War

I recently found few poems that I had written, I stopped writing poetry because so much was going on at the time finishing college, next becoming a new mother, 2009 I began writing novels that end at 100K and haven't looked back, but I thought it would be fun to show a sample of my two favorite poems I wrote. Alone © Keisha Martin 1997 Here I sit all alone My fingers clenched coldness seeps through my bones. I start to wonder I start to see why there was no one left aside from me The world is cold hungry with fear I wish I had someone near, cradled my body in a ball I take my last breath and give in to the loneliness. That's it I wrote this poem when I was a teen, I wish I could time travel and see my younger self and figure out what was going on when I wrote that poem. Tears Of War © Keisha Martin War how vivid it be The redness of lost souls stains the midnight skies, The children weep but not for long, their hearts frozen forever The cruelness astonishing as can be Woman cry and hold their womb They would not see their precious ones The stillness of the night, leaves a mystery A nation destroyed on the mercy of the innocence When will the tears end and laughter roar, when will the green grass blow again in the hot summer sun When will all men be treated as one When.

Woes of changing things...like the ole blog

I have come to realize I am the type of person that needs to change things. One of which is my home... well that's more a stress reliever thing, anyways changing my blog has become a habit I change my blog sometimes more than I actually write on the blog, but the problem with change things don't always work out to better than the former change. For example I changed the design which I love thanks to people that enable free backgrounds anyways I hit a snag when all my lovely side pics, etc were sent to the bottom and I spent hours trying to figure out the layout issue so I have given up and perhaps when I am less frustrated I will figure it out so I hope you the reader will enjoy my blog background and now to write whilst I battle my flu.

K.M. Jackson

I am so excited to introduce K.M. Jackson, who I met about a year ago via twitter there are many attributes that I like about K.M. Jackson but the main one is how genuine she is to her fellow writers, K.M. is positive and offers motivation to others when she announced her book deal I was so happy for her because its well deserved for a great person. So enough of my chatter take it away K.M. Jackson. Thanks so much for having me here today Keisha to talk writing and THROUGH THE LENS. My first thought upon seeing your questions was, wow, tough questions! But I hope I can do them justice and give your readers something to go on or at least an opportunity to say, that K.M. is a piece of work maybe I should pick up her book. LOL. So now to the questions… Here goes. Describe your path to publication? What were the highlights and stumbles along the way? My path to publication has not been a straight one. I always tell people that as a kid I always had two “when I grow up” dreams. I guess both my dreams came from mostly living half my life in my own little “dream state” of having my nose buried in either a fashion magazines or a romance book. I went from being a science and math geek in high school to a fashionista and attending FIT for college. Then I spent years in the not quite so glam world of New York fashion. After 10 years designing for New York houses (and then losing my perfect caregiver for my twins) I left that world to be a stay at home mother. Not long after (with a few tries a various freelancing endeavors. Yes, that was me with the nametag organizing your closet.), I started to pursue my 2nd dream to be a being a writer. And bam! 10 short years later and 6 or it could be 7 manuscripts later (I may have blocked 1 out) and more rejections than I would ever dare count I’m finally debuting my first romance THROUGH THE LENS. Clapping here is allowed. What were the challenges? The challenges were getting back to the page and writing after yet another rejection. As I said above and it’s really no joke there were yes, more rejections than I could count and more near misses. So many of the ‘oh you are so close’ and ‘please think of us and send us your next work’ letters. Well, I’ll tell you, I think I wanted to scream more at those than the flat out rejections at times. It was like, why won’t someone just put me out of my misery? Why string me along with this just give it one more try stuff? But you know what? I did give it one more try and kept giving it one more try and still do to this day. I guess I always will. It’s my never say die make up. As writers we are always up for criticism and possible rejections and my constant challenge is fear and the blank page. I have to always tell myself to just give it one more go. That the next work may be better and it may be that “yes” that I’ve been waiting for. Besides I have to live the words I tell my kids every day. What is at the heart of the enduring appeal of romance, for reader? Now this was the tough one. I think that this is a broad question and people may read romance for many different reasons. I know that I do at different times of my life. Sure, I can easily break it down and say they are there for the happily ever after but it may not be as easy as that. I think the romance reader is a lot more complex than just the happily ever after and they are there for more. The developing stories and the interesting characters, the high emotions and yes, the chance to for a while escape to another world. I know, for me, it all depends on my mood at the time and where I want to go in that moment to get the emotional story satisfaction that I’m looking for. What advice do you have for beginning writers? My advice for the beginning writer would be to keep writing. And then write some more. That “No writing is wasted” saying (that I’ve long hated) turns out to be true. The more you write the better you get and the more you learn to trust yourself and your voice. Happy Writing! Well at least as happy as your mood can make it on any given day. Just get to the page and write. That will make you happy. Thanks so much once again for having me here today Keisha. It’s been a real pleasure. And now a bit about THROUGH THE LENS available now from Crimson Romance Mika Walters is a normal woman working in the not so normal world of New York Fashion. As long time assistant to uber sexy photographer Alejandro Vargas she’s tired of being the girl in the background. Just once she wants Alejandro to look at her with the same smoldering look he gives to his willowy models and now she has her chance. Stranded. After a travel mishap where the rest of the crew and the models can’t make the remote location shoot for another three days Mika is taking her moment to catch Alejandro’s eye and put herself in front of Alejandro’s camera and if all goes to plan, his bed… at least until the real world catches up with them. Alejandro doesn’t know what’s gotten into Mika maybe it’s the sand, maybe it’s the sun, but he doesn’t really care. All he knows is that he’s finally opened his eyes and is seeing her clearly for the first time as the smart, gorgeous and incredibly irresistible woman she is. But why can’t she realize that what he’s feeling for her is not one of his usual one, well, three night stands? This is real. Real love, real passion. What’s it going to take for him to prove to Mika that she’s the woman he wants? Now and forever. available from Amazon Barnes & Noble iTunes K.M. Can be found on here blog twitter

