IWSG - Familiarity and Inspiration
It's time for the July Insecure Writer's Support Group!
Created by Alex J. Cavanaugh, the IWSG gives writers a place to air their insecurities and lend their support to others. Anyone can join. Simply click on Alex's name and put your blog on the linky list.
This month's co-hosts are Rebecca Douglass, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Cathrina Constantine, and Jacqui Murray. Be sure to stop by their blogs!
The optional question this month is: Is there anything you'd like to see changed, added, and/or rearranged about the book publishing industry?
I mean, probably a lot. It would be great if it got the kind of respect and treatment of the other arts. The gatekeeping. The imbalance. So on and so forth.
Do you have a word-count tracker that keeps a display of any sort? I wanted to be able to show novel word count and include it in my newsletters, but I'm not sure what's out there. I can track it on a spreadsheet, but I was hoping for something I input the word count to and it keeps track and has a visual of some sort (yes, I'm a beast in Excel and can make something, but I wanted someone else to do that work for me, LOL).
I went to Oregon, where I'm originally from, to visit family, and we took a couple days to go to the coast. I steeped myself in some coast time, found fossils, visited a ghost forest, and had an overall great time. The Oregon coast is one of my favorite places. Plus, I've been planning on setting a book there, so I got to have some creative stimulus and inspiration, and I'm looking forward to starting the writing.
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| Clam fossils on Wade Beach |
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| Tree at the Portland Japanese Garden |
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| Flowers at the Portland Japanese Garden |
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| The fog makes me so happy! |
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| Fossilized tree stumps at Neskowin Ghost Forest, Neskowin Beach |
I keep myself accountable by keeping track of submissions each month, so here are my June stats.
4 short story submissions
4 short story rejections
0 acceptances
7 novel queries sent
1 novel rejection
I've enjoyed being back in the swing of things, but not getting rejections randomly in my email.
Have you been to the Oregon coast? What places inspire you? Are you submitting? What are your insecurities?
May you find your Muse.
I just use the word count tracker in Word, but it doesn't track your progress over time. It looks like you had a great trip.
ReplyDeleteI mean, yeah. Word. But lately I've been pretty upset with word -- trying to push everything to their cloud and messing up my save files and losing things. Anyhow, google docs does the same thing. You can pull up the word tracker and keep it up. The only thing is, you have to open it every time you open the document.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous photos! I write down my daily word count... so I can't help you there, though a quick google search says TrackBear is good for visual charts, writing streaks and historical trends.
ReplyDeleteIt's a beautiful area. And I just use Word for my count.
ReplyDeleteHi, Shannon! I'm glad that you had a nice time in Oregon. I love the Oregon coast, but I've never seen those beautiful clam outcrops. A lot of places inspire me. We live on a big, beautiful planet. Like Alex and others I use Word for my count. Happy July!
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if books were treated with the same esteme as music, movies, etc...Your images are really cool. I'm submitting a nonfiction piece for the first time in my life. Not scary at all.
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm in novel-drafting mode the last couple of years I've just set up a widget on my blog and manually updated the word count at the end of each day. It helps keep me accountable, but it's not exactly techy or elegant.
ReplyDeleteIm sure it must be helpful for some to keep track word counts in an Excel sheet. Strangely, I work with Excel sheets all the time at my day job but I wouldn't no how to manage a book's word count on one! Lol
ReplyDeleteLooks like you had a great trip. Love the pictures. I can see how that setting would be inspiring! Wish I had a tip about word count!
ReplyDeleteShannon — early-batch novel querying (those June stats with fresh sends + rejections alongside short-story subs) is a good moment for a calm check on whether chapter one is landing before the list gets long. If useful: DraftVerdict’s free first-chapter check returns Hook + Genre Fit; optional $29 Full Author Verdict unlocks all 18 market-readiness scores, comps, and three priority fixes.
ReplyDeletehttps://getdraftverdict.com
Happy IWSG — rooting for the novel round.