Insecure Writer's Support Group Day, ROW80 Recap, and Story Inspirations Images

ow did it get to be March already?

It seems like only yesterday it was January, and I was starting out with some fresh writing goals, and getting things done...

I'm actually still editing, not being as lazy as usual, but I feel like I've slowed down. This is why I like being accountable to ROW80 and on the blog -- I feel like I'm moving at a snail\s pace, but when I look back at the end of a month or six months, I can see some forward momentum!

All that to say that my latest revised list of goals by monthly schedule looks like this:
March: Draft personal statement (for a university course I'm applying to)
Writers' houseparty!
Draft Druid's Moon synopsis
I'm also getting back into knitting! Haven't done anything since December, but I just started a wee baby hat for a gift.
Meanwhile, I can reveal the results of that secret group project -- a baby blanket! We each knit squares, in Outlander-inspired colours, and one of our group sewed all the squares together. It turned out beautifully!

April: edit Druid's Moon and submit

May: edit The Charm of Time


Today's IWSG Day Question is: Have you ever pulled out a really old story and reworked it? Did it work out?
I have! Quite a few times. It has worked out in the sense that I've been able to edit it much better, bot not worked out in the sense that I haven't placed a story yet, in a journal or magazine.
Oddly, I seem to concentrate on novels a lot. This gives me a good idea -- perhaps next year I'll devote myself to the short stories I already have, and actively work on submitting them to magazines and journals and maybe a contest or two.

Thanks for the great question, Alex and the IWSG Team!

Today's co-hosts are:
Tamara Narayan
Patsy Collins
M.J. Fifield
Nicohle Christopherson

I was glancing at some old blog posts, and I came across a different way of answering the January IWSG Day question ("What writing rule do you wish you’d never heard?").Here's a repost of that old post, from 2007, back when I was drafting The Face of A Lion
(Yes! This August will mark 10 years that I've been blogging!)

Why Published Authors Always Tell Aspiring Authors to READ:

"I agree with Diana that if you want to write, what you have to do is 1. Read and 2. Write (not necessarily in that order).
There are endless good reasons for this, but I came across one today, while reading Dorothy L Sayers' translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Being a product of the 20th Century, it never occurred to me that roads, paths, trails, etc. were not always divided in two, for traffic coming and traffic going. Apparently, in the good old days, people walked wherever they wanted on the road!
If I had thought about it, of course, I might have realised the truth of this. But how much more fun to be reading something entirely different from the focus of your own story, and come across a small detail that counts as research. Back in ancient Ephesus, then, the mixing of crowds passing in all directions on the street would be something Austin might notice and comment on, especially if he's running away from one place and trying to reach another.
(Dante referred to this in passing when describing how the city of Rome organised road traffic on the Bridge of Castello Sant' Angelo for the Jubilee Year 1300. The rule was: keep to the right - just as it is today)."

As for images, here's my end-of-year compilation of Story Inspirations images from my Pinterest board:

Do you collect images that remind you of your stories?
And have you have ideas for how I should celebrate my upcoming blogiversary? Please share!