Mark it on your calendar! OCTOBER 4 is a special IWSG Wednesday. There are prizes to win. There’s fun to be had. So get ready and jump in for some fall excitement.
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Young Adult and Middle Grade Author
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Last month we splurged and bought a new couch. And since we want to keep Macy’s in business, we went to their brick and mortal store to make our purchase and schedule the delivery. You know, old school. No drone drop off. No UPS truck.
When the delivery guys arrived, they were cheerful and courteous and dressed in crisp, clean shirts and pants. They rolled out a red carpet at our front door and put on shoe covers before coming inside. Once they’d brought in the couch and put the room back in order (lamps, tables, rug), they handed me an evaluation form. [Read more…] about What The Delivery Guys From Macy’s Taught Me & Nick’s Cover
[Read more…] about Hero Lost, Mysteries of Death and Life, Part 4
Ellen Jacobson, The Silvering
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Quote of the Week: “Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.” J.K. Rowling
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Thanks Alex |
July 5 Question: What is one valuable lesson you’ve learned since you started writing?
The I-Word is not too big, only ten letters long. Yet it carries one of the biggest, scariest emotions writers deal with every day. Here are three questions that cause my insecure quotient to rise.
Is this book ready to submit?
The first question is huge. You have only your own intuitions to follow until you offer it up for readers and feedback. And you must do that. Others will see the positives and the negatives. They’ll call attention to things you missed while tending to the big picture. They may open up new threads that escaped your notice. And they’ll help you answer that first question.
Who should I submit to?
Today the choices are many: sub to an agent, sub to a small press or do it yourself. Each of these choices takes you down a different road, and before you start, you have no idea what that road will be like. It’s only after you look back that you either regret or cheer your decision.
How should I submit it?
Time was that you queried, then waited. When the rejection came, you repeated that process. Today there are all kinds of ways to sub your manuscript. And . . .drum roll here. . .the Twitter Pitch Party is one of the most recent successes in the sub process.
Each author has submitted their favorite inspirational quote, so this month I won’t be adding my usual quote.
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For all My Email Connect Peeps I’m offering a free mobi or mp3 of a short story from the anthology, Beware the Little White Rabbit.
Don’t forget to visit my Featured Follower of the Month, J.H. Moncrief, if you haven’t already. And are you up for some free books? Say so in the comment section.
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If you haven’t heard the great news, The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is now in the top 101 best websites on Writer’s Digest!
Quote of the Week: “No performer should attempt to bite off red-hot iron unless he has a good set of teeth.” Harry Houdini (This is true of writers, too! Don’t you think?)
This person opened a lot of things about the world to me. In the center of her library was a globe in a wooden cradle that was bigger than I was. I still remember her turning that globe, tracing the Yangtze River across China and telling me about the beauty of the Three Gorges. When I was older, I understood how much this Russian woman had traveled, that she spoke several languages, and knew more first-hand about geography than my teachers.
This month I’m featuring another writer who loves to travel. J.H. Moncrieff jets off to far away places to soak up the settings and get ready to write her next story of suspense or horror. She has several out and I’ve read one so far. I’ll be reading more in the future.
Here’s my review of The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave.
AMAZON |
“. . .a web of conspiracy, betrayal, and murder.”
Don’t forget that SUBMISSION are open for the next #ISWG Anthology. You have until July 31 to submit.
Title: Writing for Profit
Word Limit: 500-1000 words
Submission: admin AT insecurewriterssupportgroup DOT com
Quote of the Week: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It
Please make me want to read your book. I really want to read it, but you have to help me out.
This may seem odd, but last month I started three books; I was only able to finish two. In one, the opening two sentences had three grammatical errors. Seriously. In the next one, the Kindle formatting was bad
I
had trouble following
the
story.
I finally found a book I could read and enjoy, so thank you for the fine editing, the good formatting and the satisfying read, Ms. Professional Author.
#IWSG Book Club selection this month is The Secret Garden. We’re reading it to have a discussion about characterization. There are several reasons not to finish this book. One is the omniscient point of view. The author takes you into everyone’s head, including some small animals, without so much as a scene change. Then there’s the heavy use of respelling to create the Yorkshire dialect. That’s hard to follow, especially when there are long chunks of one person speaking. It’s filled with tropes such as the wise and gentle peasant in the bucolic cottage, the orphaned girl, the invalid restored to health by nature, the grieving uncle off to find solace in other places. Most of the story is written in what today’s critics call Telling. The author simply tells you how the characters feel, she doesn’t bother to reveal those feelings by Showing the character in action.
However, it still holds up as a great story. First, I responded to the story as a period piece, and then before I knew it, I was caught up and wanted to follow the MC’s journey to the end. It didn’t matter that I was head-hopping or that I was being told how the characters felt. I was in the hands of a storyteller and enjoying the time in her tale.
If you haven’t joined us, I hope you will. The discussions are interesting.
Join Us
|
Clare Dugmore and Kyra Lennon |
Enter and tell about those small things that make you smile!
Here are mine: The view from the top of any mountain. Hills, too. The morning. A good friend who stops by. An excellent book. My family.
Quote of the Week: “Books are uniquely portable magic.” Stephen King