Mona Karel Author

I started this blog maybe a week ago, shortly after the below referenced blog went public. Life intruded, stopping me from publishing the clever pithy phrases I’d written. In the interim I had several discussions with a close friend, and I found myself rewriting…

The start: A recent blog caught my eye, and that of many other writers and readers. It’s a bit spicy (some might see it as rude) but I think relevant to the thought’s I’ve had lately about Romance books. Smart Bitches Trashy Books presented 10 Things I Hate About Sex Scenes, and then sat back to watch the fun commence. There is a definite spew alert for this blog…put down your drink and cover your keyboard. Just in case.

You might be wondering about the relevance, other than the gut wrenching laughter. Some…okay, many, people think Romance books are nothing but sex prettied up. Porn with a lace parasol. Generally these people haven’t read Romance, or perhaps they read one or two books ages ago, when these ten things might be found in nearly every book. Especially the well read ones at the second hand stores.

How many times have we heard Sex Sells? Yeah, lots. Sex certainly helps sell some books, to editors and to the reading public. But how many people in the blog comments admit some of the situations in these books are not nearly as appealing as the authors might have thought they would be?

***

At this point something distracted me. Might be the wind, or an appointment. In the meantime I hosted some more blogs, went to dog classes, meandered around with chores. And had those conversations with my friend. Talking with this friend at length is not unusual, and we pretty much cover every subject possible. Eventually we got into the perfect body fantasy aspect of romance writing, a trope I do not like. My friend pointed out, for some readers it is all about the fantasy, the beautiful faces and hard bodies and over the top situations. A poorly written cheesy television show will succeed, no matter how weak the writing,  if it offers enough gorgeous bodies .

Well.

Huh.

This contradicts my own opinions but what good would it be if we all agreed? Or maybe I could say, how utterly boring. For me, the fantasy has never been putting myself in the place of a ‘perfect’ heroine, especially not one who bemoans her long flowing hair, impossibly large breasts, tiny waist, too long legs. YAWN. Reader, writer, and even within my own reality, it’s about the senses. The feel of a dry wind on my face, the stroke of bare skin against a hard muscled body…add in a bit of manly hair and ohhh, yeah.

Give me a minute.

Okay.

Romantic means different things to each of us, and we all have our own level of comfort when it comes to what’s enough sexuality in books, and what’s too much. A friend’s wonderful, frothy, light hearted story of modern witches was just criticized as ‘too erotic,’ leaving we who have read the book scratching our heads. Several times I’ve seen writers try to ‘sex up’ their stories to make them appeal to a wider audience and it does not always work. To finally get back to that blog, and the continuing comments…what one person finds offensive another finds appealing. Writing is an art, and when you try to create art to please everyone…yeah, we know where that leads.

Since we haven’t had rain here for far too long, I’m going to add this picture I took last year in Canada. Just for fun.

JoAnne is with us today to share some of her life experiences and tell us about her creative endeavors. Not to mention help plug that hole in my blog…soon to be filled with all those posts I started then set aside for more research. Welcome back, JoAnne!

For as long as I can remember, I have had an artistic flare-whether that be for writing, painting, sewing or drawing. I recall as a child how much I enjoyed drawing. The writing came later. My seventh grade English teacher was Mrs. Henderson-a young mother and wife. She gave us a writing assignment and after gifting me with an A+ told me I should consider writing as a career. She meant as a journalist. I did not take her advise and become a journalist (one of my many misgivings). My mind went toward other things as many young girls dream of-a husband, home, and family of my own. I put my love for writing and painting on hold for years. I unfortunately married a man who like my mother never encouraged me to be artistic. It was not until my children were grown and I no longer had a husband, that I went back to my first love-art. I got a late start, but always encouraged my children and others to partake of artistic endeavors. I now have six books under contract with two publishing houses. So my words to you all, is that no matter what road you choose, never forget your passion, and always keep it close to heart. Don’t let anyone or anything stop you from enjoying your natural talents. You might need to put art on a temporary hold, but never give up.

The residents of Rolling Hills, a hamlet in southeastern Ohio, were horrified when the dismembered bodies of two missing teens were pulled from the local river. Multiply suspects surfaced, but only one was railroaded, Richard Allan Lloyd, a known nudist and hothead.

THANKS JoAnne, looks like those people stuck at home in the ice storm will have something to read.

You’d think Mary was reading my mind about my New Year plans (no resolutions here, folks, just positive thoughts!) I was going to share what happened at the wonderful LERA meeting Saturday when this popped into my inbox. Which means I have another blog in the works! For now, let’s share the wisdom of Mary, the Muse Charmer. And isn’t that a lovely horse with Mary?  Mona

Can Your Thoughts Affect Your Sales?

Mary and Fortune

It’s an interesting notion. And I’m not going to go all Pollyanna and say that by thinking positive thoughts you’re going to hit all the lists. I’m also not going to say that your thoughts have no effect on your sales. Why? Because your thoughts affect everything you do.

Let’s pause for a moment. You’re a writer, and that means the stories you write come from your mind and heart. As an author, I know I fall in love with my characters. I find myself wrapped up in universes and world-building. It’s one of the reasons why I no longer really plot, because even if I do, the story takes an unexpected turn and I find myself wandering away from the set points. At some point and time I decided the heck with it and just began writing.

Which brings me back to the subject of how our thoughts affect sales. We can step away from our stories for a moment. Our moods affect so much. We can look at a bookshelf full of books on our “to be read” list or a folder in our e-reader and think that we want to read a book, we just don’t know which one. The same with movies, or the old question of what’s for dinner. You know you’re hungry or want to read but nothing seems to fit. It happens with writing, too.

