Tag Archives: Insecure Writers Support Group

#IWSG – Synopsis Solution

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It’s time for yet another Insecure Writer’s Support Group post of 2024, and more canine escapades. 

First writing. My Ukraine saga, Freedom Flights, has been delayed since I posted the 3rd and last part of Episode 23, ‘Witches Troupe’, although I have drafted some of Episode 24.

Freedom Flights: Episode 23 – Witches Troupe – Part 3

Slava Ukrayini

Graphics by Jonathan Temples – 
http://jonathantemples.co.uk/

As for my Welsh police procedural, Fevered Fuse, my editor has kindly offered to help me get the manuscript ready for submission to publishers at no extra charge in the autumn, as long as I work on a submission package before then. I’m struggling with the synopsis first but will need brave volunteers to read it. Those who don’t know the plotlines so can judge if the synopsis sounds like an interesting story.

Now I must not forget the other change in our house – July’s canine arrival. Our cute 15-week-old Beagalier puppy, Taika – Maori for ‘tiger’ – is still pure energy with sharp nails and teeth, who loves chewing sockets, cables, my wife’s oxygen tubes, boxes etcetera… even though he has plenty of toys from Blondie. Whether he’ll ever be as calm as Quetzal, remains to be seen. We hope the cost of replacing everything he destroys doesn’t eat at our affection.

Finally, our older dog, Treeky is ten today… easy to remember as he kindly agreed to share his birthday with me, though he’s 61 years younger.

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Every month, IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG posts. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience, or a 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!

August 7 question – Do you use AI in your writing and if so how? Do you use it for your posts? Incorporate it into your stories? Use it for research? Audio?

The nearest I come to using AI to write is probably when software like Grammarly and ProWriting Aid improve my writing, although Word also corrects my errors. And they were at work in that sentence and throughout this post.                                                                                                                                                 

I’m also aware that AI must be at work in all the high-tech that appears in Freedom Flights. When researching the jets and helicopters integral to the plotlines, I know how AI has played a key role in making them formidable and deadly, even if my understanding is a long way behind the skill sets my characters have mastered… and those of their brave real-life counterparts.

Wallpaper – https://wallup.net/eurocopter-tiger-attack-helicopter-aircraft-42/#google_vignette

The same possibly applies to my characters in Fevered Fuse, though their AI-influenced tech is motorbikes and police radios.

Sorry for this brief answer.

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The awesome co-hosts for the August 7 posting of the IWSG are Feather Stone, Kim Lajevardi, Diedre Knight, C. Lee McKenzie, and Sarah – The Faux Fountain Pen!

Finally, don’t forget to visit more active writers via the IWSG site:

Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG, and our hashtag is #IWSG.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!


Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group Day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer – aim for a dozen new people each time – and return comments. This group is all about connecting!

#IWSG – Service or Rebuild

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Time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group post of 2024, and more struggles. Getting to this stage has been one obstacle after another, mainly from ongoing health issues for both of us, Juanita’s more troubling issues is her dependence on portable oxygen, plus incessant coughing for months. At least, she now has a nurse practitioner making regular home visits        

One concern we have is our trailer home since we discovered it was a meths den before we bought it. Has the meth impregnated the wall so much that our health is suffering? We are desperate to move as soon as possible.

Fortunately, I can sometimes distract myself from my health issues by attempting to focus on writing. My Ukraine saga, Freedom Flights, has helped the most. I posted three times in May, Episodes 20-23, despite rebellious bowels, something akin to sciatica, and bouts of lethargy.

https://wallup.net/eurocopter-tiger-attack-helicopter-aircraft-42/#google_vignette

However, through more occurrences of writhing, I have also been writing what will be June’s Episode 23, ‘Witches Troupe’.

Later today, I must return to writing ‘Freedom Flights’ as time is against me as life gets shorter. Even if the just peace comes soon, I have a gap from 1951 to 2021 crying out to be written.

Slava Ukrayini

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Every month, IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG posts. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience, or a 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!

June 5 question – In this constantly evolving industry, what kind of offering/service do you think the IWSG should consider offering to members?

Apologies if this is brief as I’m struggling for valid suggestions. I had a few thoughts from idea creation to audio-narrator & editor suggestions, but then through meticulous exploration of the IWSG site I found everything somewhere.

If I had located a search feature, my delving might have been faster. Please, can someone tell me where that search function is?

Sorry for posting late.

**

The awesome co-hosts for the June 5 posting of the IWSG are Liza at Middle Passages, Shannon Lawrence, Melissa Maygrove, and Olga Godim!

