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* Positive Visualization – Close your eyes for approximately 5 minutes and let your mind take you to a peaceful place or a happy moment (ex: a child’s birth, a vacation) Reside there for a few moments in time.

* Take A Cat Nap – “Checking out” for a few is a great way to relax and unwind. Find a quiet place to cat nap for 10-15 minutes. You may not fall asleep but the simple act of resting your eyes will help relax you

* Give Yourself a Massage – This may sound odd but there are certain reflex points on your hands and feet that will promote relaxation when massaged.

* Aromatherapy – Diffuse essential oils a.k.a aroma oils (ex: lavender, marjoram, lemon) into the air or apply directly to your body (some aroma oils may need to be dissolved with a carrier oil) and unwind with calming scents

* Do Muscle Stretches – Stretching exercises for the neck, back, feet and legs help work out stress tense, muscles

* Tub Soak – Fill your tub with very warm water and just soak. Add Epsom Salt or essential oils to the water to. Combine positive visualization for an even more relaxing experience

Practice one or more of these seven relaxing tips for stress relief any time you are feeling out of sorts. There’s no need to stay all wound up. Technology may be moving at the speed of light but you don’t have to. Escape to your own little world and relax.

As you may have noticed Openlore Fiction Writers Community has been rebranded. This is because originally I hadn’t intended for Openlore to be a website for writers at least not in the way it had evolved. When I realized that the site had jumped the shark, so to speak, I had to make a choice. Either keep the site going as is or change the domain and keep this idea going under a new brand. As you can see I chose option B.
My goal with The Plot Cafe is to make it the go to place for both readers and writers sort of like a coffee shop. When you go to your local Starbucks or Seattle’s Best Coffee, you often see readers reading books and writers writing them but you hardly ever see (or at least I never have) either group talking to the other. With The Plot Cafe, I hope to build a place where readers and writers can interact freely discussing the finer points of plot construction and character idiosyncrasies.

The site is still under construction but I will get back to providing writing tips and writing prompts. In addition to those goodies, I will be including book reviews, author interviews, a forum and a myriad of other wonderfulness designed to bring the community together.

Questions, suggestions and feedback is always welcome, so please feel free to contact me.

Arwen Taylor
Founding Editor, The Plot Cafe Fiction Community

Don’t quote me on this, because it’s not gospel.

Anyway, many years a go a little guy, let’s call him Tom, who was homeless and hopeless, spent his time wandering from ancient village to ancient village, trying to scrape a living by selling his labour. But times were hard and Alf found himself on the brink of starvation when he arrived at Betaville one day.

The good folk of Betaville were in an uproar as they had heard of a terrible tragedy in Alphaville the previous week, but no-one knew the facts as no-one from Betaville had been to Alphaville for a while because it was a two day ride to Alphaville and Betaville’s only ass was off her feed.

“But I’ve just come from Alphaville,” Tom cried.

“Really?” the townsfolk said, “Tell us what happened.”

“It was the blacksmith, old Fergus,” Tom said, “He was wild with drink and murdered two men and hurt a goat.”

“Tragedy!” the townsfolk intoned and crowded round Tom for further details, which he was happy to supply. He talked long into the night and when he ended there were many offers of food, drink and a bed for the night. Tom was delighted.

The next day Tom travelled on to Gammaville and immediately announced that there had been a great tragedy in Alphaville.

“What,” said the remote inhabitants of Gammaville, “We never heard about that.”

“It’s true,” Tom insisted, and retold the story as he had told it in Betaville. The residents of Gammaville were as entranced as their neighbours, and once again Tom was plied with hospitality. This is a bit of alright, Tom thought.

The next day Tom moved on to Fourville, which was so named because my knowledge of Greek is rubbish.

“Four men murdered in Alphaville,” he shouted, “A goat hurt and three virgins pregnant.”

“Never,” said the residents of Fourville, and Tom knew he was in trouble because it was well known that there never ever were three virgins in Alphaville at any one time.

“My mistake, ” he corrected himself, “Four men murdered, one goat hurt and three visiting virgins impregnated.”

“Tell us more,” they cried and Tom took the fateful step from a purveyor of news to a fully fledged storyteller.

“It happened like this …” Tom began and as the ale flowed, the tale of Fergus the blacksmith grew to encompass a pack of barbarians, a sheepdog called Corky, the eating of a haycart, and the three virgins had been transformed into an entire nunnery.

But as he lay in his comfortable, and free, bed that night Tom worried that his memory not being what it was, it was more than likely that he would forget the true story and every version that derived from it. Best to write it down, he thought.

Centuries passed and Tom’s work came to a cinema multiplex near you, which Tom had been paid millions of dollars to write down.

So, learn my dear budding writers, if Tom could do it, so can you.