Fabulous Fifteen - IWSG September 2026

 

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’ve 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. Co-hosts for September are Kate Larkinsdale, SE White, JS Pailly, Olga Godim, and Natalie Aguirre. For links to all IWSG contributors, click here.

Hey all! I’m passing on this month’s question in order to celebrate IWSG’s fifteenth anniversary. When I read that number, my first thought was, IWSG is fifteen? Oh Lord. How old does that make me? Please. Don’t ask!

When IWSG first came along, I’d been blogging for a while and was starting to realize how helpful it can be to communicate with other writers. I was also feeling pulled in a few different directions. Somewhere along the line, instead of struggling to post daily here, then weekly, I began limiting my Middle Passages entries to these first Wednesday of the month IWSG posts. So many years later, each time that monthly head’s-up email arrives, I make it my priority to sit down and write a solid essay. That’s fifteen years’ worth of solid essays, my friends. Do the math. To my knowledge, I haven’t missed a one.

It happens that a few weeks ago, I opened Middle Passages to its pre-IWSG days, searching for a piece I’d written years ago that included a recipe for roasted tomato pasta sauce. It’s been a prolific tomato summer and I hadn’t made the sauce in a long time. BTW, it’s simple, and every bit as yummy as I remembered, so if you want the recipe it’s here. Anyway, once I found what I was looking for, I kept clicking around this blog, jumping from post to post reading, finding quite a few I don't remember writing. My daughter was sitting across from me, and when I looked up I said to her, “You know what? I AM a good writer.”

That’s what IWSG has done for me. It’s delivered the opportunity to practice and improve my craft, often challenging me to dig deep to discover my views on a particular topic, and then to word my thoughts in a clear and understandable way. Today, I may lack confidence in some aspects of the writing life, but thanks to IWSG, that doesn't pertain to my actual writing. On top of that, IWSG has introduced me to so many other writers, people whose posts and comments teach, support and encourage me. I am better at what I love because of this. Please know how grateful I am to each of you.

During a seminar English class my senior year of college, the professor asked if anyone kept a diary, and I was the only one who raised a hand. When she asked why I did it, I said, “Because when I’m ninety years old, I want to look back and see who I was now.” Welp, I'm not there yet, but there's been a heck of a lot of living since then, and I haven’t kept a diary in eons. Instead there's this, a hundred and eighty IWSG essays making up a body of work that informs me not only of who I’ve been, but also of who I’ve become.

I was clueless when I wrote my first IWSG essay that I'd still be here after all this time, nor did I anticipate what a tremendous resource for writers this space would become. I'd like to extend a huge thank you to Alex for his foresight in founding, managing, and growing IWSG, as well as each of the  the administrators who’ve donated their time to make IWSG a success.

Last, but not at all least, thank you to those who read and comment here. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do it without you.

What has your experience been with IWSG?

Reminder: as a way to celebrate IWSG during this anniversary month, if you can, please support some of our fellow members by buying a couple books from those who have links on their pages.

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda - IWSG August 2026

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’ve 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’m delighted to be cohosting this month along with: Shannon Lawrence, Diedre Knight, and Pat Garcia. For links to all IWSG contributors, click here.

August optional question: As a writer/author what is something you regret? Or something that you wish you'd done differently in your writing process?

My biggest regret is not knowing myself well enough to start a dedicated writing practice sooner. Priorities were what they were when I was young. Taking care of a child while working full time, caring for a home, saving money, of course all these things were important, and I let them override my desire to write.

In spite of myself, that buried want forced its way out. I wrote an essay about blueberry picking with my daughter and her cousins when they were little, but didn’t have enough hutzpah to do anything with it. I composed poems sometimes, edited them like crazy and even submitted a few, but nothing happened. 

At work, I drowned myself in memos and training documents, because they meant writing. As a recruitment manager for a national retail chain, I hired creative talent and did a lot of work for a copy director.  At one point, he had an open copywriter position. As part of the hiring process, each  candidate was required to develop copy for an upcoming ad campaign. I wrote my own copy, wondering if I’d have the nerve to present it to him and be considered for the open position.

