Melinda Clayton's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"

So here we are, starting a brand new year with brand new opportunities to grow, challenge, love, and learn. Pretty cool, isn't it?

As I always do, I fixed (fixed - a word my northern friend finds hysterical when used to mean "cooked") collard greens and black-eyed peas for New Year's dinner (well, I am southern, after all). And you never know - I have a wonderful life. Maybe I owe it all to those greens and peas. At any rate, I'm not willing to take a chance and find out.

I also kept a quarter in my pocket as we "crossed over" into the new year, per our wonderful friend and neighbor, Ms. Josephine, may she rest in peace.

As Ms. Josephine taught me, "You don't want to cross over into the new year without a little money in your pocket." No, we don't, Ms. Josephine, and we all thought of you, with a tear in the eye, as we pocketed our quarters.

I also made a couple of resolutions. Last year I decided to get cute with it, and said I wanted to make goals I could actually keep, such as gaining five pounds and increasing my gray hair. Wouldn't you know, I exceeded even my own expectations. So much for getting cute.

This year I should probably at least lose the extra five-ish (hush, y'all) pounds. The gray will stay, because I rather like it. I've earned it (not to say I didn't earn the extra five-ish - shhhh - pounds, but that's different).

I suppose I should also finish the book that's been rattling around in my head. Heck...maybe I should just set a goal of starting it, and go from there. I don't want to get too ambitious.

Here's to all of us. May we each stretch beyond our comfort level, experience something new, appreciate something old, and learn along the way.

Best,
Melinda

My muse and I haven’t been getting along. It’s her fault entirely, of course. It usually is.

As I type this, I can sense her sitting on the corner of the desk to my right. She’s just sitting there with arms crossed and lips puckered, watching me. She’s a tiny thing, a nymph, dressed in a diaphanous gown the color of emeralds. It’s flowing around her in the breeze created by the ceiling fan.

She has long red hair, the curls corkscrewing down her back and pooling on the oak of my desk. (Seriously? she says, tossing her hair. Corkscrewing? Pfffftttt. Overdone.).

That’s a little harsh, I say.

She doesn’t respond. She just sits there looking at me, swinging one bare foot.

I swear this is how she looks.

And she’s not happy with me.

You never want to piss off a muse.

Last night (or more accurately, very early this morning) as I Googled standard prison intake procedures, it hit me that if ever misfortune were to befall my family and our computer became evidence...I'm screwed.

That's admittedly a morbid line of thinking, but that's what happens when you've spent hours and hours researching innocent looking ways to kill people. It's also what happens when you haven't had enough sleep, are maxed out on allergy meds, and decided to top it all off with a glass of wine. But that's another topic.

Just for the heck of it, I hit the little arrow beside my Google bar to review the topics I've searched within the last couple of days (days during which I've finally broken through writer's block and added a couple of chapters to my work in progress). Search results included: Postpartum psychosis. Mass murder. Brain injury. Death penalty. Suffocation. Shock. Prison intake procedure. Vera Bradley bags.

Okay, that last one falls into the category of "One of these things is not like the other...." But you see my point.

A couple of times I found myself on question-and-answer blogs that gave some really good information regarding what to expect if you're ever arrested. I don't anticipate ever needing that information, but I'll file it away just in case.

It was even worse a couple of years ago when I did a brief stint as a fact-checker for an online writing site. There was no rhyme or reason to the articles assigned, so on any given day my Google search history might look something like: Brad Pitt. Amphibians. Fungi of North American forests. Signs and symptoms of scabies. Home remedies for flatulence.

I suppose my point is, if the occasion ever arises, please don't judge me based on my search history. It may say I'm a scabies infested, snake loving, homicidal mother plagued with uncomfortable bloating. But I'm not. No, I'm just a quiet writer with a fairly uneventful life. I swear it.

I've had several emails the last couple of weeks regarding various aspects of self-publishing. The fastest and easiest way to answer those questions has been, quite honestly, to give a coupon for a free download of my self-publishing guide, Self-publishing Made Simple: A How-to Guide for the Non-tech-savvy Among Us.

Using coupon code NK48W at checkout, the book is free until whatever time tomorrow Smashwords decides is time to end the code.

If interested, go here. Enter the code upon purchase for download of a free epub or mobi of the book.

And happy writing. :-)

A couple of years ago, when I left my publisher, I took notes of my journey to self-publishing and eventually wrote a guide: Self-publishing Made Simple: A How-to Guide for the Non-tech-savvy Among Us.

Two years later it's out of date, and I just don't have the time to rewrite it to keep up with all the exciting changes in the publishing world. However, there's still a lot of really useful information that some might find helpful.

For this reason, although I took it out of print, I'm offering it as a free (under a Creative Commons license) download (PDF) on my website.

Go here and scroll down to the May 18th entry if you're interested in downloading a copy.