Soundtrack for my Stories, an open book blog hop post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

If your book had a soundtrack what would be on it? 
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screenshot of my YouTube playlist

I haven't generally chosen a soundtrack to go with my work, but that's changing with my latest projects. My works-in-progress right now are a trio of GenX themed romance novellas, with characters in their 50s falling in love.  

For the first one, working title Not Too Late, I've been using song titles from 80s songs as my chapter titles. And it's a lot of fun shopping for just the right song to fit the emotions or plot points of each one. 

I've got a full draft now, so here's a playlist of all the songs I chose to represent Mandy and Chris, my lovebirds:

 

For the second novella, working title Acid Reign, my main character is a member of an imaginary all-girl punk band that had its heyday in the 80s. I haven't decided yet if I'll continue that idea and use song titles from 70s and 80s punk bands or if it might be better to use song titles from my imaginary band. I guess real ones are easier to actually listen to, but I have made up some fun songs for my imaginary band. "Not Your Lolita," "Nice Girls Don't", and "MTV Can Bite Me" for example. 

I think I'll finish writing it and then decide. 

Do you like having soundtracks for your writing or reading? What' s a good one you've seen/heard? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

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My Best Lines, an Open Book blog hop post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What's the best line you've written recently? Or ever? 
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It is a lovely feeling to re-read your work and find lines that make you feel a bit of pride and accomplishment. It's fun to look for those jewels, moment that are beautifully crafted or emotionally resonant, and that will help attract readers to your work. I often pull them for use in ad campaigns or newsletters or social media posts. 

Four pull quotes from Going Through the Change, book 1 of the Menopausal Superheroes series.

Honestly, those sparkling little moments feel like magic and they're a big part of why I write. They give me a sort of glowing feeling.

My work-in-progress right now is a trio of Gen X romances I plan to release as my first fully indie projects. I've just finished re-writing the first one, working title Not Too Late. 

Here's a line I'm proud of from that one: 

A firetruck flew up the avenue, but Chris didn’t get out of bed to see which way it was going. He was far more concerned about a much older flame and whether he was the one who would end up getting burned.

It's an important moment in the romance, establishing Chris's character and his feelings on having his one-time crush come back into his life all these years later. I felt clever, using the firetruck to lead into the flame metaphor as applied to love. 

When I'm reading, I also look for these kinds of lines--quotable bits, insights that really hit home. I highlight them (in my kindle edition) or copy them into notebooks, and if I ever want to tell someone why I love a book, that's where I go first. 

 How about you? Are you drawn to quote-able lines? What kinds of moments in a book (one you've read or written) glow brightly for you? 

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Leave 'Em Wanting More…But Don't Leave 'Em Hangin': an IWSG post

      

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the December 4 posting of the IWSG are Ronel, Deniz, Pat Garcia, Olga Godim, and Cathrina Constantine!


December 4 question - Do you write cliffhangers at the end of your stories? Are they a turn-off to you as a writer and/or a reader?

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The only series I've written so far (recently finished! hurray!) is the Menopausal Superheroes. In writing it, I used some tropes, abandoned others, and tried to twist still others. I wanted the books to feel like what they are--superhero stories--but to also be their own thing, so that was sometimes a delicate dance. 

Cliffhangers are bread and butter in superhero stories--going as far back as the oldest comic books and movie serials with superpowered characters. 

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I know some readers hate cliffhangers, feeling that they are a manipulation designed to pull them into the next book. That can be true, but sometimes, they are genre expectation and the best way to tell a story. 

The end of the first book has been described as a cliffhanger by some (usually by folks who don't like cliffhangers).  If you read my reviews of that first book, people who don't love it almost universally complain that it ended in a cliffhanger. 

I don't think it exactly is…my heroes had met their primary goal, and the next problem presented itself immediately. That fits the comic book feel of it to me. True that it wasn't all wrapped up…but no was left in the middle of an immediate crisis. Heroes seldom get to enjoy or celebrate their wins for long--there's always another fight looming. 

