Meredith's Monday Musings: Giving

Hi Everyone!

How’s everyone’s week going so far? Only one more week until Christmas. Yay! That’s super exciting! I can’t wait for this holiday. :-)

Today’s Meredith’s Monday Musing topic is all about: Giving. 

If any of you really know me, you know that I love giving presents. There’s just something so special about the whole process. I know, I know, call me crazy. 

Before I purchase my present, I really try hard to put myself in the person’s shoes and see what they might need. If they don’t need anything, then I try hard to think about what they like/don’t like. This makes the biggest difference with if the person will enjoy their gift or not. Once I have this all in mind, I go searching in the store or internet. I really try to take my time and not rush. That’s the key. When you have to rush to buy someone a present, that’s when they usually don’t like it. At least, that’s how it’s been for me. Anywho, once I have the gift in mind, I wrap it because who doesn’t like getting to open a gift?  

Here comes the part that I love/hate. I love it when the recipient sees it for the first time and they’re eyes light up and I can tell how much they enjoy what I purchased. It makes me so happy! Here’s the part I hate. Once the shock wears off, they want to keep thanking me for their present and I become the center of attention. I don’t mind getting thanked, but when others are around and they comment, I’m not a fan of that. I prefer to do things behind the scenes. 

How do the rest of you feel about this? Let me know!

That’s all I have for this week. I hope everyone has a great day!

Meredith's Monday Musings: Soap Operas

Hi All!

Happy Monday! How is everyone today? Hopefully, you all are doing well. I’m doing pretty great! I’m getting really excited for Christmas, it’s right around the corner. I have a couple of last minute presents to wrap, but then I’m done for this holiday season. Woot woot! 

Today’s Meredith’s Monday Musings is all about: Soap Operas 

Who here wants to admit that they used to/still do watch a soap opera? Anyone? I’ll admit that I used to watch All My Children. Growing up, my Mom would watch it and of course I wanted to watch the show with her. Before I knew it, I got hooked on the show. 

I use to love watching All My Children. My favorite parts were always the drama scenes. When the hero, Ryan would save the heroine, Greenlee from the evil clutches of Dr. David Hayward. There was just something so exciting about it! 

I think this is one of the reasons why I love writing romance books today. Whenever I read fiction books, they’re good of course, but they don’t have the type of drama, suspense, and passion between two characters as characters in a romance book do. As an author, these are the most fun scenes to write too! 

Sadly, in 2011 All My Children was cancelled. :-( It broke my heart. Thankfully though, a few other avid fans put up dozens of clips from the show, so whenever I get stuck writing a scene, I always have those clips to get my muse going again. 

Before anyone says it, yes I know that General Hospital is still going. However, it just isn’t the same to me as All My Children. I grew up watching that soap opera. I knew the characters and their back stories so well. With General Hospital, I don’t know anything, so it’s really hard to get into watching it. 

So, will anyone admit now that they watch soap operas? It’s okay, I promise not to tell. ;-) 

That’s all I have for now. I hope you all have a great week, everyone! 

Meredith's Monday Musings: Book Titles

Hi All!

Happy Monday and the beginning of December! Omg! Can you all believe that we’re in the last month of 2017? I feel like it was literally yesterday and I was saying I can’t believe that it’s already the end of 2016. Where did this year go??

Today’s Meredith’s Monday Musings post is all about: Book Titles

I’m not sure if readers are aware, but it’s really hard (for me, at least) to come up with book titles for your stories. Not gunna lie, the past couple stories of mine, I’ve had one of my friends name them. She has an easy time coming up with titles for stories that aren’t hers, go figure. 

Here’s why it’s hard to come up with a title. First, you have to pick a catchy one. If you chose something like, “Blake Got Married”, that isn’t catchy at all and no one is going to want to buy it. Plus, the title gives away the whole plot to the story. As an author, we don’t want that. If our plot is already given away, what reason do readers have to buying our book? None. 

Once you have a catchy title in mind, you’ll want to make sure that it fits into the genre that you’re writing in and that it has easy searchable words. For instance, say I wrote a history book on Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun and titled it, “The Dictator and His Wife”. This title would fit into a history genre and dictator is a searchable word, so it could work for a book about Hitler and Braun. However, Dictator is such a generic word, in this case, you might want something more specific in the title. 

Lets take an erotic romance age play book. If we used the title, “Daddy’s Little Spy”, this would be good. For starters, it has the word Daddy and little in it, so readers will know 1) It’s an erotic book and 2) It has age play components in it. Then the word spy is going to let readers know that the heroine is a spy, but what is she spying on? Her Daddy? An enemy? What? It leaves the readers wanting more. Lastly, Daddy and little are searchable words. I could type “Daddy books” or “Daddy romance” or “little romance” into an Amazon search engine and several age play books, possibly including this one would pop up. So, readers who aren’t looking for a specific book could find this one and fall in love with it and you. 

Now do y’all have a better understanding of why it’s hard for authors to come up with titles for their stories? It takes a lot more thinking than one would expect to pick out that perfect title. 

That’s all I have for this week. I hope y’all have a great rest of the week!