Moving Forward - Insecure Writer's Support Group for July 2013 #IWSG

This is my sixth monthly Insecure Writer's Support Group post. The IWSG is hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh. The purpose of the IWSG is:

 "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!"

Moving Forward

No matter how often I try to be "good" and not let my fears take over, I still suffer from self-doubt on a regular basis, especially as it pertains to my writing. I am trying to behave in such a way as to suggest that it doesn't have an effect on me, but I don't always succeed.

I've been sharing more of my short stories and flash fiction writing on my blog. I don't get many comments on my blog posts, no matter what the topic is, but the few comments I get on my stories that compliment my stories make me feel better, if only for a short while, about my writing.

I think I am what might be called a "lazy writer." I love writing my stories, and I feel great when I have finished a longer novel. But the hard part, the nitty-gritty work that is involved in editing and revising, that part I put off, leaving my novels to languish forever in obscurity, never to be read by others. Naturally, I can't possibly share my novels with my critique groups or beta readers or even an editor until I have at least made a first pass-through at perfecting the writing.

I'm really good at proofreading. I can catch spelling errors, typos, grammatical errors and punctuation errors EASILY. But going through a piece of writing and making it go from writing that tells a story to writing that sucks you into another world and hangs on to you until you have emotion roiling through you and you never want to leave, THAT is something I need to work on. And I will not be happy with my novels until they can do that to a reader.

But, as a writer, I have to move forward. If I leave my writing as is, then it never changes. My writing will never raise from the level it is at unless I am willing to work at it and let it grow. So, to move forward with my writing and with my goals this year, I am determined to make ONE of the many novels I have written SHINE. And I will get it past the first edits and send it off to a professional in order to help it get to the shiny stage.

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For those of you who don't know, the Chapter Book Challenge has a fairy tale anthology coming out, hopefully by August first, in both print and Kindle format. The title and cover are still being worked on,  but you can head on over the ChaBooCha to find out more about it.

The Creating a Female Superhero Challenge came up with 27 female superheroes for the anthology and 23 entries for the contest. The winner of the contest will be announced on August 7th, along with the charity that won the vote for the proceeds to go toward. The stories are all from 500 to 1,000 words long, and have varying lengths for each of the "about" sections for each superheroine. I think it is going to be a pretty decent little anthology. (I am open to new submissions for the anthology before its creation is complete, because it is for charity, so more stories can only be a good thing.)

I also am in the process of creating a story for the Crock of Charms project, which is a short story project where everyone will be writing interconnecting stories suitable for young children through teenagers. They have a new project out, for adults, called Keepsakes, that I am currently looking into. (I like challenging myself by writing short stories. It helps hone my writing.)

I love hearing from you, so let me know in the comments what you have been up to and what your plans and goals are through this year.

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Writing: Blogging Momentum

This is my post for Day 28 of the Author Blog Challenge. (This is the final day of the challenge.)




What are you going to do to keep the blogging momentum going? What plans do you have to continue your connection with other Author Blog Challenge participants?


I am making plans to keep my blog momentum going, mainly, by continuing to post. I won't be posting every day, as I was doing for this challenge, but I intend to be posting once or twice a week, every week. Posting every day has eaten into my novel-writing time, so I don't want to be posting every day, but once or twice a week should be manageable.


Before doing the challenge, I was neglecting my blog and letting weeks go by without posting. That won't be happening any more. There are two blogs in my writing life that I intend to continue keeping updated and current, and those are this blog and my Skinny Dreaming blog. (I have over 20 blogs but not all of them are kept current.) The reason I want these two blogs to be kept current is that they are both about important aspects of my life: my writing and my fitness/healthy lifestyle. (My children are also super-important to me, and I have to admit that I have neglected my family blog for way too long.)

I have been building a list of topics for future blog posts to keep me posting more regularly. Having prompts has helped keep me posting, so I decided to create a bunch of "prompts" for myself to keep me full of ideas for posts for this blog.


