The Gift that Keeps Giving - IWSG December 2025

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is 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 haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. 

I am delighted to co-host IWSG this month with Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, Tara Tyler, and Natalie Aguirre! For links to all contributors, click here.

December’s optional question - As a writer, what was one of the coolest/best gifts you ever received?

Not all gifts are material, and the one for which I feel most grateful is the gift of awareness.

It began when I started this blog and challenged myself to write a post five days a week. That could have become boring, or at the very least a struggle, so in trying to furnish myself with subject matter I spent a lot of time walking with a camera, noticing things I’d never had time to appreciate before. Pretty soon I had images—storm clouds reflecting off a still harbor, herons and egrets stick-walking through the marsh grass, lobster boats laboring in with their catch. After a while, it didn't matter if I took a photo. I learned that winter sunsets are stunning, but it's the subtle color that displays in the east just as the sun goes down that touches the soul. I drank in views of the city across the bay from a park I’d never walked before, visited secret gardens and strolled a World War II munitions depot the state turned into walking paths. I discovered a lighthouse on a spit of land where, if timed right, it's possible to watch the sunrise and turn around and to watch the moon set in the same minute. My walks took me through museums, graveyards, antique stores and old homesteads. Each of these things delivered a sense of uniqueness and wonder as well as a profound feeling of good fortune for the beauty and history that surrounds me.

The habit of noticing stays strong in me. Even now as I walk the same route most mornings, things are  different than the day before. Beauty is ever changing, ever evolving. How lucky am I that awareness arrived with a two-for-one bonus gift of ongoing appreciation.

As a writer, what has been your favorite gift?

AWOL - IWSG November 2025

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is 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 haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to November  cohosts, Jennifer Lane, Jenni Enzor, Renee Scattergood, Rebecca Douglass, Lynn Bradshaw, and Melissa Maygrove. For links to all contributors, click here.

November’s optional question - When you began writing, what did you imagine your life as a writer would be like? Were you right, or has this experience presented you with some surprises along the way?

I knew I’d be away and unavailable when the email announcing this month’s IWSG post arrived. I pre-wrote my post, unaware of the optional question. Happily, I came close enough!

Sixteen years ago when I created Middle Passages, I was besotted. Every word I wrote felt as rewarding as that electrifying, innocent joy of first love. But as we all know, dazzling first loves don’t always remain for the long haul. It’s like that with writing too. Many submissions and rejections followed those initial earnest blog posts, which taught me that real writing takes hard work, patience and time. I get it, but I’d be a liar to say I don’t miss that period when everything was fresh and exhilarating.

These days, writing feels more like living with a trusted partner. We know we belong together and have enough confidence in our relationship that sometimes we do things apart.

Occasionally though we experience a lapse in communication, which happened this past April when my writing brain forgot to tell me it planned to take off to parts unknown the same day I retired. I trust it to return, but patience is key. While it's been away, I've been reading, walking a couple of miles a day, taking yoga and Zumba classes and learning Mahjong. I want to tell you my days are full, but they aren't, really. I have plenty of time to write, but zero inspiration. So, to keep myself going, I’ve been playing around with my old blog posts, cutting and pasting them into a Word document, then editing the heck out of them. 

You know how when you love your own words, your proofreading eyes fail to find mistakes? Now I see them all. Mostly though, I find ways to tighten the essays to make them more compelling. It's fun. Re-reading the early-writing me feels like visiting with an old friend I haven’t seen in years. It's a little like receiving postcards from afar. It helps me stay in touch with my imagination while it's off galivanting.

What do you do when inspiration takes a holiday?

Choosing My Children - IWSG October 2025

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is 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 haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to October  cohosts, Beth Camp, Crystal Collier, and Cathrina Constantine! For links to all contributors, click here.

This month’s optional question: What is the favorite thing you’ve written, published or not? And why?

