A database resource site and support group for writers and
authors. Featuring weekly guests and tips, a monthly blogfest gathering,
a Facebook group, a book club, and thousands of links – all to benefit
writers! #IWSG
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! Posting:
The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group
day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG
Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.
August 7 question - Since it's back to school time, let's talk English class. What's a writing rule you learned in school that messed you up as a writer?
Ooh, great question!
The one that broke me for years was the "do not ever use contractions rule". I don't know if my teacher failed to specify that the rule applied only/mostly to non-fiction, or if I misunderstood, but for quite a few years, I had my characters speaking unnaturally, sounding like this:
"Do you want to meet up at the pub?"
"I cannot go until later. I cannot leave my new puppy at home alone, she would miss me."
"Do you not have someone to help you look after her?"
"I do not."
"I could help you!"
"Would you, really? Puppies can be a handful."
"I would love to meet her!"
"Then let us go now."
Ridiculous! I'm glad I finally got over this error!
As a Royal Marine, I've taken on countless missions, but navigating life as a civilian might be the biggest challenge of all. I need to stay focused and figure out what the hell I'm doing with this early retirement.
Then she crosses my path. A stranger on a train, she instantly captures my imagination. A beautiful, vibrant distraction I didn't know I needed. And maybe something more...
When my charming companion faces unwanted advances, I step in, pretending to be her boyfriend. But the connection between us is too real to be an act.
What might have been only a brief encounter turns into an unforgettable night as we both find far more than we were looking for, if only we both have the courage to hold on.
This delightful prequel starts off so gradually, you feel like you're in for the long haul with the characters. And it's love at first sight, which I adore.
Then comes the twist, and it's believable and makes perfect sense in their world, but oh! my heart aches for them.
A perfect teaser for the novel to come!
Also, I really want to visit this secret garden!
I've written a few stories set in the Highlands myself, up on AO3.
At random, I came across this delightful tiny post of mine from long ago: Truckers who knit!
I have a truck stop playlist!
And I started a new project on the day!
Larksong is so close to the end!
Larksong is set in a lakeside town on the outskirts of Montreal, in July 1914.
In chapters 1 to 10, Alice arrives at the family cottage following her grandmother's funeral, to take care of her grandmother's aviary--only to find that her parents have already leased the cottage to another prominent Montreal family. The only way she can have one final summer in her favourite place is to surreptitiously take on the role of governess to the two young girls.
Gradually, she bonds with them, and eases into her feigned position. Then she learns that their older brother George, laid up with a broken leg, will be staying as well, for rest and recuperation.
Upon his arrival, Alice keeps up her governess role as best she can. She finds George attractive and interesting--but also unbearably entitled. They can't seem to stop arguing over everything--including the rumours of political events in Europe.
As they spend their evenings together over cards and drinks, George attempts a rapprochement and Alice struggles to mask her stirring feelings. George, too, realizes that his attraction to Alice is growing--yet this realization does not lead to greater friendliness.
In chapters 11 to 20, a new complication arises, in the form of the arrival of Albert, George's younger--and rather rude--brother, hiding a secret about his expulsion from university. On returning from an afternoon at the lake, Alice and the girls overhear an argument between the brothers. When Albert takes his sisters with him back to the lakeshore, Alice and George share a moment alone in the garden. Alice, growing ever more conflicted, decides to emphasize her governess role and not join the brothers that evening in the parlour.
In chapters 21 to 30, Alice and George share an early morning idyll rowing on the lake, and finally have a true rapprochement. Alice arranges an expedition in the woods with the girls, and George joins them. There are friendly chats, the girls sign their brother's cast, and George begins work on a sketch of Alice, finally allowing himself to explore his passion for drawing and painting, which his family have been trying to quell.
When they return home, the girls help Alice feed the birds and clean the aviary in preparation for the arrival of Mr Palmer, a prospective buyer. Throughout the day, there are hints of the gathering storms of war.
Alice and George come close to admitting their attraction, but then George unwittingly insults the birds, the aviary, and even Alice's affection for her grandmother's pets.
A further complication emerges with the arrival of Albert's friends from Montreal, as well as Pixie, a hired nurse for George, who seems more interested in flirting with Albert and his friends than in engaging in her duties. That evening, the boys hold an arm wrestling match, involving wagers for a few coins--and kisses for the winner from Pixie. George catches Albert and Pixie canoodling in the kitchen, but decides he's in no position to say anything because he is ready to embrace Alice, the governess.
The next day, George decides to reveal to both Alicce and his sisters his secret--the full extent of his artistry. They discover that Eleanor is also a budding artist, and the siblings, guided by Alice, agree to continue to develop their talent and to hide it together from their disapproving parents.
The girls return to the house, and Alice and George, alone in the enclosed garden, sit side by side on the bench. They kiss, and Alice, too, reveals her secret. She discloses her true identity to George, and they openly discuss their newfound feelings. They also talk of Alice's attachment to the cottage and the birds, and what they might tell his family, if anything, about her pretending to be a governess for the past couple of weeks. Then they talk of George's hopes and plans for his future career in art-- and what might happen if war comes.
In chapters 30 to 34, they all attend the banquet and dance at the nearby luxury hotel. Alice juggles her governess duties with unwanted advances from Albert--and affairs of the heart. Earlier than planned, Alice and George return to the house together and draw closer than ever before, until Albert interrupts.
Following an argument between George and his brother, Albert disappears with Pixie. Alice and George take their relationship further than they have before, until George says the wrong thing and Alice storms upstairs to bed.
