The Sitter - A writing exercise

Capturing a moment. Following the thoughts. Unedited. Fun times.

Facing the window, she sits, looking at the mist lingering between trees in her line of sight. Sunlight streams in through the window and lands on the floor, missing any part of her body, warming only wood, fabric, varnish, and some plasticky sort of rug. She looks up through the grimy window and notices the torn flyscreen, useless to do the job for which it has been made. Its only purpose now, is to further obstruct her view.

She can see toys on the ground, a book, a stray pillow, a plastic bag. Remnants of her children as they go about their day out of the home while she awaits their return, wasting time with useless words and watching the sun from the shade, wishing to feel its warmth.

She becomes aware of the feeling of her clothing on her skin, the weight of the blanket on her body, the glasses on her nose, and the hairs and threads gleaming in the sunlight on the empty couch across the room. Space for the absent children. She wonders what they are doing as she wriggles her feet and scratches her head, aware of things that she should be doing. Instead, she strikes keys with her fingers and breathes the air in her house, while the weight of her body presses into the couch through her buttocks.

Her nails are uneven. Some are rough, some longer than others, one missing a corner. They need to be trimmed. So do her toenails. She thinks about toenails and how gross it must be to read anything too lengthy written about them, only a brief observation of their existence is acceptable, nobody wants to acknowledge how dirty they get underneath, all stinky and fluffy. Toenails are disgusting. She wrinkles her nose at the thought of a foot fetish and wonders how her mind turned to thoughts of feet.

Refocus on the trees through the window. Bright green leaves droop and wave towards the ground while red stems connect them to brown branches and blackened trunk. The top of the tree can send messages into the ground. Electrical signals. Water. Nutrients. Trees speak to Mother Earth, and bugs, and give off pheromones that travel through the air and communicate with others that never even make a physical connection. She read a book about that once, and she writes words about how she read a book about it once as she gets stuck in a thought loop.

She brushes a hair off the keyboard and scratches her eye. How did the hair get there? From her head? Another person's head? Did it float through the air like the tree pheromones, or drop from the sleeve of her jacket?

Moments and thoughts are messy and neverending, and she thinks about how words don't seem to do them justice.

What can you see in your moment? Where does your brain take you?

Much love,

Marley x

P.S. I write books. Find them HERE

How to Make Money as a Creative - 5 Things to Do

Let me be honest with you: I have no right to write anything about making money as a creative, because I don't. Like, AT. ALL. I spend more than I get. BUT, this is a conversation that I have had time and time again with many of my creative friends - How DO you make money from creative endeavors? Here are 5 things that come up in our conversations.

Now, let me preface this post by saying this: Please, if you are a creative who is making lots of money as a creative, then I am absolutely happy to be called out and corrected. So, if I am wrong about anything, then let me know (in a nice way. Please don't make me cry).

Let's do this.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY AS A CREATIVE

I believe that there are 5 main things that you need to do to make money from your creativity, be it: drawing, painting, sewing, writing, crocheting, knitting, card making, resin-pouring, making soft toys out of dryer lint, etc.

1. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

2. Invest TIME

3. Learn MARKETING

4. Invest MONEY. And, also helpful:

5. Get SUPPORT

Number One: BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

Have you heard the sayings:

'You are what you think' -Ben Carson

or:

'You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are' -Brian Tracy

or some other quote with different words but that means the same thing?

It's the truth. This point is at number one because it is most definitely THE most important point.

To make money as a creative, you need to believe that your creativity is worth money.

This is a money-making MINDSET.

If you don't believe that your creations are very good or worth much money, then you aren't going to get very far.

All of these points are interconnected in some way. If you don't believe in yourself or your work, then it is unlikely that you are going to invest the time or money that you need to earn a living from your creativity.

I struggle with this point, as I believe a lot of creatives do. If you are the same, then point number 5 is for you, so, read on.

(I wrote about this point in my blog post: Help! How Do I Deal With Imposter Syndrome?)

Number Two: INVEST TIME

If you believe in yourself, then you are more likely to prioritise your creativity and invest the time you need to create the things and make the business of selling your creativity work.

