Would you like to be in an article?

VictoriaE · Jan 23, 2006

I'm working on a number of different pitches to major magazines for articles in their upcoming special issues for June 2006. I'm here to get opinions from you, the fantastic public that buys these issues, about topics that are important to you and affect our lives daily.

So, if you have any opinions or ideas on the following questions, please comment and let me know. I will email you directly for more info and include it is my pitch to the magazine. If the article idea is accepted for publication, I'll contact you again and get some more info so I can quote you in my article

Here are the different topics/themes I am working on ::

- How do you keep your home/apartment healthy? Is cleaning your home/apartment therapeutic? What changes do you think could be made to make your home/apartment healthier?

- Have you done any remodeling to your home/apartment recently? What are the best remodeling projects to increase a home's value? Have you done any fun, quick weekend makeover projects to your home/apartment?

- Have you recently seen, or plan to see, a unique film (not one in major theaters)? What genre of music do you think deserves the media spotlight and why?

- Have you ever gone on an island vacation or cruise? What is your favorite island to visit and why? If you haven't visited an island, but would like to, which one and why?

- What are your favorite foods to make during the summer that you rarely make any other time of year? Do you tend to gain more or lose more weight during the summer? How do you make summer dining fun and healthy?

- How do you keep your relationship entertaining? What are your favorite sex toys, cremes, videos, games ... etc? Do you think ''playing''/having fun in a relationship (both inside and outside the bedroom) is vital to it being healthy and long-lasting?

- Do you really eat the recommended daily amounts of fruits and vegetables and why or why not? have you tried any exotic produce that you really loved (what was it, where did you get it, can you describe its taste)? How do you get your family (or yourself) to eat more fruits & veggies (sneak them into meals, make them into tasty snacks, always have some available instead of candy ... etc)?

aruna · Jan 27, 2006

VictoriaE said:
I'm working on a number of different pitches to major magazines for articles in their upcoming special issues for June 2006. I'm here to get opinions from you, the fantastic public that buys these issues, about topics that are important to you and affect our lives daily.

- How do you keep your home/apartment healthy? Is cleaning your home/apartment therapeutic? What changes do you think could be made to make your home/apartment healthier?

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I'm not good at cleaning, but I do love cleanliness! Luckily my daughter (aged 15) does most of the cleaning. We both like natural products, use as little chemical stuff as possible. My daughter tends to use to much bleach, however. I stil can't get rid of the doggy smell in the hallway.

- Have you done any remodeling to your home/apartment recently? What are the best remodeling projects to increase a home's value? Have you done any fun, quick weekend makeover projects to your home/apartment?

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No.

- Have you recently seen, or plan to see, a unique film (not one in major theaters)? What genre of music do you think deserves the media spotlight and why?

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Can't wait to see March of the Penguins, Memoires of a Geisha, Brokeback Mountain. I love Indian music and wish it were more appreciated!

- Have you ever gone on an island vacation or cruise? What is your favorite island to visit and why? If you haven't visited an island, but would like to, which one and why?

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Here's where I come into my own.
I love islands, the sea. My favourite island is Tobago, inthe Caribbean. I've bene there with my family sevearl times; we have relatives on its sister island, Trinidad, and I practically grew up there. I have many fond childhood memories. I'd love to visit other Caribbean isalnds, as well as Bali and other Pacific islands.

- What are your favorite foods to make during the summer that you rarely make any other time of year? Do you tend to gain more or lose more weight during the summer? How do you make summer dining fun and healthy?

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The best thing about summer is the abundance of fruit! And fresh vegetables! Trouble is, most vegetables available in supermarkets are tsateless. I long for a real tomato, fresh from the garden. Haven't had one in ages.

- How do you keep your relationship entertaining? What are your favorite sex toys, cremes, videos, games ... etc? Do you think ''playing''/having fun in a relationship (both inside and outside the bedroom) is vital to it being healthy and long-lasting?

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No to all that. I personally think that sex isn't really as important as it's made out to be, certainly not for maintaining a good relationship, or for saving a bust one.

- Do you really eat the recommended daily amounts of fruits and vegetables and why or why not? have you tried any exotic produce that you really loved (what was it, where did you get it, can you describe its taste)? How do you get your family (or yourself) to eat more fruits & veggies (sneak them into meals, make them into tasty snacks, always have some available instead of candy ... etc

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oops, I already answered that in part. Fron the time they were small I gave my children lots of fruit and vegetables and they always ate tem with relish. They don't like junk food and candy at all; my daughter for e.g. likes me to make her a fruit plate every evening. When she goes to stay with (junk food eating) friends, she comes back craving fresh fruit and veg and pigs out on it for a few days. It's all a matter of training the taste buds; if you don't give them candy when they're small, they don't crave it later. At least, that's my experience.

Hope this helps.

L M Ashton · Jan 27, 2006

VictoriaE said:
I'm working on a number of different pitches to major magazines for articles in their upcoming special issues for June 2006. I'm here to get opinions from you, the fantastic public that buys these issues, about topics that are important to you and affect our lives daily.

I'm going with the assumption that you're talking about US publications. If it's otherwise, please let us know.

- Have you recently seen, or plan to see, a unique film (not one in major theaters)? What genre of music do you think deserves the media spotlight and why?

We watch a lot of foreign films, like Tamil films from Mollywood (Madras, aka Chennai, in Tamil Nadu, India), Hindi films from Bollywood (Bombay, aka Mumbai, in India), and Thai, Japanese, Chinese, and other films. They mostly come with English subtitles (not usually great, but merely adequate), so we can still get the gist of what's going on. Yesterday, we finished watching The House of the Flying Daggers in Chinese with English subtitles.