I have joined a critique group with others from the Author Blog Challenge, and have connected with several members of the challenge on Facebook and Twitter as well. I'm really glad to have made these new friends who share my love of writing, and I hope we all can help one another.

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Writing: Book Subjects

This is my post for Day 26 of the Author Blog Challenge.




What is/will be the subject of your next book?

I am still writing several books, so I will list them, giving you a brief insight into the stories/themes of the ones I am working on the most right now. (The rest will just be listed.) The titles are all just working titles at the moment. I must admit that my synopsis of these stories will not be very good right now. I am writing this late at night and not putting as much thought into them as I should. I will try and come back at a later date and spend more time getting these written in a more attractive way.


Follow the Moon - This one is a werewolf story. The main character finds herself waking up, injured, in an alley with no recollection of what happened. She is rescued by a stranger who has a good idea of what happened to her. But can she trust this man who claims to be a werewolf? And can she accept her new existence while trying to find out what happened to her on the night that changed everything?

Walking With the Dead - This is about a girl who starts seeing ghosts. The ghosts she sees are malevolent and creepy, but there is a reason; there is a sickness plaguing the ghost realm, and it is up to Janie to find a cure before it crosses into her own realm. While she tries to find a cure, the ghosts try to make her a permanent part of their realm.


The Thinning of the Veil - This is a story about the veil between dimensions growing thinner. One girl can see the creatures that come through the dimension and fight them. Together with her vision-seeing friend and twin friends with gifts of their own, she has to fight to save her world before anything else gets through and before anyone else finds themselves crossing into the wrong dimension.


The Magic Necklace - This is a children's chapter book. A young girl finds a necklace in her attic and starts hearing the thoughts of others. But is that the extent of her powers? And why is the man she overhears plotting a burglary following her?


Skinny Dreaming - This is my non-fiction book about healthy living. It's a diet and fitness guide that is also full of inspiration and even some healthy recipes.


Come Dance With Us - This started off as a flash fiction story, but I enjoyed the story so much that I have continued the story and intend for it to be a full length novel. A young woman finds herself dancing with the fairies, caught in their spell for three nights. But when she gets home, she finds out that the fairies are not so eaily left behind.

Just listing the rest:

Dream Walker -

Extraordinary Magic -

Creating Magic -

Enchanting Rose -

Story Magic -

Fire Starter -

Lady of Shadows -


Ordinary Magic -


Keisha & the Flight of Dragons -

Cat's Eye -

The Guardian -

McKay's Might -



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Serve

This is my post for Day 15 of the 15 Habits of Great Writers challenge.

"The challenge

Ready to be generous and serve your audience? Here are a few ideas (pick one):

1. Do a giveaway of a product or service. Find authors or organizations wanting to partner with people like you, and ask them for donations. Do this to build trust with your readers, and make sure whatever you give away clearly adds value to their lives.
2. Conduct a survey. Find out what readers (or perfect strangers) want, what they struggle with, and create something for them. This can be a blog series or an eBook or a whatever. Just make sure there’s a need for it before you make it.
3. Write something important and give it away. Publish an eBook to Amazon and distribute it through the KDP Select Program. Or offer it in exchange for people subscribing to your blog.
4. Answer all correspondence. Respond to every single email, phone call, tweet, etc. until you can’t possibly keep up. This is how tribes are formed — through accessibility."

Okay, just reading this today, I reaize that I am going to need more time to complete this part of the challenge. 

1. First of all, I need time to find someone willing to partner with me to do a donation. However, like other challenges posed within this Great Writers challenge, I have already done this by getting authors to guest post on my Chapter Book Challenge blog during the challenge and one of them gave away a free critique. I also ran a flash fiction story writing competition where the prize was a book on writing flash fiction (donated by me).

2. I will also need time to get people to fill in a survey and to fulfill the need that they wish me to fill. I have no idea what kind of questions to ask for the survey or even what need I am capable of fulfilling for others. If anyone has any ideas, I am open to suggestions!


