IWSG June 2025

Time for our monthly meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group! Hosted as ever by Alex J. Cavanaugh, the aim of the group is to offer a safe space where writers can share doubts and insecurities without fear of being judged. This month's co-hosts are PJ Colando, Pat Garcia, Kim Lajevardi, Melissa Maygrove and Jean Davis.

Today's optional IWSG question: What were some books that impacted you as a child or young adult?

This is a great question that will generate a lot of discussion. Although, as a whole, Terry Pratchett's books had a great impact on me in terms of their skewering of human behaviour, I can pinpoint three titles I absorbed as a young adult that turned out to be a great influence on my writing years later and continue to be so today. These are George Orwell's 1984, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5. The dystopian, censorship and anti-war themes are extremely thought provoking in all of these, and made me think more deeply about how these problems exist in the real world - sadly, they are probably more relevant today than ever. They show how writing about challenging themes can highlight how humanity asserts itself even in the most straitened circumstances. That's definitely something refracted in my work and I think books such as these play a big part in that.

I'd love to hear your answers to these questions! In other news, it seems like age is catching up to me but I embrace it, grey hairs and all, not to mention my first ever glasses, which I need for reading and writing. I like them, but I'm not sure if they've increased my IQ.

Don't forget you can always check out other IWSG entries at the list found here. See you next month!

IWSG May 2025

Time for our monthly meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group! Hosted as ever by Alex J. Cavanaugh, the aim of the group is to offer a safe space where writers can share doubts and insecurities without fear of being judged. This month's co-hosts are Feather Stone, Janet Alcorn, Rebecca Douglass, Jemima Pett and Pat Garcia.

This month's optional IWSG question is: Some common fears writers share are rejection, failure, success, and lack of talent or ability. What are your greatest fears as a writer? How do you manage them?

This is a great question and you might have to forgive me if my answer gets a bit heavy. I don't worry too much about rejection, failure or success. Those things are very fickle and largely out of your control. But after what I've been through it's really been hammered home how important the basic ability is. For me, losing the ability to write is terrifying. It would basically mean reconstructing how I process things and how I relate to the world. I was incredibly lucky after suffering two strokes as part of the infection that landed me in hospital. Since I came out, I've more or less been able to carry on doing what I was doing before and have written 5000 words of a new book, which I didn't necessarily foresee being possible. (We'll leave aside whether they might be any good or not.) And I did get some confirmation that I had a lucky escape when I saw a brain consultant recently and scored 100% on their cognitive test. Apparently I was the only patient they'd seen who'd suffered a similar affliction to have done so. I was weirdly embarrassed because I'd rather keep going with my usual activities without being singled out as special, especially because the term "high functioning" was mentioned. But it was definitely the best news I could have received and I feel like I've received a new lease of life. I do think the brain is a muscle and like the rest of the body it's got to be kept in top form with constant exercise.

Whew, sorry to get somewhat intense there. Moving on, as for today, I'm taking part in the next edition of the #QuestPit event, which garnered me my first agent like back in February, followed by my first agent request, then my first rejection on such a request just yesterday - but that's the way it goes and the rejection was certainly kind and positive. I'll see how I fare on today's occasion.

Really interested to see how today's question will get answered. As ever all participants can be found at one handy place here. See you next time!

IWSG April 2025

Time for our monthly meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group! Hosted as ever by Alex J. Cavanaugh, the aim of the group is to offer a safe space where writers can share doubts and insecurities without fear of being judged. This month's co-hosts are Jennifer Lane, L Diane Wolfe, Jenni Enzor and Natalie Aguirre.

This month's optional IWSG question looks like a fun one: What fantasy character would you like to fight, go on a quest with, or have a beer/glass of wine with?

I won't go on at length with this one, or this will turn into another Pratchett love fest following last month. But there are a plethora of choices to be had from his canon. Overall, I'd say Captain Carrot would be a solid and stand-up guy to go on a quest or have a drink with. I wouldn't fight him though (described as "two metres tall and bulging with muscles"). 

With the clocks having gone forward in the UK, things are feeling a lot more springlike, and I'm determined to keep moving on. With my most recently finished book sent to critique partners, I'm getting started on my next project, and this one seems like it might be another genre mashup (a bit of horror mixed with sci-fi I'm thinking). Hopefully, it will be quite different to what I've done before. A limited outline, and we'll see how the rest pans out.

