Author: Melissa Bowersock

Melissa Bowersock is an eclectic, award-winning author who writes in a variety of fiction and non-fiction genres. She has been both traditionally and independently published and lives in a small community in northern Arizona. Learn more about Melissa from her Amazon author page and her blog.

The Rise of Technology = The Rise of Indie Authors and Publishers

indie author at work pixabay robot-507811_640The other day, my internet went out. Not a huge problem; there was a cable cut somewhere and it was fixed within 24 hours. I can live without Facebook for 24 hours, right? That’s not a necessity.

But I was working.

Oh, sure, I could still write, and I did, but I couldn’t do anything else. I had been seeing to some last-minute confirmations for a couple of workshops I’m teaching for a continuing education program. I was trying to get a reservation at an upcoming book festival. I was organizing a book signing in a town across the state. I was corresponding with a neighboring library about another book signing. And I was wanting to shout to the world that one of my books was a finalist in a book award contest.

And I couldn’t do any of those things. Continue reading “The Rise of Technology = The Rise of Indie Authors and Publishers”

Dealing with Emotions as We Write

author despair-513529_640I’m writing a particularly dramatic book right now with its fair share of tragedy and sadness. The story concerns an elderly lady with Alzheimer’s but then goes deeper than that, into family secrets and how they hurt everyone involved. Although I’m injecting lighter moments into it here and there, there’s no denying it’s a depressing subject. Every time I write a serious passage, I can feel it in my body. I feel heavy, low on energy, pessimistic. I might leave the book to go do some household chore and still feel the looming heaviness of it, as if I’d just heard that someone was dying. I can pinpoint where it’s coming from, of course, but that doesn’t dispel it. Then I have to ask myself: Do I want to dispel it? Continue reading “Dealing with Emotions as We Write”

Battling the Misconceptions about Self-Publishing

slaying self publishing misconceptions knight-40850_640For the past few months I’ve been preparing for a couple of workshops I’m going to be giving on self-publishing. There’s a continuing education program that’s just starting in my little town, so I figured this was a great time to do one workshop on self-pubbing paperbacks and one on eBooks. Last fall, a few other local authors and I held a panel discussion on the various ways to self-publish, and we had a great turnout, so my more in-depth workshops seemed like a natural progression.

In the ramp-up to the new fall semester, the learning institute has been organizing meet-and-greets at various locations where all of us facilitators can interact with the interested public and get to know each other. It’s been quite an education in and of itself hearing what misconceptions people have about self-publishing. I am constantly amazed at the wild ideas people have. Here are a few of the things people have said to me: Continue reading “Battling the Misconceptions about Self-Publishing”

Synchronicity: Finding Meaning in Writing

scarab beetle synchronicity in writing pixabaySynchronicity [sing-kruh-nis-i-tee] is a concept developed by psychiatrist Carl Jung, who felt that it was possible for seemingly unrelated events to come together in “meaningful coincidences.” In his book by the same title, he told of a patient who seemed to reach an impasse and was making no further progress in treatment. During a session, she told him she’d had a dream about someone giving her a golden scarab, an expensive piece of jewelry. While she was talking, Jung heard a tapping on his window behind him, opened it and a large green-gold scarab beetle flew in. Jung caught it and handed it to the woman, saying, “Here is your scarab,” and from that point on, she made great progress in her treatment.

The novel I’ve been working on concerns a young woman who inadvertently ends up being the primary caretaker of her elderly aunt who has Alzheimer’s. After the death of the aunt, the woman uncovers family secrets that change her perception of most of what she thought she knew. I’m to the point in the book where I’m about ready to kill off the aunt. No, I won’t murder her; she dies of natural causes, but I was struggling with whether or not the timing was right. I felt like I wanted to provide a bit more substance before the aunt’s death, but I wasn’t sure what that substance would be. My writing stalled. Continue reading “Synchronicity: Finding Meaning in Writing”