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 September 4 posting of the IWSG are Beth Camp, Jean Davis, Yvonne Ventresca, and PJ Colando!
The following link will allow you to peruse everyone in the Blog Hop.
Link | IWSG Blog Hop Participants
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September 4 question - Since it's back to school time, let's talk English class. What's a writing rule you learned in school that messed you up as a writer?
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Hello, friends!
I am so behind on blog posts. I almost forgot it was the first Wednesday of the month. I usually try to have this post drafted ahead of time so all I have to do is post it, but I went to DragonCon for the first time last Wednesday through Monday to wrap up August and now time is blurred together.
If you're not familiar with DragonCon, it is a massive fandom con in Atlanta, Georgia, similar to things like San Diego Comic Con and New York Comic Con. I think the Saturday attendance for Dragon is capped at about 75k people. So while SDCC and NYCC I think hit 100k, Dragon is up there.
I wasn't sure what to expect with DragonCon. I go to tiny conferences and conventions with similar vibes to DragonCon regularly, but wasn't quite prepared for the sheer size of the convention. I'll do an entire post about DragonCon sometime this month, but I had a blast!
One thing that some people don't know is that DragonCon actually has a Writer's Track. Sure, there are celebrities and gaming and cosplay and nerding out about specific SFF fandoms, but there's also a killer writer's track with amazing attending authors, panels, readings, and even mentor sessions.
I guess my writerly highlight for the weekend was that I (very briefly) got to meet Jim Butcher! And no, he did not say when the next Dresden Files is coming out. I have been asked this more than once.
He was on a panel with other bestsellers talking about where they are in their careers and what it took to get them there and the ups and downs along the way. Butcher was hilarious, and it was great to hear him and the other panelists talk about their journey. I wanted to go hear him on another panel talking about fae, but I wasn't able to make it to that one due to the crowd. One thing about DragonCon is that if you really want to go to a panel, especially one that might be popular, you better get there about an hour early!
Another big writerly highlight for me for the weekend was that I got to be on a panel! I wasn't an attending professional or guest, but I crashed a panel on Writing Erotica and Erotic Romance. And networking is what got me there. So if you ever think that networking won't be beneficial to you in your writing career, then you are wrong. At least if you want to potentially sell books and make appearances and get your name out there!
I met the assistant track director for the DragonCon Writer's Track a couple of years ago online. We have a few mutual friends, but I really got to know her through writing streams on Twitch, and then we met in-person at other conventions. She needed to fill out the panel, which was at 11:30 on Saturday night and asked if I'd be interested. After some of the imposter syndrome and shock wore off, I agreed!
The house ended up being packed. I took the above picture, a view from the other side, before the room filled up completely. I was shocked for such a late night panel! And boy, I was so nervous, but after the first question my nerves started to wear off as I realized that I did have things to contribute to the panel.
I was certainly a baby, as the other panelists have long and prolific careers and most do writing full-time, but it was a great experience. It was an honor to speak alongside Seressia Glass, Rachel Brune, Lisa Manifold, Carol Shaughnessy, and Elizabeth Donald with moderator Venessa Giunta.
The experience also got me really excited for being a guest at Multiverse in October!
And maybe I'll get to crash another panel at DragonCon next year. I won't be able to apply to be a guest for a good long while. I think I heard you have to have at least 5 books published to be able to apply?
The last exciting writerly thing I did at DragonCon that I'd like to talk about for this post is that I had an opportunity to do a 15-minute mentoring session with NYT Bestseller Jeaniene Frost. Honestly, I had heard her name before but didn't know anything about her until I saw her on the panel with Jim Butcher and decided to sign up for one of her mentoring slots because she was a delight to listen to.
This mentoring directly relates to my update about my upcoming release, which I announced last month I planned to publish on October 1st.
Over the course of August, I've received two full manuscript requests and two partial manuscript requests from agents. This threw me into a bit of a spiral about my plans and what to do because these are all agents I'd love to work with. While one of the requests has come back as a rejection, the others are still out there. I know that there's a good possibility they'll all be rejections, but I decided I wanted to give them a chance. The issues is that I've been torn about how long I want to give them since if I delay my release too long I will miss the holiday season this year which could potentially put my book release off an entire year, since it is a Christmas-based romance book.
This is what I talked to Jeaniene Frost about. She's traditionally published, but she also self publishes, so she gets both sides of the coin. After my session with her, I do feel a lot better about giving these manuscript requests a chance. She also made me feel really good about the interest I've gotten from agents and small presses on this manuscript. When you have single digit requests out of nearly 100 queries, it doesn't feel like a lot. But she was genuinely encouraging that I'm on the right track with the manuscript and my querying and that it is a great amount of interest in one manuscript.
With all that being said, I am at least delaying my release from October 1st, maybe to as late as November 12th. If I can't get it out by November 12th, then I'm going to pivot to maybe shoot for a Christmas in July type release.
All I have left to do is ARC sign-ups, proofreader, and formatting. My manuscript was at my copy editor when all of these requests came in!
To say the last month has been a rollercoaster is an understatement. But that's the industry in a nutshell.
Also, somewhat bittersweet, my time as a guides for the RWA Pen to Paper program has come to an end. I will miss my group of writers but hope they keep in touch so I can see all the amazing romance novels they write going forward.
I never did get my promised blog post finished about my wrap up on SAGA/ConGregate from July, and I have another book review waiting in the wings for me to finish formatting. August was a hectic month, but those things are in the works! Along with a full blog wrap-up of DragonCon. Hopefully I'll be able to get all those blogs together and posted during September.
The IWSG Prompt - Writing Rules
The question for this week really made me think.
I'm not sure that I can pinpoint a specific writing rule that messed me up as a writer. I had a lot of typing rules I've had to break over the years, like putting two spaces after periods. Apparently that's not a thing one does anymore, but in middle school typing class it was deeply engrained into my muscle memory.
I think the biggest thing is more a general relaxing of formal tone. I've done a lot of academic writing in my career, having went through multiple undergrad degrees and grad school, so my default writing setting is "this is a formal document and it must sound that way." When I go back and read my earlier manuscripts from a decade ago, I can tell. The dialogue is stilted and in complete sentence with zero contractions and everything has a bit of an air of formality. I still have a hard time with using contractions in first drafts. In The Tinsel Twist, which is set in a small town in the Appalachian Mountains in north Georgia, I had to go back through and add words like "y'all" and "ain't" and clipped sentences to my characters' dialogue because they talked like news anchors.
It's not really a specific rule, but a life of academia definitely influenced my writing voice, for better or worse.
Thanks for stopping by! Would love to hear your thoughts on the topic this month or on publishing or writing conferences! Have you ever been to DragonCon or another big con like SDCC or NYCC?
Drop a comment below.
Looking forward to traversing the blog hop this month.
Be sure to see my links for other places to keep up with me online and sign-up for my newsletter! I promise I won't spam you. I don't even have an onboarding auto-welcome post set up yet.
A final photo for anyone who stuck around this long. I got to hear Vincent D'onofrio (Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Men in Black, Daredevil, etc.) and Mike Colter (Luke Cage) talk about their careers and upcoming stuff in the Marvel universe! This was so cool and definitely one of the highlights of my DragonCon experience. I wanted to go see the hobbits (Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan and Elijah Wood) on a panel, but it was way too crowded for my anxiety. I also missed Jared Padelecki (Supernatural) because of the crowds, but I snuck into this one during the parade so it wasn't crowded at all!
For now,
Rosie J.
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