I didn't. 

It took until I was in my late-forties, when my first piece was published in a niche magazine for me to call myself a writer. A few years later, a job elimination that I call one of my life's greatest blessings,  fanned the proverbial flames. Before that, I hadn't really admitted to myself that I was essentially going through the motions in my career. But when life gets yanked out from under you, things get real fast. At fifty years old and unexpectedly unemployed, I immediately understood with complete certainty that whatever I did next had to involve writing. Every iteration of myself since then has.

These days, I’m proud of my writing, but wonder if I'd been true to myself earlier, whether I might have accomplished more.

What are your regrets related to writing?

Revise and Reduce! IWSG - July 2026

 

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 this month’s co-hosts,  Rebecca Douglass, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Cathrina Constantine, and Jacqui Murray. For links to all contributors, click here.

Optional question - Is there anything you'd like to see changed, added, and/or rearranged about the book publishing industry?

I’m passing on this month’s question, other than to say I wish we could go back thirty or forty years…

Onto another topic. This is my second summer of retirement and I’m still tickled by the idea of waking up with no real agenda, other than what I come up with on the fly. Although that’s not really true. I do have a schedule of sorts, working in the gardens, yoga classes and from June to August, swimming laps from seven to eight am, during the only adult lap swim offered at our town pool on weekdays.

Lap swimming can be pretty darn boring without waterproof earphones, but this summer I’m using the time to think about my writing, which helps things go quickly. Specifically, I’m reacting to comments from a friend/author/editor who read my current novel recently. The good news? She said, “Really. It’s good. It’s publishable as is…” but then of course she offered suggestions to enhance it, and they got me thinking, which after all, is what I’d hired her to do. After pondering her comments, my overriding thought was, sure. Maybe it’s good enough as is, but if there’s a way to make it better, shouldn’t I do it? Heck, yeah.

Her suggestions were as follows: Option #1, make one of the two POV’s in the book a secondary character and tell the entire story through the remaining POV’s eyes. Option #2, keep the second POV but give the character more of an arc, without increasing the word count.

I pondered for a while before nixing the first option. I’ve murdered many darlings in my day, but in this case it would remove the reader’s closeness to my second POV. I’d have to find a way to tell everything that happened to her, without having the readers live it through her eyes. I guess I like her too much to relegate her to secondary status, so Option #2 it is.

Amping up my second POV character while not increasing the word count means there are plenty of other darlings to kill, and lately my morning swims have involved major what-if-ing. Sometimes I lose track of the swimming. When I finish up, my Apple watch tells me I’ve swum more laps than normal. 

Cutting words while burning calories? I’ll take that as a win!

A Thorny Proposition - IWSG June 2026

 

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 this month’s co-hosts, Victoria Marie Lees, Sarah Foster, Natalie Aguirre, and C. Lee McKenzie. For links to all contributors, click here.

May was busy. The month was full of weeding, mulching, seeding, and transplanting. Every time I went outside I saw something else that needed to be done. The operative word in that last sentence is “saw” because aside from the gardening, I had two cataract surgeries. Apparently, I’m on the young side, but they can come earlier for severely nearsighted people like me. When you’ve been wearing coke-bottle glasses since childhood and wake up one morning post-surgery, and can see a hummingbird zipping outside the window with your naked eye, it’s life-changing.

The yardwork and surgeries provided an excuse for writing-avoidance. After completing a class on creating a saleable submission package for my latest book in April, I sent out two more queries and received two more quick rejections. Enough! I don’t want to waste this book, so long story short, it’s out being edited (again) which put me in waiting mode, which is to say, I took a break from writing.

I know. I should have distracted myself with another project, but my motivation to start anything new has been on such a prolonged break, I’d begun to suspect it had walked off the job. Spring gardening, plus pre and post-op appointments, kept me too busy to think about that.

Amost.

This leads me to this month’s question. Do most of my story ideas come from one place (the news, dreams, etc.) or do they hit from all over the place?