That said, the second, third, and fourth books end more fully than that first one. So maybe I came around to what some of my readers were saying. We'll find out next summer if they like what I've done with the fifth and final book in the series--coming to you in summer 2025 from Falstaff Books!

For myself as a reader, it's a case by case scenario. Some cliffhangers feel organic to the story and others just feel like tacked-on manipulations. So some I love, and some frustrate me. I don't think there's a right answer to this one. You gotta do what's right for each story. 

And, yes, a cliffhanger is a tactic to drive readers to pick up the next book in a series. Done well, it's no more manipulative than writing engaging characters, leaving a question unanswered, or showing an assumption about what's happened might be mistaken. I don't think writers are doing anything wrong if they work some curious and tension-building techniques in to pull a reader through a whole series. That's just good story telling (and a little business sense). 

So, what do y'all think? Cliffhangers, yea or no? Why? 

Best reads of 2024: An Open Book Blog Hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What's the best book you've read this year (besides your own)? 
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I try to read about a book a week every year. At this writing, late November, I have read 64 books (see below for the entire list). I'm pretty good at choosing books that I will enjoy--after 50ish years as a reader, I know what I like. So, most of these are books I very honestly gave 4 or 5 stars to. 

I'm always a mood reader, with the exception of promises made to book clubs or folks I promised to review, and my taste ran dark this year. I went on a T. Kingfisher binge and read 12 of her books this year. I revisited some established horror favorites like Grady Hendrix, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Gabino Iglesias. 

I read a lauded and admired fantasy with dragons, and the final installment of a series I have loved. I picked up a couple of books by friends and a few things I can't even remember how I learned about them. 

So, it's been a great reading year. 

Picking a favorite…

I'm not good at that. So, I guess I'll tell you what my favorite one is today. But you should know that if you ask me tomorrow, I might give a different answer. 

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher. 

It's a fairy tale, in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm, but isn't a straight-up retelling of any particular fairy tale. It's also a story about escaping bad situation, perseverance and resilience, and found family. Grimm fairy tales were some of my first loves in the world of story, and I love the way Kingfisher pulled out all I loved about those stories and made something new from it. Bonus points for a having one of the heroines be a "woman of a certain age." 

How about you? What did you read that was wonderful this year? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

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When to Kill (a character), an Open Book Blog Hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Have you ever regretted killing off a character? Or not killing one off? 
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Interesting question this week! 

Killing off characters has really ranged for me. There have been times when I didn't even blink. It was obviously what the story needed. Other times, I'm waffled and written several versions trying to decide. 

People die in my horror stories all the time. They are, after all, horror stories. The stakes are high and violence is expected. You're just as likely to end up in the afterlife if you start a horror story as a hero or a villain, since both endings are common in the genre.  I do try to make these deaths matter, though. I *hate* stories where one character is killed off solely to motivate other characters or for shock value alone. 

In my superhero work, though, I have a much lighter, more optimistic tone, and I've mostly avoided killing. My heroes are not the grim-dark sort you find in some superhero stories, but the true-heart, noble-bright sort for the most part. Even Patricia, the most reluctant of heroes, doesn't use her power indiscriminately. 

Patricia "Lizard Woman" O'Neill, as drawn by Charles C. Dowd

In the field more generally, characters do die in superhero stories, but it's usually not the heroes, or at least not without a LOT of hoopla and the possibility of undoing that later in some fashion. 

I've recently turned in the series ender for the Menopausal Superheroes series. There is a death of a named, recurring character in this last one, and I feel it was the right choice for the story. But, there's another character who was on a trajectory that might well have led to her death and I chose not to kill her off. It didn't feel right. 

I think that's the key for me. This is a decision based on what feels right. Does it serve the story? Is it necessary? 

I guess we'll find out how readers feel next summer when the book comes out! 

How about you? If you write, have you killed off any characters? For readers, have there been any character deaths that you thought were handled well or badly? 

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Creativity in the Kitchen

     

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the November 6 posting of the IWSG are Diedre Knight, Lisa Buie Collard , Kim Lajevardi, and JQ Rose!

November 6 question - What creative activity do you engage in when you're not writing?

