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Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.
The awesome co-hosts for the April 3 posting of the IWSG are Janet Alcorn, T. Powell Coltrin, Natalie Aguirre, and Pat Garcia!
The following link will allow you to peruse everyone in the Blog Hop.
Link | IWSG Blog Hop Participants
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April 3 question - How long have you been blogging?
(Or on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram?)
What do you like about it and how has it changed?
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Hello, friends!
I didn't post in March. It was the first IWSG post I'd missed in a while, but February was brutal and March snuck up on me, and I just had to take a week off.
I have posted two blogs since my last IWSG post at the beginning of February though.
Both are excerpts, so I hope if you'd like to read some short pieces from some of my works in progress, you'll go pay them a visit.
Link || A Valentine's Day Excerpt
I also have an exciting book review blog coming soon featuring Mage Breaker by Sean R. Frazier. I meant to have it posted by now, but I haven't quite had the time. I've been so busy!
I've found myself judging for the Daphne de Maurier Award from the RWA Kiss of Death Mystery/Suspense chapter and got the submissions to judge. That's taken a chunk of my time, and I still have two full books to read!
Beyond that, I'm still mentoring a group of writers every week, beta reading, ARC reading, and trying to keep up with my own writing.
I participated in the SavvyAuthors Spring Pitch Fest and got a request from a small publisher, so I'm trying to get that submission put together and sent in, along with a few more queries just so they're all on the same timeline. I've been doing a bit of restructuring on my holiday romance and cut about 10 pages from the beginning so far. I think this is turning out to be a good thing, because now my true Meet Cute is in the first 30 pages, which is perfect for query packages. Instead of having it in the first 40 pages like it was before. I'm currently waiting on feedback on the first 30 from some trusted readers before I send them off! I'm also planning to enter the Georgia Romance Writers' Maggie Awards contest, too! It's shaping up to be a busy year and I'm shooting my shot with things.
My motto for the year is "you miss 100% of the shots you never take" so I've been trying not to let opportunities pass me by. It's been a hustle, and this first quarter of the year flew by, but I think I'm doing alright!
Have you found yourself taking any chances yet this year?
Pitch Events!
I did participate in #IWSGPit the other day! It was a lot of fun and helped me hone my Twitter pitches down so I have a few to work with, although I didn't get any agent attention.
On top of that, a writing Discord I'm in decided to throw our own pitch event on April 1st called #ChaosPit. We thought it would just be our Discord tweeting into the void, but then it took off and even trended for a bit! It was so much fun.
We plan to do more of them so keep your eyes peeled! Check out the link if you want to know more about what a "chaos pitch" is.
Link || ChaosPit
And, even though it was impromptu, agents started to check things out. I managed to get two likes during that off the most random pitches I've ever done.
Today is #questpit. It's another author hype event but agents have been known to lurk and make requests. We'll see how today goes!
I've got a handful of queries to send out in the next few weeks! Finally jumping back into the trenches for my last push before I make the decision to self-pub this book in the winter.
The IWSG Prompt - Blogging
Wow. Thinking about how long I've been blogging, if you don't consider consistently, then I probably had my first blogs when I was in high school around 2001-2005. I don't think I had one before then, but I might have! I was definitely on the internet in middle school, I just can't remember when I started my first blog. I know for a fact in high school I blogged on MySpace, LiveJournal, and its less popular gothy spinoff DeadJournal. I didn't have a Xanga though.
Since then I've had other blogs off and on. This is one of the ones I've kept up with most consistently. I migrated this blog over from a WordPress site a couple years back. I've also used blogs on blogger and blogspot. Some of those I was required to start in college for classes.
I feel like blogging has changed because in general blogs aren't as popular as they used to be. Especially ones embedded into a website. Unless you have a recipe blog. Those are super popular. Except sometimes I just want the recipe and not the history of some ingredient in the recipe. You know what I'm talking about!
I do feel like websites like Medium and Substack kind of change the name of the game with blogging. Blogs aren't always free to read, which kinda sucks sometimes. And then Substack can even serve as a type of a newsletter. A combo blog if you will.
I've also been on other social media for a long time. I've already mentioned MySpace, but I joined Facebook when Facebook was still only available to college students. In fact, my best friend at a large state university told me about Facebook, and I had to request that my small, liberal arts college be granted access. I would say that Facebook has changed the most dramatically in that regard from when I started using it to present day.
In general, change isn't always bad, and often times it's good. It just takes some getting used to.
My favorite part about it all is being able to keep in touch with people so effortlessly and seeing glimpses of their lives. I've moved around so much, Facebook is one of the easiest ways for me to keep in touch with friends from all over the place.
I'll add though that my biggest use of social media at the moment is Discord and also Bluesky/Twitter. I host a daily writing prompt on Bsky/Twitter called WIPSnips and am super involved in writing groups on Discord. I'll toss in a couple links of ones I recommend.
Writing Discords
These are only three of the writing discords I recommend. There are a ton of others though like Bookdun, The Erotica Abyss, Writer's Block, Indie Author Connect, and Indie Authors Ascending.
Link | We Write At Dawn
WWAD is a nearly 3k member writing community where you can network, find beta readers, participate in writing sprints and events, and commiserate over any part of the writing process
Link | The Indie Resource
TIR is a small but growing space for Indie Authors! There are giveaways, opportunities to connect with editors and cover artists, and a wealth of information about the indie publishing process
Link | The Love Club Discord
This is a small Discord (18+) for readers and writers of romance! There's also a podcast.
Thanks for stopping by and let me know in the comments about how your year is shaping up or your thoughts on blogging!
Looking forward to traversing the blog hop this month.
Be sure to see my links down below for other places to keep up with me online and other related blog posts!
For now,
Rosie J.
Link | Rose on Twitch
Link | Linktree
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