M.L. Desir's Blog, page 4

Pick Your Poison: Bloody, Brutal, and Tragic YA

I love this post’s layout and subject. The beautiful balance of aesthetic and content is icing on the cake. If you’re a reader, Vicky lays out the goodies waiting for you. If you’re reading as a writer, Vicky makes it easy to determine which books do what right so you can polish your skills with these exemplary titles as a guide.

Vicky Again

YA can really be ruthless sometimes.

From gory, bloody murder to absolutely tragic & heartbreaking stories, there is no end to the lengths these stor...

Some of my Favorite Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves) Memes!

Bill & Ted Face the Music the movie is jolly good and excellently strange fun, my dudes and dudettes!

I don’t know when the memes with Keanu Reeves as Ted Theodore Logan, frozen in a look of adorkable shock and awe started circulating, but I started using them as a teacher when my 7th graders were analyzing dystopian fiction almost ten years ago (focused primarily on Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and excerpts from Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games as showcased in the Read 180 curriculum). ...

How to Market a Self Published Book for the Holidays (Infographic)

How To Ebook

There’s been a lot to distract us this year but hopefully, you’re still tracking ideas for how to market a self-published book for holiday sales!

If you haven’t started planning your holiday sales, it’s crunch time.

And while there will still be a holiday buying season this year, the 2020 version will look a bit different than those of years past.

We know retailers still plan to do Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but these sale days are being extended; physical ...

The Best Writing Tips/Advice Ever!

One of the Facebook groups I belong to asked members to comment on the best writing advice they ever received. I want to share these tips with you.

Divided States of America

Kevin A. Ranson : ThinkingSkull.com

No matter who wins when the final count is presented, a number of things have become very clear.

There are too many folks who prefer a deadly pandemic over affordable health care.

There are too many folks who accept a nepotistic dictatorship over democracy.

Too many folks are okay with persecuting immigrants in a country made up of them.

Too many folks signed off on giving a failed businessman four more years to soak the taxpayers elect...

NaNoWriMo 2020 is Here!

Juggling virtual learning for my little ones, teaching full-time, and trying to meet writing goals and deadlines has me . . .

PERPETUALLY BUSY.

Good thing my OCD kicked in a couple of months ago and I have become the “chancellor” of my own mini-school.

A beloved Jamaican beach is succumbing to climate change. It won’t be the last

Months ago, I helped one of my nieces write a short story with this beach at its center. We called it “Heaven and Hellshire Beach”.

“Dracula” by Bram Stoker: Exploring the Vampire Archetype

Oooh, vampires.

Sometimes I Read Slow, Sometimes I Read Quick

Nice & Smooth is an East Coast hip hop duo from New York City that consists of Gregory O. “Greg Nice” Mays and Darryl O. “Smooth B” Barnes plus their deejay Tedd “DJ Teddy Tedd” Whiting. Like most music I took a fancy to, my older brothers had introduced them to me.

Back in the 90s I took no offense when Nice & Smooth proclaimed I was a Hip Hop Junkie. To this day I play Sometimes I Rhyme Slow, a short and sweet track layered with tragedy interwoven with the thinly dispersed and melanchol...

The Taínos Refused to Grow Food. The Spanish Starved.

Historical accounts are often entertaining…oh, and interesting and educational.