Meka James's Blog, page 28

IWSG #7: Family and Friends

It's that time again for sharing with the Insecure Writer's Support Group.
What is that you may ask, well their mission statement is this:

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a home for writers in all stages; from unpublished to bestsellers. Our goal is to offer assistance and guidance. We want to help writers overcome their insecurities, and by offering encouragement we are creating a community of support.
The first Wednesday of each month, we blog about our fears, insecurities, or even an accomplishment we had.
For this month's post I'm going to talk about something that came up over Thanksgiving. My older sister knew of my writing and that I did it, but she had no idea that I'd actually published a book. My younger sister knew, but outside of my immediate household, I think she was the only one of my siblings that did. It's not something I've talked about with family and friends for whatever reason. I don't make posts on my personal Facebook account in relation to my writing. I didn't send out links asking any of my family and friends to like my author page. Somehow my writing has turned into some 'dirty little secret' that I don't talk about. 
As I thought about that, I tried to figure out why. Depending on the family you come from, family members can sometimes be more brutal and judgmental than strangers that read and review your work. Not saying that my family is like that, but something has kept me from talking about it, from promoting myself to those closest to me. Not that I expect them to buy my book just because, but I don't even get their support and encouragement since I don't tell them. It's weird that a huge part of who I am I don't share. What am I worried about that keeps me so secretive about it? Is it because of the type of book? Possibly, do I really want my parents and in-laws to know I write sex scenes? I'm an adult, with kids, that shouldn't be a factor. I remember when I was finishing up Fiendish, my daughter asked, "You're going to use a pen name right?". She knew the type of book I was writing and her question although innocent, did sort of set the tone. She didn't want it easily connected that her mom wrote 'those books'. I was planning on using a pen name anyway because my real name is not all that easy to pronounce, but her reason for asking was very different. Since then I've sorta kept 'real life' and 'author life' separate, but now I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't.
I've dealt with the self-doubt that comes with this journey. I still deal with it on a daily basis when my characters aren't cooperating and I start to think I'm doing something wrong. However I should be able to take pride in my work and not hide it away. Writing is not easy (at least not for me), it's a daily struggle to get the words right and push through, but I'm learning to do it. It's important to me and something I want to keep doing so I need to not hide it.
How about you guys, do your friends and family all know what you do?
Question of the month: In terms of your writing career, where do you see yourself five years from now, and what’s your plan to get there?
**Well considering it's taken me nearly 3 years to complete my second book (didn't work on it for nearly a year and a half) I'd say in five years I'll be hopefully finishing up my third book, maybe fourth book if I'm lucky. I'm a slow writer because I nit pick a lot even in the first draft. I would love to have an increased social media presence and that's something I'm working on now. I'm trying out different platforms to see which one works best for me and my lifestyle. The biggest thing though is that in five years I want to still be writing. 
Thanks for stopping by~Meka

Music Monday-Goner

Hello all and welcome to the last month of the year! 2016 has been a doozy, but it's still hard to believe it's almost over.


Munchkin likes to start at the end. Track 14 and we'll listen to it several times. He's heard it so much he knows nearly all the words and sings along in near 7 yr old perfection. It's kinda cute and if I were into uploading videos to YouTube, I'd probably record him. But I'm not, so I won't.

Anyway Happy Monday and hope you enjoy

~Meka

"Goner" by 21 Pilots

Music Monday-Something Wild

Hello! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Spent time with friends and family just being thankful for the time together.


Lindsey Stirling is an amazing violinist. The first song I heard by her was "Shatter Me" and at first I thought the song was by the singer, not realizing it was more about the violin. With music programs being stripped from so many schools, having someone like her pushing violin playing into the more mainstream music will hopefully open up that option to kids that might not otherwise know about it.

Hope you enjoy
~Meka

"Something Wild" by Lindsey Stirling feat. Andrew McMahon

Music Monday - Take Me Home

Hello and welcome back to another week of Music Monday.



