IWSG July 2021

 It's the first Wednesday of the month and of course that means it's time for another round of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Hosted as ever by the erstwhile Alex J. Cavanaugh, and co-hosted this month by Pat Garcia, Victoria Marie Lees, Chemist Ken and Louise - Fundy Blue, the aim of the group is to offer a safe space where writers of all kinds can air fears and insecurities without fear of being judged.

Let's have a look at this month's optional IWSG question, quite a dramatic one: 

What would make you quit writing?

I could only think of three circumstances under which this eventuality would come about: 1) if I died, 2) if I suffered from an extremely debilitating condition such as dementia, or 3) if I found myself in the position of providing 24/7 care to a loved one with such a condition. Otherwise, I can't think of a good reason to stop. It's the only thing in life I can really control and is something I can always rely on to sustain me, no matter how insane the world gets - and that's been thrown into sharp relief over the last 18 months or so. So no, not planning to stop unless I run into one of the dire outcomes mentioned above. I accept the first one will have to happen at some point, but hopefully the other two don't.

While I'm here, I probably should provide an update on what I've been up to. I'm at a completion phase on two WIPs, tying up loose ends - which is great, and exciting in lots of ways, but of course always comes with looming insecurity with the idea of how they might be received as I start to nudge them out into the daylight. The first of these is a standalone YA story that has already been out with CPs. At that point it came in at a slim 50k, but based on their suggestions, I have greatly expanded the denouement and added much-needed worldbuilding details to bring it up to a much more healthy 70k. It'll be going back out to them soon. The other book is the final part of my trilogy, which has taken a bit longer than I planned - the second part came out back in 2019 - but here again the ending took quite a bit of work to get it right. This is also still at first-draft stage, so I don't see it coming out before early 2022. A bit of work still to do there, but it'll be nice to get this series done and dusted.

All told, I can't ever see myself without a project or two on the go. I'm interested to see how others answer this question. Check out other IWSG entries here.

Blood Red Sand release day

Today I'm helping celebrate the release of what looks like a really exciting book by Damien Larkin. Check it out...

Blood Red Sand

By Damien Larkin

 

Mars will run red with Nazi blood…

 

After World War Two, Sergeant McCabe knew the British army could send him anywhere. He never imagined facing down another Nazi threat on Mars.

 

In New Berlin colony, rivalry between Generalfeldmarschall Seidel’s Wehrmacht and Reichsführer Wagner’s SS threatens bloodshed. The Reichsführer will sacrifice everything to initiate the secretive Hollow Programme and realise his nightmarish future for humanity.

 

McCabe, Private Jenkins, and the Mars Expeditionary Force must overcome bullet, bomb, and bayonet to destroy the Third Reich. While Jenkins fights to stay alive, McCabe forms an uneasy alliance with MAJESTIC-12 operatives known as the Black Visors. Will this be the final battle of World War Two or the first confrontation in an interstellar war?

 

Release date – July 6, 2021

$17.95, 6x9 trade paperback, 252 pages

Science Fiction - Military/Alternative History/War & Military

Print ISBN 9781939844781 / EBook ISBN 9781939844798

$4.99 EBook available in all formats

 

“Brilliant follow up to Big Red.” – Tripp Ainsworth, author

 

“I’m awed by Damien Larkin’s imagination… So truly Heinlein.” – Phil Parker, author

 

“Blood Red Sand is top class military sci-fi with plenty of heart pounding action sequences, excellent characterisation and a growing sense of mystery that readers will crave to uncover.” – Book Nest

 

Damien Larkin is an Irish science fiction author and co-founder of the British and Irish Writing Community. His debut novel Big Red was longlisted for the BSFA award for Best Novel. He currently lives in Dublin, Ireland. www.damienlarkinbooks.com

IWSG June 2021

 As we enter what looks like a great summer here in the Northern Hemisphere (with hopefully a little more freedom), one thing we can all rely on is that the first Wednesday of the month will be our meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Led as ever by Ninja Cap'n Alex J. Cavanaugh, the purpose of the group is to offer a safe space where writers can share doubts and insecurities without fear of being judged. This month's excellent co-hosts are J. Lenni Dorner, Sarah Foster, Natalie Aguirre, Lee Lowery and Rachna Chhabria.

