What's on the Night Stand: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood & The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larson

What's on Pandora: Adiemus, by Karl Jenkins from the album: The Journey--The Best of Adiemus

Save the Words word of the Day: Panchymagogue (n) medicine purging body fluids from the body. 

100 Things about Me, okay 56 because I couldn’t think of 100 things.

You must know, obviously, if you read the “posted” by in the blogs, my name is not really MV Merchant. It is of course a pseudo...

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Part of being an author is critiquing. Not just your own stuff, but your peers. Your partners in scribe, your sounding boards, the only people in the world who seem to GET you. One of the many kernels of advice given to me by published authors is to have your manuscript read by as many people as possilbe. Find people outside your demographic, who aren't your normal audience, find friends who are readers--not writers, definitely have your writer friends read it as well, and by all means, if a ...
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Characters. Antagonists and protagonists, supporting and unimportant--we all have them. But how do we get them? How do we name them? The all seem to have their own unique personalities with minds of their own who hijack scenes and steal the plotline from you. They live inside us like some sort of latent personality disorder and are all distinct individuals. How do they get there?

Who is our inspiration for our characters? For me, they all seem to possess elements of people I know. I think it's...

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And what it takes to freelance

At one of those all-important writer's conferences, a keynote speaker mentioned the importance of building a forum for oneself. To create a foundation in the industry--such as writing articles, becoming a contributing writer for subject magazines (online or printed media)--something to begin building readership and a base for credentials. When I asked about blogging, I think I got the stink eye from more than one industry expert in there. Not that there's anythin...
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As the technology age increases and changes the way this publishing nonsense is done nowadays, so is the way one must market oneself. Gone are the days where a writer could be an eccentric recluse like Salinger, and here we are in the days of instant gratification and overexposure. If you're not screaming about your brand and creating a niche in this crowded world you're going to be that faded wallflower. I had an author site once befor with regular traffic of roughly 50 - 75 hits a month of ...

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