About Me

Hi, I'm Linda Jo Martin, living in the Klamath River Valley of Northern California. I have five children - the youngest is 18. I work outside my home and have a web based business. I spend my spare time with my boyfriend, Bob. We like to swim, hike, and prospect for gold in the Siskiyou Mountains.

I started blogging in 2001 and it took a long time to discover Squidoo, which started in 2005. I guess I was too busy with my blogs so I didn't join until 2007. I tell my entire Squidoo history in Linda's Squidoo Diary. In case you're interested in starting a blog, check out my tips in Expert Blogging.

Here's a few links to my blogs, in case you're interested to know where I'm coming from:
Fighting CPS False Accusations
Country Kitchen Pantry
Bigfoot Sightings
Mystic Movie Reviews
Independent Homeschooling
Perspectives on Writing

Having made the jump to Squidoo, I'm thrilled to say I've started a few Squidoo blogs too.
Lensmastery by Linda - this one has articles to inspire lensmasters
200 Lenses - this one tracks my progress toward my goal of having 200 Squidoo lenses
All My Lenses - this blog records my Squidoo statistics

Squidoo Traffic - How To Promote Your Squidoo Lens

Now that you have a lens, you want to let people know about it. Getting people to read your lens is harder than writing it! But there are many ways to promote your lens, make it more popular in search engines, and make it a success. In this lens I'll...

Bigfoot Sightings

I've always been intrigued by the idea of Bigfoot, but it wasn't until 2005 that I decided to study the phenomena. I've never seen Bigfoot, but I live in a small town in the middle of a huge forest in Northern California, and lots of people around he...

Fighting Child Protective Services False Allegations

Fight CPS is a family rights website that seeks to assist parents and others who are falsely accused of child abuse and neglect. Many people have asked why I would try to help people whose children were taken away from them by Child Protective Servic...

Ten Must-Read Classics of Great Literature

Because I love to read good books - I want to have the honor of introducing you to ten favorite classic novels that have enchanted and entertained readers for decades. I feel one of the saddest effects of modern society has been to take young people...

Newbery Award Winning Books

Winning the Newbery Medal is the greatest thrill and honor for an author of middle grade or young adult literature. It means that the chosen book has been read and enjoyed by experts in the field of children's literature, and that the book has lastin...

Swimming Holes

Hot days, sweat, and that lazy, exhausted feeling. All these can be cured by a dip in a countryside swimming hole. I am lucky to live in a town where there are swimming holes all around. I invite you to visit us here and check out some of the local s...

Linda Martin - My Lensography

I enjoy cooking, photography, art, reading, writing, and learning about new things. I'm also into gold prospecting, Bigfoot research, and visiting swimming holes with my boyfriend, Bob. My lenses cover a lot of topics - as a reflection of the way my...

Tips For Writing Middle Grade Novels

If you have any writing skills at all, you are able to write a middle grade novel. It is easy to do and I'll show you how. A middle grade novel is intended to appeal to children ages 8 to 12. If you want to write a middle grade novel, the best way to...

Creating and Using Your Writer's Notebook

Thoughts are fleeting. If you have a good idea for a writing project, you need a place to write it down. The logical place, the place thousands of writers choose, is a simple notebook. I use ordinary spiral-bound notebooks, and have been using the...

...when you visit a Squidoo lens

Besides building and writing your own lenses, the most important thing you can do on this site is to visit other people's lenses. What you do there will make a big difference to everyone involved. If we as a huge Squidoo community can band together t...

How To Use Friend Feed

Friend Feed is a Web 2.0 feed amalgamation site that allows you and others to comment on your online activities. There's an easy registration. You log on, add as many feeds as you'd like, then connect with your friends. Be sure to come back to make...

Predictions

I'm creating this lens to experiment with making predictions. I don't know if my predictions are worth anything yet, but I plan to find out. I will make a series of predictions, and we'll see how well I do at predicting the future. Bear with me. I h...

Lao Tse

There is as much controversy about whether Lao Tse existed as there is about whether Jesus existed. Maybe more. According to tradition, Lao Tse was a great philosopher who lived about 400 BC. He is the author of the Tao Te Ching.

Squidoo Message Board Forums

You have to do it. You have to let people know about your lenses - but HOW? One of the best ways is to network with other Squidoo lensmasters on Squidoo message board forums. There you'll meet lots of other lensmasters who have been where you are now...

Raymon Grace: The Future is Yours - Do Something About It!

The Future is Yours - Do Something About It! is the title of a book by Raymon Grace, an expert dowser. He combines dowsing with years of spiritual training to clear negative energies and create positive ones, bringing health and well-being into the l...

Evacuation Planning

Most people don't expect to be forced from their home by disaster, but believe me, it can happen. In July 2007 a forest fire broke out less than a mile from my home, and I had to get ready to leave in case the fire came my way. In this lens you will f...

My Squidoo Diary

It took some time for me to warm up to the idea. I'm usually so busy, I don't have time to investigate new sites on the web. I have blogs to maintain, a job to attend to, and a family. Plus at first Squidoo didn't seem like something I wanted to kno...

