Do Your Own Website?

Posted on May 17, 2013 by

BewareLike many, or even most writers, expendable cash is limited, but long ago I invested in a domain name and a hosting site. I have always used Register.com, and the folks there have always been helpful in answering my questions.

Creating a website in the early-to-mid-nineties was different than it is now. There weren’t the variety of tools available that we see today. You were much more on your own to get it developed. I began with an HTML program called HoTMetaL Pro and not only programmed my own website, but also the first one for my employer Presbyterian Homes where I worked as the Marketing Manager until retirement. It was a bit of a learning curve, but as I was doing it all on my own time in the evenings, I was able to slowly figure it out.  HoTMetaL Pro eventually disappeared and I turned to Macromedia Dreamweaver as the next big thing.  Having already used a rather simplistic program, by today’s standards, I learned to use Dreamweaver without too much trouble.  Those were the days when tables were used as a basic layout tool.  Now they are discouraged, why? I don’t know, because they are a lot easier to use than the so-called “layers.”

Dreamweaver is now an Adobe product, and when time came to revise my website , I dutifully upgraded to the latest version and got to work.  OMG!!!!  Was I in for a surprise! With CSS6 as its basis, it has gotten so complicated that I could barely handle it. No wonder huge teams of programmers get paid actual money to develop websites! I searched the web for an easier alternative, and found that there are many out there. The problem was that I knew what I wanted, and none of the alternatives gave me the freedom to develop my web message my own way.

So I returned to my paid-for Dreamweaver upgrade, and after a month of eat-breathe and sleeping CSS and HTML, I uploaded my newly revised website.  Please take a look at

http://halleson.com/index.html.

The code is a bit messy, the look is sort of homemade-ish, but it’s all mine. No fancy high-paid web designer nerds. No slick templates. As a retired person trying to build a platform as a writer, it’s the best I could do for the moment.

If you, the reader, are a dedicated HTML/CSS6 user, you’ll probably look at the code, and let your mouth drop open in horror.  Sorry about that. I used the W3c validator.  I really did, but when I tried to fix the code violations, it gave me a lot of “This HTML is obsolete, use CSS instead.” Yeah, right! So tell me HOW to do that, you young whippersnapper programmers!!!

Nevertheless, my website is up there for all the world to see.  What’s more important than it looking like a streamlined corporate look-alike, is the message that it conveys.  At least that’s what I’m believing at this moment. This is who I am. This is what I write. This is my take on the world we live in.

Please buy my books and contribute to my helping children and grandchildren get through college and/or paying off their loans.  I’d appreciate it so very much.

Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

RZ

Posted in Marketing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

AMBIGUOUS. Can a Straight Woman Write a Story About a Gay Man?

Posted on April 10, 2013 by

By the time I asked myself that question, we were already deeply into the project, and the thought of abandoning the book was not an option.  After all, I had previously written a book that was far more difficult in Spare Them? No Profit. Remove Them? No Loss.  where I had to enter the mind of a man who had been a Cambodian teenager trying to survive apart from his parents during the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in a country where the culture was radically different from my own.

Both books required extensive and rigorous research.  With the one, I traveled to Cambodia to try and get a feel for the country itself.  With the other,  I accompanied my “consultant” to numerous gay events, and took advantage of opportunities to attend some on my own.  I read and studied everything that I could get my hands on, trying to verify everything that each of these individuals described to me: events, timelines, persons involved, procedures used, and more.  As an author whose name was on the cover, I wanted nothing to be inaccurate.

Here is how the gay novel came about.

I had just lost my beloved husband to cancer and was still stunned by what had happened. Four days a week, I would go and sit on the lawn outside a nursery school waiting for my granddaughter to come out.  The facilities manager, Robert, took his cigarette break just at that time and so we would sit together and chat. He was empathetic and listened to my tale of woe.  Eventually I discovered that Robert was gay as he began to tell me his life story, which, for me in 1998, was a look into an American subculture that I had known nothing about. We became close friends through the telling of our stories, and I realized that here was a tale worth telling, but where to begin?  His life was complicated.

