#IWSG for August 2016

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.

The awesome co-hosts for this month's IWSG are: Tamara Narayan, Tonja Drecker, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Lauren @ Pensuasion, Stephen Tremp, and Julie Flanders!

This month's question: What was your very first piece of writing as an aspiring writer? Where is it now? Collecting dust or has it been published?

I was writing since I could make sentences. I still have a poem about the moon I wrote when I was five which won a ribbon in my town's fall festival. I have the binders of short stories I wrote about the neighborhood kids from when I was eight through my teen years.

The first short story I tried to get published was rejected, and I threw it away. I was eighteen, and I had very thin skin. I remember it was about a college aged psychopath killing the boys who didn't love her back, and who really didn't know she existed at all. That rejection kept me from letting anyone else see my writing for over twelve years.

I did keep writing, though. When I finally started submitting stories to venues again, more rejections came my way, but I was older and wiser more stubborn. I kept putting myself out there until a little drabble about alien pet care was accepted. My first acceptance. And I made a dollar from it! I would have been ecstatic without the dollar, but I keep it in a frame on my desk to remind me to never give up.

Friday Five for November 6, 2015

1. Did you think October was the month for treats? No way! There are lots of chances for you to win this month. TB Markinson holds a monthly book giveaway. She has five awesome books for you to win, and this month, The 13th Floor Complete Collection is one of them. Untethered Realms is touring with their new short story collection, Mayhem in the Air. Get exclusive excerpts and enter for a chance to win a $40 gift card. Last but not least, Realms Faire 2015 begins on Monday. Huzzah! Tons of medieval games, giveaways, and grog. I'll be hosting the Drench-a-Wench event with a giveaway every day.

2. I recently had two short story rewrite & resubmits, and now I have two acceptances to Every Day Fiction! "Paid" is a little noir cop piece with a twist and "Ligeia's Song" is about a girl kidnapped by pirates and pit against the Sirens. Every Day Fiction is having a few technical problems at the moment, but hopefully they'll be back very soon.

3. This week, my mom was down and we did our Christmas shopping. I'm almost all done. Just a few special gifts for my son that I'll need to get online. I also make a calendar every year on Shutterfly with pictures of my son and give it to the relatives.

4. I'm tuckered out today. I'll get back into the swing of things and catch up with everyone next week. Have a good weekend!

5. Oh! I was so surprised last week to find I was a winner in Yolanda Renee's Desperation Holler Halloween Challenge. It was so much fun answering her scary interview questions and finishing off a piece of flash fiction. Check out all the authors' awesome stories on her blog. I would definitely do it again next year!

Friday Five for September 11, 2015

1. I didn't get as much time to write this week, but I passed the 10k mark with my newest project. I finished the first round of edits for the first book in The Paramours series. Not much needed to be changed at all. My editor might send it back to me once more for an okay, and then it can be sent on for formatting. That's when I get my release dates!

2. My holiday horror short story, "All I Want For Christmas" was accepted by 9 Tales for their upcoming release, 9 Tales Told In The Dark. Yay! It will be released late this year. Another one of my stories was short-listed by a pro venue. I've been sending stories to this venue for the last few years, and this is my fourth time being short-listed with them. Maybe the fourth time is the charm!

3. Have you heard of the movie Tusk? It's a Kevin Smith film. A ridiculous shock horror about an insane man who kidnaps people and makes them into a walrus. I expected utter silliness when I sat down with my husband to watch it. What I found instead was brilliance. Not the story itself, but in the performances from Michael Parks and Johnny Depp. I haven't been this blown away by a pair of actors in a long time.

4. It's getting to that time of year where there are a lot of scary movies and shows on TV. When I do my exercises during the weekdays, I don't watch talk shows or soaps. I watch ghost and monster hunters. I've been seeing a lot of commercials for what's coming in October. Here's one show you might not have heard about: Exorcism Live! Yes, they'll be doing a live exorcism. Don't let the ads fool you (like they did me!). They're not exorcising a person. It's a house. I always wonder about these live shows. What do they do if absolutely nothing happens?

5. It's almost the weekend! What are your plans? We have a BBQ & Blues Fest and a hot air balloon festival going on nearby. It'll be the perfect cool autumn weather for it too.

