MGR Tour: Favorites of 2015

I listed a few of my favorites from all venues for 2015. Come see what I liked and share what you liked throughout the year.

Merry Go Round Blog Spot for November: What's New in 2015?

Nettle Pod 2015 by Randy Cockrell

Oh my! New stuff!

So much has happened to me this year I really need to think about what is new and what isn't.

One thing that is new is my love of a new to me author, Nevada Barr. I started writing cozy fiction last year and published my first work this year. See the subtle nudge at the end of this post. Anyway, my brother-in-law lent me his collection of Nevada Barr stories set around her protagonist Anna Pigeon. I love this series. First of all Anna Pigeon is my kind of gal. She loves the outdoors, fancy dress is not for her and to be honest, she likes her cat better than most people. What is not to love? I've read mystery stories for years, starting with Miss Marple stories by Agatha Christie. Anyway, I thought it was time to read some newer stuff. There is SO much out there and to be honest, I love it all. Anyway. If you're looking for some new mystery fiction, check out Nevada Barr.

Other new stuff? I don't know. I rarely listen to music anywhere. If I do, it's in the car and I live in a remote area. The local stations play oldies. When in the car, we have satellite radio and listen to, wait for it, oldies. Actually channel 32, soft rock. Of every station available on the satellite radio, what we ended up listening to was channel 32. Sigh. Sometimes you just have to go with your favs.

Food. I'm a food adventurer. I love trying all sorts of food. Unfortunately, I haven't been anywhere that's offered me a new taste sensation.

On a positive note I do try new blogs all the time. I have my favs and many of them are industry favorites. However, I do read some that are unique and interesting to me.

One is https://talainsphotographyblog.wordpress.com/ I love the simplicity of this blog. He posts pictures. Birds, butterflies, flowers. Restful and peaceful. This is a wonderful blog.

Another blog, one that may be considered an industry fav is http://kriswrites.com/business-rusch-publishing-articles/. Kristine Rusch publishes a lot of stuff, free fiction, this business blog, all sorts of other things. What I love is how wide ranging her blogs are. Business, art, personal, there is a blog for everything. Especially the business blog posts. If you are serious about becoming the writer you've always wanted to be, this is just one of the blogs you need to follow.

Another is http://goanwiki.com/. I love this blog. The food from a specific part of India and with a family story with each recipe. How awesome is that? For me the major draw is that many of the recipes are naturally gluten-free and those that aren't can be made so quite easily. This is a wonderful blog for me.

For me, 2015 was a year of discovery and adventure. I hope it was for you, too. Let me know in the comments what was a discovery for you. A new recipe? A new favorite vacation spot? A new band? Shout it out. I'd love to hear about it and try it out for myself.

Mystery at the Fair released July 15th! I'm pretty excited about it. You can buy it and my other books at: Apple, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, or Smashwords today! You can also see all of my books on www.ConniesRandomThoughts.com, Books tab. If you've read any of my books, please drop a review on the site where you bought it. It's a big help to me in the book rankings each vendor uses to promote the books on their sites. Thanks in advance. 

The Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour is sponsored by the website Forward Motion (http://www.fmwriters.com). The tour is you, the reader, traveling 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

A Few of My Favorite Things from 2015

When I read this topic, what immediately came to mind was the song from Sound of Music, hence my title.

Choosing favorites is one of the worst jobs in the world because you’re not really choosing favorites if you’re doing it right. Everything I enjoyed this year is a favorite or I wouldn’t have enjoyed it, and as in the song, there are so many favorites small or large that no single post could cover them.

A lot of my favorite things are nature-oriented such as delighting in the strength of the trees in my neighborhood (it was newish when we moved in 10 years ago, so the trees took a bit to grow), especially now with them displaying their fall colors. I love the way there is snow on the mountains in all four directions as much as it hints at a hard winter because we need the water and there’s something magical about the crisp snow air.

Those above are the easy ones. With things like books, movies, etc., it depends on my mood. Here are some of the ones that come to mind today, though a different group might float to the top tomorrow:

Read more on Tales to Tide You Over

MGR Tour: Influence

Join me this month while I discuss writers who have influenced me.

Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour: How my Favorite Authors Have Influenced Me

Last month, we talked about my favorite genre being Science Fiction. I read a lot before then but other than Gone With the Wind, which I first read at twelve, I don't remember any of the stories. I was a regular at the classroom library and the school library, but there was no lasting impression.

What did impress me was that box of books I mentioned last month. Notable in there were books of short stories by Robert Heinlein and Issac Asimov. I fell in love with Heinlein's, Podkayne of Mars, and Asimov's robot stories. In high school, I dove into the much larger science fiction section. There I found Arthur C. Clarke and Ursula LeGuin. As a young adult, I found C.J. Cherryh and Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon.

Read more of this post here. 

The Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour is sponsored by the website Forward Motion (http://www.fmwriters.com). The tour is you, the reader, traveling 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

Authors Who Have Influenced My Writing

This month’s Merry-Go-Round topic is a hard one for me, though perhaps not for the reasons you suspect. The topic is “If you could be another writer, who would you want to be? Or what have you learned from them?” While I do not want to become another writer, I have certainly learned from many. This answer will have some crossover in my favorite reads because that’s whom I learn from as well, but the focus will be different.

