Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour: May - In Memoriam or My Favorite Books

I was a pre-teen when I discovered science fiction. I was a reader before then and not the easy stuff either. I read Gone With the Wind when I was twelve. I wonder now what the librarian who checked out the book for me thought but she never said a word about the appropriateness of that title for a 12-year-old.

My first SciFi authors? E.E. "Doc" Smith, Robert Heinlein, Issac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke, all sadly gone now. No one told me that those books were for boys. I read through them avidly and reread them over and over. If you haven't read Doc Smith's the Lensman, it can be kind of dated but the last book in the series really shows women in a strong light and the ultimate conclusion must have been controversial at the time. Probably still is. No spoilers, read the series.

Read more here.

Note: I'm transferring from this wordpress site to an actual website address. It's www.conniesrandomthoughts.com. Check out the new web site and follow that because in the near future, this page will be going away. Don't miss out on stories and publishing updates. Go follow the new site today!

The Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour is sponsored by the website Forward Motion (http://www.fmwriters.com). The tour is you, the reader, travelling the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. There are all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s always something new and different to enjoy. If you want to get to know the nearly twenty other writers check out the rest of the tour at http://merrygoroundtour.blogspot.com!  Up next: Jean Schara

Margaret McGaffey Fisk - In Memoriam - Desmond O'Grady, Poet and Friend

There are people in your life that are pivotal to how you perceive the world, even if you don't know their full story, even if it was a fragment of your existence.

Desmond O'Grady was one of those people for me. I met him when I was about six years old. I had no idea how old he was beyond "adult" and didn't learn until last year when he died that he was an internationally known poet. I knew he had some measure of fame from how my family visited him in Boston when he was doing a reading, but I saw my Desmond with little understanding of the bigger picture.

So while his bios and tributes talk about what schools he taught at, the places he'd been and who he met, I'm going to talk about the adult who didn't care about age, who wasn't perfect, had some bizarre quirks, and created strong communities of fascinating people.
Read more on Tales to Tide You Over

Thoughts on Pratchett

Sometimes, reading an author's earlier work can leave a reader disappointed. Come check out my blog to see why I don't think that's true of Terry Pratchett.

Readers' Sites

I don't hang out in reader communities much these days. I did for a while, trying to be friendly and take part in conversations but I quickly learned one important fact: readers are not like writers.

Here

MGR Tour: Online Reader Communities

This month I'm discussing online reader communities.  Come see what I have to say.

Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour: April - On Line Communities for Readers

Uh oh, you caught me. I'll have to confess that I don't know about online reader communities. I should, as an author, have a whole list of reader communities that read my genre's books but I don't.
Read more here.

The Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour is sponsored by the website Forward Motion (http://www.fmwriters.com). The tour is you, the reader, travelling the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. There are all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s always something new and different to enjoy. If you want to get to know the nearly twenty other writers check out the rest of the tour at http://merrygoroundtour.blogspot.com!  Up next: Jean Schara

Margaret McGaffey Fisk on Online Reading Communities

I keep hearing how no one is reading, how there are no more readers anymore. I’m a little confused by this considering I am surrounded by readers in both my physical and online life.

The question with this month’s topic is not so much what to talk about but rather how to narrow it down. Since the topic refers to communities, I’ve decided to talk about two I participate in at least to the extent of posting my book reviews and tracking my own reading, though I’ve done more on and off in both. These are GoodReads and LibraryThing.

I had a grand plan of interviewing my sister who is a much more avid user of LibraryThing, actively participating in discussions and the like, but life happened so you’ll have to survive on my own impressions. Maybe she’ll write something in the comments (hint, hint).

Based on my experience, the main features in both online communities are the ability to track what you’re reading, a forum built around talking about what you read, and the giveaway programs.
Read more on Tales to Tide You Over

Hobbies and Writing

     Somehow I just keep getting later and later. I set alarms and they don't go off. I put the information on notes on my desk and the cats sleep on them. At some point, I'll get this into my brain again.

But writing and hobbies. . . .

I am a photographer. I can't think of a better hobby for an author because it does two things that helps with writing.

 

Read More Here

MGR: Hobbies that Help?

I talk about this month's topic over at my blog.  Come see.

