IWSG: October 2017
It’s time for another group posting of the IWSG: Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month and encourage everyone to visit at least a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs.
Be sure to link to IWSG and display the badge in your post.
IWSG is the brainchild of our noble Ninja Captain and leader Alex J. Cavanaugh!
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG
Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.
Remember, the question is optional.
Remember, the question is optional.
IWSG’s awesome co-hosts for October 4 are Olga Godim, Chemist Ken, Jennifer Hawes, and Tamara Narayan!
Please stop by and thank them for their time.
After 5 months, I’m so glad to be back at IWSG. It’s been a whirlwind year. For the last three days I’ve sat staring at this screen, though, wondering, now that I’m back what I could possible say to encourage anyone. The 90s and first 8 years of the new millennium were challenging, so I assume when life changed for the better at the end of 2008, I had survived because I was meant to help others by sharing what I’d learned. It was the reason I joined IWSG. Not once did I see that life wasn’t finished teaching me difficult lessons.
On a positive note: the sense of hopelessness that’s hung around my neck all these months is finally gone. What took its place, I’ve yet to determine.
Question: Have you ever slipped any of your personal information into your characters, either by accident or on purpose?
I’ve gone to great lengths to never reveal anything personal into my characters. To do so would feel like a betrayal. Betrayal to whom, beats me; thoughts for another post, I suppose. I do know I’m incapable of not influencing my characters. After all, my stories come from me, and I’m a product of my existential judgements.
While I purposely avoid using personal data from my life, I did write a Vietnam War thriller after studying for months with a Crew Chief who served on a Huey during the war. He helped me understand exactly what the day in the life of a grunt was like, right down to the rotten crotch, bed bugs and the razor-sharp elephant leaves. I’ll never be able to thank him enough for taking the time to help me, a young mother from small town Canada, write such authentic scenes. Little did either of us know that one day, many years later, my youngest son would serve in Afghanistan. I can still see the relief on his face when he understood that I was never going to ask him to explain what his days were like.
While I purposely avoid using personal data from my life, I did write a Vietnam War thriller after studying for months with a Crew Chief who served on a Huey during the war. He helped me understand exactly what the day in the life of a grunt was like, right down to the rotten crotch, bed bugs and the razor-sharp elephant leaves. I’ll never be able to thank him enough for taking the time to help me, a young mother from small town Canada, write such authentic scenes. Little did either of us know that one day, many years later, my youngest son would serve in Afghanistan. I can still see the relief on his face when he understood that I was never going to ask him to explain what his days were like.