The only consistency related to my story inspiration is that for a long time, I’ve had nothing but empty head space when I ponder writing a new one—that is, until one day recently. I was weeding under a holly tree, which requires yanking up “volunteers” while avoiding thorny leaves that clutter the ground in the spring. Often I listen to audio books during such tedious jobs, but on this day, my headphone batteries had died. I’d challenged myself to clear a certain section though, so hoed away in silence. Two hours in, temps had peaked at an unseasonable ninety-plus. The weeds were stubborn and sweat trickled down my face.  I’d reached a point where I was whisper-cursing at holly thorns poking through my gloves.

And, that my friends, is when a story idea struck.

Really? Now?

In truth, I wiped my forehead and sat back on my heels, pretty darn tickled. The thought that arrived had nothing to do with the task at hand, but afterwards, the weeding felt easier somehow.

Since then, I’ve thought about that under-the-holly-tree revelation a lot. I’ve even done a bit of research trying to decide if there is enough there to flesh out a story. I’m not sure, but that’s okay.

The whole business gave me a measure of relief. It’s a new month. My eyes working and there’s hope that once I choose to listen, my writing voice will come in clearly, too.

Where do you find your inspiration?

Harvesting Inspiration - IWSG May 2026

 

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 this month’s co-hosts, Jenni Enzor, Jemima Pett, Jamie of Uniquely Maladjusted but Fun, and Kim Lajevardi. For links to all contributors, click here.

Optional May question: What was the most inspiring feedback you received from readers, including agents, editors, and beta readers?

While not necessarily feedback, a writer, author, teacher I know once offered this inspirational phrase: “Thinking is writing too.”

These days, I can’t muster up the energy to work on a new novel, but that doesn’t mean words and images don’t continue to spin their little kaleidoscopes inside my brain. It comforts me to acknowledge them, knowing they’ll be there if I decide to call on them some day.  

It’s still cold here. An east wind off the ocean delivers a damp chill, but even so, free-form forsythias wave their yellow arms, and “PJM” rhododendrons bloom fuchsia.  Still bundled in my winter jacket, this morning I walked the sidewalks in our downtown under a bower of Bradford pear blossoms. I looked up through them, unable to tell where the flowers ended and the white sky began. That picture resides in my brain now, ready in case it’s called to the page.

Crossing the street, I strolled through the town common. Beyond me, out for his own walk, a man wearing shorts above two prosthetic legs zigzagged the path. I caught myself wondering what had happened to him. Had he been in the military? Was he in a car accident?  What kind of courage had it taken for him to get to a point where he could jaunt across the common on this damp spring day? I’ve stored those thoughts for future retrieval.

Our county Sherriff's office brings in a shredding truck for a few hours once a year. After my walk, I sorted through old papers to dispose of and found insurance documents from when our house was robbed over twenty years ago. At the time (and still now), the only things I owned of marginal value had been handed down, or marked a significant occasion, and those were the things the perpetrator went for. Entering via an unlocked back door, they helped themselves to a ring that had been my great aunt’s and then my mother’s, who handed it down to me when I was sixteen. A necklace my husband gave me for our first Christmas together disappeared. They took our daughter’s gold christening bracelet, earrings my husband gifted me on our fifth wedding anniversary, and another pair he gave me years later for reasons I won’t go into here, but which made me treasure them. The lost items scored higher for sentimental value than anything else, and that meant while they were theoretically replaceable, they could never be replaced. To add proverbial acid to the wound, the thief stole a digital camera, filled with pictures I hadn’t downloaded or printed. Of course, we were grateful no one was home when it happened. No one was hurt. The lost items were just things. For a long time afterwards though, I felt vulnerable and violated. The intruders had taken pieces of my history. It felt like they'd taken part of my heart.

