IWSG December

Many thanks to Alex J. Cavanaugh for starting and managing this awesome and encouraging blog hop for writers! The hop has grown and become so much more due to the efforts of Alex and the whole administration team. To find out more, go here: IWSG Website.

Co-hosts for December: 

Tonja Drecker https://tonjadrecker.blogspot.com/ 

Nicki Elson http://nickielson.blogspot.com/

Beverly Stowe McClure  http://beverlystowemcclure.blogspot.com/  

Fundy Blue  http://selkiegrey4.blogspot.com/

and me

Optional Question: Let's play a game. Imagine. Role-play. How would you describe your future writer self, your life and what it looks and feels like if you were living the dream?  Or if you are already there, what does it look and feel like? Tell the rest of us. What would you change or improve?

I decided to tackle this with a letter containing what I hope things will be like:

Dear Future Writer Self,
I imagine you are in a cozy space with a cup of hot tea by your side, books lovingly placed on book shelves throughout your house, a journal and a laptop on a desk in front of you. On your walls, you have family pictures and photographs you've taken of your travels and adventures. I also imagine you've managed to tackle all of your projects - from poetry chapbooks and short story collections to novels who have reached readers all over the world, with a handful of graphic novels and some music lyrics written, too. You could retire, but you won't, because writing is your passion. Ideas are everywhere. You also take time to teach writing classes in a Story Arts Studio, a business of your own creation. If you are, like I imagine, close to that retirement age, you're considering who you could mentor to take over that Story Arts Studio, but you aren't ready yet. Or, maybe you already have a business partner who will take over when you're ready to step away. But again, you aren't ready yet. There's so much to do, so many adventures to still have - both in real life and on the page. And, you love encouraging other writers almost as much as writing itself.
I know the journey to where you are is a long road. I know there are many small steps ahead to get there and some mountains to climb, one small step at a time. But I know you're beckoning me onward, and so I will take those steps and climb those mountains, one word and one adventure at a time.
See you soon,
Current Writer Self

That's the kind of life I hope for as a writer - a life of confident creativity and adventure with some dreams fulfilled and some yet to be written. Right now, I feel like I'm still on the first bit of foothills before the real climb.

And now, I just want TO CONGRATULATE all of the 

ANTHOLOGY WINNERS!!!

The Third Ghost – Yvonne Ventresca  http://yvonneventresca.com/blog.html

A World of Trouble – Rebecca M. Douglass  https://www.ninjalibrarian.com

Winter Days - Katharina Gerlach  https://www.katharinagerlach.com

Feathered Fire – Roland Clarke  https://rolandclarke.com/

The Ghosts of Pompeii – Sherry Ellis  http://www.sherryellis.org/

The Blind Ship – Bish Denham  http://bish-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/

Return to Cahokia – L.T. Ward

Dare Double Dare – Louise M. Barbour  https://selkiegrey4.blogspot.com

Simon Grey and the Yamamba - Charles Kowalski  https://charleskowalski.com/

The Orchard - Beth Anderson Schuck  https://twitter.com/schuck_beth

These writers wrote an submitted Middle Grade (ages 9-12) stories for the IWSG MG Anthology Contest and won a spot in the anthology!

If you wrote but didn't win, I hope you submit your stories to another contest, anthology, or magazine. You can find a place for your work!

As someone who has received rejections on my stories, poems, and novels, I know it's hard, but you can keep going. You can find publication.

Keep writing! 

Keep sending out your work!

IWSG Updates:

In January, we will post on the second Wednesday because the first Wednesday is New Year's Day.

The Twitter Pitch Contest is in January! Get ready to Pitch!!!

For the Goodreads IWSG Reading Group, the book for December/January is On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. 

On Instagram, we mainly have today's post celebration, a note on the WEP contest, and per usual, some writing tips from the website, and some encouraging quotes to keep you writing!

For WEP in December:

A few brief updates from me:

1. The last few months have included some unexpected life stress which will not be named (it felt that dark), but I kept on writing. I attended a comic con, and I read my work out loud at an open mic night. I went to a critique group, went to several write-ins with an ongoing write-in group, and I won NaNoWriMo with 50,000 words of a jumbled, partial novel which will take much revision to be the novel it's meant to be.

2. I decided to participate in Dressember to help fight human trafficking with awareness and fundraising. To know more about Dressember, go HERE. If you want to help me fund raise, go to A Dress with Comfortable Shoes.

Dressember's vision: A World Without Slavery.

3. I had the honor of having two previously published poems republished in this new anthology by Z Publishing: Washington's Best Emerging Poets

How are all of you doing, IWSG? Any news? 

What does your future writer self look like?