Muddled thoughts create indecision. If our thoughts are laced with worry or fear we make certain decisions, like diving into that pint of ice cream we have in the freezer instead of making an actual meal or having a healthy snack. Those tiny actions, no matter how small, impact our writing, and yes, even our sales.

So how does this work? Let’s take the very common writer’s thought: my books aren’t good enough. We all have that thought from time to time. How can this thought affect our sales?

We write with the thought that our work isn’t good enough. This most likely means we’re not giving it our best. In the back of our mind we have the nagging belief that it doesn’t matter, we’ll never be like “big name author” that we perceive as writing so much better than we do. The book gets accepted and published by our publisher or we still self-publish it. When we go to promote we still have thoughts that the book isn’t good enough, readers aren’t going to like it, we’re not going to sell…and our actions tell that tale, too.

Our actions follow our thoughts by perhaps not being as proactive on social media. We don’t solicit for guest blog spots or make connections with our fellow writers like we should. We hold back.

When we do, our sales reflect this reality. And it all started with a thought.

That’s why it’s so important for writers to support themselves with good prosperity practices. A prosperity practice is a series of actions and thoughts that an individual does to support him or her with goals. It can be very powerful and can take whatever form that the person needs. Through a prosperity practice the thoughts that occasionally (they don’t ever really go away) plague us about our writing, the not good enough, won’t sell, won’t get on the lists, can be managed and dealt with without having them overwhelm our lives and our careers.

Our thoughts really can affect our sales because they affect what we do in the course of writing, selling, and marketing our books. Take some time to think about, or maybe even write down, some of the thoughts you have around your writing. Let them be as uplifting to you as your books are to your readers!

May the muse be with you.

Bio:

Want to learn more about prosperity practices? Join Mary in March for Prosperity Practices For Writers, a six week class beginning March 21. Learn about personal prosperity practices and how you can integrate them into your writing and your life to help support and energize you toward your financial goals! To register visit http://musecharmer.com/prosperity-practices/. There are deep discounts if you register before January 20.

Mary Calesto lives in the Ozarks with her partner and a menagerie of animals, including two spoiled horses, an opinionated parrot, a wiggly puppy, an office bunny, and the not-so-itty-bitty kitty committee.  She has written romance for over ten years under a few different pen names. These days, she spends time with her own writing and also uses her lengthy experience in publishing to coach authors as The Muse Charmer www.musecharmer.com . Her goal is to show authors the tools they need to reach their goals by working on the inner writer through a variety of techniques, plus help the outer writer with solid industry and craft advice.

I was getting ready to upload the closest thing I will have to any sort of New Year Resolution. First I wanted to do a bit of blog housekeeping, which includes checking my comments for any I might have missed, plus cleaning out the ever present Spam folder. As I was about to delete all unread, I noticed an exceptionally long message, much of which read like this:

{I have|I’ve} been {surfing|browsing} online more than {three|3|2|4} hours
today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. {It’s|It is} pretty worth enough for me. {In my opinion|Personally|In my
view}, if all {webmasters|site owners|website owners|web owners} and bloggers made good content as you did, the {internet|net|web} will be {much more|a lot more}
useful than ever before.|
I {couldn’t|could not} {resist|refrain from} commenting.
{Very well|Perfectly|Well|Exceptionally well} written!|
{I will|I’ll} {right away|immediately} {take hold of|grab|clutch|grasp|seize|snatch} your {rss|rss feed} as I {can not|can’t} {in
finding|find|to find} your {email|e-mail} subscription {link|hyperlink}
or {newsletter|e-newsletter} service. Do {you have|you’ve} any?

This goes on seriously for several pages. Do you think it’s some sort of template for spam messages? Confusing to say the least!

This Spam leaves a weird taste in my mouth

This picture is from 2010, right now we’re bright sunshine and dry, some days are even above freezing. Not to say we won’t be back to way too deep in snow soon so I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts. AFTER I finish this scene I’ve been working on. I was about to let Gavin and Jess get it on but they need to clear up some unanswered questions. Sorry, guys, you’ll have to wait a little longer {{insert evil chuckle}}

For you who are snowbound and looking for some great writing advice and inspiration, Marketing For Romance Writers has started a wonderful marketing blog with advice on writing better, and getting ourselves noticed as authors. I see Kayelle Allen has answered some of my questions about Using You Tube to our greatest advantage. Come on over and check it out.

Tomorrow I’ll share some of the inspirations behind my 2014 life adjustments.

According to WordPress I’ve written over fifty blogs in 2013…that’s pretty good. They want me to share my states with you but is anyone really interested in how many comments I’ve had on the blog this year?

I didn’t think so.

One thing I would like to remember about 2013 is participation in a wonderful anthology with a group of extremely dedicated writers, all of us giving our time and talent to encourage donations to a very worthy cause…clean drinking water for everyone. Here in the US many of us take clean water for granted. You turn the knob, water comes out of the faucet. Easy-peasy. That water starts…where? From a city water treatment, or from a very deep well underground? Knowing where the water we drink and use for every day chores comes from helps a lot when we need to think about water conservation.

All of the stories in Of Words and Water pertain in some way to how water affects our life. It might be as simple as a cup of tea or as frightening as a flood, or a drought. None of the writers will receive any compensation for their work, and the anthology is free to download. We only ask for a donation to this very worth cause, Wateraid This link will take you to more information, as well as a further link to their website.

New Year’s Eve is nearly upon us. I’ll be spending it at home, thank you very much. But I’m setting up a long distance group party with some friends. If you’re going to be around and lonely or bored, come on over…the Internet has to be good for something other than pictures of cats!