ISWG

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

This is my first post since switching to the new blogger thingy.  I have to use Google Chrome, and I don't like it.  I swear these Google/Blogger changes are aimed at eFing me up.  Really!!!  I'll carry on with the rest of this post as if this SNAFU isn't happening.

I’ve had all of April to plan and write May InsecureWriters Support Group post.  I didn’t.  Well, I had lots of ideas I planned out in my head of course; but you know how it goes when you have a long deadline?  You keep putting it off until all of a sudden you’re staring the deadline down in a week and you’re like “Holy crap, is it really time to get to work?”  Finally it’s the night before and you’re wondering if you’ll get anything worth reading posted at all and still get to bed before going to the day job the next morning.  So I've decided to do a sorta free-write and see what bleh comes out.  Hopefully its coherent by the end.

I know a lot of you A-Zers are probably feeling that way too, lol.  What a rush that was; I’m exhausted from watching ya’ll keep up.  I took a blogger break –  rarely posted (even that was more than I anticipated) and visited just a few blogs.  I’ve seen this apology on a lot of blogs I’ve visited, but I’m sorry I only chose a few blogs to visit when I was lonely during my blogger break. (Thanks Jeff for catering to the lonely blogs.) With over 1700 participants in the A-Z Challenge, it was nice to see that SOMETHING was bigger than even our ISWG host Alex Cavanaugh.

Our Ninja Captain (who is normally perceived to be everywhere – seriously, he’s everywhere) admitted publicly that there are some blogs he didn’t get to frequently.  Only had over 700 in his Google reader; WTF Dude?  Yes, I tease; but I’m impressed with all the April Challenge hosts.  I visited several of them, only lurked in most instances so they did not feel obliged to return a comment since I didn’t participate.  Poor Dears . .

Alex is hosting two more events before cutting back his blogging for a much needed breather (cutting back not disappearing) . . 

 I’m not participating in the reflections post, obviously; but I hope you will all stop by on 5/7 anyways for guest author Anne Gallagher (Piedmont Writer) and a review of her regency romance novel A Wife for Winsbarren.

So you’re probably wondering what I did during April, since I bowed out of the biggest blogger event short of NaNoWriMo. I read some books I had no obligation to write a review on, cleaned out my archived e-mails, deleted a lot of unnecessary files from three stored locations, and took a blogger break to write on some of my unfinished projects; except I didn’t write anything worth mentioning.  The project I started to revise had a very serious glitch that I didn't notice until I tried to write the query letter; it lacks a plot. 

You ever have that happen?  Your story has heart, great characters; loads of action; dialogue you’re pleased with.  It moves, its exciting, its gorey and sexy.  It has no plot.

Well, I know what it needs, and where to add story line.  I even know how to insert the love interest.  I just need to find a little -  - well, lets quit lying to myself.  Find a lot of time to fully concentrate on what I now consider filling in the basic outline.  (Don’t laugh at me plotters; I can still consider this "revising a pantsters first draft.")

But my writing  has taken on some changes since I wrote the original concept; and frankly my dear, I’d like to explore those new insights.  Not rushing a story concept probably sounds a lot like procrastination, but I’m not feeling like that’s what I’m doing.  Most blogger/writers I've become acquainted with over the last couple years have known since they picked up a pencil and were able to string two words together that they wanted to be writers; and had nearly a lifetime to explore and cultivate their craft preferences.  I discovered my writing life only a few years ago, and the project that started my writing journey is not what defines me as a writer.  I'm still exploring what it means to me to be a writer.

And too, I suppose I’m more of a hobby writer.  I have my moments of absolute dedication, but it has to fit in my working life.  I won’t deny I make a darned good income for my area, but I’ve incurred a lot of debt in raising my kids as a single parent.  Paying my bills is my top priority.

I feel a bit guilty in searching for a second job, as many Californian’s struggle just to have one source of income, no matter how inadequate.  Thankfully I’ve been able to be choosy in my 2nd job.  I’ve spent a long time searching avenues as a freelance writer, and I think I finally found an agency I can write for comfortably at academia-research.com.  My reservations at freelance writing have been about finding my own jobs to write on.  I just don’t have the drive for self employment; or self promotion (so inde-publication is out for me).  But this agency has the jobs and payment schedule listed for all accepted writers to view, and bid on.

Naturally, I thought of all my blogger friends who are stay at home writers, either by choice or circumstance, or those like me struggling to make ends meet and needing just.that.little.bit.more.  I discovered this site through kpwriting.com; but once you spend the couple hours filling out the in-depth application, then submitting a writing sample of the company’s choosing, you get to pick from a number of writing job orders, your login and order search all happens at academia research..  A WHOLE LOT OF the orders at this site are academic, college level research papers, dissertations, and more often than not, on subjects that any geek/nerd would already have a vast knowledge/resource base to draw upon.  There are even some orders that are nothing more than power point presentations.

I'm kinda limited on the jobs I can accept due to my lack of techno-savy; but there's money to be made for anyone who understands mathematical/scientific theory, business analysis, or economic applications to social sciences.  Not that there isn't enough English-Lit essays to appeal to word-nerds like myself.

Anyway, if you check it out, be sure you browse through ALL the tabs and links.  Don’t be frustrated by the number of times they iterate the no plagiarism policy.  If you’ve ever done any academic writing for a college degree, or written articles for journals/magazines, you’ll understand that plagiarism really is a problem outside of the world of social networking.

Speaking of changes in my writing focus; I’d like to announce that I’ve accepted an invitation from L’Aussie Denise to partner with her in co-hosting the Romantic Friday Writers Club.  Now, I know many of you are getting a chuckle out of this because I’ve never considered myself a “romance” writer.  To me, romance writers focus on that HEA (Happily Ever After) ending; and if you’ve followed me for any length of time (or read any of my published short stories), you know that circumstance is pretty much an unplanned accident in my normal writings.

Some take that to mean I don’t like romance, and for a lot of years I believed that also.  But as my partner Denise asserts, there is a difference in “romance” and “romantic”; and I rarely like a novel that doesn’t have some romantic element to it (as in, a well developed love interest).  Perhaps you’ll stop by sometimes and write for us to one of our fort-nightly prompts. 

Denise developed the May 4 “response to picture” prompt (which ups the accepted word count to 600) and I suggested the “Appreciating the Zealotry” prompt for our next prompt on May 18.  While Denise’s prompt requires some thinking and story development, mine just requests you link to a post you made DURING April.  Remember, you on not have to be a member/follower of RFW to post to a prompt; and for the 5/18 post, it does not even have to have any resemblance to romance.  Just link to a writing you are particularly proud of during April.

 

This brings me to some of the posts I visited during April that pegged my “Oh yeah, babe,” meter.  (Some blogs I’d have to post every one of the A-Z submissions, so I’m deliberately leaving those out because this post really is getting too long and I’d be surprised it anyone is still reading . .) 

Ah; I'm having some troubles accessing the saved links, and my battery is dying, and its after 2a my time.  So, I'm done posting.

One last item though;  Thanks to  Aldea Alien for being my 400th follower.  Yay, yay and way cool.

'Kay; I'm outa here and going to bed, then off to the day job all too early.  I'll be visiting everyone later today.