At the heart of his life-experience was an obsession for a fellow airman that had never been reconciled, so as we talked this through, we decided to create this story, not as a biography, but as a novel; he was too afraid to reveal himself so intimately to his friends and acquaintances.  It took a couple of years to develop the novel.  Three readers, a psychologist, a gay pastor, and a pilot (to verify the vernacular used in the air traffic control tower) read the manuscript and suggested changes that enhanced the story before the manuscript was finally finished.

Then Robert got cold feet, and couldn’t go through with publication.  I set the story aside and moved on to other things.  Not until more than a decade later did he come to me and suggest that it might be time to tell the story. He is retired and no longer is concerned about who might surprised at his story.

I reviewed, re-edited, and polished the manuscript and now offer it to you the reader.  Ambiguous is based on a true story of the relationship of three young men at a time when being gay was less accepted than it is today.  After you have read it, I would welcome your comments.Postcard revised 180 dpi

RZH

Posted in Stories from a Life Long Lived, Writing Someone Else's Story | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Launching a New Book: Daunting

Posted on March 30, 2013 by

These days, launching a new book project can be daunting indeed.  Working with a traditional publisher is one thing, and has its own story to tell.  Doing it all on your own through self-publishing is a whole other adventure.

Writing and self-editing is only the first part, as difficult as that may be for many writers.  In addition to a well-told story, what comes after will determine the success of the project.  The author must be an astute marketer and not be afraid to push the sales of the book.  That kind of pushing does not come easily to many authors, especially those who are introverts and prefer to stay out of the limelight.  I knew early-on that this would be one of my biggest challenges, and solved it by adopting the pen name R.Z. Halleson, a very old family name basically forgotten by remaining members of my family.  I can now market and sell to my heart’s content because its more like selling an object, or entity, rather than selling me and how wonderful I am personally, which sounds like bragging and soooo open to all the skeptics who love to put people down.

Postcard revised 180 dpi

My first step was to make a marketing plan on Microsoft’s Excel so I could keep track of the dates on which I implemented the plan.  Second, I ordered postcards through Vistaprint.com (See image above).  A few of these will be sent through snail-mail at 33 cents each, but the majority will be inserted into envelopes that I have to send out anyway.

As soon as I finish updating my Halleson,net blog, I will embed the above postcard into an email and send it to the long list of relevant people whose emails I have collected over the years and kept up to date.  Although I have several email providers, Gmail is my preferred venue because, for me, it organizes contacts and emails simply and easily.  All my other email providers feed into it, and I can choose the return email address that I want for whatever I am sending out.  For this postcard, I will use the return address: rz@halleson.com.

When this is finished, I can then turn back to my Excel spreadsheet, enter today’s date on the “Blog” row and on the “Postcard” row, and move on to all the other ways that I need to market this book.

The novel Ambiguous is a remarkable story based on the experiences of a friend of mine who is now openly gay, but during the 1950s and 1960s, men were dismissed from the Air Force for no other reason than gender preference.  Written by a straight woman about a gay man and his friends, you’ll have to judge for yourselves whether or not the two of us did justice to that time and place.

RZ

Posted in Marketing, Writing/Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wanting to own my very own Tablet

Posted on October 28, 2012 by

Day after day, I surf the web for the latest news about the newest tablet offerings.  There is an extraordinary number of news and commentary; seems as if everyone has an opinion.  All my friends who have iPads of some vintage, love them, swear by them, and wouldn’t hear of anything that could possibly be better.  Being the skeptic that I am, I think that such fanaticism about what one owns is a bit narrow and possibly defensive that they might have been wrong in choosing an Apple product.  I have no doubt that Apple products are truly remarkable (I read Walter Isaacson’s excellent biography of Steve Jobs after all), yet I have friends with MACs who are continually frustrated with their computers and have problems finding help because so many computer-fixers work only with PCs.

Let me be clear.  When I finally upgraded to a smart phone, I chose the iPhone 4, which suits me just fine.  If I have a problem, I just run over to the nearest ATT&T store and their super-friendly staff get me back on track.  Apple’s iPhone 4 works just fine and it’s fun to use as well as exceedingly practical.  I can now text and send photos easily with my children and grandkids, which I never did before.

Yet, I don’t want to be stuck with a tablet that is so proprietary that my specific applications won’t work on it.  I’ve been looking at Android operating systems and Windows operating systems, as well as the iOS.  Right now the Android is what I’m leaning toward, but which one.

