IWSG and Michael Pierce Interview

I can't believe it's already time for the August meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Thank you as always to Alex!

For this month's meeting, I'm re-posting a post I made back in March, 2011, when there were about five people reading this blog. I recently came across the article I referenced in this post again and found it as inspiring now as I did when I first shared it, so I thought it would be appropriate to share it again for the IWSG. Here is my original post:

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Too Late?

One of the biggest concerns I had when I started trying to become established as a writer was that I had waited too long to get started on this goal. I was certain it was too late, and I was too old. I thought everyone would think I was foolish for trying something new, and the voice inside my head insisted that since I didn't start this when I was 20, there was no point in starting it now.

There was never anything rational about this, as when I have come upon people my age or older who are trying new projects or pursuing new paths, I have never once felt that they were foolish, and I never would. So I'm not sure why I held myself to a harsher standard, except for the fact that I've always been my own worst critic, and old habits die hard.

As I still have these thoughts swirling around in my head, I was pleased to come upon this article by Richard Goodman called, appropriately enough, Never Too Late.

The title of the article, which originally appeared in The Writer magazine and was reprinted on the Gotham Writers' Workshop website, caught my eye immediately. I was hoping it was about what I thought it was about. And sure enough, it was.

It was inspiring to me to read that Goodman was older than I am now when he published his first book. I could totally relate to his thoughts and experiences, and I found myself nodding my head in agreement more than once.

While I found the whole essay inspiring, I particularly enjoyed reading about Harriet Doerr, who wrote her first book Stones for Ibarra when she was 73.

If it wasn't too late for Doerr at 73 or Goodman at 46, then surely it's not too late for me, either.

Or at least I hope it's not. See, old habits die hard. ;)

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As I mentioned last week, I interviewed Michael Pierce about his wonderful book Provex City for my Books column. The interview has now been published and is available here. Thanks again to Michael for sharing with me!

Friday Catch-all

Source: PublicDomainPictures.net

I have been even more scatter-brained than usual lately and haven't been able to focus on my blog, but I wanted to write a quick post to share what I've been up to and once again try to get back on track with regular blogging.

• A publisher responded to my Polar Night query and asked me to send the full ms, so I am just thrilled beyond words about that. Even though I know they could easily still say no to my story, it was still a thrill that someone was interested enough in my query to request more and the response gave me a big boost. :)

• I had a dream that gave me an idea for a new novel, and I'm so excited about that I've hardly been able to concentrate on anything else all week. This story will take place on Martha's Vineyard and will involve a real shipwreck that happened off the coast of the island in 1884. I wrote about the Vineyard and my connection to it during my first A-Z in April challenge in 2011. If you're interested, those posts are here and here. My father's family has been on the island for centuries, and one of my ancestors was a lighthouse keeper there back in the middle of the 19th century. My family vacationed there nearly ever summer when I was a child, and I have been fortunate enough to visit many times as an adult. I am excited about the chance to write about the island, and the story has special meaning to me since I feel like it is a connection to my dad. I have been struggling to come to terms with his death back in June, and the ideas for this story have come together so quickly that it somehow feels like it is meant to be. 

• I had the honor of interviewing Michael Pierce, author of Provex City, for my books column, and will have that interview published next week. If you haven't already read Provex City, I highly recommend it! Michael is a great writer and his blog is always fun to visit. 

• Thanks to a blogger buddy I learned about a writing organization in my area called Women Writing for a Change. I've been wanting to find a local group but hadn't had any luck, so I was thrilled to get this recommendation. Even better, the group is holding a free sampler of their programs in a few weeks, so I couldn't have discovered it at a better time. I admit that groups are intimidating to me and I've been nervous about trying one, but I really want to force myself to get over that fear and take this step.

• I ordered business cards for myself. This is another thing I've been meaning to do for a while and kept putting off, but I wanted to get them now in order to have them available when I work on my columns. I know it's silly, but it made me feel very giddy to see my name and "freelance writer" on the card. :D

In addition to my ongoing total obsession with the Game of Thrones books, that's where my head has been the past few weeks. I am looking forward to catching up with everyone and seeing what you all have been up to as well. I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead. :)

Doing the Happy Dance

I took an unplanned break from blogging the past few weeks because I got wrapped up in working on revising and editing my novel Polar Night. This week, thanks in huge part to my trusted editing partner, I actually finished the final draft! So, like the kitty pictured above, I've been doing the happy dance in spite of my extremely limited dancing skills. It feels so good to be able to call my novel a finished manuscript instead of a work in progress!

I've now started dipping my toes into the query letter waters and trying to learn everything I can about the whole process. All I can say to that is yikes! I knew this would be intimidating, but it's starting to feel like writing a good query letter is going to be significantly harder than writing the novel itself. Each time I've started a letter I haven't made it past the first few lines before I just delete the whole thing and send it to the recycle bin.

But, I'm going to just take a deep breath and keep working on it, and I know eventually I'll have a letter I feel is ready to send out. I hope so, anyway!

I've also been catching up on some great books this month after being too swamped in April to do much reading at all. I just wanted to give a shout-out to three fantastic books I discovered because of the A-Z Challenge.

One of the best things about blogging to me has been the opportunity to meet so many excellent writers I might not have discovered otherwise. I've been making great use of my Kindle because of them! If you haven't already checked out these three books, I highly recommend them.

Losing Beauty by Johanna Garth

Johanna blogs at Losing Sanity, and her book is an intriguing and modern take on Greek mythology. This is Johanna's debut novel and I will be looking forward to more from her!

Provex City by Michael Pierce

Provex City is the first novel in Michael's Lorne Family Vault Series and I'm already anxious to read more of the series. The artwork alone is fantastic! Michael has a great blog at Michael Pierce Books.

Ripper, My Love by Glynis Smy

I first discovered Glynis' blog last year sometime, but it was one I unintentionally lost track of until finding it again during last month's challenge. I'm so glad I did, because I learned of Ripper, My Love as a result. A blend of historical fiction and suspense, set in Jack the Ripper's Whitechapel? That's a can't miss as far as I'm concerned. :D





Huge kudos to all of these great writers! I'm inspired by their journeys and I hope to someday be joining them in the publishing world now that I have my first novel under my belt.

I'm looking forward to catching up with my blog reading while I continue to do my happy dancing over the weekend.

Happy Friday to all, and I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead. :)