I wonder if asking this question of a writer is similar to asking a parent to identify their favorite child. They’re all my favorites! But if I had to choose, would it be the poem I wrote in high school that my English teacher submitted to the literary magazine without telling me? The one that when my friend congratulated me, I said, “Huh?”

Or would it be the piece I wrote off the top of my head before work one day and submitted to an online writing magazine before thinking about it? A few weeks later an editor called telling me I’d won $500 for my essay and I'd almost forgotten writing it.

Perhaps my favorite is the first piece I had published in an actual print magazine about living through the stages of life as an older mother of an only child. The essay was called “Middle Passages” and yes, it inspired the name for this blog. That particular essay put the bug in my head about beginning a regular writing practice.

But how can I forget the pieces I wrote for local magazines when I was freelancing? I had a blast writing them. Well, mostly. I was assigned a feature highlighting the best restaurants in which to dine on oysters. At the time I didn’t eat them, and every chef I talked to wanted me to sample their dishes. Gulp. (Now, I love them fried!) Then there’s the story I wrote about a neighbor’s yard, three acres filled with gardens, cairns, a labyrinth plus a three-tiered tree house. He was so delighted with the piece he had the photographer who took the accompanying pictures come back and take more after which this neighbor made them up into his own book. My copy has pride of place on my book shelf.

Another time I wrote an article about an encaustic artist, who painted with wax. Not only was I clueless about the medium prior to interviewing the artist, but my GPS was clueless too. It kept trying to send me north of the city when I needed to go south. But during the ensuing stop-and-start trip, I dead-ended at a pier on a river I’d noticed for years while speeding by on the highway. I’d always wanted to find it. Check that off the bucket list.

Of course I can’t leave out the four unpublished books I have under my belt which have taken years upon years of effort. I do, actually, have a favorite there, but I’m not confessing. I wouldn’t want the others to feel bad, especially the one I am currently querying.

In the end, they're all my children and there’s no way I can  choose. After all, there are sixteen years of essays I’ve published here at Middle Passages. Let's just say if I had to rank them, my “Church of the Jetty” posts would land close to the top because I cherish the memory of visiting our harbor breakwater with my husband on summer Sunday mornings. I miss it still.

But then there are my "Festival on the Common" posts. They're pretty good too...

https://middlepassages-lcs.blogspot.com/2009/03/practice.html

https://middlepassages-lcs.blogspot.com/2012/07/summer-blessings.html

https://middlepassages-lcs.blogspot.com/2013/08/church-of-jetty-take-three.html

https://middlepassages-lcs.blogspot.com/2014/07/church-of-jetty-2014.html

https://middlepassages-lcs.blogspot.com/2015/08/church-of-jetty-2015.html

How about "BI" instead? IWSG September 2025

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is 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 haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to September co-hosts:  Kim Lajevardi, Natalie Aguirre, Nancy Gideon, and Diedre Knight. For a list and links to all contributors, click here.

September 3 question - What are your thoughts on using AI, such as GPChat, Raptor, and others with your writing? Would you use it for research, story bible, or creating outlines\beats?

I’ve never used AI to produce any of my actual writing and I’ve been annoyed by and ignoring Microsoft Word’s “Copilot,” each time I open a new document and it proposes topics for which it can create a draft for me. Given today’s question though, for the first time ever, I clicked on one, which was an offer to provide "a witty blog post about a sailing trip." Insert raised eyebrows here. Does my computer know I used to sail with my husband? Is it aware that I write these once-a-month blog posts?  

The old eyes widened when I read the completed blog post the computer provided to me. Cliche though it may be, my hackles rose. The last time I read something fictional I knew was AI generated, it involved clunky surface writing lacking in emotion, so the wry, amusing post created by Word's AI interface scared the you-know-what out of me. It had enough personality that I could easily believe it was generated by a human. The thought made me feel a little sick. As AI becomes more “proficient,” how are we EVER going to know the difference between what’s human created verses computer generated?

