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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 February 1 posting of the IWSG are Jacqui Murray, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, and Gwen Gardner!
The following link will allow you to peruse everyone in the Blog Hop.
Link | ISWG Blog Hop Participants
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February 1 question - If you are an Indie author, do you make your own covers or purchase them? If you publish trad, how much input do you have about what goes on your cover?
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Hello, friends!
How is it already time for the February post?! Is it just me or has this year started off full speed ahead?!
I was hoping I would come to you today with the news that I finished a first draft. Alas, I'm not quite there yet. I am, however, 70k words in and close to the end. I will be finishing it up soon. Maybe even tonight! It's the holiday romance I've been working on since NaNoWriMo.
Even though I haven't finished it, yet, I am proud of myself for adding 11k words in December and 10k words in January. That's more than I've ever written in consecutive non-NaNoWriMo months...well...ever! I do hope to be coming to you soon with good news on that though!
That being said, I don't currently have any insight into covers. I did make a couple mock-up covers for my Holiday Romance that I've used on the NaNoWriMo site and for other teasers. I'll post them so you can let me know what you think! I'm not sure what I'll do. My plan for this book is to pitch it to a few small publishers that do holiday romances the first half of the year, and if I don't find a publisher by August, I'll start getting it ready to self-pub after Thanksgiving. I am pretty good with Photoshop and Canva, so I will consider doing the covers myself. That being said, if I get frustrated, I do have some extremely talented artist friends and may enlist some help!
Here are the mock-ups I did for this romance novel though. What do you think? My favorite one is the first one. The blue one is the very first one I did before I realized I could download some things from Adobe Stock through my work.
I think the thing that scares me most about cover design is making sure everything is correct for print, such as how the cover wraps around the book and having a space for the barcode, etc. I know Photoshop has a template, so maybe it wouldn't be too bad.
This is a great question though, because it's certainly something I will be considering this year hopefully!
In other news, I tried to do the Bloganuary Wordpress challenge this month. I did manage to post a few of them, but then there were a few prompts that didn't get me motivated. Life got hectic. I stopped posting. I may go back and use some of the newer prompts for a few entries this month though because there were a couple that piqued my interest.
One prompt, in particular was great. It was to write a short story or poem inspired by rain. I wrote a poem for the first time in YEARS. And I'm actually kind of proud of it. I'll link the original blog post, but here is the poem.
There ya have it! My first poem in years.
Be on the lookout for more information coming soon about my progress with my Holiday Romance WIP. I also still need a title for it. "Home for the Holidays: A Tinsley Falls Romance" has been my working title, but I'd love to come up with something more punny and on the nose. If anyone is good with titles, I'm all ears. It's a second-chance romance, 3-4 spice range, there's a holiday feast to save, and a crazy ex trying to ruin the fun.
So, tell me, how's your writing year started out? I can't wait to read about everyone's adventures with covers! Let me know how it's going in the comments!
For now,
Rosie J.
Links to Holiday Romance WIP related blogs and posts mentioned above:
Link | #Bloganuary: Day 7 - Rain