Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Small Town Book Stores.

There aren't too many small town book stores left. When you find one, you want to inhale the pages like a crack addict sucks his pipe. Though crack is common, books stores that have paper pages on the shelves, aren't.
As an Indie author who loves controlling everything from content to cover to marketing, I've learned that authors do what they do because they don't have other options. Not everyone can be traditionally published and there are many established authors who weren't traditionally published until after they made their name in the digital world.
Creative writing either burns through the artists' fingers and turns into words that touch humanity on a basic level, or it remains in their heads, making them crazy. Writers must write. With that said, book lovers must share their love of books. There are few people who need to inhale the scent of ink and freshly cut paper in order to survive. They're a dying breed of book lovers that'll never be replaced because they're the few that understand what it takes to create the art, create the pages, create the print, and in the end...create the magic.
My love, my heart, and my appreciation goes out to one of the few remaining independently owned bookstores I know of.
RedRockBooks thank you for remaining true and thank you for supporting me!
 

Row Your Own Boat!

 

Row Your Own Damn Boat!

 
I'm sure you know the "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," song, right? The one you sang as a child and sang to your children. It has something to do with rowing your boat gently and merrily down the stream?

Well, for some random reason, it popped in my head and now it's stuck there. Anyway, I got to thinking. (True to popular belief, fictional writers are strange creatures who sit at book and coffee cup covered desks all day. We use the time thinking up strange and bizarre things to write, even though the majority of those random thoughts never make it to the page because most of the crazy stuff we conjure up has absolutely nothing to do with anything.) Anyway, back to the quirky little boat song.
 
After all this time, it dawned on me. If I'm forced to row a boat (face it, not all of us are cut out to be on an Olympic rowing team) that means:

A.) I forgot to charge the battery,
B.) I forgot to put fuel in the motor, or
C.) The motor went out.

Regardless of the reason, I don't think I'd be rowing gently or merrily. So, the next time you get a wild hair and decide to go boating, let the oars serve as a reminder to check items A-C because no one wants to hear your revamped version of a classic song. ~ ML Stephens

Monday, February 3, 2014

Good cover artists are hard to find.

The Second Half

The Second Half

Based on a true story.


My daughter and her friends were discussing books.
One friend says, "Speaking of books, my mom's reading one and won't pull her head out of her laptop long enough to do anything else."
Misty: "What's she reading?"
Friend: "I think it's called Butt Assets."
Misty: "Do you mean Bare Assets?" (At this point, I'm laughing so hard, I nearly pee my pants. I can't imagine what must be going through this child's mind. But let's face it...Butt Assets? What a great erotica title.) Bahaha. Anyway, on with the story.
Misty's friend: "Bare Assets! That's the name of it! How'd you know?"
Misty: "Because my mom wrote it." (Now, I can only imagine what's going through my daughter's mind and the minds of all the girls who are still stuck on the Butt Assets title. After all, my mind's still stuck on it. Isn't yours?)
Friend: "Are you serious? Your mom wrote that? Well, tell your mom that my mom was too busy to cook this weekend because she was reading your mom's book."
Misty: "I know what you mean. My mom's face is usually stuck in the computer too. We eat lots of pizza at my place."

Moral of the story: Our children only hear half of what we say. In this story, Bare Assets became Butt Assets. Does that mean, "Clean your room, " becomes "Destroy your room?" Think about it. Should the first half of anything we say be the last half? Is that what copy editing is all about? All I know is I should reevaluate the meal plan and toss in a bucket of chicken from time to time and really kick the menu up a notch.  ~ M. L. Stephens

Saturday, February 1, 2014


Speak Your Mind!!
 
 
If you want sweetly, packaged romance...this page isn't for you. This page is for those that read and appreciate most genres...most notably erotica. If we're sitting side by side on a bar stool and I use the word asshole to describe a man (or woman) that is an asshole, and you get offended...this page or writing isn't for you. If you don't like RAW, adult consensual sex (whether it's in the vagina, between the tits, in the ass or whatever...) Not your page. This page and what I'm writing in The Net isn't sugar coated. It's RAW! Like it, love it or leave it because Missy Leigh's upcoming debut is the hard core truth.