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Most of my creative energy goes into my writing. It's where my imagination plays best--making up stories and romping about with imaginary friends in the wordscape. 

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I've been told often enough that I'm a creative person--usually by someone who is trying to find a nicer way to say that I'm weird or strange. Even I can tell that my brain doesn't work like other people's brains. 

But it's really only stories, poems, novels, etc. that I create. 

I don't paint or dance or write music, for example. I don't make fiber art, origami, or jewelry. I don't do woodwork, pottery, or collages. I might show a little creativity in my house design choices, and DIY projects, but those don't feel original to me in the same way. 

I have acted and sung in the past, and played a couple of musical instruments, but I don't pursue any of those activities with regularity right now. I'd like to get back into the playing the piano though. It's challenging with my arthritis, but it brings me joy. 

So I guess the closest I come to having another creative outlet in my life is in the kitchen. Sure, I'm following recipes in there (at least the first time I make something), but I'm definitely also creating something--something yummy!

I'm especially fond of baking, though I also take pleasure in making new dishes for dinner. I'm happiest if a new recipe requires me to try something I've never done before--a new technique, ingredient, or kitchen gadget! 

Treats from my kitchen in the past few months. 

How about you? What are your creative outlets? Are there any you wish you made more time for? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Can I quote you on that? An open book blog hop post

  

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Do you have any favorite quotes about writing? 
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I love reading about writing. It's always interesting to me to learn about what processes other writers follow, especially if I admire their work. So, there are a BUNCH of great quotes about writing rattling around in my brain, but I'll stick to just two of them for this post: 

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Toni Morrison wrote some of my favorite books. Beloved broke my heart and scared me at the same time. I also loved The Bluest Eye and Sula. But you know what? She never wrote about Menopausal Superheroes and I wanted to read that, so I took her advice and I wrote it. At the most basic level, this is why I write what I write: I am my own intended audience. I'm writing what I want to read. 

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EM Forster might be best known for the opulent Merchant Ivory films made of his books: Howard's End, A Room With a View, A Passage to India and the like. They are fascinating for the way they capture a moment in time, and encapsulate class issues and explore humanistic themes. 

I don't remember where I first ran across this quote from him, but when I read it, it was like lightning in my brain. "Yes! Just like that!" I thought. Story is my major coping and processing mechanism in life. Whatever I'm going through or thinking about, writing is going to be part of how I pull myself through and get to the other side of it. This quote captures that feeling for me of needing that step back, that opportunity to listen to the still, small voice within, and dialogue with my own subconscious on the page in order to clarify my thinking and understand my heart's desires. 

So there are two of my favorites. What quotes have you run across that speak to your ideas about creativity? I'd love to hear about them in the comments! 

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What do ghosts read? An Open Book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Stolen from an X (Twitter) post: Which genre do you think ghosts prefer: mystery, thriller, horror, fairytale, or magical realism? 
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What a fun question! 

The answer might depend on your beliefs/philosophy about ghosts themselves and what exactly they are. After all, fiction gives us quite a range of ghosts. 

• Some of them are basically the same person they were they were alive, just transparent and unchanging now. In some stories, they don't even know they are dead. 
• Some of them are more like an echo of who they once were, trapped in a small moment, reliving it over and over. I'm not sure they can even interact with the world. 
• Some of them are malevolent--poltergeists, vengeful spirits, and the like. 

I'm thinking that the only types of ghosts who read are that first type: the ones that are still who they always were, just dead now. And for those guys, I bet they read whatever they liked when they were alive. Though it is fun to imagine that, once freed from the limits of the mortal coil, like a need for sleep or to earn money, a ghost could just wander the library reading anything and everything. 

Heck! Maybe this is my chance to actually read everything in my TBR!

image source

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Ghost Story Time! An IWSG bloghop post

    

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the October 2 posting of the IWSG are Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jacqui Murray, and Natalie Aguirre!

October 2 question - Ghost stories fit right in during this month. What's your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.

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I adore ghost stories. I could probably list a top 10 and still have dozens of favorites left to list. But the one that lives in my heart is Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp. 