Finally, don’t forget to visit more active writers via the IWSG site:

Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG, and our hashtag is #IWSG.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!


Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group Day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer – aim for a dozen new people each time – and return comments. This group is all about connecting!

#IWSG – Derailment

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This fourth Insecure Writer’s Support Group post of 2024 is living up to its title.

Getting to this stage has been one obstacle after another, from health issues to writing problems.  

My Ukraine saga, Freedom Flights, has caused the most distractions. I managed to post Episode 19 almost on time, but Episode 20 missed the end of April self-imposed deadline. Blame a mix of uncooperative bowels, irrelevant change of conversations, and bouts of lethargy.

Read on for more occurrences of writhing and writing.

Slava Ukrayini

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Every month, IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG posts. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience, or a 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!

May 1 question – How do you deal with distractions when you are writing? Do they derail you?

Apologies if this is brief as I’m struggling for vivid examples. So, I’m listing types of distractions, the worst being self-inflicted… like dozing off mid sentence/phrase/word/thought.

Pain that stops me from typing/thinking.

Random unusable idea.

Somebody changing the subject/interrupting. 

Finding an interesting but useless rabbit

New ideas emerging as I’m being interrupted.

Auto-correction misleading the plot.

Fingers hitting the wrong key and changing intent,

Finally, writing rubbish to answer a simple question.

At this point, I fell asleep… and two hours later woke up and discovered two things:

  1. When I type, I have to close one eye to not see keys double (= MS double vision), which wastes time but is not a distraction.
  2. Falling asleep is a distraction, especially when the reason was pain kept me awake last night, because one leg slipped out of my hospital bed and got jammed somewhere and twisted for four hours until a carer rescued me.

Moving on from distractions, I do get derailed, sometimes to the point where I lose the plot until I force my struggling mind back on track. Other times, the derailment is total, at least until inspiration kicks back in… a few hours later, or next day.

As for dealing with distractions, it’s a matter of pushing through by being committed to the project. For instance, ‘Freedom Flights’ and its characters have grown close to me while writing more casual articles doesn’t hold my attention.

Sorry for posting late.

**

The awesome co-hosts for the May 1 posting of the IWSG are Victoria Marie Lees, Kim Lajevardi, Nancy Gideon, and Cathrina Constantine!

Finally, don’t forget to visit more active writers via the IWSG site:

Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG, and our hashtag is #IWSG.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!


Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group Day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer – aim for a dozen new people each time – and return comments. This group is all about connecting!

#IWSG – Blogging Life

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This fourth Insecure Writer’s Support Group post of 2024 has to steer away from the same complaints about my health.

Instead, I’ll concentrate on wishing you all a Belated Happy Easter, hoping however you spent it, in worship, with family, hunting for Easter eggs, or all three, it was rewarding, enjoyable, inspiring, and fun.

So, onto the writing front:

The revision of Fevered Fuse is complete and with my editor awaiting her response.

My Ukraine saga, Freedom Flights, is still ongoing. Episode 18 was posted in three parts on consecutive days at the end of March, and the links were added to the above-mentioned page.

However, I discussed my thoughts about April’s episode, in Part 3 of Episode 18. I said, “What I write and whether I do depend on what happens in the war and on your comments.” Plus, I posed some questions to prompt comments, such as, “Am I posting too often? Should I spend more time writing post-1944/pre-2022 episodes?”

For instance, I have an unfinished Korean War episode, started during NaNoWriMo 2023, that I could work on, but the present war in Ukraine is an ongoing concern.

What should I do fellow Insecure Writers?

Slava Ukrayini

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Every month, IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG posts. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience, or a 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!

April 3 question – How long have you been blogging? (Or on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram?) What do you like about it and how has it changed?

On May 25th 2012, I posted for the first time here on Writing Wings…12 years ago at the end of next month.

Welcome to Writing Wings

Those twelve years feel like quite a journey, not just from Kent via Wales to Idaho, but from writing one-off stand-alone posts to creating sequences of themed posts like the six Blogging from A to Z Challenges (2014-2019) and the WEP/IWSG Challenges (August 2018-December 2023).

The monthly IWSG post has kept me blogging for much of that time… with a few lapses. My biggest regret is having to stop posting book reviews not just when I ceased being able to read. Even listening to audiobooks dried up as I watched more videos and podcasts linked to issues like the War in Ukraine.

Although I struggle with my health, I still enjoy blogging and writing keeps my brain active. Without having to write at least one post a month, my life would be emptier… and when nobody comments it makes me wonder what I’m doing wrong.

But maybe I’m at fault for just hitting ‘Like’ on other people’s posts and not commenting.