Let's have a look at this month's IWSG question: For how long do you shelve your first draft, before reading it and re-drafting? Is this dependent on your writing experience and the number of stories/books under your belt?

This is quite interesting. Although I haven't kept records of how long this has been for every book, for my current WIP, I was keen to get it out to CPs to gain feedback on certain matters. I think I left it a few days before giving it a quick reread to tie up some inconsistencies. The response was that the story was good but perhaps slightly undercooked. There might be a lesson to be learned there.

The second part of the question has me thinking. Perhaps there might be a danger after having written a number of books/stories that you do not need to give it so much time to "marinate," especially if you want to keep up to a release schedule. Instead it might be better to think of each book as your first, worthy of just as much care and attention as your early outings. After all, every book is different and will have different demands. It's not a production line. I'm interested to read others' answers to this!

This year's IWSG anthology contest is open!

Guidelines and rules:

Word count: 5000-6000

Genre: Sweet Romance

Theme: First Love

Submissions accepted: May 7 - September 1, 2021

How to enter: Send your polished, formatted (double-spaced, no footers or headers), previously unpublished story to admin @ insecurewriterssupportgroup.com before the deadline passes. Please include your full contact details, your social links, and if you are part of the Blogging, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter IWSG group. You must belong to at least one aspect of the IWSG to enter.

Judging: The IWSG admins will create a shortlist of the best stories. The shortlist will then be sent to our official judges.

See more details here. And, don't forget to check out more entries for this month's meeting here.

Dark Matter author CD Gallant-King on writing for submission

Today I'm thrilled to host a tour stop for the latest IWSG anthology Dark Matter: Artificial, where I'm welcoming three-time anthology publishee CD Gallant-King with some tips on writing for submission.

Writing for Submission

 

I have published several short stories with small presses and magazines, but all of my novels have been self-published. I view short stories and novels as two very distinct beasts that require different approaches and VERY different skills.

 

With novels, I like the freedom that self-publishing provides. I can write about whatever I want, however I want to write it, and I don't need to worry about whether someone else's approval or permission. My audience is (hopefully) other people who enjoy the same sort of stories that I do, so I write the sort of thing that I have fun reading.

 

With short stories I’m almost the complete opposite. I LOVE requests for submission that give you a specific genre/prompt. I see it more as a challenge to meet their requirements, and it provides a clear outline and focus for your work. Short-story writing is much harder, in my opinion, because every word and beat counts so much more than in a longer work, where you have the freedom to go off on tangents develop side characters and so on. Because a short story needs to be so focused and precise, anything that provides direction is appreciated. A good, evocative prompt is a perfect kickstart to get your creative juices going in the right direction.

 

I've had my stories included in the IWSG's anthologies three times. I have actually submitted four times, but the first time my story didn't make the cut. I don't think the story was necessarily bad, but it did not play to my strengths (it was way too serious, for one thing). It also didn't really fit with the theme of the collection, which was "Heroes Lost" or something to that effect. Sure, my story had a hero, and he died in the end, but it felt more like I was just pasting the prompt overtop of the story, and it only sorta/kinda fit.

 

The next time I submitted, the genre was mystery and the prompt was time. I had a half-finished pseudo-hardboiled detective story with a character that I loved, so I re-worked it to fit into the theme. This worked brilliantly, as the story previously didn't have the through-line to pull it together (it was basically just an interesting main character and a bunch of funny scenes), but the IWSG prompt was the focus that I needed.

 

For the third submission, I started from scratch and went out of my way to subvert the theme while playing into the genre at the same time. With a prompt like "YA Romance" and "Masquerade," my brain immediately went to vampires, and anyone who knows me knows there is no way in a million years that I'm going to write a straight YA Romance story about vampires. So "The Dark Charade" was born.