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I first read this one when I was pretty young, an older child or younger teenager, so that's part of it--books that you read at that age imprint on your soul differently because you don't have wider experience and so many things get to the first one of their kind in your life. 

I've read it many times since, and it still delights me every time. 

It's got everything: an atmospheric old house, mysterious family history, an evil child, and even romance. Honestly, this book explains a lot about me. To this day, I am suspicious of gazing balls in gardens. This is probably why one of my upcoming projects is a Gothic romance, too. 

How about you? Do you love to read spooky stories? Tell me about them and add to my spooky season TBR! 

Seeing my Stories Through, an Open Book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

How did you decide that you finally wanted to write your stories?
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I've always written--poetry and journals as a child; poetry, journals, essays, and stories as a young woman. But I was really haphazard about finishing things and seeking publication. I always let something else take precedence. I poured my creative energy into teaching, raising my kids, and building a life. And I wondered why I was feeling burnt out. 

For me, the moment of decision came when I was 42. Anyone who has read Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy knows that 42 is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, so I took that as my cue from the universe to get off my duff and take my writing life seriously. Stop playing at writing and do it for real. 

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"Doing it for real" for me meant committing to a daily writing habit and forcing myself to stay focused on a single project and bring to completion before allowing myself to chase the shiny new idea that flitted across my brain when the going got tough. It takes discipline to move from playing at writing to bringing your vision into a form where it can be shared with others. Discipline and bravery. 

I say it takes bravery because sharing your creative endeavors with the world is a highly vulnerable act. You'll meet with a mixture of responses. You may find love and support, you may find vitriol, or you may find indifference. Most of us find a little of all three.

So, that was what did it for me: I turned 42 and decided it was now or never. I chose now. 

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Words I Love, an Open Book blog hop post

  

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What's your favorite word in the English language? Any other language?
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I love words. 

That's probably no surprise given that I'm a writer, but I'm a real word nerd who loves collecting unusual words and am thrilled when I run across a word "in the wild" that I've never seen before. I was that kid who actually liked the etymology assignments. I did a series of blog posts about evocative words back in 2014 for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. 

My first writerly love was poetry, in part because of the words. 

I am, however, bad at choosing favorites. You'll get a different answer from me every time you ask me that question, I'm sure. 

I love collective nouns for animals. There's so much whimsy in them: 

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But here lately, I've been intrigued by old vocabulary. Phrases that have fallen by the wayside over the centuries. I follow several different word-nerd social media accounts just for the delight of exposure to these words.  Things like: 

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And: 

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I also used to teach Spanish, and I learned to love place names like Tegucigalpa and Guadalajara for the way they feel when you speak them aloud. My favorite Spanish word is my favorite because of mouth feel. The meaning is rather mundane: We were speaking. 

Trabajábamos

(click here to hear it pronounced)

So, there are today's answers. Ask again another day and I'll have a new favorite. I'm fickle that way :-)

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The good bits of publicity, an Open Book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Many of us are frustrated by publicity. It's our least favorite part of writing. But what's your favorite part of publicity?
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Talking about my imaginary friends can be a delight, so I enjoy in-person events more than any other kind of publicity-seeking. Over the years, I have gained a lot of comfort with vending at a table and having one on one conversations with readers, and I really enjoy it when the pace is good (neither overwhelming nor lonely). 

I've got two of these events upcoming: 

Bookmarks Festival and Splatterflix Movie Festival, my next two vending venue

I also enjoy being on panels with other writers at conventions, bookstores, library events, or the like. That's half networking/socializing with other writers and half engaging with readers. It's a great opportunity to get to know other writers and build community AND, especially when the other panelists are generous with their support, a way for us to help one another reach new audiences. Someone might attend because they know one of the other writers, but stick around to hear about my work, too, just because we were paired on the panel. 

I'll be a part of one of these through Horror Writers Associations in November: 

Here lately, I've been enjoying doing panels and interview for channels on YouTube or podcasts, too. It's nice that geography doesn't have to be a limiter for a taste of some of that camaraderie. 

