IWSG - Writing (Yay!) & Upcoming Appearances

Yes, it's that time again! Time for another month of the Insecure Writer's Support Group.

Created by Alex J. Cavanaugh, the IWSG is a blog hop that gives writers a space to air their insecurities and to provide support to other insecure writers. Anyone can participate. Simply click on Alex's name above and sign up.

This month's co-hosts are: Jennifer Lane, Jenni Enzor, Renee Scattergood, Rebecca Douglass, Lynn Bradshaw, and Melissa Maygrove.

The optional question this month is: When you began writing, what did you imagine your life as a writer would be like? Were you right, or has this experience presented you with some surprises along the way?

I had the same misguided optimistic idea of  being a writer, thanks to the movies, that most people go in with. My first professional writer's conference took care of that pretty quickly. Now that I've seen the realities (you probably won't sell your first book right away, you likely won't be a millionaire) I've adjusted my outlook. It's still plenty optimistic, but it's optimism with some background knowledge. My goals are still plenty lofty. And as I go forward and learn, I adjust those expectations and goals accordingly and keep plowing forward.

My current insecurities? Because I was not writing and submitting, and because I didn't put out anything new for over a year, my sales have fallen for the first time in years. I've had down times that impacted sales before, and I've come back from it, but it's daunting to look at starting all over again. I'll get there again, but it's going to take a lot of work and persistence. 

A couple heads up before I do my monthly statistics (for the last two months, because I sailed right past the IWSG date without posting last month!):

I will be doing a free, one-hour online workshop for Pikes Peak Writers on event appearances, signings, etc. on Tuesday, November 18, from 6-7 PM MT. You can click HERE to go to the Facebook event where you'll be able to get the Zoom link once they post it. I'd be grateful if you shared the event on your social media, as well! My hope is to take some of the stress out of your first appearances as a writer. (Note that the reference to Square was supposed to be removed - I will be going over credit card processing in general--some of you may remember that I lost hundreds of dollars in sales thanks to Square).

On that very same day I will be releasing my next horror short story collection, entitled The Killing Tree & Other Afflictions. The cover is being worked on as we speak! 

Now for submission stats for September and October. There haven't been many because I was holding the bulk of my stories until I had the full table of contents of the newest collection, which just left me with a few to be submitting. And I didn't submit anything in September due to not having time.

BUT the awesome thing is that the stories submitted were brand new. It's been probably close to a year since I sat down to write for anything I hadn't been invited to submit to, and it felt amazing to be back in that saddle. I wrote three new short stories in four weeks.

Submissions: 2

Acceptances: 0

Rejections: 0

Withdrawn from submission: 2

Currently on submission: 7

Current projects:

Horror short story collection: Formatting

Horror novel: Final editing pass before submission

Urban Fantasy novel (Myth Stalker 2): Starting soon

Amateur Sleuth Mystery: Planning

Non-Fiction Book: Planning

Contemporary Fantasy novel: Research

Finally, I was Toastmaster at MileHiCon this past weekend. It was a lot of fun and they spoiled me. I did some panels and sold some books. I've gotten great feedback on a talk DeAnna Knippling and I did on Neurodivergent Self-Care. Those always seem to go over well, so far, which tells me there's a need for that topic out there. I plan to keep tweaking and researching, and will likely be putting together a book for neurodivergent writers within the next few years. 

Have you been writing and/or submitting? What are your insecurities? What have you learned on your author journey that surprised you? Have you come back from a drop in sales before?

May you find your Muse.