Writing Goal(s)

Seems Fall...or close to the Fall season is a good enough time to revisit the ole goal(s) for writing, firstly I am proud of myself that I haven't giving up my dream and still writing since 2010, I am currently getting help from a wonderful editor who knocked sense into me which resulted in me rewriting the manuscript chapter by chapter, so I guess that's the goal, the only one keep going, hoping because I believe that getting published is so important to me the more I persevere hopefully I will see positive results.

Writer's sharing knowledge

Wonderful article that was so good, I had to come out of my blogging respite to share, it brought many things into perspective and why there are so many factors that contribute to finding a great agent, getting published, and success selling books etc.

Blogging funk.

So my plan of blogging frequently once again is a goal that is easier said than done, I must admit I am having a hard time figuring out this blogging routine, and I realize its because at times I feel like I don't know what to say in regards to writing that hasn't been said,by other bloggers. For example I can say the same thing and twist it to reflect my personality but my heart seems as of late somewhat not feeling the blogging routine, but I know that its necessary for myself as an aspiring author to have a blog so if and when I get an agent published I already have a platform. The other issue is that many times I feel like what can I say that sets me apart from someone else that is enduring similar things as they journey through their publishing goal, and then it hit me its not about setting myself apart from others actually when I thought like that it now sounded quite cocky, so I had to humble myself and tell myself each person although on the same path responds different makes decisions different that leads to a different direction, I won't divulge about many authors that have self published did well financially, gained agent, publisher etc. So what will my plan be, well I decided I won't put pressure on myself when I have things to talk about I will write about it, because only then will my passion show, its not a race which could be why I was struggling and also another truth blogging is not about numbers, I do check out blogs of authors/writers with five thousand plus followers and some that have numbers similar to mine, the numbers to me does not on a large scale determine whether someone will buy authors book or will follow authors or aspiring authors journey, blogging is like writing a manuscript in a way...its only possible when the passion is involved I have tons of ideas many that is stored in notebooks labelled with dates when I will write them but I have not gone to that bin because the idea that pops in my head that fuels my passion is what I tend to write, for example week of July 2-6 these are the ideas that spawned. 1. Inspired by Stephen King short story THE BODY( I watched Stand By Me and the spark came and I said " I would love to write a novel inspired by movie and book, the idea lasted two days.) 2. Inspired by Stephen King Needful things (This was due to J.K Rowling new novel for adults a individual made a comment that the book sounds a lot like Needful Things,boom inspired that fizzled in a few hours 3. Snow White (I saw Snow White and the Huntsman) The idea to make my twist on this story that has been written so many times fizzled within a few hours as well, then came the idea with passion a steampunk, I knew that it was filled with passion because I wrote an outline and researched right away. I also have a file on my wall that reads next outline to choose, the next projects were a few adult steamy romance and a Dystopia novel again based on Stephen King Running Man, three books by Stephen King that has me inspired wow that scared me because normally I don't read too much of said author books aside from the ones I mentioned. So that is it, the point of this long post is write with passion and I will conclude my post with an excerpt of a poem I adore. Fire And Ice From what I tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. Robert Frost One of my favorite poet.

Waiting to Exhale F%^&*

I am not back for long, just wanted to drop by the ole blog, man this year has been hard the saying is so true for my life now when it rains it pours, dealing with a disrespectful and revengeful coworker to a stranger that I had a small fender bender with that is trying to hustle money. I was thinking the other day have I been under a freaking rock, in which I just realized how heinous people can be in life, or maybe I was naive at any rate my strength to push on has been tested, but I cannot falter I have dreams to chase and also reality check I am a mom, a wife and I must live, so as I approach my summer holidays, two months off and a wonderful vacay in sunny Jamaica mon, I will look back at the year and say I did it, made it through day by day even though in the moment I felt like the darkness of my experiences was suffocating me, I know that I am not the only one that endures stuff like this and someone somewhere is going through worst shituations (no spelling error I just made up this word)