Full Disclosure: I edited this book and contributed creatively to the cover design.
Here is how The Poetic Prisoner’s back cover describes the book:
Talented Poet, Taym Doraj takes you on an emotional adventure in The Poetic Prisoner (Breaking Free Vol. 1).
Taym shares poems about his time in prison, his battle with addictions, crime, mental health, broken and dysfunctional family ties during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this book you’ll find poems about dark times, the desire to change, love, connection, hope and being inspired to transform his life. From life going all wrong, to a positive vibes mindset developed from God, yoga and meditation.
One of the reasons I love this book is because everyone of the poems are brilliant. Taym has a really engaging writer’s voice and tackles tough subjects well. He uses the imagery of dark and light throughout this book and shares how he transformed his life from negative to positive.
Taym hopes to use his life experiences and this book to inspire people to be healthier and happier. It’s a fantastic book that deserves your attention and is thoroughly enjoyable to read. Like most poetry books it is short at just 47 pages. But Taym is clever and doesn’t waste a single word.
I tend to keep my files (documents, photos, music & video) on WD external hard drives. I don’t use cloud storage, as I dislike subscription services and their ever increasing prices. Plus, I have a lot of files, so it gets expensive and relies too much on the internet. One of the pluses of external hard drives are that they are portable, so I can physically share larger files with family/friend easily.
But there are minuses with my current system. First transfers for larger files can be slow, second that there’s always a chance of hard drive failure – particularly with external hard drives that have moving parts, like the ones I’m currently using. So I decided that it was time to upgrade to SSD (solid state drives), which boast faster transfer speeds and no moving parts. Think of them as large capacity pen drives.
I opted for two different branded 4TB models, one a Samsung T7 Shield (4TB) and the other SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (4TB). The reason I opted for the Samsung drive is trust in the brand. The reason I opted for SanDisk was because of the colour.
It may sound odd, but different colours enable me to identify my drives more easily. I did try to get a Samsung T7 Shield in blue (in desperation I even considered beige) but both blue and beige 4TB models were out of stock everywhere.
It’s tiny. It literally fits in the palm of my hand, see image above.
Its firmware was up-to-date. This was a nightmare to check, SanDisk’s website is easy enough to find to check. But seeing the tiny serial number on the back of the device I found difficult.
It feels nice in the hand and has a hole for attaching to backpacks, not that I’ll ever use this feature.
It was easy to set up.
It gets very hot during use.
It is much faster than my previous hard drive.
I am concerned about failure or data loss as I found this video online when looking for reviews of the product, after I bought the product and was waiting delivery. I probably wouldn’t have bought this product had I have known this information prior to purchase:
The issue all authors have is reaching their audience. I believe every book has an audience and it is the authors job to find the audience for their book(s). There’s a lot written about using social media to help an author find their book’s audience, but I have come to feel that this is really only good for family and friends.
My latest two books haven’t done well sales wise, despite being great books, each in the own way.
Sometimes I don’t write blog post ideas. On very rare occasions, I have written and published a post and later deleted it. So here’s a blog post about these posts, the Posts That Were Never Written.
A post about a wonderful surprise an ex-boyfriend did for me. He sorted through some his old (but like new) clothes (some still had the tags on) and presented them to me in our shared bedroom. When he explained his reasons, I understood. But I still felt like my freedom of expression was being oppressed. All I wanted to do was share with the world how happy he had made me.
Several posts about why relationships haven’t worked out and how I’ve found myself single again. One post in particular I wrote about one man’s lies, mind games and manipulations. I decided in each case that these now ex-partners didn’t deserve any more of my time or energy. So either deleted the post midway through or never wrote it.
in 2018, I felt as though the fairness, justice and equality in Britain had gone. I still feel this way at times. Especially when I read about the ever increasing inequality levels in Britain. I abandoned this post because I couldn’t (and still can’t) find any positive way to write this post. I didn’t want to write a doom and gloom post. But this doesn’t mean that I don’t acknowledge these feelings and challenge people who have influence over change. I read something recently that stuck with me: Trans rights are Human Rights. This is true and reminded me that we all must fight for and demand equal rights and treatment for all.
The Heart Breaking Story of Matthew Shepard. I fully intended to write this story but wanted to read his mother’s book The Meaning of Matthew. Unfortunately the book is expensive to buy and has remained so since I originally had the idea to write his story.
Some Counselling Concepts – This was a blog post I was intending to write detailing some ideas and theories about counselling, when I was undertaking my level 2 Counselling qualification. Unfortunately, I took on a bit more than I could chew and had to drop the idea of this post. I may go back and write about this. My notes from the time mention Unconditional Positive Regard, Empathy, Active Listening, Developing Rapport, Goal Setting and Identifying the Root Cause of the Problem(s).
A series of posts reviewing all of Victoria Wood’s works. After the premature death of Victoria Wood (see Today the World has Lost a Great Source of Laughter) I bought a DVD boxset containing most of her comedy works. I seriously considered writing a series of posts, each one detailing a different piece of her work. I was going to start with Pay & Margaret. But due to the passage of time, it just didn’t get done. I still might do it. But if I do, am I setting a bar for each time a person I admire dies?
A post about Red Flags when dating or in a relationship with someone. I didn’t write this as I didn’t feel I have enough experience dating and in relationships to do the post justice.
The Importance of Trust was a post I nearly wrote about what trust is, why it is important, how to gain it and how it is lost. I decided not to write it, as it felt like it was aimed at an ex-partner. I did however write about trust in my book The Alcohol Therapy Workbook.
More Mental Health Wisdom was going to a series of blog posts that went into more depth about mental illness and mental health. Basically some of the content I couldn’t fit into my first book Mental Health Wisdom. I still might go back to mental illness and mental health in the future and write a further book called More Mental Health Wisdom. It will just depend on developments in the field over the next decade.
I very briefly considered writing a blog post series about my favourite foods, including recipes and photos. I decided against it as isn’t it annoying when people fill their social media feed with photos of their meals? Especially if you’re hungry.
Blog soon,
Antony
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Wednesday 27 March 2024
About
Antony Simpson - Author, Blogger, Nurse & Witch.
Author of eight books.
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