How is spring looking for you (or autumn, for southern hemisphere friends)? I have a goal of finishing returning visits sooner than one day before the next meeting this time. As ever, the circle of IWSP participators can be found here.

IWSG March 2025

Time for our monthly meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group! Hosted as ever by Alex J. Cavanaugh, the aim of the group is to offer a safe space where writers can share doubts and insecurities without fear of being judged. This month's co-hosts are Ronel Janse Van Vuuren, Pat Garcia and Liza @ Middle Passages.

I'm glad to say I'm feeling a lot better after my unexpected stay in hospital. Not quite all there yet, but I'm enjoying edits on my WIP. It seems to make reasonable sense, so that's something.

Let's have a look at this month's IWSG question:

If for one day you could be anyone or *thing* in the world, what would it be? Describe, tell why, and any themes, goals, or values they/it inspire in you.

I guess this question could go all sorts of ways, but without thinking about it too long, I would have to say my literary hero, Terry Pratchett. Just to have that boundless imagination and take what is ostensibly a fantasy world and use it to smuggle in a whole range of genres - thrillers, mystery, satire, sci-fi - with a deft humorous touch and a grasp of what it means to be human even when the characters are werewolves, trolls, Death, or an orang-utan. His books seemed to have it all and that genre-blending approach has definitely inspired me in my own work.

Looking forward to what others have to say on this one. As ever, the list of IWSG entrants can be found here. What would be your answer to this question?

IWSG February 2025

Time for our monthly meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group! Hosted as ever by Alex J. Cavanaugh, the aim of the group is to offer a safe space where writers can share doubts and insecurities without fear of being judged. This month's co-hosts are Joylene Nowell Butler, Louise Barbour and Tyrean Martinson.

First of all, I'd better offer an explanation for my absence over the last couple of months, which some of you might have already caught up on Facebook. If not, I'll repost it below. It's a sorry tale, but I'm doing a lot better now.

I got out from hospital a couple of weeks ago after having been admitted on the 4th of December with what I thought was a bad dose of a bug including sickness and diarrhoea. It turned out I had suffered an infection that had gone to my heart, giving me a leaky valve, as well as into my brain, causing a mini stroke. This caused me to describe in a way that my daughter Emma best summed up as “doolally” and led my wife to call an ambulance.

I got my own room for the first ten days and initially I was very disorientated as to why I was in hospital. My vision was bad, causing me to see scrawls on the wall that I thought had been left by a child, and the TV was a mere blur. After a battery of tests I was started on a six-week course of IV antibiotics with the aim of heading for surgery to fix my valve. I was moved to the cardiology ward on 14th December where I shared a room with four other men. At first I found this daunting, but everyone was friendly and welcoming. After I while I found myself the longest serving patient in the room over that time as others started to come and go and were sent to other hospitals or home. Not all patients made for good roommates and sometimes there was too much noise to sleep. It was certainly a full range of humanity but by the time I left the room had become much more relaxing and had been christened the “Brian ward” due to the arrival of four Brians in the space of three days.

Ultimately I didn’t have to go for surgery because it was deemed the antibiotic had done a good enough job of repairing the valve on its own. Not before I had a tooth pulled out in a gruelling procedure because infection had been found there and you can’t have any area of infection when you go for the surgery. It came out with a piece of bone attached and I kept it to proudly display as a souvenir.

When I got out it was one day earlier than planned, which we pushed for because of the red weather storm warning for the next day in Scotland which could have potentially seen me stuck in hospital for another whole weekend. Since then I’ve been taking it easy, getting back to work slowly. I’ll still have some rehab to do cognitively speaking but I'm playing a lot of word games as I was throughout my whole stay. Of course I've got to give huge thanks to my family - Heather, Hannah, Emma and Eve - for coming to see me day after day, as well as keeping things ticking over at home so well while dealing with the sad loss of one of our six pups, Tobi.

In terms of writing, I'll get back to that in due course, but I've had a look at my most recent WIP which was undergoing a first pass before this whole saga. I found that pass is nearly finished, so that's definitely something I could manage over the next few weeks. It will probably need fresh eyes from a couple of new CPs, so if a YA sci-fi adventure where the MC becomes trapped in a VR reproduction of her favourite TV show when the AI engine behind it goes haywire, let me know!

I'm off to catch on all of your exciting doings now. Hoping you're all in good health.