M.A. Granovsky's Blog

Reblogged from TheFickleBrain:

"Il y a plus de courage que de talent dans la plupart des réussites." - Félix Leclerc

[ "There's more courage than talent behind the majority of successes."]

Reblogged from Destiny Allison:

Maintaining enthusiasm can be hard, even when you're passionate, love what you do, and believe in yourself. It's easy to get lost in all the tedious parts of your craft or be consumed by the ever present marketing of your work.

Creativity requires juice -- hot, electric, and wet, but juice doesn't come from a muse. No bolt of inspirational lightning will bring it on.

Read more… 475 more words

Reblogged from Words in mOcean:

Follow @D_Aldridge

Location:Somewhere you don’t want to live

Salary:Nowhere near enough given the ridiculous number of qualifications you have

Contract type:Full-time permanent*

Interview Date:Don’t worry, you probably won’t make this stage

*”Permanent” refers to your expected working hours on campus, NOT your job security, benefits, healthcare etc.

Read more… 315 more words

I’m not much of a rebel — don’t have a nose ring, haven’t run away from home, and didn’t expect to publish POISON PILL independently. But a handful of rejections from the traditional publishing industry reminded me that I’m not a fan of the word “no,” and convinced me to try my own luck. As with any new endeavor, there were many mistakes from which to learn along the way. Below is a curated selection for your enjoyment.

Hire the best editor you can afford, not the cheapest.

Good professional ed...

My only purchase on e-Bay is this brooch, which I bought for under $30 over a decade ago:

It belonged to the seller’s grandmother, and I remember wondering why she was selling it and feeling badly for buying a piece of her personal history so cheaply. In the listing, the seller wrote that a jeweler had determined the five pearls to be real Akoyas set in base metal, and that he had said that first-quality pearls were often incorporated in high-end Japanese costume jewelery pieces in the 1950s....

A couple of years ago, I was grousing to a friend about one woe or another (as I am wont to do). He listened to my recitation with appropriate sympathy and with understanding laughter (because I do try to make my stories of woe funny – if you’re going to cry on friends’ shoulders, entertaining them while doing so usually ensures future availability of said shoulders).

Then he uttered this life-altering phrase: “every situation is either a good situation or a good story.”

I stopped moping on the...

Here’s the updated schedule (fellow bloggers, if you’d like a day off, I’ll be happy to sub with a guest post – see available dates and details on my page at Orangeberry Book Tours – dates are available in April and May!):

18th March – Book Review & Author Interview at The Book Connoisseur

19th March – Book Review & Guest Post at The Reading Cat

20th March – Author Interview at High Class Books

21st March – Guest Post, Author Interview & Book Feature at Talisman Book Publishing

22nd March – Guest...

Here’s the schedule so far:

11th March – Book Review &Author Interview atMommy Adventures

12th March -Guest Post & Book Feature atThe Bunny’s Review

14th March – Book Review & Author Interview at Author’s Friend

15th March – Book Review & Guest Post at Blog-A-Licious Authors

16th March – Guest Post & Book Feature at Fighting Monkey Press

17th March – Book Review at Brainy Book Reads

18th March – Book Review & Author Interview at The Book Connoisseur

19th March – Book Review & Guest Post at The Readin...

This post was going to be a visually-appealing post about locations and settings in fiction. I had high hopes for my originally-intended post, not least because I was looking forward to including lots of pictures from my travels.

But two things happened to derail my intentions:

(1) I over-committed and overextended myself, thinking I could cram two weeks’ worth of writing into two days; and

(2) I read Ellis Shuman’s excellent recent post about the important role of location in novels, and it sai...

Recently, I finished reading an indie novel. I bought it because its Amazon page glittered with 5- and 4-star reviews. But it was trite, predictable, with characters that were shopworn even thirty years ago, and — the sin of all sins — boring. Because I know the effort it takes to write a novel, and the hope vested in its publication, I was still determined to be supportive, write a kind review, and give the book three stars.

But I just couldn’t do it. This book didn’t deserve three stars. It...