It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. The amazing co-hosts for April 3 IWSG are: J.H. Moncrieff, Natalie Aguirre, Patsy Collins, and Chemist Ken! This month, I’m talking about action scenes. The IWSG Day question for April is: If you could use a wish to help you write just ONE scene/chapter of your book, which one would it be? (examples: fight scene / first kiss scene / death scene / chase scene / first chapter / middle chapter / end chapter, etc.) Action scenes are really hard for me. I don’t even Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Today I’m going to explore self-publishing with print-on-demand, as I answer the #IWSG question for October – How do major life events affect your writing? Has writing ever helped you through something? Anything you have ever gone through will affect who you are personally, and as a writer. It will certainly color your writing in subject and tone. When life isn’t going well, it can Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Today I’m going to explore how to approach your writing like an Olympian in training, as I answer the #IWSG question for August. What pitfalls would you warn other writers to avoid on their publication journey? I am not athletic by any stretch of the imagination. Believe it or not, I’ve never even watched the Olympic Games. But I do find the accomplishments of Olympians Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Today I’m going to explore my writing goals, past, present, and future as I answer the #IWSG question for July. What are your ultimate writing goals, and how have they changed over time (if at all)? When I was young I wrote a lot of poetry. My writing goals were very romantic. I can’t imagine writing a poem now. Perhaps I’ve grown too jaded, too Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Today I’m going to explore character names as I answer the #IWSG question for June: Which is harder for you to come up with, book titles or character names? I have a much harder time coming up with a book title than I do good character names. While a book title needs to be catchy and clever, there are some good guidelines and tools available Read more…
It’s spring! It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Even though it seemed like it would never arrive, spring is here! Today I will explore whether the season inspires me to write, or not, as I answer this month’s IWSG Day question: It’s spring! Does this season inspire you to write more than other seasons, or not? The Short Answer No. I always want to write. But… But each season inspires me Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Today I will reminisce about the day I published my first book and what I do after accomplishing a writing goal, as I answer this month’s IWSG Day question: March 7 question – How do you celebrate after accomplishing a writing goal? My entire life I dreamed of being a writer. Unfortunately, when it came time to decide what I would do with my life, Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Today I will explore putting a schedule in place for writing. I’ll focus on the genre of self-help as it relates to writing about cancer, as I answer this month’s IWSG Day question: February 7 question – What do you love about the genre you write in most often? If you want to have some fun, take a look at the Wikipedia page for the Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Today I will explore putting a schedule in place for writing. I’ll focus especially on blog writing/publishing, as I answer this month’s IWSG Day question: What steps have you taken to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing? Success in a blog schedule starts with making a plan. A plan for your blog schedule starts with inspiration. Last fall, I read Meera Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Today I will look back 2017 and consider my successes and failures, as I answer this month’s IWSG Day question: As you look back on 2017, with all its successes/failures, if you could backtrack, what would you do differently? Rating My Successes and Failures My writing life is comprised of several different aspects. I’ll share a few of them and how I view my successes Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Today I will share my experience with NaNoWriMo and critique groups, as I answer this month’s IWSG Day question: Win or not, do you usually finish your NaNoWriMo project? Have any of them gone on to be published? NaNoWriMo 2016 Last year, I participated in NaNoWriMo. It was a great experience. I did win. I completed my VERY rough draft of about 75,000 words during the Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Today I will share about how spending time with the local police and firefighters has helped me make my characters and scenes more realistic, as I answer this month’s IWSG Day question: Have you ever slipped any of your personal information into your characters, either by accident or on purpose? What do you know? I love the old axiom “write what you know.” Unfortunately, that Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I encourage you to check out their website and even sign up for the IWSG Newsletter. Today I will share about how hard it can be to make changes in your writing as I answer this month’s IWSG Day question. The IWSG Day question for September is: Have you ever surprised yourself with your writing? What has surprised me are the times when I have made changes, despite how difficult it is to do. Artists, including (perhaps, especially) writers, get very Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. The IWSG Day question for July is: What is one valuable lesson you’ve learned since you started writing? My answer: Take Time. This is the perfect topic for me to write about right now. I just got back from our family’s annual “Erickson Cabin Week.” About 25 of us (the number varies slightly each year) go to Woman Lake Lodge where we spend time together, swim, read, and play games. I recently had surgery on my foot and can’t bear weight Read more…
It’s the 1st Wednesday of the month again. That’s when I take part in Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. This June, the question insecure writers are writing about is: Did you ever say I quit? If so, what happened to make you come back to writing? When my husband and I were first married, Dan was working part time as a Realtor and thanks to the housing market implosion, a full-time bus driver. I was a contract sewer. The kind that sews things, not the thing waste water passes through. I also was homeschooling our 3 daughters. It Read more…
For this post, I will take a refreshing break from writing about cancer. Today is the first Wednesday of the month. That’s the day when members of Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh‘s Insecure Writer’s Support Group post an article answering the question of the month. This month, I will share about the importance of research as well as my recent interview of a Wisconsin conservation warden. May’s IWSG Day Question: What is the weirdest/coolest thing you ever had to research for your story? Without further ado…My answer: My interview of a Wisconsin Conservation Warden I’m working on the revisions of my Read more…
As part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, we write a blog post the first Wednesday of every month on a particular topic. The goal is to encourage and support one another. This month’s question is, “What was your very first piece of writing as an aspiring writer? Where is it now? Collecting dust or has it been published?” It’s a great opportunity to answer a question I frequently get, “Did you ever publish your novel?” I finished the rough draft of a mystery about a year ago. It’s sitting in my scrivener files. A printed copy that I began Read more…
I’m part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. it’s a fun group of writers and bloggers who share how things are going with their writing and encourage one another. You can find out more about these awesome (and sometimes insecure) writers, HERE. One of the things we do on the 1st Wednesday of each month is to write on a specific topic or question. July’s question is: “What’s the best thing someone has ever said about your writing?” I only had to look back a couple of weeks in my memory… I recently published a book called, Facing Cancer as Read more…
In case you haven’t heard, Facing Cancer as a Friend: How to Support Someone who has Cancer, is now available in both Kindle and paperback formats! This morning, Dan and I were having coffee and a bagel, on Panera’s patio, when I overheard a conversation that stopped me dead. I wasn’t trying to be nosy. It’s just that when I hear the words “cancer,” and “lymph nodes,” my ears perk up. I looked over to see 4 couples sitting around a table, all the ladies on one end, and the men on the other. They were all retirement age. I Read more…
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