Order of The Rose: Forsaken Petal Contest!!

Who wants to win an autographed paperback copy of my two books, Order of The Rose: Forsaken Petal and How To Diagnose Your Character?

A drawing will be held two weeks from today and 2 lucky winners will be the recipients of both copies.

Here's how you get an entry into the drawing (by completing each task and notifying me you will get one entry):

1. Tweet about Order of The Rose: Forsaken Petal (please include a link to Amazon).

2. Blog about Order of The Rose: Forsaken Petal (I'm more than willing to be hosted as well for either book).

3. Share Order of The Rose: Forsaken Petal on Facebook.

4. Share Order of The Rose: Forsaken Petal on Google+

5. Purchase the electronic version of Either copy.

For each day that you do this you will gain one entry.

So if you were to tweet about it every day for the next two weeks you would earn 14 entries.

Please share the contest with others.

Thanks so much for your continued support Order of The Rose: Forsaken Petal has been sitting at the 12,000 - 20,000 rank on Amazon for too long. I know with your help we can get it moved up closer to the number one spot!!

Okay so I have been gone for awhile but I have some very exciting news....Drum Role please.....

In a world where only women have been able to wield magic for centuries Tom Alerio, a young boy, soon realizes that his unique ability of wielding magic will change his life forever. Tom’s mother is forced to send him away in order to protect him from the sisterhood she belongs to. The sisterhood fear magic returning to the hands of men and seek out and kill any that do.

However, Tom learns that magic must be shared by men and women alike and in order to do this he must restore The Order of The Rose, an ancient order that controlled magic before it became corrupted. If he is unable to do this the new technologies and opposing forces will rip the world apart destroying all he has come to love and care for.

I have just published my book Order of The Rose: Forsaken Petal on Amazon you can check it out here and be the first to review it http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I6MZ216

Check out the amazing cover completed by Ria @ Orangejar.com

Just Published on Amazon

I haven't been on for a long time. Here's an update. I'm finishing up my internship and have a new job for next year.... and there was much rejoicing. I have purchased a new home. Finally, I just published my How to Diagnose your character on Amazon. If you have felt like my blog has helped you in some way please review my book (no purchase necessary).
Thanks!!

Blogging Break

Dear Blogging Friends,
I have decided that due to my inability to keep up with your blogs and in answering your emails I have decided that I need to spend more time concentrating on a few things at a time. I hope to return to the blogging world one day and visit with all of you once again. I appreciate all of the many friends I have made and the many excellent reads that I have encountered. To each of you I wish that your dreams may come true and that you will find happiness in all you do!

Sincerely,
Josh

Letters L, M, N

Sorry for getting behind I plan on doing some serious catching up tonight. I have been super busy, but no excuses just getting down to business!

Learning disorders: A discrepancy between a person's cognitive ability and their academic ability in a specific area: math, reading, etc. Or another way to look at learning disorders is by the amount of intervention necessary to help an individual get to the average. For example most kids can learn a subject matter just fine by sitting in the normal classroom. On the other hand, a child with a math learning disorder can't. This child will need extra help such as reading with a peer tutor for extra time or with a reading specialist. It may be that they need to be pulled out of the regular education room for resource.

Malingering: the intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms, in order to escape something. For example a person wants to get out of military service and so that individual fakes having sever headaches and stomach aches. Malingering differs from factitious disorder in the motivation behind the illness. In factitious disorder you will remember that it dealt with more internal motivation where as malingering deals with extrinsic motivation.

Narcissistic personality disorder: pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy that begins by early adulthood. Individuals with narcissistic personality disorder have grandiose thoughts of self importance. They overrate their importance , accomplishments, and abilities. Further, they feel that admiration over their accomplishments are long over due. They feel superior to others. In a diagnostic class we watched a video and the teacher asked us to diagnose the individuals. When the video of the individual with narcissism came on we were able to diagnose him with the first few seconds even before he spoke. These individuals entire posture and behavior appears narcissistic. Another interesting thought, most politicians have a streak of narcissism. This seems logical because who else would be able to take the criticism that they do without cracking.

Letter K

Kleptomania:

An individual with the diagnosis of kleptomania has a behavior of recurrently failing to resist impulses to steal. Kleptomania causes an individual to feel a rising subjective sense of tension right be for a theft and after the theft the individual feels pleasure, gratification, or relief. The theft does not occur out of anger or vengeance but only to release the tension the individual feels. The objects stolen are of little or no significant value. Occasionally the individual will return the stolen items or they will hoard them.

Individuals with kleptomania feel depressed and guilty for their theft. Preliminary evidence shows that females make up two-thirds of kleptomaniacs. However, kleptomaniacs only make up less than 5% of shoplifters.

Letter J

There are no diagnosis that start with the letter J that I'm aware of or that can be found in the DSM-IV-TR. However, there is an amazing psychologist named Carl Jung who I will quote,

"Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar’s gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart throughout the world. There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the stock exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap a richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul."

As writers this applies to us as well. In order to truly write the great stories we need to have experiences. No we are not going to fly spaceships or have magical powers but we can have human experiences that will inspire us and make us step outside our boxes. We can open our minds to those things that go beyond what we have seen a million times and write about the human condition in all its forms. Also, we can put down the books that teach us to write and start writing!