Tag: author

RobinsonFest 2017 – Wrap-Up and Photo Gallery

RobinsonFest Flag

When I was a kid, my parents took our family to spend a long weekend at a kid’s campground before the season kicked off. I had attended the camp the year before and had memories of games, hikes, pranks and new friends. While the picturesque campground looked the same, it felt wrong. The people—the real heart and soul of that place—were missing. I spent those days feeling detached and longing for absent friends.

In the wake of RobinsonFest, I feel a similar sense of something missing. As I visit Portsmouth and the surrounding area, some instinctual part of my brain says, “Go to the hotel and see everyone!” Then the conscious part of my brain realizes that’s not possible, that if I went to the amazing Homewood Suites, the place would feel like an empty, soulless husk. I have never walked through those doors and not been greeted by a smile and a hug. It’s odd to feel that kind of an attachment to a hotel, but after this year’s RobinsonFest, I think stopping by the hotel would feel a lot like that bittersweet campground visit.

DSC_0263That is the quality and intensity of the relationships forged at RobinsonFest. Writing that feels like an exaggeration, and I imagine a lot of people reading this will think I’m simply promoting the event, but I think everyone who attended will agree.

While we visited some amazing places (the Mount Washington cruise and Franconia Notch Echo Lake), participated in some fun activities (Hilltop Fun Center and Butternut Farm) those events weren’t the weekend’s highlight. The people were. The closest comparison is a family reunion. While many people have attended multiple years, and they keep in touch throughout the year, new attendees are welcomed with open arms (literally) and are made part of the family.

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Behind the Curtain – Ambition, Anxiety, Panic and God

ambition-quote

I want you to imagine something with me. Big surprise, right?

There is a happy ball of ice and stone on the outskirts of the solar system. He’s orbiting a few million miles beyond Pluto, his back to the sun. Then one day, a small asteroid bumps into him, spinning the ten-mile-across ball around for the first time in his existence.

It isn’t long before the ball of ice and stone sees the sparkling sun. He’s seen stars before, but never so close, or so warmly inviting. Though he’d been content up to this point, he now can’t think of anything but the sun. He wants to be closer to it. To make it his own. Ambition fuels him, and somehow, through some cosmic miracle, his orbit shrinks. With each revolution, he draws closer to the sun.

And the closer he gets, the larger his ambition grows. His speed increases. His journey is without cease. And with each pass closer to the sun, he loses a little bit more of himself. If he looked back, he’d see two long trails of ice and stone, peeling away from him, reducing him. But his eyes remain fixed on the sun, on the goal, and despite every planet, moon and asteroid he passes telling him to slow down, to pace himself, to take a break, he continues building momentum, racing toward his own goal.

Never once does he consider that the pace, or the goal itself, might undo him. The pain of losing himself to the sun’s power builds, but he ignores it, writes it off, and finds scapegoats for it.

And then, passing closer to the sun than ever before, the ice holding his form together cracks.

He breaks.

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Wrote Your First Novel? Here’s What to do Next.

In the past six months I have received an increasing number of e-mails and Facebook messages from fans-turned-writers, friends of friends (or family of friends…sometimes friends of family), total strangers (who have never read my books), and people from my distant past. Generally, I try my best to respond to each and every e-mail I get, but the number of people looking for in-depth advice on getting published, or asking me to read their novel, has reached numbers I can’t possibly reply to (in a meaningful way) while still writing and publishing the amount of books I do. So, I decided to put my advice in a quick blog post to which I can refer advice seekers.

Be forewarned, my advice is generally no-holds-barred, blunt truth, and most new writers aren’t going to want to hear it, and most probably won’t listen if they do. See, I’m being blunt already.

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Last Chance to Get the Greatest Christmas Card Ever!

Christmas Contest! You will be entered once EVERY TIME you share, like or comment on this status.Get a personalized…

Posted by Jeremy Robinson on Tuesday, December 15, 2015

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