Are there ways in which AI might be helpful? Sure, I guess. When I started this document, one of the options Copilot suggested it could create for me was a low-budget, three-day trip plan for Paris. If I needed to design a trip for a character (or for me!), typically I'd search using Google to learn about landmarks. Newer AI offerings may deliver more detail and speed, but research is research, whether your using an Encyclopedia Britannica (which was on my bookshelf growing up), or ChatGPT. HOW we use that research in our writing is what matters.

That Copilot-generated blog post crossed a line for me. I've mostly buried my head in the sand as it pertains to AI, but that post woke me up because it showed me how easy it could be to cheat. How many people do? Apparently enough. As I was writing this, I realized that every agency I've queried over the last two months has asked me to answer an AI disclaimer. Oh man! 

So yes, for this month's IWSG I researched using Copilot. But it took several hours of writing to clarify my thoughts on the month’s topic. This post contains the results, and every idea, experience and feeling  arrived via MY brain. 

Here it's all about the humanity. I'm going to call that "Biological Intelligence."

 

 

 

Sneaky Minds - IWSG August 2025

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is 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 haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to August co-hosts: Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Natalie Aguirre, Sarah - The Faux Fountain Pen, and Olga Godim! To read other contributors, click For a list and links to all contributors, click here.

I’m not experienced enough to have an opinion on this month’s question about the publishing industry, so today, you get just—me— surprising myself.

I think I mentioned here that after writing four (frustratingly unpublished) novels, so far, nothing has inspired me enough to consider spending years devoted to a fifth.

This wasn’t so scary in April when I retired, because I still had to make edits to my fourth manuscript. In late June, I started querying it.

Oye. Such an exercise in hair pulling. Current count, nine submissions, two rejections, many, many, many more to go and well, each time I'm working on a query it kind of feels like when I worked for a living, except for the lack of constant interruption, and, yeah, well, I’m not getting paid. For sure, querying isn’t creative.

But the human mind is a sneaky thing, and in between queries, mine has been goading me.

“What? You’re not writing anything new? Well, then here. Let’s throw you a storm. Let’s make your fireplace leak and your little boat almost sink. Now, write a poem about it.”

“Um, okay?”

“Boring laps in the pool followed by walks on the beach. That’s good for another poem.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes. And by the way, repainting your bedroom from Sherwood green to Chamois white? There’s definitely a poem in that.”

“You think?”

“Yup.”

“Huh!”

“When you’re done, how about a poem about hummingbirds?”

“Aha. Gotcha. I already wrote that one.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Pull that sucker up on your laptop and give it an overhaul!”

And so it goes. I even wrote a poem inspired by an old poem I found on my hard drive. So while fiction has been non-existent over the last few months, unsolicited poems have muscled their way in. I get lost in them, spending as much time as it takes me to send out a query (and more!) tweaking one single line.

How do you make yourself move forward when writing is a struggle?

Not Work at All - IWSG July 2025

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is 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 haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to July co-hosts:  Rebecca Douglass, Natalie Aguirre, Cathrina Constantine, and Louise Barbour. For a list and links to all contributors, click here.

Optional July question: Is there a genre you haven't tried writing in yet that you really want to try? If so, do you plan on trying it?

I don’t entertain significant thoughts about writing in a different genre. Occasionally I ponder taking blog posts from when I was writing regularly about life around me and combining them with my pictures to make my own little book, but pondering is as far as I get.

Speaking of the world around me, though, I’m finding it a new place post-retirement. For the past few weeks, I’ve woken up sans alarm, pondered life for a while and then popped out of bed to head to the (summer only) town pool. Adult lap swim is from 7:00 to 8:00 am. Given that my alarm used to go off at 5:30, it’s no hardship for me to yank on a suit and drive five minutes to dive in. I grew up swimming but haven’t had a chance to do so in forever. It feels like going back in time. After the laps, I head right to the beach, where I set a timer and walk for at least a half an hour. By the time I get home, there’s breakfast to eat, coffee to drink, planters to water, and as I write this post, queries to send.

