IWSG January 2019 - Happy New Year!

It is time for the first posting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group for 2019. A new year, but the group's mission remains the same - to uplift writers and help them with whatever insecurities are ailing them, as well as keeping things positive in a convivial atmosphere. Headed as ever by Ninja Cap'n Alex J. Cavanaugh, today's co-hosts are Patricia Lynne, Lisa Buie-Collard, Kim Lajevardi and Fundy Blue!

I'll get to today's post in a minute, but first, here are some important IWSG announcements.


The #IWSGPit Twitter Pitch party is now an annual event, and it's coming around fast! Less than two weeks, in fact. January 15 is the day when you can post your snappily refined pitches to be viewed by top agents and publishers. Successful books have been published on the base of a Twitter pitch - will yours be ready? Visit the #IWSGPit page for a full list of rules and genre hashtags.

The winners have been chosen for our fourth IWSG anthology, which is set to be another great collection. Here are the authors and titles:

Oddly Suited by LG Keltner
Sea of Sorrows by AV Brown
Behind the Catcher’s Mask by Jennifer Lane
A Diver’s Ball by Angela Brown
Fearless Heart by Deborah Solice
The Dark Charade by CD Gallant-King
The Cog Prince by Elizabeth Mueller
Flower of Ronda by Myles Christensen
Remedy by Chelsea Ballard
Charleston Masquerade by Carrie-Anne Brownian 

Congrats to LG Keltner, whose story received the most votes and will give the anthology its title: Masquerade: Oddly Suited.

The IWSG will continue its partnership with Write...Edit...Publish for a series of exciting writing challenges throughout the year. Check out their site for more details. The full list of themes can be seen in the graphic below.

OK, time to discuss my insecurity for this month. I've opted not to answer this month's writing-related question, because truth be told, I haven't thought about my writing much the past few weeks. I wasn't sure how to write this post and quite how much to share - I like to keep things light and upbeat, but after all the whole point of the group is to share what's troubling us, isn't it? With that in mind, here goes nothing...

For the last 18 months I've held a full-time remote editing position for an American company. Our work had slowed somewhat although all were hopeful it would pick up. However, on December 10, I received a Skype call from my employer saying they could no longer afford to keep me on and were letting me go.

This understandably came as a blow, as we relied on this job to keep us afloat. The full-time nature of the work meant my freelance gigs had taken a backseat, so over the last few weeks I've been trying to rekindle those networks as well as applying for other full-time jobs. I've signed on with one company, although they have a lengthy onboarding process, so I haven't really started properly yet - but I'm trying to speed through it.

All this means that I haven't done any writing since that date, December 10 - I just haven't had a minute to think about it. I had started writing a new book, just trying to get a feel for my character, but she's still hanging around somewhere and I know I'll get back to it. It's just another example of how arbitrary forces can completely throw us off kilter, but right now I have to prioritise bringing in an income.

I do want to thank everyone who took part in and shared my cover reveal which had been set for December 17. At the moment, I'm still planning to go ahead with my blog tour which is set to kick off on February 11 - hopefully, things will have picked up a bit by then. I've gained new readers for part 1 of my series, which has been extremely heartwarming, and I hope they enjoy it.

Hopefully, I will post again before February's IWSG meeting. I'll certainly share any good news that comes my way. In any case, I will definitely see you here in a month's time.

How do you deal with unexpected events that affect your writing? Will you be getting involved in #IWSGPit and/or WEP this year? As ever, you can check out the full list of IWSG posters here.