IWSG: September News and Question

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.

IWSG is the brainchild of our noble Ninja Captain and leader Alex J. Cavanaugh! 

Our hashtag is @IWSG

The awesome co-hosts today are:


Announcing the 2016 IWSG Anthology Contest!

Eligibility: Any member of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group is encouraged to enter – blogging or Facebook member. The story must be previously unpublished. Entry is free.

Word count: 5000-6000

Genre: Fantasy

Theme: Hero Lost. It could be about a hero turned villain, a villain’s redemption, a hero’s lack of confidence, a hero’s lack of smarts, etc. It can be about any kind of hero including superheroes, mythological heroes, unexpected or unlikely heroes, or a whole new kind of hero. This theme has plenty of scope and we’re open to pretty much anything along these lines. No erotica, R-rated language, or graphic violence.

Deadline: November 1st 2016

How to enter: Send your polished, formatted, previously unpublished story to admin @ insecurewriterssupportgroup.com before the deadline passes. Please include your contact details and if you are part of the Blogging or Facebook IWSG group.

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

Prizes: The winning stories will be edited and published by Freedom Fox Press next year in the IWSG anthology. Authors will receive royalties on books sold, both print and eBook. The top story will have the honor of giving the anthology its title.

We’re excited to see the creativity and enthusiasm that’s such a part of this group put into action. So don your creative caps and start writing. And spread the word!

Our amazing judges this year:

Elizabeth S. Craig writes cozy mystery series for Penguin Random House, Midnight Ink, and independently. She curates links on Twitter as @elizabethscraig that are later shared in the free search engine WritersKB.com.

Richard Harland finished his first novel in 1993 and resigned a university lectureship to become a full-time writer. With seventeen fantasy, SF and horror novels published since, he went international with his steampunk fantasies, Worldshaker, Liberator and Song of the Slums. He has won six Aurealis Awards and the A. Bertram Chandler Award in Australia, the Tam Tam Je Bouquine Award in France. Writing Tips

Laura Maisano has an MA in Technical writing and is a Senior Editor at Anaiah Press for their YA/NA Christian Fiction. She’s excited to release her debut YA Urban Fantasy SCHISM, and she’s finishing up the sequel UNITY.

Russell C. Connor has been writing horror since the age of 5, and has been in the self-publishing industry for a decade. He has published 8 novels and 4 novellas in both paperback and eBook, including the Box Office of Terror Trilogy and “Whitney,” an epic horror novel about hurricane survivors fighting a washed-ashore sea monster. He also designs books for clients and assists them with self-publishing endeavors.

Dawn Frederick is the founder of Red Sofa Literary, previously of Sebastian Literary Agency, and she brings a broad knowledge of the book business to the table—with multiple years of experience as a bookseller in the independent, chain, and specialty stores; sales, marketing, & book development at a YA publisher, a published nonfiction author, and an agent associate literary agent at Sebastian Literary Agency.

Michelle L. Johnson is a literary agent, the founder of Inklings Literary Agency and has a business administration background in addition to a lifetime of working with books (sales, editing, and writing) and authors (marketing, promoting, event planning), and also has been a script/story consultant for an independent film.

Ion Newcombe is the editor and publisher of AntipodeanSF, Australia’s longest running online speculative fiction magazine, regularly issued since January 1998. His qualifications and employment range from horticulture through electronics into literature and communications.

Author, Public Speaker, and Executive Producer, Lynn Tincher was born just outside of Louisville, Kentucky in the beautiful city of La Grange. She has written four books, with the fifth one currently in the making. Her first book, Afterthoughts was optioned for movie production by Kilted Pictures and Dancing Forward Productions in Los Angeles. It is currently in pre-production with plans to shoot in Louisville, Kentucky very soon.

September’s question of the month – How do you find the time to write in your busy day? 
Not so well. ..
Honestly, the past few months have been a nightmare. I put my back out. I started getting horrible toothaches accompanied by earaches, to the point I had to apply ice followed by hot compresses. July and half of August were spent trying to revive my Macbook Pro. He hung in there as long as he could, but 2 weeks ago he finally succumb to his ailments and died. I’m now running my 2008 iMac, which is also on its last legs. It keeps kicking me out of the window I’m working in for no reason. I’ll be adding a comment to someone’s blog, working on a ms, or creating a post when suddenly the screen jumps to the previous one, obliterating what I’ve written. Two times while I was going over the final draft for Mâtowak, MS Word froze, and I lost all my edits, and had to start over. 
As of today, I’m almost ready for my book tour and finished the final edits on Mâtowak: Woman Who Cries. Mâtowak is due for release the same day as the deadline for the anthology contest, which is also my granddaughter’s 3rd birthday. The plan was that once the house sold, I’d be in New Brunswick for her birthday with my spanking new iMac. 
We nearly had the house sold August 2nd. The buyers had a reality check the morning they were going to put in an offer, and backed out. Living on a lake in the middle of nowhere is a lifestyle that must be considered thoroughly. They realized at the last moment that they weren’t ready. (sniffles) 
What else? 
Oh, that toothache turned into an abscess, and I had an emergency root canal done last week. For 48 hours, it felt as if a mac-truck had slammed into my mouth. 
But none of that matters. Today is a new day, and I’m excited about the endless possibilities. I’m pain-free, wearing a back brace, and there’s a new book on the horizon. (happy tears)  I’ll get back to writing soon, I’m sure.
How about you?

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