#InspirationBoardSunday – Inspiration Comes in Many Forms

/ Marcia Meara / 11 Comments

Sometimes, it’s the staggeringly beautiful view from a North Carolina
 mountaintop that inspires me . . .

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. . . and sometimes, it’s a trip to my past, via a still-standing old-fashioned Florida Cracker style farmhouse. This one was pretty much on target for how I imagined the Painter house looking. I had the photo on my inspiration board the whole time I was working on
Finding Hunter.

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New Posters: SO sorry!

/ Marcia Meara / 6 Comments

I no longer receive notices when comments are waiting to be approved, so I sometimes don’t discover them for a bit. SO sorry to all you wonderful folks who commented on Judith’s guest blog yesterday. I did NOT mean to ignore any of you, honest. I think everyone has been approved now, including Judith’s responses. (Ooops.) I’ll try to do better next time, I promise!

Off for a day of fun, long overdue, with my good friend and Graphics Goddess, Nicki Forde, who does my fabulous covers for me, and my good friend and Beta reader extraordinaire, Dian. Lunch at the Cotillion Café in Wildwood (the inspiration for  my Southern Comfort Café in my Riverbend series). Pictures MIGHT be forthcoming later, if we can tear ourselves away from fried green tomatoes, shrimp and grits, and Rhett Butler cake long enough to take them.  😀

Happy Saturn’s Day, everyone!

#FabulousFridayGuestBlogger – Judith Barrow @barrow_judith

/ Marcia Meara / 34 Comments

Today’s #FabulousFridayGuestBlogger, Judith Barrow, has written a lovely piece, chock full of memories and interesting settings. This is a fun way to lead up to Judith becoming an author. Thank you, Judith, for sharing this glimpse into your life. I hope everyone here will remember to share it on their various social media sites, as well.

~~~

judith headshot

Growing into my Writing Life

My first memory is of my climbing over a backyard gate and running home from a party where I’d been told I would have to ‘do a turn’: singing or dancing. If I’d been asked to make up a story I would have been there like a shot. But singing or dancing…?

We lived in a in a place called Saddleworth, surrounded by hills, fields and moorland. To me it was just a large playground and, from the age of six, I spent whole days exploring; walking with my dog to a place called Chew Valley (this was well before it was transformed into a reservoir, now called Dovestones), where I paddled and even swam in the deeper areas and picnicked with bottles of water and jam ‘butties’ and wrote poems and stories. No one ever asked me where I’d been or where I was going. I was free to roam. And write.

At home, Saturdays were washing and ironing days at our house; if it was fine the clothes would be strung on a line, held high by a ‘prop’, a wooden pole, across the garden. If it was raining they would be on a clothes maiden around the fire and the kitchen would be filled with steam. I hated that and, more often than not, hid away in my bedroom to write. To coax me back downstairs my mother would make potato cakes. These were made from a mixture of flour, margarine and mashed potatoes, rolled out, cut into squares and baked in the oven. Spread with lashings of butter they were delicious! 

My mother was a winder in both cotton and woollen mills. When I was very small I was in a nursery attached to the mill. Later, well before the days of Health and Safety I would go after school to wait for her to finish work. I’ve written many times about how I remember the muffled boom of noise as I walked across the yard and then the sudden clatter of so many different machines as I stepped through a small door cut into a great wooden door. I can hear now the women singing and shouting above the noise, whistling for more bobbins: the colours of the threads and cloth – so bright and intricate. But above all I can recall the smell: of oil, grease – and in the storage area – the lovely smell of the new material stored in bales and the feel of the cloth against my legs when I sat on them, reading or writing, until the siren hooted, announcing the end of the shift. Continue reading →

#MidWeekPOV – #wwwblogs – A Word About Reviews . . .

/ Marcia Meara / 18 Comments

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Leave ’em. Please! It’s the best way in the world to thank an author for his or her hard work. Not only does it make authors feel good, but it most definitely has an impact on the book’s ranking on Amazon, and Amazon is where a plethora of good reviews can make a substantial difference in a writer’s paycheck.

I’ve heard lots of opinions on exactly how much of a difference it might translate to, and I don’t claim to be an expert on Amazon’s system, but I can tell you from my own personal experience as a reader, I pay attention to reviews when I’m buying books there. I honestly believe that’s true of most readers. Here’s a query for you: When 90 out of 100 reviews rate one book at 4 or 5 stars, and 90 out of 100 reviews rate another book at 2 or 3 stars, which one are you more likely to spend your money on? Assuming that Book #2 is not a relative or personal friend? Yeah, I thought so. Me, too.

So, my word about reviews is that we should ALL remember to leave them, especially if we really enjoy a book. But I just realized that I have another word or two to say about reviews, as well. Specifically about negative reviews. I quit leaving those, period. Why? Several reasons.

1. No need for me to do so. Apparently many people would much rather leave negative reviews about books than positive ones. For sure, there are plenty of folks willing to do so, ad nauseum, and some actually seem to enjoy it. No need for me to bother. (I discovered this LONG before I wrote my first book, btw.) Some people delight in tearing things down, but, personally, I think truly scathing reviews often say more about the reviewer than the reviewee. (Is that a word?)

2. If I think a book is really bad, I don’t finish it. My reading hours are very precious to me, so I prefer to spend them reading books I’m enjoying, and I’m certainly not going to review a book I didn’t even finish.

3. I can read a book that’s flawed, and still enjoy it overall, if I care about the characters enough. That means, I might not be able to give the book 5 stars, but I can probably find enough positives to rate it at 4, or at the very worst 3/3.5 or so. I can GENTLY point out that there were some problems, but that because of certain other factors, it was easy to overlook them, and I enjoyed the story anyway. And I can emphasize the positive aspects. This approach makes ME feel a lot better, too.

4. And the last reason I don’t leave negative reviews is simple. Now that I write books, too, I know exactly how demoralizing and painful it is to receive one. Happily, possibly shockingly, I’ve been blessed with way more good reviews than bad ones, especially when you consider how very little I knew about writing when I started 2-1/2 years ago. But, like every author, I do get a negative review now and then, and every one of them hurts. I don’t want to do that to anyone else, so I just won’t review any book I that leaves me with nothing good to say.

This doesn’t mean you can’t leave negative reviews, if you wish. Just that I won’t. And I suspect those who do so under the guise of helping the author learn aren’t being totally honest. They could do that more effectively by communicating privately with the writer, and offering a kind, but honest critique. So much better than public humiliation, I think. But that’s just me.

One last thing I want to say about Reviews: LEAVE THEM, please! Oh. Did I say that already? 😉 Well, it bears repeating, because those reviews can make or break a book. Or an author’s heart.

Please feel free to share this little graphic I created far and wide, to remind your social contacts to leave reviews, as well. I’ll be making a few more of them, and will share them here as I get them done. I’m on an Educate the World About Reviews kick. Hope you’ll join me.

As always, inquiring minds wanna know how you feel about this topic.

 

#InspirationBoardSunday – #AppalachianMountains #FloridaRivers

/ Marcia Meara / 10 Comments

Doubling up today. Make might that a habit for this new feature. That way you can be TWICE as inspired! 🙂
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Sometimes my inspiration comes from the nearly overwhelming beauty of an Appalachian Spring. (Great name for a symphony, Mr.  Copland!)

And sometimes it comes from the close observation of the plants and wildlife of the
St. Johns  River, including basking alligators, and turtles like this one, which knows when the alligator’s hungry, and when it’s not.DSCN1991