As I was working on edits last Monday, a song came on that finally spoke to me about Calida in this story. The lyrics fit Calida and her relationship with Malcolm to a T. I like to have songs that represent my characters and their relationship so I was more than thrilled when this one came up on auto-play while I was listening to YouTube.

I hope you enjoy it.
~Meka

"Take Me Home" by Jess Glynne


I hope you all have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

Music Monday #5

Hello and happy Monday. I hope you all had a great weekend and are ready to start the week off on the right foot.


If you're having a tough time, or just feeling kind of blah, hopefully this song will give you that boost of motivation that you need.

Take care of yourselves
~Meka

"Rise Up" by Andra Day

Book Review: Rise of The Sparrows (Relics of Ar'Zac Book 1)

Rise of The Sparrows by Sarina Langer

Rifarne is a country opposed to magic. When its people demand harsh action, King Aeric sees himself with no other choice but to outlaw those with the gift. Rachael, a homeless orphan with the rare gift of a Seer, soon finds herself with visions of her own violent death. When her escape goes wrong and she ends up in the clutches of a vicious Mist Woman lusting for her blood, she finds she is the only person to stop the war against people like her – and assassinating the King to become Queen to a people who once wanted her dead may well be the only way to do just that.









My Review **** 4 STARS ****
Up front I'm going to admit this book is everything I typically stay away from. The last YA books I read were the Twilight ones because my daughter assured me the books were better than the movie. I haven't done YA since then. Just not a fan of books where teenagers are the lead, too much drama I guess. I also am not a fan of fantasy. I can watch a fantasy/sci-fi movie no problem, but reading about them...I don't know my mind has a hard time wrapping itself around the idea of that fantasy type of world. All that is said because I went into reading it not sure of how much I'd be able to enjoy it since for me it had two big negatives already.
Things started a little slow for me. I got hung up for a little while on Rachael being barefoot in winter, in snow. I just kept thinking she should have major frost bite, but I was able to move past it. I liked Rachael. She was a street-smart girl and she didn't act like your 'typical' teenager. That could be because of the life she lived, she had to grow up fast, but either way she was very mature and logical and I liked the way she thought things through. Cephy was the same way. She was younger than Rachael and hadn’t been on the streets for quite as long so I expected her to act more immature than she did. The relationship between them was sweet. They had a big sister/little sister vibe and I thought it was adorable how Cephy wormed her way into Rachael's life.
There were a lot of characters introduced and since this is supposed to be a trilogy I expected all of them to be around at the end. I was wrong. This didn’t bug me, but it did surprise me. I also expected the war to be the theme that carried through all three books. I'm guessing it will, but just not in the way I thought it would. Surprises are good, it’s what keeps you interested in a book, so Sarina delivered there. Sometimes I felt like things were repeated too often. Points were made about a certain topic, then flipped around and said again just in a different way. An example of this would be in the prologue when Aeron talks about her importance. The reader already knew from the first mention she was more important than the Mothers, and well everyone else according to her, but we are told this several more times. 
In the end, Rise of The Sparrows was a good read. Once all the characters were introduced and the action picked up things moved faster for me and kept me interested in what was going to happen next. I’m not sure how I feel about the love angle that was introduced. Other than Cale being interested in Rachael for her role in the prophecy, I didn’t feel the change in his feelings for her to something more romantic. Maybe that’ll be explored more in the next book that will allow me to connect to him. I did not expect the ending and look forward to seeing what happens with that.
The world, although fantasy, still felt like a real place and I could easily get a layout of it in my head. Also a big thank you to the author for not making the character names something really out there and hard to pronounce. I'm glad I took a chance on reading this book and look forward to reading the next one.

Music Monday #4

Hello and thanks for stopping by for another week of Music Monday.

This week I'm posting something a little more upbeat. As writers we spend a lot of time on our butts. It's a stationary gig that requires a lot of time sitting, staring, and hopefully producing something we won't cringe at when we go back to read over it.