So, what has all this got to do with today’s question? Inspiration can be found anywhere. On my way back to my car after dumping a cardboard box of papers into the shredding bin, long forgotten anger and frustration stemming from that robbery percolated inside me. It took a few minutes sitting in my warm car to realize I could restore a feeling of control by harvesting those old emotions to use the next time a story pops up.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Tuned IN II. IWSG April 2026

 

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 this month’s co-hosts, Melissa Maygrove, Cathrina Constantine, Kate Larkinsdale, and Rebecca Douglass. For links to all contributors, click here.

Optional April question: If you have a playlist (or could put one together) that either gets you in the groove to write or fits with one of your books, what is it? What type of music or what songs?

I’m not in the habit of playing music when writing, but once, ages ago, when my subject matter had Irish connections, I turned to a Celtic playlist while drafting. Inspired by the result. I wrote a Middle Passages post about that magical experience here.  Other than adding a few commas, I’m not sure I could write it better today.

That said (or read), after that expressive time, I went back to writing in silence. For me, concentration requires quiet, but as I discovered recently, apparently silence during cooking isn’t as important. I had some interior house painting done a few months back. At the end of the day, one of the painters mentioned my voice.

Huh?

It turns out the painters, father and son, perform in a band and had been listening to me singing away in the kitchen while they worked in the living room. I wasn’t aware I’d opened my mouth. I guess that goes to show that while I prefer to write in quiet, music is a part of me.

Anyway, back to today’s topic. Intrigued by that post I wrote so many years ago, and in the spirit of IWSG participation, I turned on some tunes while drafting what you’re reading right now. You never know. Maybe I’d grasp a shadow of that long ago Celtic muse. Instead, the first song blasted me back to a party in a linoleum-floored college dorm room where a group of us belted out the chorus. Back to the present. This time I was aware and it was probably good there was no one in my house,  because I employed my high school chorus instructor’s lessons to sing from my diaphragm. That is to say, loudly.

So much for writing.

Next thing I knew, I’d spent long minutes replaying the details of that particular college evening [insert youthful drama here], thinking how back then, every joy lit our insides like skyrockets, every hurt plunged us into arctic oceans. We had yet to experience the depth of the ways in which life would have its way with us. I wanted to reach back to that naïve girl singing her heart out, and say, “You think today is a big deal? Brace yourself, honey. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

Let’s just say the music-generated nostalgia didn’t help me get this blog post written.

Or did it?

What kind of music do you listen to when you write? What songs catapult you back to the past?

Climbing Out - IWSG March 2026

 

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’m writing this post mid-February and pre-posting as I won’t be available closer to the March IWSG deadline. With no monthly question to answer, I’m going rogue. That said, as always, thank you to this month’s co-hosts and to Alex. To read March posts from other IWSG contributors, click here.  

I’ve just completed a class called; You’ve Written a Book—Now What? It covered one line pitches, queries, publishing perspectives and marketing plans.

Some history. I started querying my last novel late last summer and after quick rejections, stopped to ponder what to do to improve my chances. When the opportunity to take the course came up, it seemed like a smart way to force myself forward. The class met on Saturdays, with a homework assignment in between, and after our second class, the task was to write (or in my case, re-write) our queries.

The following Monday morning I sat down to work on the main paragraph of the query, something like 200 words. I had plans for three hours later and usually put an alarm on my phone as a reminder, but since there was plenty of time, I didn’t bother.

Oops! I had to bolt out of my chair to make it to my destination in time, arriving there sans wallet and phone. I’d looked forward to the activity, but once there couldn’t focus. Half of my brain sat back in front of my laptop, tweaking word-by-word. Then, once I arrived home again, I discovered I’d been so distracted I’d left a folder of information behind.

Really?

It was a query letter--theoretically, not “fun” writing at all. But it reminded me that any writing has always brought joy, even in my vintage HR days when I’d get lost creating a training document or a relocation piece, only to look up and realize I’d almost missed a staff meeting. As far back as Miss Markey's sixth grade creative writing class when I wrote five extra pages for an assignment just because I was having fun.

The following day I drove twenty minutes to retrieve the folder I’d left behind, thinking that while I love when writing swallows down a deep hole, sometimes climbing out can be a challenge.

Tell me about a time that you got lost in your writing.