Creating things takes time. Often, creating enough things to sell to make money from your creativity will take away time from other things, be that time with friends, a lazy day at the beach, Netflix time, sleep, playing with the kids time, working a paying job time, or whatever else. You cannot do ALL of the things. If you want to make money from your creativity, then you will need to invest the time to make the things, AND to run the business of selling. Selling your art takes time. This includes marketing, and leads me to my next point...

(I wrote about this point in my blog post: How Do I Get All The Things Done?)

Number Three: LEARN MARKETING

If you are selling your creative pursuits, then you are running a business. You can choose to keep the selling as a hobby and not treat it like a business, or you can choose to treat it like a business and put the time and effort in to run it as successfully as possible.

Yes, sometimes people are LUCKY and are in the right place at the right time to have the right person hear about them, then score a big deal or contract, or have an influencer mention their product and take off. This is great for them. But, the vast majority of creatives will not have this luck, no matter how good their product is.

If you want to make money from your creative endeavors, then you will need to think of your creations as products and learn how to market them:

• Identify your audience,

• Identify what they want,

• Identify where your audience is, and

• Get your product in front of them.
  

There is a lot more to marketing than this. People study marketing for years. But getting clear on these things is a good start.

I wrote about this in my blog posts:

8 Reasons Why You Must Read This Book,

Conventional Hippie Author Seeking Target Audience, and

Branding Marley - Creating a Brand

Number Four: INVEST MONEY

Yes, this point is probably my most controversial. No, not everyone needs to invest lots of money, and I certainly am NOT suggesting that you go out and take loans to rent a shop or buy expensive equipment, or anything like that. What I am saying is that the old saying that 'you've got to spend money to make money', is kinda correct. Sometimes.

You can probably make a little bit of money without investing a lot, but if you want to earn a lot of money, then you probably have to believe in yourself and invest money to grow your business. To know where to invest your money, you need to know your product and your audience, and probably know a little bit about marketing.

I fall down at this point, too. I simply:

• Do not believe in myself or my product enough to invest much money in my creativity

• I do not know where the best place is to invest money, and

• Don't have a whole lot of extra money to invest in myself and my creative pursuits.

I can hear you thinking 'But, what do I invest in?' And, THAT is the million-dollar question (literally!)

I can't answer that for you, but I can tell you that if you invest your money in the 'right' place (wherever that is), then your business will grow, because your product might improve or expand, or might end up in front of more people, or perhaps the right people?

A lot of people choose to invest in EDUCATION first, to learn more about how to do what they do, how to run a business, or how to market their product, so, maybe this is a good place to start researching. But again, I want to reiterate that I have no freaking idea! Do not take this as business or financial advice, just food for thought.

Number Five: GET SUPPORT

To succeed at anything, you need to have support. This might be friends and family members, but it also could be a customer or client, a team, a group, a fellow creative. You need people who believe in you, who can pump you up when you feel deflated, who can help you carry the load and do the work, and who can help give you knowledge. You need people who've got your back, who can leave reviews or testimonials, you need inspiration, and you need listening ears and ideas. It takes a team. Time to assemble yours.

What do you think about the five points listed? Do you have any more to add? If you are making money from your creativity, then I want to hear from you! What are your money making tips?

Much love - Marley x

How to Leave a Book Review on Amazon and Goodreads (and why you should)

Reviews help readers find good books and help authors find new readers, but there are other reasons why you should leave a review on a book that you enjoyed. This blog post is all about the why and how to leave book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

Hrmm is this worth a read? Check the reviews!

Okay, firstly, let's talk about the WHY.

5 reasons why you should leave a book review:

1. Reviews help readers determine whether a book is worth spending time and money on - Some readers will decide to read a book based on a pretty cover, but MOST readers decide whether to read a book as a result of a recommendation or a book review. A reader is able to browse reviews to find out whether the book might be something that they will enjoy or whether it meets their needs.

2. Reviews help authors find new readers - Reviews help to promote books and spread the word about a good read. Authors love to write books, but many of us don't love marketing. Reviews help us market our work (which gives us more time to spend writing).

3. Reviews help to make sure that Amazon promotes the books worth promoting - Now, I don't claim to understand the 'Zon algorithms, but I do know that Amazon will help to actively promote books with higher numbers of positive reviews, which increases our book's visibility. Yay.