Having said that, as much as I love music to help set the tone for a scene, I also need something to get the blood pumping. Often times a song will come on and I'll just have to get up and dance around to it (at home only, don't think the people at the cafe want to see me doing that). It's a fun way to break up the monotony and get out of the chair for a little while. My dogs no longer even react to their owner being completely random.

Anyway this week's song is one that I always have to crank up and move to when it comes on.

Hope it gets you moving too.
~Meka

"Handclap" by Fitz and The Tantrums

IWSG #6: Critique Partners/Beta Readers

It's that time again for sharing with the Insecure Writer's Support Group.
What is that you may ask, well their mission statement is this:

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a home for writers in all stages; from unpublished to bestsellers. Our goal is to offer assistance and guidance. We want to help writers overcome their insecurities, and by offering encouragement we are creating a community of support.
The first Wednesday of each month, we blog about our fears, insecurities, or even an accomplishment we had.

Hard to believe 6 months have passed since I started this. Well 7 months, but I missed a month posting. Where has the time gone? 

For this month's post I'm bringing up my insecurities surrounding critique partners/beta readers. On the web and various places writers are told how invaluable these are to the process and I would agree, however what do you do when you can't find/keep one from start to finish of a project?

That's the problem I faced when working on my first book. Considering its origins one could argue I had a fairly decent group of betas with it being a blog story first, but it's not the same. Writing a blog the people that come, read, and hopefully comment on your story understand you're doing this for fun and it's not meant to be a professional quality thing. Making that switch, I wanted to follow that process but I found it to be harder than I thought.

I joined a few different online groups, connected with people thought I was doing the right thing but it never worked out for me. I did beta reading for others, we'd do chapter swaps but when their projects ended while mine was still going the communication faded. It does make one second guess themselves when you can't keep the interest of the beta that they drop the project. Now I understand life happens, people get busy, things happen. When it happens the first time, you're like okay, move on, but the third, forth, etc you really start to think you're the problem. A serious case of it's me not them sets in. How will your book do out in the world if you can't even keep the 'tester' group invested? It made me question what I was doing wrong, and I was left trying to figure out the problem was. I'm still trying to figure it out. 

I did have two very helpful ladies that knew the story from the blog that gave me feedback on the book for which I was/am grateful. But for that new person, that stranger outside the bubble of where it started that I was hoping to get a gauge on, well that failed. I'm still at a loss as to what to do and how to handle things when it gets to that stage with my new project. I know I can go back to those ladies, I still talk to both regularly about all things not just writing. It could all be in my head, but even knowing I have them there I have this need/desire to have a stranger, new person, that I'm not connected to personally to give me that honest feedback. 

So for those of you out there, how did you find success in finding and keeping critique partners/betas? I'd love some tips on how to better my luck in this area. 

IWSG Question of the Month: What is your favorite aspect of being a writer?

For me it's being able to unleash my crazy thoughts into the world. As a writer you have the ability to create magical things with your world and characters. Getting to bring all that to life feels great.

Thanks for stopping by
~Meka

Music Monday #3

Welcome to the Halloween edition of Music Monday. I'd actually had another post ready to go for today then it hit me that today was Halloween. So I decided to change it up instead. 
So in honor of this spooky holiday, I am posting a song most people already know. It's a classic.
Hope you all have a spook-tacular day!~Meka
"Thriller" by Michael Jackson

Music Monday #2

Welcome back to week #2 of Music Monday.

As I said last week, I tend to listen to music often while I'm writing. I either play YouTube, Pandora, or Spotify. Last week's song was the inspiration behind my title of my WIP. This week's song came up on auto-play on YouTube for similar songs to "Not Broken".

Lucia is an artist I'd never heard of, but I think she should be more widely known. She has an amazing voice to me. There are a few of her songs that I have found and enjoy so you'll most likely see more posts with her music in the future.

This week I picked the first song I heard by her.

I hope you enjoy.
~Meka

"Silence" by Lucia