IWSG for July 2014

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: Krista McLaughlin, Kim Van Sickler, Heather Gardner, and Hart Johnson. IWSG is also trying to get on the Writers Digest Best 101 Websites list. Please email them at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, subject line "101 Websites," and suggest the IWSG - http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/ .

This month I'm insecure about being accepted. Rejections get me down, but acceptances stress me out in another way.

Will I live up to the editor's expectations? What if having a publisher doesn't live up to my expectations? Will my readers like it? What if my sales flop and no publisher ever wants to take me on again?

Taking a deep breath. Letting it out slowly.

Did I think I should be dancing for joy and kicking back with no worries? Well, no. I did think I'd be a little more confident about things. I know the twisty-turny roller coaster of writer emotions will take me around the bend again to dancing days, but this week, I'm gripping the edge of my desk as I finish off the first round of revisions for my editor.

Friday Five for June 13, 2014

1. Last week I hadn't heard about any of my submissions, but then I received three short story rejections in one day. One is difficult, but three? Not a good day. I have since sent on the stories to other venues. Never give up!

2.Then, to add to those ones, another publisher rejected my novel. I immediately sent it out to the last venue on my list. I shall know by the end of the summer if my book will be accepted or if I'm self-publishing it.

3. As the rejections piled on, I received one email that blew them all away. Very soon I'll have awesome news to share with you about the novella I submitted eight weeks ago. One acceptance makes the dozens of rejections fade away. One step closer to my goal of becoming a hybrid author.

4. Next week I'll be visiting with family. I have two great reviews and a promo scheduled while I'm gone. Pop in and make sure the gremlins haven't fiddle with my blog! Also, click on over to Jeff Chapman's blog. He featured my short story "Ladgarda" as story of the week. Thanks again, Jeff!

5. Have a great weekend and week, folks! Don't forget there are still two amazing giveaways going on at Untethered Realms.

Friday Five for March 14th, 2014

1. I had my first short story acceptance of the year. Yay! My fantasy tale, "Summoning Fire" will be published on Aurora Wolf next month. There's magic, zombies, and a little bit of romance. Not with the zombies! Yuck.

2. Today I'll find out if I won BigAl's Books & Pals Readers' Choice Award in fantasy for THE HARBINGER. I'm honored just to be nominated. Winning would be very nice too. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

3. I haven't had any time for revisions this week. One thing or another has popped up. Taxes are done, though. And I had to declare my earnings from my writing for the first time in my life. I'm a little bit excited about it.

4. It's my son's spring break next week. I'll lose a lot of my writing time, but I have a few fun things planned. When he goes back, he'll start an after school literacy program that will be on Wednesdays. I'm eager to see how much he improves. He's gotten stubborn about reading with me, but he's very good with the teachers at his school.

5. Don't forget to enter my HUGE Speculative Fiction Giveaway celebrating my reaching 500 followers. You could win a grand prize pack of books from 14 amazing authors.

Have a great weekend!

Arrows of Anteros and First Acceptance of 2013

If you're looking for a great place to submit your flash fiction, M Pepper Langlinais has started a new site called Arrows of Anteros. She's an award winning screenwriter, a produced playwright, and a bestselling author. She has a bunch of excellent little pieces of fiction already up on the site, and she's searching for more. Instructions on how to submit something to M are at the bottom of her page. She wants flash fiction with a word count no greater than 3,000. She's fine with horror and romance, but she won't portray anything graphic on the site.

I'll be submitting something to M later this week. I managed to squeeze in time to submit three stories last week to a few other sites. I received my first rejection of the year from Tor earlier this month and my first acceptance this week from 365 Tomorrows. I'm not sure when it will be published, but I'll let you know when my story is up and available to the public.

Friday Five for June 15th

1. I had a dream the other night that I had a beard. Not a long one, but short and neatly trimmed. It was a brighter red than my hair. Everyone really loved the beard. I was also very feminine in the dream. I was model thin and wearing a red sundress. That bit takes away from the beard being the masculine part of myself interpretation, unless the masculine side of me is more feminine than I usually am. And that wouldn't be a stretch!

2. I have my writer's group meeting tomorrow. I always get nervous about it even though I've been with them for nearly a year now. They've taught me so much about critiquing. So I can suffer with being anxious because I'm better in the end for being a part of this group.