 

Which brings us to Dark Matter: Artificial and my story, "Space Folds and Broomsticks." The original germ of an idea for this one came from a completely different anthology call I saw last year, which was looking for Sci-Fi retellings of classic fairy tales. I LOVED this idea and my mind raced with a dozen possibilities, but I missed the deadline. These ideas were still bouncing around in my skull when the IWSG call came up, coincidentally also for sci-fi. I was excited that I was able to use one of my previously-hatched plots, and the "dark matter" prompt was the exact trigger I needed for all the pieces to fall into place. When you read "Space Folds" you may notice that it doesn't deal with dark matter in the way you're probably expecting, but the phrase itself set up the conflict of the story perfectly.

 

I'm a big fan of space opera/military sci-fi, especially stories about fighter pilots jetting around the galaxy (see: Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Wing Commander, Battlestar Galactica, or our own Alex J. Cavanaugh's CassaStar), so I knew that was the setting I wanted to use. I also always want to grow up to be Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, so of course the whole thing had to be written tongue-in-cheek. That's not to say the story doesn't have some edge to it - my work usually tries to blend comedy and tragedy, the horrific and the absurd. "Space Folds and Broomsticks" isn't as dark as most of what I write, but I do try to ramp up the tension and suspense, and there are dramatic moments.

 

I don't tend to over-think it too much once I get the flow going and the words come down on the digital paper. Some people write and re-write over and over, but I don't do that so much, especially with short stories. If it works it works. If it doesn't, it will end up in the drawer and I'll write another one. That's another benefit of short stories over novels - because I haven't spent months or even years on it, I'm not so attached to it. I'm not so protective and I don't mind sending it out to rejection time and time again (my record for rejection is 25 times before finally finding a home for one particular story).

 

I must have hit the right notes for the judges and the folks at Dancing Lemur, because they've selected my story for the third time - the first time this has happened, as far as I know. After your story is chosen, there’s a whole net set of tasks and challenges (like writing this blog post, for example!). But that’s a tale for another time.

 

Stay safe everyone!

 

Hugs & kisses,

 

-CDGK

 

C.D. Gallant-King is a Canadian writer currently residing in Ottawa, Ontario. Check him out on Twitter (https://twitter.com/CDGallantKing), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/cdgallantking) or his blog (http://www.cdgallantking.ca/)

Dark Matter: Artificial
An Insecure Writer’s Support Group Anthology

Discover dark matter’s secrets…

What is an AI’s true role? Will bumbling siblings find their way home from deep space? Dark matter is judging us—are we worthy of existence? Would you step through a portal into another reality? Can the discoverer of dark matter uncover its secrets?

Ten authors explore dark matter, unraveling its secrets and revealing its mysterious nature. Featuring the talents of Stephanie Espinoza Villamor, C.D. Gallant-King, Tara Tyler, Mark Alpert, Olga Goldim, Steph Wolmarans, Charles Kowalski, Kim Mannix, Elizabeth Mueller, and Deniz Bevan.

Hand-picked by a panel of agents, authors, and editors, these ten tales will take readers on a journey across time and space. Prepare for ignition!

Release date: May 4, 2021
Print ISBN 9781939844828 $14.95
EBook ISBN 9781939844835 $4.99
Science Fiction: Collections & Anthologies / Space Exploration / Genetic Engineering

Founded by author Alex J. Cavanaugh, the Insecure Writer’s Support Group offers support for writers and authors alike. It provides an online database; articles; monthly blog posting; Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram groups; #IWSGPit, and a newsletter. A Writer’s Digest 101 Best Website for Writers and The Write Life’s Best 100 Website for Writers
https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/

Links:
Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08S7LP369
Kobo - https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/dark-matter-artificial
Barnes & Noble - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dark-matter-insecure-writers-support-group/1138581452?ean=2940164777661
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56632113-dark-matter

IWSG May 2021

It's the first Wednesday of the month, which of course means it's time for our monthly meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Hosted as ever by Ninja Cap'n Alex J. Cavanaugh, the aim of the group is to offer a safe space where writers can share fears and insecurities without being judged. Join us if you haven't already! Today's co-hosts are Erika Beebe, PJ Colando, Tonja Drecker, Sadira Stone and Cathrina Constantine.

This month's optimal IWSG question is: Has any of your readers ever responded to your writing in a way that you didn't expect? If so, did it surprise you?

