Meredith R. Stoddard's Blog, page 7

Summer SALE!

It's time to break out the SPF 50, big floppy hats, and shades, and head to the beach. There's just something about reading a good book with the sound of waves in the background that does the soul good. I've already gotten the first picture of The River Maiden on the beach for this season (I love those, by the way. Feel free to share yours.) 

I'm celebrating the start of summer with a great sale. Both books in the Once & Future Series are only 99 cents this week. So if you're new to the series, grab them both. If you haven't read Cauldron yet, here's a great opportunity. And if you've already read them, tell your friends they can pick them both up for less than the cost of a latte. 

I'm making great progress with Book 3. In fact my newsletter subscribers just got a sneak peek at a scene with some new characters in their inboxes. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, the form is at the top of the bar on the right of this page.

Also, I have finally been able to run a sale in both the US and the UK at the same time. YAY! So, if you are in the UK or have friends who are, here is the link to the series page. 

Happy Reading. And I'll get back to writing.

Teaser Tuesday

Waiting for Book 3? I'm still working hard on it. Yes, I blew right through my March deadline. I know. But I really am making good progress. 

In the meantime, I have been posting teasers passages on most Tuesdays. I try to keep them free of major spoilers, though there might be some minor ones and maybe a name or two that you don't recognize. In case you've missed them, you can see them in the gallery below (not in any particular order).

And of course keep an eye on my Facebook page or Twitter to see them in the future. Look for the #teasertuesday

Words words words.

I know. I've been terrible about keeping up with posts, and videos and the like. But I keep telling myself that you all would rather have the next book than the next blog post. And that's exactly what I've been working on. If you watch video below, you might notice that I'm well past the deadline that I set for myself in January. However, I am making great progress on book 3. I jsut wanted to pop up here and leave a quick post to tell you what I've been working on. 

And I will have a blog post or two coming soon.

 

My Peak Challenge: Probably not what you think

Yesterday, I gave you some social media resolutions for a better year. Today, I want to talk about my personal goals for the year. Rather than hitting you with another wall of text, I made a video for reasons that will become apparent.

I you're interested in following along, you can pop over to my Youtube channel and subscribe.

My 2017 Social Media Resolutions (that you can adopt too)

I think we can all agree that 2016 was pretty awful. Election years tend to be tense anyway, but we also lost a lot of cultural icons, pioneers and innovators. We are all limping into this new year, bruised by one thing or another. It could be the friends we lost because of politics (Yes, this actually happened to me), or the people who passed away (my mother-in-law among others), or media/social media fatigue.

One of the things that seems to have made this year harder and most frustrating for us is the challenge presented by being able to identify what is true and what is not on the internet. This year many of us saw a sharp rise in fake news shared on Facebook and Twitter. When we see click bait headlines on major media sites, they are starting to reach critical mass.

The internet is an AMAZING tool. It’s an equalizer for those of us who produce and distribute media. It means that an attic dwelling hermit like me can transmit my books and reach readers all over the world. But this tool being available to legitimate producers, means that it is also available to illegitimate producers; the fake news purveyors, conspiracy theorists, plagiarists, click/like farmers, hackers and scam artists.

With all of these things being shared on social media, your Facebook feed starts to feel a lot like the worst dinner party ever. And there you are stuck between a busybody and a drunk conspiracy theorist afraid to leave because you might miss something. I can completely understand why this constant buzz of internet dross can make people want to delete their accounts and go dark. Sometimes it’s tempting. Of course, if I did check out I’d probably never sell another book. I don’t want any of you to check out either.

While we can’t do anything about some of the people we may lose, or the natural or even man-made disasters that may befall us in 2017. We CAN work TOGETHER to make social media and the internet better for us. We can reclaim the equalizing communication tool that it could be from the people who would use it to manipulate and misdirect us.

So, I would like to introduce some new year’s resolutions that I will be enacting or continuing. And invite you to try some of these too. They’re simple behaviors that we can all do to change the tone and quality of the flood of information we take in every day. If we can all agree to these, we can make social media a better place all around.

Click on the pic to get your Be Kind shirts to benefit Pop Culture Heroes Anti-bullying campaign. 

1. Be kind.  No bullying should be a no brainer, right? And to be fair, I generally didn’t do any conscious bullying before. You probably don’t either. However, one person’s witty tweet or Facebook post can be hurtful to someone else. So, I think we should agree that it’s okay to criticize someone’s actions if those actions are harmful to others. But it’s not okay to criticize someone for who they are, how they look, or who they love. Casually snarky comments about someone’s bad haircut, ill-fitting leggings, developmental challenges, or sexual preferences might be funny for a moment, but can be hurtful for a lifetime even when we don’t realize it or intend to be hurtful.