The movie is well worth watching for the emotion portrayed by the actors, the beautiful scenery, the beautifully choreographed fight scenes, etc. Another recent film we enjoyed immensely was a Thai movie, Ong-bak, with a tagline of "No stunt doubles, no computer images, no strings attached". The fight and chase scenes were incredible - Tony Jaa is extremely talented. My favorite, I will admit, is the high-speed trishaw chase. If you've ever been in a trishaw, you'll understand why it's amusing. Great story line as well, so thankfully, not all action and nothing else. Also well worth watching.

Really, though, I could go on and on and on about some great foreign films, so I'll stop here.

- Have you ever gone on an island vacation or cruise? What is your favorite island to visit and why? If you haven't visited an island, but would like to, which one and why?

Does living an island vacation count?

- Do you really eat the recommended daily amounts of fruits and vegetables and why or why not? have you tried any exotic produce that you really loved (what was it, where did you get it, can you describe its taste)? How do you get your family (or yourself) to eat more fruits & veggies (sneak them into meals, make them into tasty snacks, always have some available instead of candy ... etc)?

It's not hard to get enough fruits and vegetables into your diet here, where mangos, papayas, pineapple, coconut, and bananas are grown all over the neighborhood and in plantations all over the country. Papayas here are frequently bigger than a football and taste sweeter than you could imagine. Our bananas are not the standard North American bananas - we have red ones, short yellow ones, ones that are green when ripe and much longer than the usual... We sometimes get mangos fresh off my in-laws tree... We have umburella growing in our back yard that, when picked before it's ripe, makes an excellent sour curry.

Exotic to North America vegetables would include jackfruit, bread fruit, pollos, wing beans (darambulla), bitter gourd, oh, the list goes on, really.

Getting my husband to eat veggies is not difficult, thankfully. He prefers 'em curried, which is fine, but he doesn't mind me experimenting with new recipes.

Edited because honestly, I know how to speel.

aruna · Jan 27, 2006

quidscribis said:
Does living an island vacation count?

It's not hard to get enough fruits and vegetables into your diet here, where mangos, papayas, pineapple, coconut, and bananas are grown all over the neighborhood and in plantations all over the country. Papayas here are frequently bigger than a football and taste sweeter than you could imagine. Our bananas are not the standard North American bananas - we have red ones, short yellow ones, ones that are green when ripe and much longer than the usual... We sometimes get mangos fresh off my in-laws tree... We have umburella growing in our back yard that, when picked before it's ripe, makes an excellent sour curry.

Exotic to North America vegetables would include jackfruit, bread fruit, pollos, wing beans (darambulla), bitter gourd, oh, the list goes on, really.

Getting my husband to eat veggies is not difficult, thankfully. He prefers 'em curried, which is fine, but he doesn't mind me experimenting with new recipes.

Oh, I'm SOOO jealous! I've bene to Sri Lanka and it's a smaller version of my own home (Guyana). Our speciality are pineapples the size of - well, I don't know, certainly not the puny things we het here in the UK! They are huge, and they taste divine; nothing at all like the stuff here. And mangoes... and thousands of other things they've never heard of here.

L M Ashton · Jan 27, 2006

It took me until two months ago to realize that pineapple wasn't grown on trees, but rather on low-lying bushes? I hadn't seen one until we went for a drive in the pineapple growing areas. I felt so stupid! Tiny bush, a foot high, producing that.

Is it any consolation that I'm jealous of you living in the UK? I've always wanted to go...

VictoriaE · Jan 27, 2006

Thank you both so much for all of the info that you provided! These questions are all for US publications at the moment. Of course, I plan to expand to more international publications more in the future once I have established my career a bit more.

I'm formulating my queries now, so I'll make sure to contact you both for some more information very soon

Jeneral · Jan 31, 2006

VictoriaE said:
- Have you done any remodeling to your home/apartment recently? What are the best remodeling projects to increase a home's value? Have you done any fun, quick weekend makeover projects to your home/apartment?

Since buying our house two and a half years ago, we've done nothing but remodel. Two of the bedrooms had been kids' rooms, and we took down the duckie/bunny wallpaper in one room and replaced it with a plaster/paint treatment with stencils, and replaced the dusty pink carpet with tile flooring. The bright blue walls and carpet of the other kid's room became sage green plaster/paint walls with wood flooring. These projects took longer than a weekend, but I feel they definitely helped increase the value of the home. The biggest value-increasing project, though, was the Venetian plaster treatment we did in the living room/front hallway. That took a long time, but the end result is incredibly worth it.

In this next year, we're turning the converted garage/family room the previous owners had done into a library, building the bookcases ourselves and treating them with (yes, more) plaster, to make a kind of hobbit-hole/dwarf cottage look to go along with the Tudor facade of the outside of our house.

- How do you keep your relationship entertaining? What are your favorite sex toys, cremes, videos, games ... etc? Do you think ''playing''/having fun in a relationship (both inside and outside the bedroom) is vital to it being healthy and long-lasting?

We're coming up on ten years of marriage, and we do our best to keep it fun, in a number of ways. Enjoying each other's company, making each other laugh, and having fun together outside the bedroom often means that the rest takes care of itself.

Would you like to be in an article?

VictoriaE

Writer, Environmentalist

aruna

On a wing and a prayer

L M Ashton

crazy spec fic writer