The Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) is the brilliant idea of Alex J. Cavanaugh. The purpose of the group is to share doubts and insecurities and to encourage one another. Please visit the other participants and share your support. A kind word goes a long way.
This month's awesome co-hosts are: Dolorah @ Book Lover,Christopher D. Votey, Tanya Miranda, and Chemist Ken!
This month's optional question: How do major life events affect your writing? Has writing ever helped you through something?
Writing has helped me through everything! I've been creating stories since I was a small child, and I honestly believe it is the one thing that has given me hope, strength, and kept me sane. They say writing is better than therapy, and I couldn't agree more.
Major life events do affect my writing, and I'm certain every writer out there will be saying the same thing. Leaving home, university, deaths, marriage, sickness, and having a child. It's interesting to look at my stories through the years, and I've kept them all. Each event has changed not only me but the way I write too. And I think it a wonderful thing. If an author didn't change over the years, I would worry something was wrong. They aren't learning and growing. They've become stagnant.
Insecurities: I'm still dealing with getting into a proper routine to be not only physically better but happy with what I'm doing and not grudgingly trying to stay healthy. It's difficult because it takes me away from the computer. I still feel guilty for not being around online as often, but slowly, things are sliding into place.
* * * * *
Look what's out now!
Enter our mysterious realms where the stories are as varied and rich as the types of soil on this and other planets. Enchanted forests are knotted with roots and vines. Dreaded paths take us through strange, unexplored places.
Investigate new worlds and houses frequented by ghosts. Come across witches and wizards and an assassin tasked to kill Death.
Meet hot robots, hungry winds, and the goddess of chaos. Explore alien lands, purgatorial realms, and a shocking place where people bury the living with their dead.
Encounter paranormal detectives, imprisoned dragons, dark demons, cursed jewels, and handsome prophets. Search shifting worlds trapped in mirrors and a disturbing future where a president aims to rid the world of Otherkind.
Experience a haunted journey on a riverboat, water sprites borne of pennies, preternatural creatures, ancient serpents, and the Lady of the Lake who lurks in dark waters.
From USA Today bestselling and popular science fiction and fantasy authors comes Elements of Untethered Realms , a supernatural compilation of the anthologies Twisted Earths , Mayhem in the Air , Ghosts of Fire , and Spirits in the Water . These forty thrilling tales feature authors Angela Brown, Jeff Chapman, Cathrina Constantine, Julie Flanders, River Fairchild, Gwen Gardner, Misha/M. Gerrick, Meradeth Houston, Graeme Ing, Simon Kewin, M. Pax, Christine Rains, Cherie Reich, and Catherine Stine.
Meradeth Houston lives in Montana where she's an anthropology professor and scientist. If you let her, she'll tell you more than you ever wanted to know about getting DNA out of dead bodies and old poop. She specializes in degraded DNA (translation: really old DNA that's decayed), and runs two laboratories filled with students, interns, and maybe a few shenanigans. Her research seeks to better understand the dynamic of past migration on human populations. Her goal is to someday clone herself because that's probably the only way she'll ever get through her to-do list. Though, who knows, maybe that'll mean she's donating to someone else's soul? 
The
Backworlds and Foreworlds have banned together with the hope of
defeating a terrifying enemy, the Quassers. Craze gave up his friends
and livelihood to become the envoy for the Backworlds. All he'd rather
be doing is brewing some malt and tending his bar, but there is much
more than his pride at stake here. The alliance is shaky, and Craze
can't afford to let it fall apart. They have one more chance at
survival, and it's all or nothing.
Sixteen-year-old
Mary Monroe is an innocent girl in the years of sex, drugs, and rock
'n' roll. She has new friends in her older brother's girlfriend and her
group. They take Mary out of her reserved shell where she meets a
handsome new student, Michael Covington. He's got bad boy appeal, but
there's something more to him. Mary is assaulted at a wild party, and
Michael rescues her. At least, she's pretty certain he did. Or was he
the one who attacked her? What's even more, the more she gets to know
him, the more she's falling for him.
*