 

2. I will NOT share fake news. But how do I know if it’s fake news? Snopes has some good advice on the basics, but the fakers are becoming really good at making stories look legit. So, we’re going to have to do some critical thinking.

 Don’t share an article just based on the headline. Even some of my favorite news aggregating sites rewrite the original headlines into sensational clickbait just to get shares. Don’t fall for this. Read the article and think critically about whether or not you should share it.Beware of confirmation bias. Look, I’m probably more liberal than you and am definitely ready to believe the worst of Donald Trump and anyone associated with him. So, if I see a story that tells me Trump bites the heads off live kittens in ritual sacrifices to Vladimir Putin in order to gain power, a small part of me might see that as vindication of my extreme dislike. However, if I tamp that impulse down and listen to my rational mind I’ll quickly realize that the story is a fake. While that example sounds extreme, there were some extreme stories making the rounds during the election (Pizzagate, anyone?), most of which were false. Likewise, if a story seems too good to be true, it probably is. Look for the catch.Check sources. If the story originated with a partisan blog on either side, you might want to wait until it’s been confirmed by legitimate journalists like those at The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR/PBS, and yes even the Wall Street Journal. I know that television news with its sound bites and pundits has blurred the lines between opinion and journalism, but there is still such a thing as journalistic ethics and it’s usually found in print. I know the story over the last 10 years has been about the death of print journalism, but newspapers were doing the REAL reporting during the election by reporting on policy proposals and business/political records instead of just talking about the horserace like they do on TV.  

3. Dial down the hyperbole. One side effect of having almost unlimited information at our fingertips is that in order to be heard through the noise, the tone of almost everything on the internet has collectively escalated. It seems like every day there is some new outrage, or mania for people to indulge in. Cronuts are the BEST FOOD EVER or someone is the WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD. And yes, even outrage can be an indulgence. When so many people feel powerless, giving vent to our frustrations feels good. But what does all this heightened emotion get us? After the momentary release of excitement or fury, we’re just left more exhausted and more frustrated which is how we were feeling to begin with. It also blunts the meaning of words. When everything gets a superlative, then those superlatives aren’t superlative anymore. Best and worst don’t mean what they used to. They’re used interchangeably with good and bad these days. We run out of ways to express when things are TRULY the worst or the best.

Click the pic for source.

4. Keep things positive. Stop complaining. This can be a hard one. And I’m not saying that you can NEVER complain. But some people tend to use social media to vent whatever woe-is-me feelings they might be having at any given moment. You’ve seen them in your Facebook feed. They very rarely have something good to say. I understand that folks might need an avenue to vent their feelings, and sometimes it’s okay to do that on social media. But when most of what you put out into the world is complaining, it can actually do damage to you and the people who see it. Constant complaining isn’t just bad for your brain and relationships, it’s also bad for your brand. Most businesses know that a constant complainer on staff creates a bad work environment. And by now I hope that most people know that businesses do look at a potential employee’s social media posts. Constant complaining leads to a cycle of dissatisfaction and disappointment . The only way to break that cycle is to just stop. So keep it positive this year, folks. And if there is someone in your Facebook feed who complains constantly, you can defend your own well-being by tuning that out. Get to know the Hide feature on Facebook. You can hide a person’s posts without unfriending them. Keep the connection, but you don’t have to see their negativity in your feed.

5. Avoid Like Farming I will not like or share anything that specifically says “Like/Share if you remember…he/she/it is cute/beautiful…”, or “One like equal’s one prayer”, or “share to win a million dollars/an RV/a free vacation…”. These are all examples of like farming, and they are the bottom feeding of the internet. Don’t know what like farming is? It’s when a fly-by-night page posts and shares memes that display sick children, recall items of nostalgia, or promise winning money or prizes. Depending on your Facebook privacy settings, clicking on these can do anything from adding to the general noise to letting the perpetrators see your personal information. Like you mother told you if you ignore them, they will go away.

6. Be original. I will not copy and paste Facebook statuses EVER. This one is pretty simple, and is nothing new for me. Simply put, you will never see me share a status on Facebook that begins with, “I bet my friends won’t share this”, “Please make this your status for an hour”, or even “cancer sucks”. First, I have enough to say on my own without copying and pasting some crap that achieves nothing beyond annoying the people who see it. Second, I don’t tolerate this kind of emotional blackmail, I’m certainly not going to perpetuate it on you.

My husband pointed out to me as I was bouncing this list off him, that the people who could benefit the most from this probably won’t read it. I considered giving it some sort of click bait headline. “She sits down to write a blog post and what happens next made my jaw drop.” Or something outrage inducing like, “Obscure fiction writer lectures the entire internet on how to behave”. Or even a completely fake news headline about Donald Trump being a secret liberal who is going to give us all single payer healthcare. But I did say that those things are bad.

