Mojo

Your sitting there staring at that blank page waiting for an amazing idea or story to magically appear in your mind and suddenly it comes. Your fingers race across the keyboard trying to get all of it out in time before its suddenly disappears from your mind again just as quickly as is came from the start.

Before you know it you have created an entire page of words that flow together beautifully. Well, at least until you go back an edit them and some how they have lost their flair, their pizzazz if you will.

Then once it's all out, it's back to the drawing board again....That's how it's supposed to work right? But what happens if you sit in front of that screen and nothing comes. An hour. Two hours. Next thing you know you are watching the minutes tick by. What have you achieved? Well, your desk if perfectly organized again, but you aren't any closer to finishing that page.

For me, staring at that blank screen just doesn't do it for me. Honestly, it's like something is intimidating me, taunting me. Pen and paper, that's how I get it done. I guess that's old fashioned. Sometimes it's only if I'm listening to music. Nothing like a good beat to get my pen moving.

What's the point? Well, maybe if what you are doing isn't working, change it! Staring at the screen bothering you? Get up and go old fashioned!

Have you picked up your copy of Obscured yet?

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CM

Are you ready?!?

It's out!!! Obscured is now available in print and e-book on amazon!

E-book

Paperback

Go get your copy today! And don't forget to leave your feedback!!

Thanks!!

CM

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Release!

It's official!! My print book is now available for purchase through createspace! Here's the link:

https://www.createspace.com/4751719

It will be available in a few days for purchase on amazon in print and ebook form!! I'll post that link as it becomes available!



C M


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September 1st.

It's a week away. A week. But that is my tentative release date. I have a release date.

Have you ever thought about a goal and it seemed so far off and then when it was FINALLY close it was a bit surreal? Well, I can say that is how I am feeling now. Fingers crossed that everything goes off without a hitch.

So, be on the lookout for my super excited post on release day!!

Without further adieu, here is my cover!!!

What do you think?


CM

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Fessing up

I knew at some point the cat would be out of the bag so to speak. For years I wondered what they would say. Would they be happy? Mad that I didn't tell them sooner? Excited for me as hoped they would be? Would they be supportive?

What secret am I confessing? I bet your wondering. The answer is...My first Novel.

I got to finally experience the first reaction on Sunday. Who was my unsuspecting victim? My Dad.

It's funny, a couple months ago, my mom came to me saying my dad had stumbled upon my blog, this blog. He was baffled by it. I waited and waited for him to ask me about it. But he never did. I couldn't tell you why.

The minute I got my proof I couldn't wait to show my mom and to tell my dad. Once he got over the initial WHAT? reaction, I could tell her was excited and proud. So much so that he hid my proof from me cause he wanted to keep it. I have to say it was a great compliment that he was so enticed by having a copy of something I poured so much into that he literally hid it from me.

I am excited to reveal this little gem to a few more unsuspecting people and hopefully in a few weeks it will be on the market!

Be on the lookout for my next post. It may just be my release!!

C M

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Recovery

Recovery is one of those hard things in life that cannot be predicted. For me it has been slower going than I had anticipated. It has been one week today and I am still unable to get up on my own, but the good thing is that now that I am feeling better despite being stuck sitting, I have lots of time to write. 

So here's to getting back into the swing!

CM

What do you look for?

After my recent blog post about book reviews, it's got me wondering. What do you look for in a book review? What entices you to read a book based on the book reviews? Obviously "This book rocks!" doesn't exactly do it.

For me, I look for a number of things. I look at the star rating, where does it place? If it's 3 stars or less, chances are I won't pick it up. Why? Well, chances are it was a flop. Now, if it is only 2 stars yet only has one or two reviews, it might make me think twice.

 

Next I look at what the bad reviews complain about. In fact, I find that more often then not I read more of the bad reviews than the good. Why? Well, I try to find out if those bad ratings are things that I have a problem with when I read a book. Sometimes, I don't care about half of the things this nit picky person does and it turns out this 3 star book is actually a 5 star in my eyes.

 

Lastly, I look at a couple of good reviews, very very few, maybe 2 or 3. I try to find out what worked for people in this book. If it worked for them maybe it will have worked for me.

 

When I write a review about a book I have read I try to be very thorough and I try to think of what I would want to know about the book. I would love to hear what makes you want to purchase/read a book based on the reviews. Maybe your view will change the way I do my reviews!!

 

Thanks for reading. Don't forget to subcribe to my blog.

 

CM

Brutal honesty...

