M.Q. Barber's Blog, page 3

Meet me and get signed books Feb. 9

Just so you know who you’re looking for, this is me! The purple hair is growing out, so I’m a mix of brown-purple-bleached blond these days. And I’ll have glasses on when you see me; they just don’t photograph well. It’s the purple reflections off the lenses. I might have a thing for purple.

Coming soon: Tuesdays with Jay No. 27: More to Love

Beautiful surroundings can quiet the mind while the words flow free.

A new year is often heralded as a time for new beginnings, but for me, 2019 is a year for revisiting old friends. Henry, Alice, and Jay still have stories to tell, and I want to be able to share those stories with all of you. For now, that means more Tuesdays with Jay companion pieces, but bigger things are in the works.

The January installment of Tuesdays with Jay is No. 27: More to Love. And because I can’t seem to contr...

Coming soon: Tuesdays with Jay No. 26: More, More

It’s 81 degrees out, but you know winter is coming when the firewood is waiting to be stacked near the house.

Fall is finally here! It’s my favorite season, even though I couldn’t get Jay to help me stack the firewood. He apparently had more important things to do with Henry and Alice.

Okay, yes, their plans were probably more fun than stacking a cord of wood. I’d guess the exertion level was about the same, though.

Fall is also the season of my annual writing retreat. Henry, Alice, and Jay w...

Coming soon: Tuesdays with Jay No. 25: Hazards No More

It’s a bourbon-cherry-blueberry pie. I sneaked a slice before Jay got his hands on it.

It’s been hotter than Hades this summer, so I’ve been thrilled to spend time inside writing rather than outside doing yard work.

Of course, I promptly ruined the air-conditioned climate inside by turning on the oven to bake a pie. I’m fairly certain Henry would have approved, though. (Jay would have devoured half of it on sight.)

But between bouts of pie-making, I managed to sit down and write a few Tuesday...

Coming soon: Tuesdays with Jay No. 24: Accepted Hazards

Spring has arrived! The flowers around the neighborhood are lovely…and I hear the sound of lawn mowers. Guess I’ll be mowing the lawn tomorrow.

Spring! Oh, how I’ve missed you.

Also, you’re a month late. You couldn’t have called or something?

Jay, thankfully, is right on time with his next lunch adventure.

While I’m finally enjoying spring, Henry, Jay, and Alice are still in the midst of a Boston winter in the next installment of the Tuesdays with Jay series, set between the second and third...

Coming soon: Tuesdays with Jay No. 23: Challenge Accepted

Snowy days are excellent for curling up and digging in on edits.

Ah, winter. If you’re like me and live in an area with freezing temperatures and snowfall for a few months every year (and jeepers, that area seems to be expanding farther south all the time!), you know that the post-holidays part of winter has two settings:

Setting 1: Yay! It’s not too cold, the sun is shining, and the snow is just right for enjoying the crisp air, going sledding/tubing/skiing, and generally romping outside! A...

Coming soon: Tuesdays with Jay No. 22: Reading Challenge

If you’ve never tried it, a graveyard is a quite peaceful place for a morning walk.

It’s autumn! We’re deep in my favorite season in the northeastern United States, and that means my mental preparing-for-writing time is often on morning walks with the dog. We crunch through the leaves and watch for migrating birds headed to warmer climes as story thoughts weave themselves together.

Some voices, of course, speak louder than others. Ahem-Jay-ahem. So it’s with great pleasure that I say the next...

Coming soon: Tuesdays with Jay No. 21: Map Reading

I love the contradiction of sea glass — all rough shapes worn smooth.

Have you ever walked along a beach and collected sea glass?

This spring, I took my first real vacation—you know, the kind where you actually leave the house and have new experiences—in thirteen years. The adventure was a trip with my bestie—some post-divorce healing I desperately needed. (I won’t rehash the divorce here; for a quick peek at the struggles of the last year, please read the Facebook post.)

So it was that I spe...

BDSM Writers Con 2016 wrap-up

A reader-friend on Facebook (Hi, Beverly!) asked about the barrettes I’m wearing in some of the photos. They’re metal scales and rings in the shape of flowers. Here they are with some other goodies from the conference, including my program book full of notes and the lucky dice fellow author Elia Winters kindly let me keep.

Wow. Seriously, wow. BDSM Writers Con NYC 2016 was such an incredible experience that I’m still processing the wonderfulness.

The fun lasted all the way home, road-tripping...

Behind the scenes: On finding inspiration and joy through stories

Note: This is the last of six posts going behind the scenes of my writing process — what inspires me, the way I work, and how I recharge. For links to the rest of the posts, scroll down.

Writers get a lot of their inspiration from reading. Many of us — definitely including me — first learned what made a good story by reading well-written tales that inspired our imaginations, taught us how characters evolve over the course of a novel, and made us feel of all the emotions a good book can inspir...