My earliest influence as a writer has to be Andrew Lang, who compiled a series of fairytale books. From those, I learned the patterns, tropes, that underlie many genres, and I learned my first rebellions. My early stories were all fairytales, but while some followed the tropes, others broke them by empowering the female characters, undermining the concept of clear good and evil, and making other changes to reflect my complex reality. I think of one in particular where the beast terrifying the land is the ensorcelled twin brother of a simple peasant…and my “princess” is another peasant who goes to the king to demand assistance, and ends up accepting both brothers into her life.

Read more on Tales to Tide You Over

MGR Tour: Reading and Writing -- Do They Line Up?

Come on over and see what I read and whether or not it lines up with what I write.

Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour: What Genres do I like to Read and Write?

My very favorite genre is Science Fiction. When I was a young teen my friend received a whole box of SciFi books from someone who gave them away for a paper drive. I spent the whole summer with my nose in those books. I found the worlds fantastic and the ability of Science Fiction to explore an alternate way of life has not lost its charm for me yet.

I also like mystery stories. 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

My Favorite Genres for Writing and Reading

This is a hard topic for me because I’ve hardly met a genre in which I haven’t found at least one book to enjoy, and odd stories have popped up from all sorts of genres I never imagined writing.

If you want my oldest favorite, that would have to be science fiction. I had a troubled time with reading in school during my early years. I could not find anything valuable in the books I was offered (Dick and Jane) and so decided the whole thing wasn’t worth my time. Then my sister stepped in with Anne McCaffrey and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

At the time, both Pern and Darkover were filed under science fiction (don’t ask me what I think of the shift), as both are anthropological science fiction. I adored the cultures and the interactions between people of different traditions. As a diplomat’s kid, it was as though they were writing for me.
Read more on Tales to Tide You Over

What I learned from other genres

Though I'm not sure what type of writer I am, I know I enjoy writing and reading romance most.

I write to share my creativity, help others and hold myself accountable. I'm not tied by one type of story telling and love blending element across genres.

And why not?

It's fun!

You may read the more, or follow me on The Literary Hub 

MGR: Lessons from Other Genres

I was at a loss for how to approach this month's topic, but I gave it the old "college try." Read what I came up with here.

Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour: What have I learned from other story-telling genres?

I'm an eclectic writer. While I love SciFi and write in that genre often, I don't limit myself to just that form. What that means is, I need to be consciously aware of the tropes, the expectations, if you will, of every genre I write in.

A good example is my latest book, Mystery at the Fair. I've been reading mysteries and thrillers since I was a teen, right along with my SciFi and Fantasy. But I was never conscious of what it was about those stories that made them a mystery, rather than a SciFi or a Fantasy.

Of course, there's the mystery. That much is obvious. But what makes it a mystery? See more at ConniesRandomThoughts.com.

Mystery at the Fair released July 15th! I'm pretty excited about it. You can buy it and my other books at: Apple, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, or Smashwords today! You can also see all of my books on www.ConniesRandomThoughts.com, Books tab. If you've read any of my books, please drop a review on the site where you bought it. It's a big help to me in the book rankings each vendor uses to promote the books on their sites. Thanks in advance.

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

Lessons Learned from Other Storytelling Genres: 2015 Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour

The topic for this month is lessons learned from other storytelling genres. This is a strong one for me because I didn't come to storytelling through writing. I came to it from an oral tradition that I later tried to translate into written form. I never did finish that project, but have since moved on to new ones.

I feel I've already given a strong example in a post I made all the way back in 2012 (which you can read about here) where I compared two television shows that on the surface are completely different and yet share at least two character arcs (one I discuss and the other mentioned in the comments). The two shows are Chuck and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Read more on Tales to Tide You Over

Robecca Austin - Midyear check in 2015

I find time passing more quickly than previous years which is laughable since they are exactly twelve months annually year after year.

I wrote new words for most of this year 2015. I’m also working of editing and finishing a few older pieces. It’s also the last stretch for the novel writing class I’m taking. Blacksmith’s Wife, a short fiction is being edited before going out to my first readers.

Read more on The Literary Hub

 

 

Mid-Year Checkin (yes I'm late)

One of the January goals I’m doing the worst on is keeping up with my blog posts :p But I haven’t been great with many of the others. Not terrible, either, for the most part. How am I doing with the rest? Check it out at https://bonniers.wordpress.com/2015/07/20/mgr-mid-year-checkin/

MGR Tour: Mid-Year Check-In

Howdy, MGRers. We're avoiding the mid-summer heat and staying cool while we check on our progress for the year so far. Here's mine -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour: July - Mid-Year Check-In - how you're doing on your January goals

Picture is Goal by oscarsnapshotter via www.DeviantArt.com

I haven't checked on my annual goals for awhile so this is a great chance for me to check out where I am!

1. Upgrade my blog site to a real website: I've been poking at this for awhile but at the end of June I went into WordPress and poked around until I figured out I needed to do a domain mapping to make everything work correctly. This $13 dollar per year fix seems to have been the final step. Yay. Up to this point I'd been double posting my posts on both the Wordpress site and the GoDaddy site. Not convenient at all. I'm so happy!

2. Research the pros and cons of selling my books from my own website. If it seems good, get that page set up: Umm, nope. Nothing done on that but, to be honest, just got the website going. I still have some time before the end of the year.

Click here to read the rest!