Click for source

I’m sure there are some folks out there who enjoy the toxic soup of hyperbole and disinformation who will be outraged at me for a few minutes before the next outrage comes along. But the truth is, I’m just a girl standing in front of the internet asking folks to act like grownups. 

Cauldron Launch Live

Video of Facebook Live Stream

On Thursday 12/8, I did a live stream on Facebook to celebrate the launch of Cauldron. I did some readings from both The River Maiden, and Cauldron as well as some spoiler free(ish) discussion of the new book. 

We had a good turnout of readers, friends and family. It was a lot of fun. I will probably be doing some more videos and live streams in the new year. 

In the video there are:

Readings from the booksGiveawaysThe music that inspired the storyLocations that inspired the storyReveal Fantasy CastGaelic pronunciations of key terms

 

Facebook Live Stream

IT'S HERE!

Cauldron is now available on for Kindle. The paperback should be available later this week. 

The traumatic events of The River Maiden have left Sarah MacAlpin’s life in shambles. Her best friend won’t talk to her. The man she loves says they can’t be together. She’s just discovered something that destroys the main thesis of her dissertation. To top it off, she’s learned that her dream fellowship in Scotland was given to her with ulterior motives by her billionaire benefactor. Sarah has to choose whether to accept the fellowship anyway or try to find a different path. 

Meanwhile, she’s battles her own personal demons and questions about her family. She hopes to find some answers in her mother’s memoir. What she finds are some upsetting parallels to her own life. Like Sarah, Molly left Kettle Holler on the verge of making her dreams come true, but her ambitions were derailed by a family secret that took her across an ocean and left her a broken shade of her former self.

Remember there are a few events related to the book launch. 

If you can't make it to the book signing in Fredericksburg, VA on the 17th, you can always order a signed copy of Cauldron from my etsy store. 

Cauldron Release Info

This is it! Book 2 is coming. Find out what Sarah and Dermot do next! Over the next three weeks there will be lots of fun happening on my Facebook page including some music, Pinterest, favorite quotes from The River Maiden and sneak peeks from Cauldron. So, if you haven't liked my page yet get on over there and join in the fun.

Here are the important dates to know for Cauldron:

December 6th the ebook will be available for Kindle. It will only be available for Kindle to start with. I'll look into expanding the books to other ebook platforms after that first 90 days, but for right now it's Kindle only.December 6th Twitter Q&A - I'll be answering questions on Twitter regarding Cauldron on the 6th starting at 9PM Eastern time. If you aren't following me on Twitter, I'm @M_R_Stoddard. December 8th I will be having an Online Launch Party. I am currently planning this and testing platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Hangouts...) I will set up an event on my Facebook page and post here, as soon as I have the details. There will be readings from Cauldron, Q&A and giveaways.Print Launch I will be launching the print version of Cauldron with a signing at my favorite coffee shop, Agora Downtown Coffee Shop in Fredericksburg, VA. If you are anywhere near, Fredericksburg, please come and see us. 

I hope to see all of you at one or more of these events, and I can't wait for you to read Cauldron. I'm sure you're going to love it.

New Cover!

Original cover

In the midst of all the upcoming Book 2 madness, I have a bit of news about Book 1.  Most book series have similar covers or a similar look to the covers across the series. When I started thinking about what I wanted for the Cauldron cover, I took a long look at the cover for The River Maiden. And I decided that I wanted to take the look of the series in a different direction.

Let me be clear, I do like the original cover for The River Maiden. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback on it. However, there are just two things I would change.

1) It's not great in black and white or thumbnail size. And in the age of ebooks and e-ink. Black and white and/or thumbnail size, is how a lot of people first see it. I thought I needed a cover that is eye-catching in both. 

2) It wasn't my original vision. It is what told the graphic designer, who was very accommodating and great to work with, I wanted. The photo of the jars and jugs evokes the rustic Appalachian life that Sarah grew up with. But I'm just not sure it's evocative of the main theme of the story. 

Even before I decided to publish the book myself, I had a vague idea of what I wanted, and it centered around the crown of flowers that Sarah makes for her mother on that fateful morning in 1976. In fact three years ago at the James River Writer's Conference while listening to the king of cover designers, Chip Kidd, talk about some of his greatest hits, I sketched out a quick design. It was the crown floating with a few blooms floating away from it. 

But in the course of editing and formatting, and paying for one designer to botch and refuse to fix a design, and having to search for another, I eventually chose expediency and went with a photo that I had taken of jars stored on an old worn table in the back of my own Granny's carriage house (No, my Granny is not a moonshiner. She just likes old jars.) 

