Hello
Everyone,
It is the
first Wednesday of the month, and IWSG Time.
IWSG is a
writer support group created and led by Alex Cavanaugh. It is a big help to
many of us who do not mind sharing our insecurities, our successes or giving
encouragement and help to others.
So, if you
are interested and would like to join, the link below will lead you directly to
us:
My report:
Submissions –
None – (I am busy revising and will start submitting again in December or
January 2018.
Outstanding
Submissions
Three poems
to the Lascaux Review – Still Outstanding
November, The Month of NaNo
Lying in my stack of books to write on my
Evernote program are five novels that I have yet to finish. Three of them stem
out of NaNo (National Novel Write More) an event I have been participating in
for the last seven years. This year, I have not signed up for the very reason
that it is time to take those manuscripts out of the stack and get them to the
finish line. After I finished the debut, I plan to dive into one of them again.
For me, participating in NaNo comes down to me asking myself why am I writing? Am I writing to publish or writing
just to be writing? Since almost everything I do is attached to my vision; I do
my best to develop clear goals that are going to keep me moving forward. We
tend to forget, or at least I do, that the journey is not infinite. It will end
one day. Keeping this in mind, I want to move these books out of the dormant status
and see them published, and that is not my being morbid.
There are people I need to touch with what
I write, and I cannot do that as long as my books are sitting in a stack on my
computer in my Evernote program or Scrivener.
Besides that, I find it a waste of my time to write just to be writing
with no goal in sight. Not that that is wrong. This is not a judgment call on
anyone but me.
For this year and maybe the next three
years, I am not consciously planning to participate in NaNo. I am making it
dependent on how fast the books I have already written take to get on the
bookshelves of online vendors, bookstores, and libraries.
Have a lovely month of November and to
those of you who are participating in NaNo, the best of luck to you.
Walk carefully through November and stay
safe.
Shalom aleichem,
Pat G