3. This makes it sound like it is so easy to write something worth publishing as an eBook! I would love to do this and have considered it many times, but I keep failing on what, exactly, to write. Writing of any kind takes time, and I haven't even finished the books I am already working on, so I am not sure how quickly I can just whip something else out to share with others.  But I will try.

4. I do answer correspondence. I do respond to every single email, tweet (to me) and question asked on Facebook. I constantly run out of time for these things, but I do my best to keep up with it all. I try to be as accessible as possible.

As I reflect on these, I see that I am already doing some of them and working on doing others of them.  I will try and update on how I do as I get through them.




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Writing: Acknowledgement Pages

This is my post for Day 25 of the Author Blog Challenge.


Time for some shout-outs. This may mimic your acknowledgement page, but whom would you like to publicly thank for their help in creating your book or completing it to the point where it is presently?


My books aren't finished yet, so this will be a more detailed list when they are complete. Also, my acknowledgements page will be different for my different books.

I will be thanking my husband for putting up with all of the itme I spend writing and for his help brainstorming during our walks at night. I will be thanking my children for constantly being sources of inpsiration for me. I will be thanking my friend Barbara Mack for believing in me and giving me that push to believe in myself. I will be thanking my writing critique group, the Swindon Free Writers, for their helpful adivce and critiques of my writing. I will be thanking all of my on-line friends on Facebook, Twitter and Triberr for their support, and I will be thanking my blog followers as well. When it comes to my children's chapter book, I will have to thank all of the members of my Chapter Book Challenge Facebook group for their support and encouragement.

As I mentioned previously, this list will be longer and more detailed once my book sare actually finished and ready for publication.


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Writing: The Hollywood Version of My Book

This is my post for Day 23 of the Author Blog Challenge.




If a Hollywood agent were to come knocking on your door with an offer to turn your book into a movie and told you that you could call all the shots, who would you have direct and star in it? Write the first paragraph of Roger Ebert’s review of your film.

I'm not sure I can do this challenge properly. First of all, it has been too many years since I have heard Roger Ebert review a film, so I have no idea what he would say if he liked a film. Maybe that's because I live in the UK now and have for the past 11 years.

The only person I would want directing a film based on of my books would be Joss Whedon. I'm a massive fan of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. I enjoyed the Angel series. And I have recently discovered the Firefly series and found that I adore the show (and liked the film Serenity too). One of the newest films out right now that my husband and I went to see was The Avengers and we LOVED it. It had so much humor mixed in with the more serious moments of the film, all combined with adventure and action, so that we had more fun watching it than any movie we have seen in a very long time.  Another reason I would want Joss Whedon to direct it would be the fact that my books, both the YA and the adult, are based in the paranormal genre.


I don't know who I would have star in my film, but I don't think I would want it to be the big name actors and actresses that everyone knows, even if well-known names create a bigger draw. I would want them to be actors and actresses who were amazing at portraying the emotions of their characters. But I would want some new faces. I'd want my story to give someone new and talented their chance to shine.

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Writing: Book Signings

This is my post for Day 22 of the Author Blog Challenge.

Describe your first book signing – real or imagined.

For me, this book signing will have to be imagined. I have to have a completed book before I get a book signing set up. What kind of book signing it would be would depend on which of my books it was focused on. I have novels that are aimed at adult women, YA and books aimed at children of various ages. I also have a non-fiction book being worked on. So which one would it be?

A part of me thinks that doing a book signing for one of my children's picture books, because of the props, would be more fun, especially because I love children. Children, unlike most adults, can usually be counted on to come up with something to say that will make me laugh, said in a way that only children could say it. Adults tend to be way more circumspect about their conversation.


Ideally, whether a book signing for children or adults, there would be a lot of interest in it and a nice crowd of people (although I somehow doubt that is likely for most book signings). While I'm talking about a dream book signing, I guess I would also need a Hollywoood movie producer to arrive in the store to implore me to let them buy the rights to make a movie of my book. *wink*


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Writing: Social Media

This is my post for Day 20 of the Author Blog Challenge.




How are you using social media to promote your book? What aspect of social media would you like to learn more about? What are your next steps?

None of my books are at the publishing stage yet. While I am writing them, I am using social media and learning everything I can about promotion. I started out with social media promoting my on-line stores many years ago, and so I believe I have a step up from an author who is just starting out with it right now.

I've already learned about having an on-line presence, using Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Triberr and various other social media outlets. I learned about SEO (search engine optimization), and I learned many of the tricks of the trade with blogging back when I started my first blog, Skinny Dreaming. (Many have suggested I switch my blog platform to a Wordpress one rather than using Blogger, but I'm content with Blogger for now.)

I own several of my own domains. The only thing I have yet to do is build my own website (or have it built for me). Because buying hosting and paying someone to help me build my website is something that costs quite a bit of money, having my own website is something I have left for last.


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Writing: The Challenges

This is my post for Day 13 of the Author Blog Challenge.




What has been the most challenging part of your book process: writing, building the book, printing, distributing, marketing, etc.? What do you wish you’d known before you began?

My books are not at the printing and distributing stages yet, so I cannot accurately discuss how difficult or easy those stages might be. However, I can discuss other aspects of the book process.


Writing the book is not the most difficult part. I can say this even though I have not finished any of my books yet, because I love the writing part of the process. I enjoy creating something from nothing. I enjoy letting my imagination run free and creating people, creatures and entire worlds that have never before existed yet come to life as I write them.


"Building the book" is a process I associate more with non-fiction books. With my nonfiction book, I feel more like I am buiulding it and putting it together than imagining it into being. And I am finding it very difficult. But maybe, in the context of the question for the writing prompt above, building the book has more to do with having it bound and creating the Kindle and epub versions of it. I admit that I have not yet created a Kindle file and don't know anything about the process yet.


This post is a bit rambling, but I am not finding any of the processes mentioned in the question difficult, not really. I think the hardest thing about writing a book is believing in yourself enough to know that you can do it.


P.S. Yes, I already know that the above picture has nothing to do with this post topic, but it's cute, isn't it?

 
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Writing: Book Covers

This is my post for Day 12 of the Author Blog Challenge.

Describe your process for choosing and designing your book cover. Who created your cover? How did you find him/her? What do you love about your cover? What might you do differently next time?

This doesn't really apply to me as I don't have a cover for any of my books yet. Just for fun though, I took a photo from one of my husband's Fairy Magic photo manipulations and gave it the title of one of my short stories. (No, I do not intend to create my own book covers, but my books aren't finished yet, so it doesn't hurt for me to play.)

I do not know yet who I will have creating my book cover and, to be honest, I haven't even started looking for someone yet. My main goal right now is to get my books finished, edited and ready. Organizing a book cover for each of them will come later.

(P.S. The fairy above is one of my daughters, Angelica.)


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Sharing A Scene from "Through the Veil"

Just for fun, and because I have always been too shy to share the writing I have done on my novels, I thought I would share the opening scene (a very short one) from the novel I wrote during my first time doing NaNoWriMo (in 2009). It's from the novel called "Through the Veil." I am working on being braver with my writing by being able to share bits of it from time to time and get feedback.

How did she get into this? Bella didn’t know how she had ended up in this predicament. Just last week, she was a normal 15 year old girl with a normal life. She talked about boys with her friends and worried about her grades and what to wear to the Spring Dance.

How had things come to this?

“Are you ready?” The voice sounded soft but assured. Bella looked up at the girl who had spoken to her. Gabby was petite. She had died her brown hair jet black and had dark eyeliner outlining her eyes. Her very dark purple lipstick accentuated her lips and matched the purple streak in the front portion of her hair. Her expression was serious.

“Yah. Let’s do it,” Bella was as ready as she was ever going to be.

This was the night they were going to escape.

Before anyone thinks to bring it up, yes, I used some of my kids names for the characters. What can I say? I like the names, and I was having trouble naming my characters, so I went with names I knew, even if the characters do not at all resemble their namesakes.

Let me know what you think in the comments, and please be gentle; my ego is a fragile thing. Maybe I will work up the confidence to share a bigger piece of the novel someday.

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The Notebook

Recently, I was going through some old papers when I came across a notebook of mine. In it, I had ideas for stories written down and about 30 pages written of a paranormal romance novel. It was all just handwritten, and I barely remember writing it as it was written so long ago.

But here's the really interesting part about finding it; as I read through what I had written, I not only enjoyed it and thought the writing was pretty good, but I could see where I was going with it. Sometimes, I'll re-read something I've written, and I'll think the writing is awful and start questioning my ability to write a novel worth publishing. Finding that this writing was good was a definite confidence booster for me.

Am I going to start writing the rest of the novel? Not right now. I have other novels I am already working on which are much further along,and , although I'm tempted to go off in this new (old?) direction, I feel I should finish what I am already working on before starting something else. I will, however, take the time to type what is already written of it onto my computer so I can come back to it at a later date.

Do you have any old notebooks that you used to use for notes and writing ideas? Maybe you should go take another look at them. You might be surprised by what you find.

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NaNoWriMo Swindon Meet-up

Amelia, Wendy and Victoria showed up at the NaNoWriMo Swindon meet-up and it was great to meet them! Wendy had her adorable grandson with her and he was very well-behaved.





It was fun chatting with others who are attempting to write 50,000 words this month. We found that we are all going through a lot of the same problems and processes as we try and keep our writing going. Wendy is much more organized than me and has the general plot for her story already worked out, while I am working it out as I go along.

I will enjoy keeping in touch with them and finding out how they are doing as the rest of the month progresses.

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One Week In - NaNoWriMo Stats!

Here we are now, reaching our first week of NaNoWriMo writing. How is everyone doing? Are you reaching the goals you had hoped to reach by today? Are you learning anything new about yourself and your writing through this process of writing for quantity instead of quality?

I have written 14,018 words so far. I was hoping to reach 15,003 words by now, but I'm not quite there. I need to be at least two days of writing ahead because I will be at Slimming World's Woman Of The Year 2010 Ball during this coming weekend, which means that I won't be getting much writing done on Saturday or Sunday.

Mondays are difficult for me to get much writing done as well, but I will have to see what I can do tomorrow.

How are you doing?


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Struggling To Keep The Dream Alive

I am determined to finish my novel this year. But despite my determination, I have not continued to write since NaNowriMo back in November. Even my writing in this blog has fallen by the wayside.

I've let other concerns take precedence. I've let my family's needs take over, and, as many of my children are still small, this has to happen for now. But I've also let other things get in my way. My dedication to taking the steps towards my writing goals has waned.

Maybe what I need is to make a schedule. Then I can care for my family and spend time with them, get the housework done, fit in my daily exercise, and still spend time writing.

Whatever it is I need to do to start writing again, I need to just get on with it. One of the designs in my shop states, "Just Write," and I need to listen to that advice. I need to just get on with it.

What do you do to keep yourself motivated and working towards your dreams?

What Have You Done Since NaNoWriMo?

Have you finished your NaNoWriMo novel yet? Have you started editing its content yet? Have you done any writing on other projects?

Or have you, like me, started working on other, non-writing, projects that were neglected while you feverishly wrote during NaNoWriMo?

I have had the best intentions. Although I surpassed the National Novel Writing Month challenge of 50,000 words, my novel was far from finished. I was so thrilled with how the story was going and so involved with the characters that I just knew I would keep writing, if less than the 1,667 words a day required for National Novel Writing Month.

But I was wrong. I had so many othe projects that I had set on the backburner while I wrote for National Novel Writing Month that I still haven't caught up with them, and as a result, my novel writing has fallen way behind where I would have liked to have been with it by now.

I am still thinking about my novel, and I am still excited about it. And I will definitely start writing again after the Christmas craziness has subsided.

NaNoWriMo FINISH!

Okay everyone! The totals are in! How did you do for NaNoWriMo?



Here is the status update for the finish of NaNoWriMo.

moonduster: 51,822/50,000
MrsEvilGenius: 51,718/50,000
BodogSivana: 50,020/50,000
lyricalb: 31,254/50,000
Ghostlove: 0/50,000
tangledeutopia: 0/50,000
Kryptique: 0/50,000
wheezeybouncer: 0/50,000

These are some pretty good totals! NaNoWriMo is reporting that they have made a 19% win rate this year, which is a record for them. We managed a 37.5% win rate all by ourselves! And we almost had a 50% win rate! With three people making it to 50,000 and one person making it more than half-way there, I think we all did brilliantly!!!!

Congratulations to NaNoWriMo winners and everyone who participated!

Yes, some of you will have some small prizes sent to you, but not until January because I'm broke right now. Oh, and I need you to e-mail me your mailing address if I don't already have it. As long as you participated (i.e. had some sort of word count total uploaded to NaNoWriMo and joined us on this blog), you will get something in the mail.

We even had some NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program winners!

AmericanWriterGirl: 11,752/10,000
WritingSpider: 3,605/3,000 words
gabbykitten: 610/1,000 words
tinkerbella: 293/1,000 words

Please take a moment to tell these kids in the comments section what a great achievement they have managed to accomplish! AmericanWriterGirl is 15 years old, WritingSpider is 7 years old, gabbykitten is 7 years old, and tinkerbella is 4 years old.

Anyone want to share something they've learned from participating in NaNoWriMo this year? Hit us up in the comments!

NaNoWriMo Status Update - Week 4

This is week four of National Novel Writing Month.

How do you think you're doing for National Novel Writing Month?

Here is the status update for our fourth week of NaNoWriMo.

moonduster: 50,011/50,000
MrsEvilGenius: 47,663/50,000
BodogSivana: 43,338/50,000
lyricalb: 31,254/50,000
Ghostlove: 0/50,000
tangledeutopia: 0/50,000
Kryptique: 0/50,000
wheezeybouncer: 0/50,000

I know some of you are writing but haven't uploaded your word counts yet. If you get them in quickly enough, I'll come in and edit your numbers here.

TWO DAYS LEFT! Hurry up and get that writing done!

I'm so excited! This is my first year doing NaNoWriMo, and I've won! I already reached 50,000 words TWO DAYS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!!!! WOOHOO!!!



I am so happy that I committed myself to doing this and I did it! Some days, I really didn't feel like writing, especially because the only time I could find to write was after the kids were in bed, and by then I was tired and just wanted to sit on the computer and play or watch tv. I really didn't want to have to think.

But I've really enjoyed this! My story has taken me in directions I never expected to go, and my characters have grown and changed over the course of writing this novel.

50,011 words is not my complete novel by a long shot. There is still a lot that needs to happen in my characters' lives before my novel is complete. And it's going to take me quite some time to edit my novel and make it presentable. But I have come so much further with it than I ever have before! It's really a great feeling!

Been Writing

Sorry I haven't posted much here this month. I've been busy writing my novel for NaNoWriMo. Monday is the final day to get the 50,000 words verified, and I am now at 45,083 words. Almost there!

NaNoWriMo Status Update - Week 3

This is week three of National Novel Writing Month.

How do you think you're doing for National Novel Writing Month?

Here is the status update for our third week of NaNoWriMo.

moonduster: 38,011/50,000
MrsEvilGenius: 31,827/50,000
lyricalb: 31,254/50,000
BodogSivana: 18,713/50,000
Ghostlove: 0/50,000
tangledeutopia: 0/50,000
Kryptique: 0/50,000
wheezeybouncer: 0/50,000

I know some of you are writing but haven't uploaded your word counts yet. If you get them in quickly enough, I'll come in and edit your numbers here.

I'm so excited! This is my first year doing NaNoWriMo, and I'm actually heading into the fourth and final week ahead of schedule! I might actually succeed at this!