3. My sci-fi flash piece, "Red" was accepted by Pill Hill Press yesterday evening. It will be in their collection entitled DAILY FLASH 2013: 365 DAYS OF FLASH FICTION. Hmm, my dream about a red beard and a red sundress. Coincidence?

4. I haven't written anything new this week other than blog posts. Not through lack of inspiration, but lack of time. Perhaps I should cut back to only three a week (and any special news ones!) until I have more time when the school year starts.

5. Father's Day is this Sunday. I had my son make my husband a card, but my husband hasn't made up his mind what he wants to do yet. Are you doing anything special on Sunday?

Updated goals for 2012

I know it's difficult to see my goal tally on the sidebar. For some reason, Blogger automatically shrinks it even when I tell it not to. I've updated and revised my goals for this year.

I'm doing very well with writing and submitting a short story every month. I even have May's story written already. It's a sci-fi piece and my first attempt using an omniscient POV. I like the way it turned out. I'll have it critiqued by my writer's group at our monthly meeting and then I'll submit it.

I've gotten a couple of rejections lately, but this morning I was happy to find an acceptance in my inbox. My paranormal crime short story, "Immaculate" has been accepted by The Harrow Press for their anthology, Mortis Operandi. I don't know the release date yet, possibly November or December, but I'll keep you posted.

I planned to revise three of my novels this year, but it wasn't happening. Other things in life have to take priority, and so I've changed my novel goals for this year. I'll still participate in NaNoWriMo. I can't miss that! I'm not sure what I'll write yet, but that's still a little while off.

I started on my revisions for my paranormal romance, Witch's First Rule. I've done a lot of work on it, and it's survived two drafts so far. I love most of the changes I've made, but the one thing I'm struggling with is changes to the protagonist. This manuscript had gotten a lot of attention from agents and publishers when I queried it, but they always passed after reading the full manuscript. Two were kind enough to send personalized rejection letters. The problem they had was the protagonist. They feared readers wouldn't be able to relate to her. Basically, they felt the protagonist was too much of a b!tch. Yes, my protagonist is sometimes dominant, selfish, and defensive. (There's a reason why, but it would spoil the plot if I explained why!) So while I was revising, I attempted to make her more likable, to soften her hard edges. I realize it's important that readers need to be able to relate to the main character, but I didn't like how I changed her. I wasn't happy. She wasn't happy. It was her hard edge that made her unique. So I've stopped. I'm not going to change my protagonist. I've put it aside for the moment until I decide what exactly I want to do with it. Self-publish or seek a small publisher? I'll know with more certainty what I want to do after I complete my next project which will take me on a self-publishing adventure.

I'm writing a paranormal romance/urban fantasy series consisting of six novellas. They'll be in the same vein as my story from the A to Z Challenge. I'm really excited about this project. I considered seeking a publisher for them, but with the way my life is at the moment, I don't know if I could keep deadlines. I want the freedom to move at my speed and to promote the series as I want. It will also be a good way to see if I want to self-publish anything else in the future. Self-publishing has its own challenges, but I need that flexibility right now in my life. I won't say anything else about this project until I have more to give you, but it's going to be so much fun.

Have a good weekend!

First short story acceptance of 2012

My first short story acceptance of the year!

My noir story, "Lady Blood" will be on A Twist of Noir tomorrow.

It's a great site with quality dark and oneiric stories.

Please pop over and comment.

I'd love to hear what you think about my story.

Do I win some cool points for writing a noir story?

I gave them a Fever

I hope everyone had a good long weekend. My son was having a hard time of it and thus so was I. Yet it ended off well last night when we met friends for ice cream. Ice cream makes kids happy. Ice cream makes me happy. Brownie Nugget. And, oh, what big nuggets they were, too!

I got an acceptance last night. My horror short story, "Fever" was accepted by Wicked East Press for their anthology, Under The Stairs. It's always wonderful to have a story accepted, but the icing on the cake is that my friend and critique partner, Cherie Reich will also have a story in the anthology. It makes it extra special to be in an anthology with a friend.

I hope to finish my dark fantasy short story today or tomorrow. I need to start a second edit on my latest manuscript. Here's hoping my son sleeps a good long time this afternoon!