IWSG Guide Announcement

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group Guide to Publishing and Beyond!

Tapping into the expertise of over a hundred talented authors from around the globe, The IWSG Guide to Publishing and Beyond contains something for every writer. Whether you are starting out and need tips on the craft of writing, looking for encouragement as an already established author, taking the plunge into self-publishing, or seeking innovative ways to market and promote your work, this guide is a useful tool. Compiled into three key areas of writing, publishing, and marketing, this valuable resource offers inspirational articles, helpful anecdotes, and excellent advice on dos and don'ts that we all wish we knew when we first started out on this writing journey.

ISBN 9781939844088

235 pages, FREE

Available –

Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/Insecure-Writers-Support-Publishing-Beyond-ebook/dp/B00PM98I08/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1416424821&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=the+insecure+writer%27s+support+grouop

Barnes and Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-insecure-writers-support-group-guide-to-publishing-and-beyond-insecure-writers-support-group/1120795468?ean=2940046408027

Smashwords - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/492628

Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/review/new/23556637-the-insecure-writer-s-support-group-guide-to-publishing-and-beyond

IWSG sites –

Website – http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/

Facebook Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/IWSG13/

Facebook Critique Circle Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/IWSGCC/

IWSG Wednesday and First Anniversary!

http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/the-insecure-writers-support-group.html

Congratulations to us all and most especially to our Ninja Captain for starting the IWSG blog for us insecure types. Today marks it’s one year anniversary!! Toddling steps and now look at us, contributing to a guide we can all use! Thank you Alex for all that you do for us… and to all your co-hosts throughout the year.

I have much to write about this month, but won’t make this post long, I promise. I’m nervous, excited, hesitant and jubilant because I’ve finished my “former” work in progress. Now I’m getting the book formatted, getting the cover tweaked, hoping against hope all will be done before I go to the writer’s conference I’m attending on the 24 of this month. Arg!  Still, if I must choose something to be nervous or concerned about, this is it. The first draft of the next novel is already on my computer, thanks to NaNoWriMo last year and I can’t wait to get started on it. But before I can indulge one thing must come first, the “dreadful” —and I do dread it—marketing of the finished product. I so wish I could just hire someone to do it all for me.

Oh well. The trials of the writer’s life. Like I said before, if I have to choose something to be upset over, this is it. Because it all comes back to writing, doesn’t it? This novel has taken SO LONG for me to get right or at least as right as I can make it. I’m glad it’s done, and I'm glad to move on. But I don’t want to go too fast and overlook something important that I will regret later. So, I’m staying in low gear. This novel obviously listened to the Pointer Sisters when it came to needing a “slow hand!” Thanks for dropping by.

Images from:
poppywritesabook.wordpress.com
www.worldliterarycafe.com

IWSG Post for March - Milestone

http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

Please join us this month as we (click on link below image to the left)  share our ups and downs. Over 300 participating blogs so you're bound to find something you like!

Actually seen this milestone!

I have reached a milestone and wanted to share it with you. The current wip/novel is at the printers being put on paper as I write this, for me to read it out loud. Once I’ve finished reading it out loud and made corrections/ changes that are deemed fit, I’ll send it to my readers and await their responses. Then, depending on how soon they get it back to me and if there are any blaring changes they remark upon, I’ll send the finished draft to CreateSpace. I am almost excited. Perhaps this means that by the end of March, the book will be in the process of becoming…

I’m nervous, of course, but also have that sweet feeling of anticipation, of expectation, of wow, I’m almost there. 

Which means I need to start promoting and advertising, etc. I hate that part. I want to hire someone to do that for me, but can’t afford, as yet, the thousands anyone who seems to be worth their salt is asking. I would like to write and write and write some more, not take time away to market. However, I do realize the necessity of it and so will bow with good grace, I hope, to the inevitable. Does anyone else despise the promotion side of writing?

Hope your month has passed favorably since the last IWSG update! 

Images from:

www.thainewgen.com

wildomarmagazine.wordpress.com

davejacobs.net

inspiretothrive.com

Kindling a Fire in the Belly of the Beast

Now who in their right mind would want to actually kindle a fire in the belly of a beast? A writer would. Can be debated if any writer (or politician) does actually have a ‘right mind,’ but in my world they, and I, do (writers I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge).

When I arrived at the Florida Writer’s Association’s Eleventh Annual Writer’s Conference I dove straight into an all day workshop called “How to Write Killer Fiction.” This “Celebrity Workshop” was given by Vic DiGenti, a writer of course, published (hence celebrity) and leader of his critique group. The workshop preceded the conference and is actually hosted by the Florida Writers Foundation, which is a nonprofit that promotes literacy. What a slam dunk to get into “conference” mode.