Sorry. if this is boring

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The awesome co-hosts for the April 3 posting of the IWSG are Janet Alcorn, T. Powell Coltrin, Natalie Aguirre, and Pat Garcia!

Finally, don’t forget to visit more active writers via the IWSG site:

Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG, and our hashtag is #IWSG.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!


Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group Day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer – aim for a dozen new people each time – and return comments. This group is all about connecting!

#IWSG – AI Experiments

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This is the third Insecure Writer’s Support Group post of 2024, so I’m still attempting to avoid repeating the usual gripes and writing failings. I’m aiming to steer away from …boring.

Not so brief, then, my health continued its erratic decline, including one day of dramatically ejecting what I ate. I dismissed the convenient suspicion of attempted poisoning… even if our departing aid company tried to mess up even our last few days. Due to the company’s inefficient scheduler/manager, over the last few weeks, our best aids kept being forced to leave. When our favourite aid, Shaunna, quit, we found ourselves an infinitely better company, Visiting Angels… who live up to their name. We did manage to say ‘hasta la vista’ to our best aids, and at least two were there on my nauseous day.

And Shaunna promises to stay in touch as a friend… of ours and our dogs.

On the writing front, the revision of Fevered Fuse may soon be complete as I’m working on the last 20 pages. However, I fear my editor might find things still need attention. My eyes are taxing me more and more, so I worry about how much more is achievable… a problem, as my Ukraine saga, Freedom Flights, is still ongoing. I’m not even sure when Episode 18 will be written.

However, ending on an upbeat note, my wife Juanita just celebrated her ‘27th’ birthday on March 1st, St David’s Day, as noted in my last post. Not only did her family visit bearing gifts, but also some of my ace aids brought flowers, chocolates, and cake. Shaunna even brought balloons and cooked a celebratory meal.

And I haven’t forgotten this photo of the two ‘forever’ roses I gave Juanita… red for Valentine’s Day and periwinkle for her birthday. What colour should I choose for our Anniversary on May 14th? Rainbow?

Two live roses dipped in 24-karat gold and a miniature rose bush.

Slava Ukrayini

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Every month, IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG posts. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience, or a 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!

March 6th question: Have you “played” with AI to write those nasty synopses, or do you refuse to go that route? How do you feel about AI’s impact on creative writing?

I was hoping to answer ‘yes’ and then give an AI synopsis a crash test. But although I use Grammarly regularly, I’ve not played with its Synopsis setting in the Generative AI… yet.

Going that route might save my eyes.

I’m not sure AI won’t create too many formulaic rip-offs of better-crafted books, flooding an already competitive market. Or perhaps I’m being too pessimistic, and instead, it will help some of us avoid our misteaks 😉

Sorry for my brevity.

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The awesome co-hosts for the March 6 posting of the IWSG are Kristina Kelly, Miffie Seideman, Jean Davis, and Liza @ Middle Passages!

Finally, don’t forget to visit more active writers via the IWSG site:

Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG, and our hashtag is #IWSG.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!


Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group Day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer – aim for a dozen new people each time – and return comments. This group is all about connecting!

#IWSG – Website Diagnosis

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This is the second Insecure Writer’s Support Group post of 2024, so, I’m conscious that I must avoid repeating last month’s gripes and usual writing failings… as everyone has to be bored by them after months of identical posts.

In brief, then, my health continues its steady decline. The revision of Fevered Fuse plods on, and Episode 17 of Freedom Flights is due out this week.

Slava Ukrayini

Unfortunately, my 2023 tax return was not submitted by January 31st. Maybe later this week.

However, distressingly my poor wife Juanita was in the hospital for two nights with heart and lung failure. Fortunately, she is back home and on oxygen, so the whole family is praying for her full recovery.

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Every month, IWSG announces 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!

February 7 question: What turns you off when visiting an author’s website/blog? Lack of information? A drone of negativity? Little mention of author’s books? Constant mention of books?

It depends on why I’m visiting their site. The key plus elements are being informative, not long-winded nor rambling, and if books are mentioned… just a few titles & blurbs or links if the author is prolific. Good site navigation like a clear menu is important too.

Plus, avoiding the errors I attempt to eliminate on Writing Wings.  

So, please let me know where my website fails. Yes, I know a few links are dead ends, which must be irritating.

Sorry for my brevity.

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The awesome co-hosts for the February 7 posting of the IWSG are Janet Alcorn, SE White, Victoria Marie Lees, and Cathrina Constantine!

Finally, don’t forget to visit more active writers via the IWSG site:

Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG, and our hashtag is #IWSG.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!


Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer – aim for a dozen new people each time – and return comments. This group is all about connecting!