IWSG: August 2016

Today we're joined together in the monthly IWSG bloghop. Put together and led by Alex J. Cavanaugh, each member posts on the first Wednesday of the month. We encourage, share, comfort and help each other in our individual writing journeys in any way we can. After years of participating in this group, some of you might feel that you're shared the same thing month after month. If you're stuck on what to post, you can use (or not) this month's question.

What was your first piece of writing as an aspiring author? Where is it now, collecting dust or has it been published?

I'm going with the question this month. The first novel I wrote, The Greater Good, was not the first book I ever received a contract for. It was the novel I plotted out in my head years before I actually wrote. I wrote it by hand and then typed it on an old iMac desktop. Back in those days, everything was queried by sending out hard copies. I spent a lot of money on postage. But after I attended a number of workshops, I knew the book needed a lot or work. I put it away for a while and worked on the books I did have contracts for. But I loved that story. After many more drafts, I lost count, the publisher I'm currently with offered me a contract. In 2007, The Greater Good, was published. Nine years later, that book still has between 5 and 10 sales every quarter. And I still love that story. So dust off those old manuscripts and stories and give them another chance!

One of my IWSG friends has a book coming out soon!

Cling to God: A Daily Devotional  by Lynda R Young

Release date: 10/18/16
Published by Freedom Fox Press

Cling to God in the chaos of life…

Cling to God is a book of devotionals for every day of the year. The aim is to encourage Christians in their faith, to help them think about their beliefs and learn more about God. The devotions are short and inspirational so that people with busy lifestyles will still be able to spend time with the Lord each day. It will appeal to a wide Christian audience, to those new in their faith as well as those matured beyond milk and honey.

Lynda R. Young, a Christian first, writes devotionals, articles, and speculative short stories. In her spare time she is also an editor, game developer, artist, and dabbles in photography and all things creative. She lives in Australia with her sweetheart of a husband. You can find her here: Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads

In case you're worried about the Zika virus, you should know that there are about 144,000 mosquitoes for every person on Earth. Today's not fun fact.

One fun fact that is actually funny. If you obsessively correct people's grammar, you may suffer from an obsessive-compulsive disorder called grammatical pedantry syndrome, GPS.

Where is your first piece of writing you did intending publication? Have your share of the mosquitoes found you this summer? Do you flinch when someone uses bad grammar around you?

Insecure Writers Support Group Welcomes You!

Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh has had some great ideas in the past few years. If you've read his books, you know about some of them. Unless you've been writing on an island using squid ink the last two years, you've probably heard of his brainy idea called the Insecure Writers Support Group. Alex gave birth to this tiny genius and nursed it along on his blog. Like all healthy newborns, it grew and grew and grew, maturing until it was ready to move out on its own. Today the IWSG opens the doors of its new home to everyone interested in looking for support, offering support, or just having some interaction with other writers.

I'm thrilled to be part of the new blog. You can get all the details on the site and read the introduction penned, well typed, by our captain. What can you learn from the IWSG blog about writing? Everything. Anything. That would take thousands, millions maybe, of pages. What you will find are resources, links, lists of places to look for the answers you need.

You know the smartphone ads that say 'there's an app for that.' Well on the IWSG blog, we have a link for that.

Who are we? Alex J. Cavanaugh, Joy Campbell, Michele Wallace, Joylene Nowell Butler, L. Diane Wolfe, Lynda Young and me. We've all had a part, but I've been amazed at the expertise and hard work already contributed by my partners in this endeavor. We're all people like you, writers making our way through the complicated world of publishing. But none of us have to do it alone. Join us at the new blog. Follow us and put us on your favorites list so you can come back often.

Have you followed the new site yet? Do you know my partners in crime?

Dust Off the Oldies

In case you've been living under a rock this week, Alex J. Cavanaugh's third book, CassaStorm took off in a mach speed launch. You probably saw him everywhere. Each blog he visited had a unique bit of info on Alex or his books. Lynda R. Young shared a very interesting post for Alex yesterday. He shared his story about how he never intended to write novels. Read how he pulled an old story he wrote out of a drawl, dusted it off can created his first novel. Read it here.

How many writers have stories and even complete novels sitting on a shelf or on a zip drive somewhere? Probably all of us. We left them behind because they weren't good enough or another project took us away from them. But when we created them, their characters or their plot caught our imagination.

Last year around this time, I had just signed a contract for my latest fantasy novel with Crescent Moon Press. I always clean up my writing area when I finish a project and there it was. My next project. An old manuscript, perhaps five years old, that I'd finished and set aside. I decided I would polish it, fix the weak points and see what I could do with it. I'd always like the main characters but for some reason I had set it aside.

Viola! The Marine's Queen, my bestselling novel ever, was picked up by my romance publisher. Perhaps it was the timing, genetic engineering, near the same time Star Trek Into Darkness came out. But if I hadn't dusted off that old story...

Do you have a neglected work of art waiting to be rediscovered? Did you read Alex's story over on Lynda's blog?

First for Mondays

I read somewhere that this is a special December with five weekends though that also means five Mondays. The good news is that I will have two of them off from the day job. The bad news is the other three. At the least, I have lots to talk about on this first Monday.

With the holiday season comes lots of gatherings with friends, families and coworkers. It also means lots of food, delicious, fun, fattening food. It's very difficult to avoid and refuse all the wonderfulness. So my first Monday health tip is to not refuse it. Instead of being strict about what you eat, try policing your portion size. You can even help yourself with your own baking. Make your cookies smaller. Cut those holiday marshmallow treats into tiny squares. Use smaller plates and even smaller cups for your sweet holiday drinks. And then cut yourself off early in the evening. Eating late can really ruin your weight management goals.

Onto other great things about this first Monday. Today, Lynda R. Young, announces her release of the anthology, Make Believe. Lynda's book can be purchased at this link. And read this short blurb:

Birthright by Lynda R. Young
Christa can mask the pain and hide the scars, but running from a birthright is impossible.

She’s tried to escape her grief by fleeing to a small town in Florida. Much to her frustration, the locals think they recognize her even though she's never been there before. To make things worse, a man named Jack spouts outrageous theories about her.

Both spur Christa to bolt, to start fresh yet again, but there’s something about Jack that intrigues her enough to stay. The only problem? Someone else wants her to leave, and they won’t stop until she’s dead.


Blurbs from all the stories included in Make Believe can be found on the J. Taylor Publishing website HERE.

Read an excerpt here. You can also read the excerpts from all the stories in this series here.

So, how are you going to watch your caloric intake this holiday? Or do you throw caution to the wind and enjoy the feasting and work it off after? Did you go check out Lynda's book?