I have a Kindle reader and love it.  It is an amazing invention for someone who reads as much as I do; it’s a device limited to printed words with some black and white photos, and that’s all I ever wanted it for.  Therefore, I’m thinking about the Kindle Fire HD 10.  It works on the Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS, and is a lot less expensive to buy and to run than the iPad.  Cost is important.   It will release this month, but what is Amazon holding back in terms of what I can use it for?

I’m also looking at the Google Nexis 10 which runs on the Android 4.1 (Jellybean) OS, but it hasn’t been released yet either, so information is sketchy.  I’ve pretty much ruled out the Acer, Asus, and HP tablets, although I’ve been a dedicated HP user for many years.  Except for my older laptop that keeps shutting down the internet connection and driving its owners crazy, all my HP desktops, laptops, netbooks, and printers have worked well.  Oh yes, there was that new laptop that I had to return because the DVD drive was faulty, but generally HPs are reliable and customer service has been good.

I’m getting more and more desperate for a tablet as I have specific applications that I need to use on it.  Nevertheless, I guess I will have to be patient and sit bolt upright at one of my computers for awhile longer while waiting for the future to be more predictable.

Rather than sliding down comfortably in the recliner fondling a tablet, I shall limp along on my other equipment for a few more months until the word is in on the new offerings coming soon to market.

Any suggestions???

Posted in Today's World | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Letter to a Syrian Girl


Image

To my Syrian friend,

You and I met in 1999 when both of us were visiting the magnificent citadel at Bosra, Syria.  You were on a school trip with other Syrian teenage girls, and I was with a group traveling through Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine.

I was walking separately from my group on the stage of the citadel when I suddenly found myself surrounded by you and your friends and classmates.  You were the one who spoke the most English, and I will never forget the conversation that we had:

“You from America?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Why America hate Syria?”

I was stunned by the question, but answered as best I could. “I don’t know, but I don’t hate Syria!”

“You come back to Syria?”

“I will try to come again.”

“You tell others in America to come to Syria?”

“Yes, I will tell other Americans how wonderful Syria is.  I will tell them to come to Syria.”

At that point you and the other girls wandered away, and I didn’t know that one of my travelling companions had taken a picture of us as we were talking with one another.

Image

You were a teenager when we had that conversation.  You would be almost thirty years old today.  Are you a wife, a mother?  Are you safe with your family in your home, or have you had to flee your home and your country to somewhere else, a relative’s safer home or maybe to a refugee camp in Turkey or Lebanon.  Where are you?  Where are your classmates?  Are you alive?

I loved Syria when I was there.  The people that I met were interesting and caring.  Above all, I loved meeting you and your friends.  All of you were so sweet and so brave to ask me those questions.  I wish I could have had better answers.  I have told many people here in America about my visit to Syria and I continue to tell them.  Every person that I have spoken to about Syria cares deeply about what is happening in your country and wants peace to come again, but we feel so helpless.  Many of us have joined groups working toward peace throughout the Middle East, but it never seems to be enough.

I do not believe that American hates Syria.  I have never, ever gotten that impression.  Our government does not hate Syria and neither do our people.  The conflict in Syria is internal and that is one reason that America has not become involved openly. Another reason is our war against Al Queda in Afghanistan and other countries that is costing us so much in American lives and in money.  Unless America can form a coalition with other nations that care about Syria’s people (and many do), we may not be able to help in any immediate way.

It breaks my heart.

I hope you, your family, your classmates and their families are alive and well and safe.  I think about you every day.  I hope that I will be able to come back someday to a safe and peaceful Syria.

Sincerely,

Ruth Zekowski

Twitter: @halles9

Aside | Posted on June 17, 2012 by | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment
Posted on April 9, 2012 by


Please read my newest book, a psychological mystery set in a rural Norwegian-American
community in Wisconsin.

God’s Child The Origin of Fear

by R. Z. Halleson

Synopsis: 
On a cold winter’s night, a man enters the barn on the Reiersen farm, climbs into the hayloft, and brutally murders a sleeping hobo who has been given refuge by the family for the night.  This is December, 1940 when the nation is trying to stay out of a war that one year later it cannot avoid: World War II.  Tensions are high everywhere as young men, including the live-in hired man on the Reiersen farm, are being drafted.  