Yep, the foot-dragger gave herself a deadline and finally started querying. The process is as hard as it’s always been, but now I have time to focus on the chore. In the past, I created my own query tracking sheets but this time I’m using Query Tracker. For $25 for the year, I gain full access to a database to identify agents and their preferred genres/wish lists, assess response rates, and to track submissions and replies. Before querying, I can see how active an agent is and can read comments from other writers in regard to their experiences with a particular individual. Query Tracker also offer tutorials on how to get the best out of the database, links to articles of interest, some of which have reinforced what I think I know, and others that have taught me things.

My plan is to send out a handful of queries over the next few weeks and then wait for a bit before assessing where I stand. It’s summer. Fourth of July is coming up. The world will be going on vacation. Inboxes will fill up. I get all that. But now that I have all the time, there is no excuse not to be diligent with this process. Perhaps putting that in print here will hold me accountable.

And there’s some good news. Even though querying is a challenge, I’ve rediscovered something. When you can sit down and focus on work you actually want to do, it doesn’t really feel like work at all.

Have you used Query Tracker? What has your experience been like?

And because I can... a photo. The beach at 8:15 am, on a recent walk

Always a Good Read - IWSG June 2025

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is 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 haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to June co-hosts: PJ Colando, Pat Garcia, Kim Lajevardi, Melisa Maygrove, and Jean Davis. For a list and links to all contributors, click here.

Optional question for June - What were some books that impacted you as a child or young adult?

Last fall, my local library started a new book group. While working, I could never make the existing morning group, but this one met after hours, so I signed up. The focus was “gentle” reads and while the selected books varied in their “gentleness,” they were all stories I may have never encountered, except for one.  

Don’t laugh, but the choice for May was Anne of Green Gables. Readers of this blog may not be surprised that this story remains one of my all-time favorites. I’ve probably read it twenty times since eighth grade.

But while "Anne with an E" is so well known, folks may not know that the author, Lucy Montgomery, wrote seven sequels to Anne. Early in our marriage, my dear husband did some research and bought me the eight-book series as a Christmas present. I’ve purged a lot off my shelves, but those books will never go. Every several years I start the first book and I have to plan accordingly because nothing can stop me from binging on the rest. 

For those of you who don’t know, Anne of Green Gables is about a lonely orphan from Nova Scotia who uses her imagination to help her through the toils of her early life. She mistakenly lands with Matthew and Marilla, an elderly brother and sister who think they’re adopting a boy to help on their farm. Ultimately, they decide to keep her. Anne’s imagination gets her into a lot of trouble, but through her antics, she stimulates humanity in the stern couple, both of whom learn to love her as much as she ends up loving them. All sweet, all endearing, and the bonus is stunning description that makes me yearn to get to Prince Edward Island. It’s definitely a gentle read.

But Anne of Green Gables for an adult book group? Well. I guess? I mean, I was happy enough to read it again, but what about the other twenty  group members?

So there I was in our last meeting, defending Anne as other readers projected today’s diagnoses on her. “She must have had ADD,” one person said. "She definitely needed counseling," said another. Ugh, I thought. She’s fiction. How can you label a character from the late 1800’s with today’s manifestations?  In my opinion, she's just how she was written, adorable, trouble-prone, creative, imaginative Anne. But regardless of my thoughts, there was some hearty discussion and it ended like this. After each meeting, we score the book from one to five, with five being the best. The members of the book group are mixed in age and gender. Everyone with the exception of one person scored it five. It was by far the highest and most consistent rating of any book we read.

And, in case you are wondering, yes, I kept reading. (I can do this now! I’m retired!) I rocketed through the eight books this time, and was particularly touched by the last book, the story of Anne’s youngest daughter, a spoiled, happy-go-lucky teenager who matures during the painful years of WWI. I tell you. Anne of Green Gables and its sequels stand the test of time.

Spoiler alert. After our early May gathering, the librarian who ran the Gentle Reads Book Group retired with no replacement. Anne ended up being our last book.

What book from your past do you re-read?