4. Reviews help to ensure that readers receive emails with better quality and more appropriate reading suggestions - Have you ever received an email with some really odd recommendations? Yeah, leaving a review might help to avoid that.

5. Reviews give authors helpful information to learn and grow - Not only is it super encouraging to know that people are actually reading and enjoying what we write, it is also helpful to find out what people liked best or didn't like at all, so that we can improve our writing in the future.

Now you understand why, let's talk get practical and talk about HOW you can leave a book review.

How to leave a book review on Amazon:

First up, to leave a review on Amazon, you need to meet 2 requirements:

1. You need to have an Amazon account (and be logged in), and

2. You need to have spent $50 on Amazon within the last 12 months

If that is you, then you are good to go.

Let me tell you something awesome:

** You can leave reviews for books that you did NOT purchase on Amazon **

The only difference this will make, is if you did purchase the book on Amazon, your review will have a little orange 'verified purchaser' label on it.

Now, if you really don't want to have to write any words for your book review, then you can just give the book a star rating out of 5.

To leave a star rating on Amazon:

• Log into your Amazon account

• Find the book that you want to leave a rating on

• Scroll down to where the customer reviews are

• Click on the button that says 'Write a customer review'

• Click the number of stars that you wish to give the book out of 5

• That's it. The star rating saves automatically and you will see a little green 'Submitted' message (see the picture below).
  

To leave a book review on Amazon

• Follow all of the same steps above, but continue to add more details:

• You can add a headline, photo or video, and a written review

• There are no requirements for what it needs to say or what you need to include. You can make general comments about what you thought of the story, how it flowed, and if you found it to be an easy read, or you can include more details about what you liked or didn't like, or whatever else you wish to share.

• Then, click the 'Submit' button.

• Done! The author and all other readers who find their next read by reading the reviews on Amazon all thank you for your time and efforts.
  

How to leave a book review on Goodreads:

To leave a review on Goodreads, you need to have a Goodreads account. If you don't already, I highly recommend that you set yourself up with one becase not only can you browse and leave reviews, but you can also set yourself reading goals, track your own reading, and save books that you hear about and want to read in the future. This will mean that you will never forget a book title again! Someone says "hey, have you read xyz? It was really good!", then you can open your Goodreads app, find the book, and click the 'Want to read' button. Honestly, this is a gamechanger.

Okay, so now you have your Goodreads account,

• Use the search function to find the book that you wish to leave a review for:

• The, when you have found it, you can click on 'Read' (to show that you have read this book. This will add it to your list of read books and you can add start and finish dates if you want)

• Give the book a star rating out of 5, just like on Amazon. And, if you wish you can also

• Click the button to 'Write a Review'

• Here, you will have the option to add more details:

• Then click the 'Post' button and you're all done! Awesome!

Now, there are lots of different ways that you could interpret the star ratings and I'm not going to tell you how many stars to leave. Some people freely give 5 stars for books they enjoyed reading, while others will only give 5 stars on rare occasions for a read they deem to be perfect. Some people say that 3 stars is a good read, while others say that 3 stars is pretty average. How you interpret that star rating and is up to you. As an author, I can says that a book with 5 stars has likely only been read and reviewed by friends and family members and a 3 star rating is a little bit disappointing to receive. That being said... now i'm going to say something a little controversial here...

I would rather receive an honest 'bad' review than no review at all.

Something to remember: You cannot stuff up a book review or get it wrong!

As long as:

• You have actually read the book, and

• Are not trashing the book or the author

Then what you write is up to you. Book reviews are subjective. What you loved might be what someone else hated! Your favourite character may have been someone elses least favourite. Write whatever you are moved to write.

Yes, Amazon and Goodreads are the top places to leave a review, but if you they don't work for you then I assure you that an author will be more than happy to receive your review in any way that you would like to give it! Send an email, post on social media and tag them, write a blog post, do a video review on TikTok or YouTube, whatever works for you.

Any questions? Please let me know and I can do a follow up post.

Hopefully this has motivated you to go out and reviewth thine books! Please do. It helps.

Much love,

Marley

P.S. If you wish to review any of my books on Amazon. You can click HERE if you're in Oz, or HERE if you're not. If you wish to review any of my books on Goodreads, click HERE. And remember, if you're not feeling wordy, clicking those stars helps a lot too! You rock xx