I won’t go into boring detail about all the fantastical workshops I attended throughout the duration of the conference, but I will say that I walked away from each one with my head buzzing, so much so that I went to bed with headaches, just as if I were in the first week of a visit to France, trying to keep up with all the French conversations going on around me. A lot to process, a lot to think about, a lot to question and consider. Writing to prompts has led me to consider submitting a “flash fiction” story. Learning about Digital Publishers has led me to submitting to an agent who handles ebooks only.  Exploring how to calm myself, to move in front of an audience and stay cued into my breath has led me to reconsider reading aloud to others or public speaking. Every workshop on polishing my writing whirl-winded through my conscious and left me breathless with discovery.  I was even asked to consider coming back next year and presenting a workshop on the business of writing. Then, just when I thought I couldn’t be more overwhelmed, I made the ‘mistake’ of saying I wanted to volunteer (thinking I’d be a body at next year’s conference). Which then led to a path I never considered in any wild dream.  I instantly (almost) became assistant secretary for the FWA! The list can go on for a mile of what I took away from this conference. I’m floored. But sitting on that floor my belly is rumbling. It’s hot and steamy, ready to be a part of something bigger than myself, and I dream of what I can do in the next year to win the Royal Palm Literary Award or be in the next FWA anthology or both. I was a RPLA finalist this year. Next year I’d like to be more than that, more than what/who I am now. And I haven’t even touched on all the amazing and diverse people (400+) who were my fellow attendees and staff. As I said, overwhelmed.

I’m home now, in my usual spot in front of my screen and I ponder the mysteries of what it means to write. My gut tells me this is the right thing to do. My head screams I’m a fool for thinking I can write something anyone else (besides my mother) would want to read. I can say I only care about writing to feed my soul, but that isn’t true. As Leonard Pitts, Jr. wrote “…a writer without readers is like shouting in an empty room.” My belly is full of fire, my laugh throaty, my tears as warm as anyone else’s. I want to publish. I want to be read. So the beast within me won’t be satiated until I achieve that goal in a meaningful way. My tummy is rumbling with the fire kindled within. Look out world. Here I come.

Images from:

villainsandvaudevillians.com

http://www.floridawriters.net/

Writing and Not Writing

Lately I have been living through an experience that many have lived through before me; the decline of a beloved parent. I’ve been so occupied with this and with proving to an array of institutions that I can handle his finances in a faithful and trustworthy way, that I haven’t had much time to really think beyond my tears and my nerves much less write. Dad had a really good day yesterday. First one in ten days. This morning I woke up after a thankfully, and desperately needed, good night’s sleep to my mind having a moment of relative peace. I picked up my toothbrush to brush my teeth and found somehow that I looked into an inner mirror at myself and all these wonderful published writers that I admire and envy; their thoughts on writing and what made it work for them, and there I was. All that I am and am not. I am not famous. I do not live to write. I write to live. But I am not a work-a-holic. I am not really above average in any stretch of an imagination. I just love to write.

Between the marketing, the worrying, the not being perfect, the social networking, the trying to write in an “interesting” way, I got lost. Not lost out in the world. Lost in myself and my worries. I lost the love of the story. I lost the joy of finding a new piece to the puzzle of my story. I lost the love of putting words on paper and not worrying how good or bad or boring they are to anyone but me. I lost writing for myself and my peace of mind.

I love puzzles of many different kinds, mysteries, Sudoku, word searches, crossword; the human psyche. Part of what I love about writing is the puzzle of it, just like life, really. How do I get from point A to point B and then C? How do I complete the puzzle that is me? The fear of the unknown, of what comes after life is present right now when I look in my father’s eyes and see his need to be reassured and loved. What a massive puzzle that one is, the great unsolvable one, death and what comes next, if anything.

My dad asked me if I believed in God. I told him yes, I believe in Spirit. I don’t know if I believe in a man-like figure sitting up on a great throne somewhere in the sky, but I believe in Spirit and our connection to it and our world/universe. I don’t know if I helped him with my answer in any way, but he seemed satisfied for the moment.

Life is what I have now. Writing is what helps keep me “me.” I am blessed I can write. I am blessed to be here with my father in this time of his life and mine. I am blessed by the many challenges and joys life is offering to me right now. I will do my best to live up to all of these blessings. I am tired of my fear of failure. No one said this path of words would be smooth and straight with no uphill grades. After all, I am alive; I have written five novels so far.  I guess it’s time to forget what I might or not leave behind me when my turn comes to go. I guess all I need to do is live, and write. What comes next, well, that’s the next piece of the puzzle to find, isn’t it?

Image from:

lovelywhatevers.blogspot.com