the Title field.

4. You may type your story directly into the Body field. However, if you wish to write your story elsewhere and paste it here (as we suggest you do to ensure it is not accidentally lost), you'll need to click on the "Source" button in the upper left hand corner of the text editor, and paste your text there. Please put <p> between each paragraph, and it will come out perfectly. You can then click on "Source" button again and use the editor to add bold, italics, or whatever.

4. Hit the "save" button at the bottom of the page.

That's all you need to do!

To log out, use the "Log Out" link which is under your name at the top of the left hand column.

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

 

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