So far as online publicity, I enjoy blogging or writing articles about some aspect of my writing life (like this blog hop, for example!). I get a kick out of choosing pull quotes and making little images to highlight them. 

The Menopausal Superheroes, as drawn by Charles C. Dowd

For me, this doesn't feel as yucky as "buy my book" types of online marketing. It's more about trying to be clever or cute and highlighting what's cool about my story and the people in it. 

I have the best time, when I look at publicity opportunities as time to engage with other artists and the public and let go the pressure to sell a lot of books. When I feel too much pressure to sell well, the interactions get tense and weird and I don't enjoy myself (and probably neither do my potential buyers). 

What about y'all? When you have to promote something, how do you like to go about it? Or when you're receiving the promotion, what's the least annoying/most engaging? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

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Grammar school, an IWSG blog post

    

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.  The awesome co-hosts for the September 4 posting of the IWSG are Beth Camp, Jean Davis, Yvonne Ventresca, and PJ Colando!

September 4 question - Since it's back to school time, let's talk English class. What's a writing rule you learned in school that messed you up as a writer?

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Overall, I've been able to separate lessons meant to apply to academic essay writing from my fiction writing life. I have a tendency to use "good grammar" even in more casual writing, but that's not all bad. 

I do remember being told I couldn't start sentences with conjunctions. And that's something I do all the time now. 

I was also advised to write in full sentences and eschew fragments. Don't really do that either. 

Joking aside, I really don't spend a lot of time angst-ing over grammar. I make up words. I mix up phrases. Perfect correctness isn't necessarily right when the writing is art--fiction, poetry, plays. What matters is taking the reader with you on the journey and using words to elicit the effect you're after. 

Words are fun and stringing them together in unique ways? Even better!

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(BTW, FYI writer friends: I'm scheduling this post ahead of time because I won't be available on IWSG day--I'll still pop by and visit all your blogs as soon as I can! Thanks so much for stopping by mine)

 

What We're Famous For, an open book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What is your area of the world known for (in your opinion)?
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I live in Hillsborough, North Carolina, United States. Chance are high that, unless you're relatively local, you've never heard of it. It's a nice little town. Roughly 10,000 people including a mixture of "townies" (people who live downtown), housing development/neighborhood folks (like me), and more rural or agrarian settings. 

Hillsborough's main claim to fame is the Revolutionary War/Colonial era in American History. Lots of state politics included meetings or people in Hillsborough, and even some national. There's also a Scottish connection that got Hillsborough mentioned in the famous Outlander book series by Diana Gabaldon and the television adaptation. 

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These days, Hillsborough has a reputation as a great place for writers and artists. We've got a pretty robust literary community for such a small place. There must be something in the water. 

In fact, I joke that you can't throw a stone without hitting a writer in Hillsborough. Some of the ones you might have heard of are: Lee Smith, Jill McCorkle, Allan Gurganus, Michael Malone, Annie Dillard, Hal Crowther, Frances Mayes, and David Payne. 

Of course, there are also less famous working writers around here too, like me! Some of my writing friends from Hillsborough include James Maxey, Adrienne Moore, Jane Buehler, and Barbara Claypole White. (They're all fabulous, by the way, and you should read their books!)

I've lived here seventeen years, so I don't count as local yet (by Southern United States standards, I think it takes three generations before you count as local), but I've come to love my adopted hometown. We have truly lovely parks, a good range of businesses, and lots of social opportunities that stay small enough for an introvert like me to actually enjoy them. 

Let me know if you want to come visit! I'd love to show it off!

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IWSG: The end of an era

   

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.  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!

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?

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I'm tired of talking about AI right now. If you want to see what I've already said about it, you can find it here, here, and here. The short version: there are ethical issues to sort out and I'm not interested for the most part right now, but may be open to it at another time. 

So, instead, let me share my big writing news: 

I FINISHED MY SERIES!

The Menopausal Superhero Series has been a ten year journey in the creation of five novels, two novellas, and a collection of shorts (and an omnibus edition!)

The series, where it's stood since 2021

It's been a roller coaster!