Margaret McGaffey Fisk on Hobbies and Crafts Aiding Writing

The topic this month is an interesting one for me because I’m a bit of a generalist as are many writers. I list among my crafts and hobbies everything from quilting to drawing to playing the guitar to doing puzzle books. Reading I don’t really consider a hobby, but then it’s life critical.

The thing about creative outlets is they draw from the same creative pool. There’s the risk of taking energy away from something I’m writing by indulging in one of my hobbies, but at the same time, they can have a renewing influence when I’m tapped or stuck.

The risk, or maybe the reality, of how much creative energy my writing demands is the reason my creative hobbies often fall by the wayside. My life is littered with guitar songs I planned to learn, quilts I’m in the middle of sewing, drawings abandoned because it takes too long to get them right, and more other projects than I can think of offhand, which doesn’t even begin to touch the things I’ve wanted to do but never started.

From the above, you might think my hobbies have an antagonistic relationship with my writing, but that really isn’t true. Beyond the renewal, playing the guitar can set my mind spinning through different answers to plot points I’m struggling with. My drawing might be restricted to marginalia at this point, but those same skills have helped me produce covers that have drawn many positive comments. Without that ability, I would have had many fewer titles released because of startup costs.

However, I want to talk about the least likely and ultimately one of the most helpful hobbies I’ve found: quilting.

Read more on Tales to Tide You Over

MGR Tour: Ideal Writing Retreat

I had fun with this month's prompt.  Go read about it here.

Zette's Retreat

Yes, I am late again. Sigh.

I've been busy with the writing stuff. I just finished the last big edit of a novel (In the Shadow of Giants) and just have to wait back on stuff from the editor. This is going to be my first release for 2015. It's been difficult work, but I love the story.

      Which brings me to the subject of this month . . . The Perfect Writing Retreat.

        I would have a problem with something like this. I really would, and not because I can't write away from home. 

Read more here

Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour for February: What Would Be My Dream Writing Retreat?

A dream writing retreat? I don't know. I'm new to writing, as many of you know from reading these posts. I started writing in late 2011. I have a nice set-up in the third bedroom of our house with a main computer, a small TV as a monitor, and a glass-topped desk. But I have been known to hand-write stories in the back seat of our car when we're on a road trip, in the local coffee shop and even in a tiny notebook in the waiting area of the local tire shop when my car's tires were being changed out.

But where would I love to be when writing? Click here to read more.


The Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour is sponsored by the website Forward Motion (http://www.fmwriters.com). The tour is you, the reader, travelling the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. There are all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s always something new and different to enjoy. If you want to get to know the nearly twenty other writers check out the rest of the tour at http://merrygoroundtour.blogspot.com!  Up next: Jean Schara

I always thought it would be easier to get away for a writing retreat after the kids left home and we retired. No obligations, no kids to take priority, no...

Read the rest at https://bonniers.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/mgr-february-dream-writing-retreat

Dream Writing Retreat: 2015 Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour

When I was in college, I had this image of my life afterwards as a permanent writing retreat. I would live in a cabin in the woods, only come out for supplies, and write all the time.

Well, life happened.

I met my husband before I graduated, we had two kids shortly after, and writing became a hobby I slipped into the cracks between working full time, caring for the boys, and enjoying myself.

What I realize now, though, is just how quickly I would have grown stagnant, become a hermit with nothing new to say, had I made that dream happen.

I have written on a Palm Pilot with an IR keyboard while at noisy kids places like Chuck E. Cheese, Great America, and my favorite though now defunct, The Discovery Zone. I have written while sitting in my car outside of my son’s first college (a high school/college hybrid) on my phone. I have written while standing in line at the DMV, using the notes function on my Kindle... Read more on Tales to Tide You Over.

Better late than never?

Better late than never? Here's my Merry-Go-Round blog post for January :)

I've been struggling all month to write this post, not because the post itself is so difficult but because the goals I wanted to write about refused to stay put. I knew I was going to need to be flexible what with the first grandbaby arriving in February and the usual family obligations and impromptu weekends in the mountains, but the lists I came up with were more than flexible. It didn't seem to matter what order I put things in, or whether I changed one project for another. They were all equally arbitrary and equally impossible to believe in. (Read more at Cowgirl in New England)

Where -- no, how -- I work best

If you could work anywhere you wanted, do you know where it would be? For me, it's not so much a place as a way of working. Come by my blog and see what I mean.