Secret of the Andes

Welcome to this lens about a classic in children's literature. The Secret of the Andes won the Newbery Medal in 1953. Like many Newbery award winning books, Secret of the Andes provides children with a pleasant way to learn about a foreign culture....

Newbery Medal Winners, 1990-1999

Writers are under a lot of pressure these days to produce high quality novels. The competition is enormous. Consequently the cream of the crop books on this list are excellent. My favorite novels from this list are Holes and Walk Two Moons. I'm als...

Newbery Medal Winners, 1922-1929

Early Newbery Medal winners included short story collections, non-fiction, and novels. Many are out of print, difficult to locate, and rare. Books older than 1927 may now be in the public domain. This lens has links to Amazon pages for all the Newber...

Benjamin Franklin Was A Vegetarian

Benjamin Franklin was a vegetarian. In his own words: "When about 16 Years of Age, I happen'd to meet with a Book, written by one Tryon, recommending a Vegetable Diet. I determined to go into it. My Brother being yet unmarried, did not keep House,...

Newbery Medal Winners, 2000-2008

Amazing things are happening in the world of children's literature. Authors are striving to write outstanding novels and non-fiction for children. This can be directly attributed to award programs like the Newbery Medal. My favorite from this decade...

Vintage Beatles Albums - What Are They Worth?

To this day I remember buying my first Beatles album. I was twelve that year and motivated by peer pressure to start a collection. I'd seen the Beatles on Ed Sullivan's TV show - my entire family watched both performances, enraptured. My father said...

In Praise of the Squidoo Guestbook

I recently finished reading a long and interesting lens - and was inspired to tell the writer how much I enjoyed her work. But to my dismay, there was no guestbook. No contact link either. I was so disappointed that I couldn't network with the author...

Books For Writers

What a writer needs is inspiration, and these books will give it to you. You'll find the power to go on, motivation to meet your goals, and ideas for streamlining your writing process. I've read many writing books. The ones I refer you to here are i...

EFT - Emotional Freedom Techniques

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) help people recover from emotional traumas and other disorders by removing blockages in the energy meridian system. Through a routine of simple tapping on a series of specific sites on the body, the energy is allow...

Expert Blogging

I've been blogging since 2001. I've studied the experts extensively and have lots of information and links to share with you. Bloggers - this is a PERK... I'm putting a LINK PLEXO near the bottom of this lens. Feel FREE to post your blog links! All...

Starting a Web Design Business

I started a webdesign business back in 2002. Even though I live in a very small town with only 1200 people, my business thrived for five years until I shut it down so I could do something else with my time. Most of my business was local. Now I've tr...

Newbery Medal Winners, 1950-1959

At the beginning of this decade, children's books were still fairly simplistic, but by the end, we're favored with an outstanding historical novel, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, that sets a precedent for the increased quality of children's books in th...

Newbery Medal Winners, 1980-1989

This was an amazing decade for Newbery Medal and Honor Books. During this period two of the winners were poetic. A non-fiction book won the medal for the first time in many years, and two others were honor books. Plus there were many excellent novels...

The Tao of Keywords

The Tao Te Ching contains the rational basis for human activities, so it provides outstanding guidance for keyword selection and search engine optimization.

Not Just For Camping: Ten Unusual Ways To Use A Tent

It is magical. You put up your tent, crawl in, and experience life from the inside of a new fabric-enclosed space created just for you. You arrange your things, lay back on your air mattress or cot, and look at the ceiling. A sigh of exhilarated rela...

Newbery Medal Winners, 1930-1939

During the 1930s, Newbery winners were mainly fiction, with a few fictionalized biographies and non-fiction titles. The quality of children's literature started to improve though it was nowhere near the high standards expected of writers today. Still...

The Muse Online Writers Conference

The 2008 Muse Online Writers Conference registration is now open. This is an annual FREE conference offering a huge variety of online workshops and chats for an entire week: October 13-19, 2008. The deadline to register is September 1st, 2008. To r...

Literary Arts Lenses by LindaJM

Since I read and write a lot, many of my lenses are about books and the skills it takes to write them. This lens lists my literary arts lenses. This is a supplement to my regular lensography - created because I know I'll be writing dozens of literar...

Newbery Medal Winners, 1960-1969

There are some excellent novels in this, plus at least one great non-fiction reference book. My picks for best novels are From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, I, Juan de Pareja, A Wrinkle in Time, and Island of the Blue Dolphins.

Newbery Medal Winners, 1940-1949

Every book on this list is a treasure in its own right. Each is unique, lovable, different. But if you only read two of them, don't miss Johnny Tremain and The Twenty-One Balloons. They are my two favorites for quality and originality. Of course, I'm...

Newbery Medal Winners, 1970-1979

There are some outstanding novels in this collection of Newbery books, and I get excited when I remember reading and enjoying them. Some of my favorites are Sing Down the Moon, The Westing Game, and The Periolous Gard. There are other excellent novel...