 

It has served me well, but I'm very excited to have the new cover. This one is far more similar to the cover I originally envisioned. It has the flowered crown with a few blooms falling away. They're floating on a blue background calling on the image of water, and of course the UNC setting for the book.

It also helped me establish the look that I want to have for the rest of the series. You might also notice that the short stories Unfit and Buddy also have new covers the same style. Hopefully in the next week or so, I can show the cover of Cauldron. 

The Voyager Scene that I Can’t Wait For

Spoiler Alert: Don't read this post if you're avoiding spoilers for Voyager. 

Filming for season three of Outlander is underway and everyone is speculating on how the Outlander team will handle their favorite scenes. I know everyone is crazy excited for the print shop scene, Claire and Jamie’s first night together, Fergus and Marsaili’s wedding. I’m sure more than a few of you are looking forward to “turtle soup”. Those scenes are all fantastic. But the one I'm downright salivating to see is one that some readers might even be dreading.

I like passion, and there is no more passionate scene in this big wonderful book (my favorite of the series) than Jamie and Claire’s epic throwdown at Lallybroch after Claire finds out about Laoghaire. That’s chapter 34 if you want to look it up. You might think it’s perverse of me, but the truth is, I love it when "Mom and Dad" fight. This is the story of a marriage after all, and married couples do have fights. Jamie and Claire should be no different. As I’ve said before, one of the things that makes Diana Gabaldon’s writing so good is the realism of her characters. This particular scene is about as real as it gets.

From the moment Jamie turns and sees Claire in the print shop, they have been a lit fuse working their way to an explosion. Each of them has spent the previous twenty years holding on to their heartbreak with white knuckled grips. Claire has been living with the spitting image of Black Jack Randall and raising a child while bottling up her grief over Jamie. And Jamie has spent twenty years surviving some extremely difficult circumstances while holding on to his grief as well. When they see each other again they’re not the same people that they were before Culloden.

That grief that they've been bottling up starts to swell, and eventually it will have to find some release. They’re each like a glass that’s filled to the brim with twenty years worth of emotions held just above the rim by surface tension. If you get at eye level, you can see the liquid wobbling and jiggling. There are moments where it seems like it will spill over, the first time they make love, at the “whore’s breakfast” the next morning, in the cellar of Madame Jeanne’s. But they manage to hold it together, until Laoghaire.

She’s the catalyst. When Claire learns that not only is Jamie married, but married to her nemesis, it finally spills over. When she tells Jamie she’s leaving, that’s the catalyst for him. Soon twenty years of bottled up tension, heartbreak and anger comes spewing out. It’s not necessarily rational. Claire even admits that just before Jamie comes back into the room. Still that doesn’t change the fact that they both have a lot of pent up feelings to vent.

Those feelings all come spilling out. As soon as Jamie puts his hands on Claire to stop her from leaving, they explode into a physical confrontation a little reminiscent of the infamous spanking scene in Outlander. Pretty soon they’re going at each other like the forces of Heaven and Hell in Book 6 of Paradise Lost. Only Jenny drenching them with water is enough to get them to stop.

I can’t wait to see what the Outlander team does with this scene. If Nell Hudson’s tweet yesterday is any indication, they may be filming it soon. I think that Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan will do an amazing job. Think back to the scene by the river from The Reckoning where Jamie and Claire confront each other after breaking out of Fort William. That was when they’d only been married for a few days. Just imagine that kind of passion times twenty.

The only potential pitfall I see, is if the writers short change this emotional explosion the way they did the soul-ransoming confrontation at the end of season one. The show is incredibly well made, and it’s clear that everyone involved is doing a bang up job 95% of the time. On the rare occasion that the show has faltered, it has been in pacing and the time allotted for certain key points of the story. Usually, those have been the times when they have focused more on the action of the story than the emotional aspects of it. For example, expanding the witch trial and The Search, but trimming the aforementioned soul-ransoming.

I know there have to be differences between book and show. Some things are just easier to tell on film than in print and vice versa. But this is a scene that I really hope they don't skip or shorten. I would love to see this get the sort of extended treatment that they gave to Jamie's flogging story in The Garrison Commander, which was one of the best television episodes EVER.

I'm sure the writers are feeling the pressure this season. Poll any group of Outlander fans on which book is their favorite and I can just about guarantee Voyager will be the majority choice. There is a TON of ground to cover in Voyager and I don't doubt that some things will have to be cut down, but this scene, this fight is the catharsis that Jamie and Claire's marriage NEEDS to move forward. 

What about you? Is there a scene in Voyager aside from the print shop that you can't wait to see?