It's the 1st Wednesday. Happy Insecure Writers Support Group Day. IWSG is the brainchild Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh.
Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!
Thanks, Alex, for starting this group and keeping it going. And thanks to this month's awesome hosts: Tyrean Martinson, Tara Tyler, Raimey Gallant, and Beverly Stowe McClure!
Back to Normal
Back to school time? Home Alone? Are we back to
normal? Hah! After two months of sharing our home with Son, Daughter-in-Law,
Toddler Girl, a Great Dane, and a yellow Lab, our house is ours alone again. The
summer flew as I discovered chasing after a two-year-old exhausts me. Don’t get
me wrong. I loved every minute of their extended visit. Okay, maybe not the
barking or whining. And maybe not Toddler Girl exhibiting the definition of “Terrible
Twos.” Watching TG’s vocabulary increase and her sentences grow longer has been
a real treat. Best of all were the hugs and kisses at night and the cuddles as we watched “Daniel Tiger’s
Neighborhood” and Finding Dory. I was
amazed at her attention span. We only had to take two breaks.
The downside. They moved into their new home.
It took them all of last week to get their place ready so they could leave ours. I’m sure
I’ll keep finding items left behind, besides a lot of dog hair. The upside is
their new home is only two miles away. So now all of my family is close by.
Daughter and her family are twenty minutes away. The grandkiddies can visit
often, and we can visit them.
Now I have no excuse not to write. Rather than
stress out over the upset routine for the summer, I accepted the fact that I
wouldn’t write much. I kept up with my blogging obligations (except my Monday Morning Musing) and considered that
good. Then the leader of a group newsletter I participate with thought up a “wonderful”
promo to increase our readership—an anthology of short stories that we’d offer
free. Surely, we all have short stories lying around. Wrong. I don’t write
short. My stories run 80-100k words. And don’t call me Shirley. (I couldn’t resist.)
I had one story that was about 3,000 words. Not long enough. So last month I had
to write a 15k short story, in my spare time between babysitting TG. Hahaha.
Mornings (my best time to write) were spent keeping her out of trouble, playing, reading, etc. By the time she went down for a nap, I followed the
advice given to new mothers—when Baby sleeps, you sleep. I took naps almost
every day.
I surprised myself by finishing a 14k word short
story on August 31st. I even polished up the 3k Christmas story and
added that to the anthology. Goals are great. Peer pressure works better. LOL
We have a cover and the book will go up on Instafreebie shortly. What a deal. A
free book just for signing up for our newsletter.
Besides amazing myself that I could write
14,000 words in 31 days, I discovered I could write during chaos. It’s always
fun to learn something new about the writing process. Shutting out our surroundings,
concentrating on what’s in our imagination, and putting what’s there on paper
or a computer screen is an accomplishment. Some people use noise-canceling
headphones. Or listen to music to drown out the noise of everyday life.
Whatever works. I also learned to write during my least optimal time—evening.
The optional question this month is Have
you ever surprised yourself with your writing?
I’ve already answered most of the question. My
most memorable surprise was while writing Switched
Resolution (book 3 of my Switched series). As I wrote a reunion scene, I
cried. When I reread it as part of the final proofread, I got choked up. While
reading the story again (months later) before submitting it for the print edition, I cried
again. That I could elicit that kind of emotion from myself amazed me. I hope
the readers experienced that, too.
I hope you have a great September. That you
meet your goals. See you back here in October.
Speaking of anthologies . . . Do you know about the IWSG anthology contest?
The next anthology contest is here! All details are posted at the IWSG website!
Click here to find others on the Insecure Writers Support Group Blog Hop. Or go to IWSG on Facebook to see who’s blogging today.