• from the contract signing 

• to the end of my first publisher relationship 

• and into my new partnership with Falstaff Books 

• and the rebrand there. 

• There was that time I had a book launch party with no books. 

• And that time I had to do a complete revise and resubmit because I tried to rush and the book wasn't ready. 

• Then there was getting back in after a two-year hiatus while the publishing drama worked itself out. 

• Finally there was writing the series ender, a whole new level of writing challenge, especially for a pantser like me. 

But here I am, ten years later and I've turned in the final book and can expect publication in summer 2025! I can't wait for y'all to see it. I'm feeling good about my ending. 

Pumpkin is proud of me, too.

So, what am I doing now? Celebrating! 

And nerd that I am, I'm celebrating by writing something entirely new, my first foray into romance. Watch this space for more :-)

The Role of Feedback in a Writing Life, an Open Book Blog Hop post

  

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

At which stage of the writing process do you seek feedback and from whom?
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Feedback is a tricky beast. Good feedback can be invaluable. It can help you figure out problems with your work, let you know what is and isn't working and how much of what was in your brain is actually there on the page. 

But feedback can also be useless or actively harmful. I've definitely been in critique situations with toxic people or people who were so conflict adverse that "feedback" was just blowing sunshine. Mutual admiration is lovely when it's sincere, but kind of useless for improving your craft. 

So that's why that second bit ("from whom") matters. 

My own process varies. Sometimes I tunnel away and work on something for a long time before I let anyone know what I'm doing. Sometimes I want to hash out ideas with a sounding board friend before I put fingers to keyboard at all. Sometimes I feel stuck partway through and I want someone to read what I've got and help me figure out why it's not working. 

But no matter where I am in the process and what kind of feedback I want, I have a trusted set of folks I turn to for that. Here they are: 

There's my Sweetman. 

1. My husband. He's great for the "sounding board" bit of things--helping me flesh out a vague idea or troubleshoot the problems with an idea I'm already working on. He's supportive and never tries to take over or fall into "you should" sorts of directions. But I know he really wants me to succeed, and more importantly, to be happy with my creations. 

(sometimes my kids, my mom, and my sister help me with this part, too, but it's mostly him)

Most of "Works in Progress" on a retreat

2. My long-standing critique group. I've been working with a group of fellow writers for about 16 years now. The exact membership of the group has shifted over time, as people moved, retired, or just left the group and new members have come in, but Works in Progress has nourished my work for all these years.

They helped me establish regular writing habits and start finishing things. They've helped me figure out why something wasn't working. They've helped me polish up my work and make it shine brighter. What I love about them is that they come to critique with a heart to help. We all want to see one another succeed. 

3.  I call my other writing group the Dulce Writing Group because that's the name of the café where we meet when we meet in person. I've only been working with Michael, Emily, and Sarah a few months, but it's already made a tremendous difference in my writing life. I fully credit the three of them with helping me figure out how to end my Menopausal Superhero series, a task that had been kicking my butt these past three years. (Coming your way in 2025!)

We came together because we share a publisher and we're all at a similar stage of career and development of our craft. Since all of us are striving to build a career, we have a lot to offer one another in terms of inside information on publishers and area events as well as the writing itself. 

4. Professional editing. Most of my writing is published through small presses, so generally an editor is assigned to me. Over the years, and different publishers, I've received a range of editing feedback, but I've learned something to improve my work each and every time. 

Of course, this comes late in the process, after you've already made your book the best you can on your own. Fresh eyes on the finished work are invaluable for finding any gaps or confusing sections of your work. And if those eyes belong to a seasoned professional who understands genre expectations as well as grammar and conventions, well, sign me up!

5. Reviews. Lastly, I look to the reviews that readers post about my books. (BTW: If you've read my work, please leave a review!) This is tricky because no one's book is for everyone and the hate can be strongly worded and hard to take sometimes. 

One could argue that feedback is too late at this point--the cow's already out of the barn! But, there is value in reading for trends and seeing what you can learn that will make your next book better. So, I do read my reviews, but I choose my timing carefully and run all that feedback through a hard core mental sifter to separate the useful tidbits from the rest. 