There are no modern techniques of crime solving in rural Wisconsin at this time, not even finger-print analysis.  Murders are not uncommon, but are generally easily solved as they are so often family affairs, or related to activities at the local taverns.  This is different: victim unknown, motive unknown, killer unknown, and no witnesses.  Sheriff Joe Iverson is facing the biggest challenge of his career as one murder becomes two.

Main characters:
Silje Reiersen, 5 years old and Nils Reiersen, 9 years old, two cousins who are left to observe and find their own ways to cope with death that seems ever-present in this isolated rural Norwegian-American community. Their parents are too immersed in their own problems to notice that the children have questions too.

Alex and Harold Reiersen, two brothers who, with their wives and children, live and farm together.

Vernon County Sheriff Joe Iverson and his assistant Emma Logan who feel driven to solve this murder.  The killer knows the Reiersen barn too well to be someone other than local, but clues are minimal and seem to vanish  upon examination.  How can Iverson break this case?

This is the first in my upcoming series of mysteries, and is available as an ebook at Amazon.com for only $2.99.  If you don’t have a Kindle, you can read this unusual story by downloading the FREE Kindle app to your own reading device by following these steps:

Step 1. Go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=sv_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771
and choose the reading device you prefer: PC, MAC, tablet, or  smart phone.  Then download that free app to your device.  You can now order and read any ebook that Amazon Kindle offers.

Step 2.  Go to
http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Child-Origin-Fear-ebook/dp/B00786W9KI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1333716129&sr=1-1
and download  God’s Child The Origin of Fear.  (The cover has been revised, and the new version may not show up for a few days.)

If you like the book, please write a brief comment on Amazon.com. Thank you so much for reading my very first mystery!  The next one has begun and will be published later this year.

R.Z. Halleson


Posted in Book Reviews, The Mystery Series, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Attempts to Lower Health Care Payouts

Posted on March 2, 2012 by

The high cost of health care and how to lower that cost has always been of great concern in the United States.  In 1971, the RAND Corporation began a decade-long study to see what effect health care cost-sharing would have on consumer behavior.  It found that people did indeed use health care services less when they had to share significantly in the cost.  See: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9174/index1.html

Years ago when I was a young mother, my husband worked for a company that had amazing health care insurance for its employees.  I never hesitated to take my children to the doctor for anything that looked suspicious.  Everything was paid for.  When our situation changed and I had to deal with deductibles and co-pays or no coverage at all for certain health problems, I was shocked into realizing that most people were not as privileged as I had been and was no more.  I was a perfect example of the findings of the RAND study.  I began to use physician services less.

The Health Savings Account (HSA) is one of the methods being used to get the insured to take responsibility for their own health, and one that we need to understand as more than half of all employers offer this plan as a choice.  Here are some of its provisions:

1. The HSA has a high deductible with lower premiums.  Generally healthy people are opting for the high deductible plans so that monthly premiums take less out of their paycheck.  We’ll take the chance that no catastrophic illness or injury ever occurs.

2. When an employee leaves his job, he can take it with him.  That is not true of all consumer driven plans.

3. Unused benefits can carry forward into the next year.  The Flexible Spending Plan that preceded the HSA required that benefits be used in the year in which they were funded or be lost to the Federal government.

4. The HSA can be funded by either or both employee and employer.

5. With some limitations, up to 100% of the deductible can be contributed to the plan.
This is just a very brief view of  HSA plans to give you an idea of what is involved.  Wikipedia has an excellent description of HSAs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_savings_account, and I urge you to read it.

We have a long way to go before we as individuals take responsibility for our own good health and for preventing health problems from occurring.  Look at the way we eat.  Consider the abuse of our health through illegal drugs and alcohol.   Harming ourselves through the use of fossil fuels and on and on.  We’re on a journey here, and solutions are coming little by little as we work through our political differences on how best to move forward.

It’s complicated,
but not so complicated that we all can’t understand it if we try.

Coming next: Managed Care.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Accessible Healthcare, Getting to Maybe | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments