IWSG January, 2020

Christmas dinner was consumed. The gifts have been given and received. Dishes washed. Decorations put away. Christmas holiday celebrations have come and gone. My house has never been so clean. Now I can get back to writing, right? Wrong. I never stopped.
 

This post was written for the Insecure Writer's Support Group monthly blogging event and brought to you by founder and writer Alex J Cavanaugh. Co-hosts helping Alex this month are: Victoria Marie Lees, Stephen Tremp, Renee Scattergood, J.H. Moncrieff and T. Powell Coltrin. Wait, that's me! I'm always honored to help. The optional question is: What started you on your writing journey? Was it a particular book, movie, story, or series? Was it a teacher/coach/spouse/friend/parent? Did you just "know" suddenly you wanted to write?

Of all the things I neglect, writing isn't one of them.

My November project is still on the front burner. I had hopes that I’d get to outline another book in December and write another first draft in January, but that’s not happening. I realized I needed to focus on getting the November first draft completed. Instead of doing something new, I wrote down descriptions (thanks, Elizabeth for the idea) for the November project and filled in more of the blanks—before I forgot them. I did take a couple days to write and submit a short story titled Bleak. I also needed a couple of days to get away from the November project so I rewrote the last story in my short story compilation, Body Bags. At this time, my November project is well over 54,000 words. This does not include the gathering of description that needs to be inserted. I hope to get this first draft finished soon, set it aside and stop thinking about it. I THINK ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME.

Now to the optional questions.

I'm not a successful writer as in selling books, but I write each day. My first attempt at writing stories began in the sixth grade. I rewrote a few fairy tales so that my classmates could act out my plays for our small school, back then. After that, I wrote a romance fairy tale, might have been a play also (can't remember) because 6th graders know all about romance. Not! I wrote about that here. 

In the 1980s, I wrote more children's stories than anything else, maybe because I had young children. I read to them all the time. I sold five (I think) to a Missouri magazine for their read-a-loud section. 

My dad loved writing. He read and told (his) stories to his children. He had a wild imagination that might have been passed down to me. For sure, I inherited his love for writing. He inspired me to write. 

Announcements:

Would you like to be a part of the next IWSG pitch? You can!!! What is this all about? Create a Twitter-length pitch for your completed and polished manuscript and leave room for genre, age, and the hashtag. The next #IWSGPit is January 15, 2020 from 8:00 am - 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time. Read more about it here.

The IWSG Anthology book IS COMING with stories from the winners of the contest and will be available for purchase soon! 

Voyagers: The Third Ghost 
Release date – May 5, 2020
Print 9781939844729 $13.95
EBook 9781939844736 $4.99
Juvenile Fiction - Historical / Action & Adventure / Fantasy & Magic
Dancing Lemur Press/Freedom Fox Press

Read more about it here.

 

That's all folks!

T.