I was going to bypass this month's question because I couldn't immediately think of any particularly off-the-wall responses, but then I thought of a way to tie it in to a monthly update that is also kind of an insecurity. A good insecurity, if that makes sense. I've had my latest WIP out with a couple of CPs and a common thread in their responses is that the story seems unfinished, with a few questions left to resolve. I didn't necessarily expect that, but when I thought about it it kind of made sense. My protagonist had gone on a big emotional rollercoaster towards the end, and I suppose I was rushing a bit so she could reach some resolution and calm, but it's likely more of a rest stop than a full resolution, with the threat in the book still potentially out there in some form. So, there's an insecurity in that I'll probably need to extend what I thought was finished, but it's a good insecurity because it's a chance to properly resolve the story, and because at least my readers were engaged enough to want to know more!

How would you answer this question? You can check out many more posts and responses at the IWSG sign-up page here.

IWSG April 2021

As we soldier on through the year and into a time when hopefully we will be free of all lockdowns, it's time to take our monthly stopoff and check in with each other for 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 of all kinds can share fears and insecurities without fear of being judged. Today's co-hosts are PK Hrezo, Pat Garcia, SE White, Lisa Buie Collard, and Diane Burton.

I'm still trying to rewrite the ending to my trilogy after a technical issue meant I lost those few thousand words. My main insecurity is that it's not as exciting or well executed as the last time, but hopefully it will be ironed out in edits. Let's have a look at this month's IWSG question:

Are you a risk-taker when writing? Do you try something radically different in style/POV/etc. or add controversial topics to your work?

This is an excellent question. I do believe that as an artist it's important to take risks and keep moving forward in your work. Of course there are successful authors who stick with a tried and trusted formula and have a solid fanbase who keep coming back because they know what they're getting, but it's not exciting to me as a reader. I'd like to do something different with each book I write. My current WIP (separate to my series, but it might turn into another series) is told from first person (which I've tried before but not often) and from the perspective of a 16-year-old girl (which is completely new to me). It's an interesting journey, certainly - I've been hit and miss in terms of getting it right, and my female CPs have offered invaluable feedback. As for controversial topics, they have come up on a few occasions, but I don't plan these things in advance - it's whatever is needed to move the story forward. Like with taking risks, I think it will come across as inauthentic if these things are too contrived or put in there for the sake of it. Everything has to start from the story, and if it takes me into some bumpy territory, I won't hold back from it. I think doing what serves the story is a good rule of thumb for pretty much all aspects of writing.

Do you enjoy taking risks in writing? Dealing with controversial topics? See how many other writers have answered the question at the IWSG sign-up list here.

IWSG March 2021

It's time once again for our monthly posting 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 fears and insecurities without being judged. This month's excellent co-hosts are Sarah - The Faux Fountain Pen, Jacqui Murray, Chemist Ken, Victoria Marie Lees, Natalie Aguirre and JQ Rose.

This month I'm feeling in an optimistic frame of mind, with spring in the air and the vaccine doing the rounds (my daughter had her first shot last week and my wife will get hers on Friday). Hopefully a bit more normality is ahead for all of us. I do have the usual nervy insecurity that comes with having a book out with CPs. Never sure how it will go down!

Let's turn to this month's IWSG question which is as follows: 

Everyone has a favorite genre or genres to write. But what about your reading preferences? Do you read widely or only within the genre(s) you create stories for? What motivates your reading choice?

This is a great question. I definitely think it's important to read as widely as possible. I'm currently leaning towards speculative fiction for writing, but I started out writing crime novels. I do think I was reading more of those at the time and now I know a lot of bloggers who write spec fic. But I read other things too. As a reader it should be the story that comes first, then worry about whatever genre it fits into. I'm all for groundbreaking ideas and concepts, but I won't get far with the story they're in if I don't connect with the characters. As a writer I also think there are things to be learned from all kinds of genres. They bleed into one another all the time. We tend to think of romances as being set in either contemporary times or the past, but if there's a story set in the future in which genetically engineered cyborgs fall in love, we'll call it sci-fi, but isn't there a case for calling it romance if that's the most important element? Publishing would be in a pretty insular state if all writers stuck rigidly to reading the genre in which they work.

What would be your answer to this question? Don't forget to check out many more IWSG posts here.