However you're seeking feedback, I recommend talking first--setting mutual expectations to what "feedback" will entail in this case. Learning can be uncomfortable, but if it's painful, you might need a different teacher. You'll need a mixture of humility and chutzpah to make it as a writer and finding the right feedback can keep you balanced. 

Check out the rest of the hop to see what my colleagues have to say about the role of feedback in their work. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Tools of the Trade, an IWSG post

    

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.  The awesome co-hosts for the July 3 posting of the IWSG are JS Pailly, Rebecca Douglass, Pat Garcia, Louise-Fundy Blue, and Natalie Aguirre!

July 3 question - What are your favorite writing processing (e.g. Word, Scrivener, yWriter, Dabble), writing apps, software, and tools? Why do you recommend them? And which one is your all time favorite that you cannot live without and use daily or at least whenever you write?

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Scrivener was a game-changer for me for novel-writing (and other long-form works, like nonfiction, essay collections, or short story collections). 

A great visual of why I love Scrivener

When I was writing my first novel, back in 2009 or so, I was using Microsoft Word and it was frustrating AF for me. One giant document, with no way to jump around within it quickly and easily to get to the piece I wanted? 

(My understanding is that Word has upped its game since then, but too late, I've moved on. I now only use Word for processing edits from my publisher). 

I'm not 100% sure in my memory of how I found Scrivener. Maybe by doing National Novel Writing Month? But it won me instantly with the corkboard. Suddenly I could keep the whole thing in view in a way that really worked for me. 

See, I'm a writer who writes in layers. 

My drafts begin kind of thin and bare-bones, and as I work, I come back around in loops and add depth, descriptions, breadcrumbs, interiority, setting, as it comes to me. So that means I don't necessary start on page one and finish on page three hundred, but I might write a scene that I know isn't coming for a while to give myself sort of a goal post to aim at, then go back and fill in what happens to get us there. Or I might have an inspiration in chapter 17 and go back and pull that thread through the whole book before I move forward. It's probably not an efficient process, but it is working for me.  

chapter organizational view

I've never been all that great at holding the whole thing in my head at once, balancing the big picture, small focus thing. But Scrivener makes it easy for me to off-load parts of that. I can color code my folders, use symbols to indicate different organizational elements, pick up entire chapters and drag them to a different part of the book with ease. I've never lost something to a messy cut-and-paste or glitched out the document and screwed up the formatting like often happened to me Word. 

The novel I'm finishing now (series ender for the Menopausal Superheroes--still settling on a title), for example, is organized by day, with chapters that all take place on the same day grouped together. 

Within each day, there are chapters with different points of view. Patricia, the Lizard woman of Springfield, gets a green book symbol, Leonel "Fuerte", the strongman, gets a yellow book. Jessica "Flygirl" gets a cloud, Sally Ann gets a light bulb, Mary gets a magnifying glass. This lets me see at a glance when I've left a character out too long and need to consider what they're up to during this section. 

corkboard view

When I look at this in "corkboard" I get the same symbols, my chapter title, and a bit of the text for the page. If I choose, I can write more of a summary of that chapter to show here and I have done that sometimes, using the "scene cards" technique I read about in the DIY-MFA book by Gabriela Pereira, which asks you to record 4 pieces of information for each chapter/scene:

• a title for the scene
• the major players
• the action
• the purpose (structurally)

It's a kind of outlining or at least record-keeping that works for me, even though I'm a pantser and am sometimes writing this down AFTER I wrote the scene, and has been really helpful in revisions. 

I don't use half of what Scrivener can do, but it has still revolutionized the whole process for me and alleviated a lot of stress and worry. 

So, thanks for coming to my TED-talk :-) In all seriousness, I am quite a fan-girl of Scrivener, but you should always remember how individual this process is and find the tool that works best for you and your process. No matter what we're talking about, your mileage my vary. 

So, how do you organized your creative life and projects? I'd LOVE to hear it about in the comments. And don't forget to check out the rest of the blog hop and see what else is out there to try!