One thing that I have come to dislike about the writers community in general is the brutal honesty. Now I'm not talking about the constructive criticism that we as authors all need and truly want. It's the honesty and brutality of when someone vengefully gives a bad review or bad-mouths a book simply because they wanted to or they had a bad day.

For example, I recently finished reading a book that I found very interesting and to be a page turner. It was the second in a series of, I think six. Upon reading the reviews I discovered that quite a few people completely downed the book. Why? Grammar. Yes, it had quite a few grammatical errors. Yes, it could have been proof-read better. But must we give a book only one star because there were a couple mistakes in the writing?? Regardless of the grammatical errors was it a good book? YES!

Why must we only focus on the faults of other writers? Have our mothers taught us nothing? If it isn't constructive then you shouldn't say it!

Ultimately, what really matters is the story and we as writers need to remember that because the majority of our readers don't focus on the fact that you didn't put a comma here, or you put 'it's' instead of 'its' so why should we bring down a really good books' star rating over things that are minuscule.

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to subscribe to my page!

CM

Creativity in the minds of writers...

Writers find their stories in just about anything around them. While I don't have any one method for getting those creative juices flowing, I was introduced to a new way in my class last semester that I would not have come up with on my own. I simply would have walked past that discarded paper laying in the street, but not anymore.

If you google "found post its" a plethera of websites come up as well as images of little notes that have been left behind in the streets or elsewhere. These may say some of the most random things in which can create a new story in your mind. Below I have posted a link of one of the websites I found that offers a gallery of these little forgotten notes.

http://foundnotes.tumblr.com/archive

This approch has given me a reason to look at the world different and not only look at random papers I find that have been discarded, but it has also given me cause to look elsewhere as well.

If you find this interesting enough, I'd like to challenge those reading. Go find a note whether it be through a search engine or from one of the websites like I listed above, find a note that strikes you fancy. Write a short story and share it! I'd love to see what you come up with!

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to follow my blog.

CM

New Year, New Goals

The holidays are over and 2014 has just begun. My overwhelmingly busy semester of managing home life, writing, and taking a writing class is over and many lessons were learned. I am looking forward to getting back to writing book #2 which is currently written up to Chapter 5! It had been on the back burner while I took the time to write short stories for my class.

My first book is in the beginning stages of being indie published and I am super excited!

My writing goals for this year are to have my first book published and available for purchase, to complete my second, and to have it to at least the final stages of editing by the end of the year.

I hope everyone has a great start to the new year and that they have just enough of everything this year!

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to follow me!


CM

Choices!

Well, it sure has been a while since I have taken the time to update my blog. Between writing my short stories and working on my second novel, my writing time has been monopolized by importance, but things are starting to slow down and I'm back!

Choices. They can be easy or hard and I find myself perplexed about the countless choices surrounding Indie publishing. ISBN codes in particular at the very moment. While I know I'm getting ahead of myself a little in looking up my options as I have not even begun to work on actually getting my book in kindle format or book format for that matter, but I like to plan ahead I guess.

So I guess my question to you is, what ISBN options have you chosen and why?


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CM

An update

My writing class so far has been enlightening. My instructer has been assigning essays to read on the specific topic of writing, and seeing different writing styles has made me question how many different ways people write. After all there must be hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of different ways that people find their stories.

Even though I have completed my first novel, I have never had much experience in writing anything else since I was younger. So the idea of writing two short stories that are no longer than 12 pages was something of a challenge for me. Novels are definitely more my game. I get so invested in my characters and stories that I want to continue, not end, especially when I'm reading.

With that said, I think I have almost completed my first short story. Maybe it was just putting way more thought into something that didn't need it, but I found it somewhat difficult to find a story that I could and wanted end quickly. When it's finished, I am considering posting it. We'll see.. But for now keep reading about my journey and don't forget to follow my blog!

CM

New Territory

A few weeks ago I decided that my love of writing should take a step deeper and I enrolled in my very first writing class. That class started today. I am very excited to get a deeper look into the writing process.

The class itself is taught by a published best selling author of social realism. I am fascinated by other fellow writers that have actually been published. I want to study them and drill them about their process and learn everything I can about how they landed their agent. I find myself already holding back my thousands of questions I have for this person I have just met.


I am excited to see what the future holds in this class. I think it will be good for me and I hope to learn a lot.

If you are interested in who the teacher is, please feel free to send me a message and I'll tell you.

Keep reading! Don't forget to follow my page.

CM