Fall Colours

 It's another meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group! 

Purpose: 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 safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

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

The awesome co-hosts for the October 1 posting of the IWSG are Beth Camp, Crystal Collier, and Cathrina Constantine!

 

Remember, the question is optional!

October 1 question - What is the most favorite thing you have written, published or not? And why?

Hmmm...

I'm not sure. I think it is usually the most recent thing I've written. But that sounds kind of lame. Though honestly if you don't feel passionate about what you are writing then it is hard to go through all the hard work of getting it published. So there's that. 

I'm loving writing my weekly essays on substack  - Dispatches. I'm just working on my 88th one so that is 88 weeks of them. I like that format - much like this only not just about writing but about everything that skitters across my brain pan. I find it quite satisfying and I do believe it keeps my writing for any project sharpened up. 

I like my published novel The Crooked Knife. And I am quite fond of the novel that I'll be publishing early next year Butter and Snow. I love a play I wrote this year called Oh Well,  but it needs some work. I think it is quite special and quirky and I hope it finds a stage. I love all my poems, especially the quite mad ones born of rage and sorrow over the world's weird turning.

This is a photo from my nephew's wedding that happened four months after I got a new hip. That's me - the wild woman in black. I honestly don't know who my dance partner was but he was lots of fun and totally willing to dance with an older broad. 

I sound quite besotted with myself. I really don't know why anyone would write if they didn't like what they wrote. It is such a hard slog. A friend of mine was at a book fair recently where a local and very proficient novelist was reading from her newest. After, at the signing, my friend asked her how long it took her to write a novel. She said 'three months'. Gasp!

It's hard not to feel like a slacker when you hear something like that. But then I think about books like The Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird from writers who didn't have great output but who wrote amazing books that I can't imagine living without having read.

Next week I'll be in Paris and I'll haunt the places my heroes have been - Colette and Hemmingway and Proust and Wilde. Oh my giddy aunt!

This has been one of the toughest years of my life so ten days in Paris just seems like a balm for my soul. It is with a pal who's weathered the same storms and we are so looking forward to not having to put down our conversation to go home or go to work, but to just let it weave through our days. Going on a trip is a bit like putting a piece of writing out in the world - you do everything you can to make it the best  possible thing, but you don't know. A friend of mine just went on a walking tour in Ireland. Four days in she was laughing in a pub and aspirated a pea into her lung. Put her in a hospital for four days. You just don't know! I love Butter and Snow,  but will others? Will they even find it? 

me and my second grade class in Sheshatshiu a few years back.

Happy October everyone. Hope you take whatever leaps you need to take in order to feel happy with your work.