The next morning, Alice wakes to find all the birds gone from the aviary. She rushes out to seek them, all the while speculating about who might have left the doors open. She manages to catch most of the birds, with Eleanor's help. Yet just when she thinks all might be salvaged, things take a turn for the worse when George, goaded by Albert's jibes, reveals her true identity to everyone at once.
In chapters 35 and 36, we see the aftermath of the birds' loss from George's point of view, then Alice's -- and Alice leaves the cottage!
Before we get to the end, however, and the final confrontation with Albert and the sweet reunion with George...we skip ahead!
Here's part of a short story I wrote, told from George's point of view as a he convalesces in a field hospital in France...
Blackbird’s Song
France, April 1917
The ghost appeared in the doorway.
I saw her from my cot, and thought it was Alice, in a Victorian dress of her grandmother’s, or some such fool thing. But Alice is no fool, and has no business in Vimy field hospital.
Five other cots in the tent, all occupied. But this was in the still, cold hour before dawn, and the other men slept, wounds buried beneath prickly wool. I’d also been asleep, and dreaming of Alice, on an icy winter morning at the public skating rink in Montreal. I was showing off, replaying some of my best weaves and dodges from university hockey matches, and in my cot I tried to turn, and the searing pain in my leg jolted me awake.
I was afraid I’d cried out, and kept motionless, as if evading a sniper. Eyes closed, I listened hard. Nothing but snores from the other beds. I’d overreacted, but no one had heard.
No sounds from beyond the tent except the distant thud of gunfire. The guns are always there. You breathe, your blood flows; and you breathe in the stench of the dead and your blood throbs with the rattle of the machine guns. Until a shot stops your blood, and your body becomes the stink in another man’s nostrils.
The pain was no less. I grunted, shifted my hips, rolled my shoulders. Did everything I could, in fact, short of wrenching my leg out of traction and clawing the dressings off with my ragged nails.
I opened my eyes, and that’s when I saw the ghost.
She was whiter than the grimy tent walls. The door flap had been tied back, and she was poised with the darkness behind her. The flicker of our single lantern sent gold threads along the front of her old-fashioned high-collared dress. Yet neither black nor gold disturbed her essential paleness, which made of dress and skin one form. She was like a figure carved from meerschaum. Her arms hung low and she clasped her hands under her belly. Her limbs might have been embroidery on the dress, and its long skirts easily been part of the shape of her legs.
All this I grasped in one swift instant, as my artist’s mind sought ways to make real and plausible what must otherwise be impossible: A fiendish spectre that looked me in the eye.
Hers were black pits open onto nothing, yet still I thought I saw a gleam there, as of an inferno in a corner of Hell, and I swept up my glass and flung the last of my water at her.
But she was two cot-lengths away, and even if a drop or two had reached her, she would not melt like meerschaum. The thought that the water might pass through her, provide physical proof that she was indeed a spectre, made me cry out again. One squawk, before I clamped my teeth into my lower lip. My knuckles tightened around the empty glass. The others’ snores continued.
Still she stood, and still she stared.
I held her gaze, though my heart hammered in my chest and my feet itched to take off running. I am more a coward now than I have ever been in three years of war.
Then came a glint of dawn, a washed-out glow in the sky beyond doorway and tent, and her form dissolved, and she was gone.
The following dawn, the ghost appeared inside the tent.
And what happened next? Ah, maybe we will find out, someday...
Larksong is set in a lakeside town on the outskirts of Montreal, in July 1914.
In chapters 1 to 10, Alice arrives at the family cottage following her grandmother's funeral, to take care of her grandmother's aviary--only to find that her parents have already leased the cottage to another prominent Montreal family. The only way she can have one final summer in her favourite place is to surreptitiously take on the role of governess to the two young girls.
Gradually, she bonds with them, and eases into her feigned position. Then she learns that their older brother George, laid up with a broken leg, will be staying as well, for rest and recuperation.
Upon his arrival, Alice keeps up her governess role as best she can. She finds George attractive and interesting--but also unbearably entitled. They can't seem to stop arguing over everything--including the rumours of political events in Europe.
As they spend their evenings together over cards and drinks, George attempts a rapprochement and Alice struggles to mask her stirring feelings. George, too, realizes that his attraction to Alice is growing--yet this realization does not lead to greater friendliness.
In chapters 11 to 20, a new complication arises, in the form of the arrival of Albert, George's younger--and rather rude--brother, hiding a secret about his expulsion from university. On returning from an afternoon at the lake, Alice and the girls overhear an argument between the brothers. When Albert takes his sisters with him back to the lakeshore, Alice and George share a moment alone in the garden. Alice, growing ever more conflicted, decides to emphasize her governess role and not join the brothers that evening in the parlour.
In chapters 21 to 30, Alice and George share an early morning idyll rowing on the lake, and finally have a true rapprochement. Alice arranges an expedition in the woods with the girls, and George joins them. There are friendly chats, the girls sign their brother's cast, and George begins work on a sketch of Alice, finally allowing himself to explore his passion for drawing and painting, which his family have been trying to quell.
When they return home, the girls help Alice feed the birds and clean the aviary in preparation for the arrival of Mr Palmer, a prospective buyer. Throughout the day, there are hints of the gathering storms of war.
Alice and George come close to admitting their attraction, but then George unwittingly insults the birds, the aviary, and even Alice's affection for her grandmother's pets.
A further complication emerges with the arrival of Albert's friends from Montreal, as well as Pixie, a hired nurse for George, who seems more interested in flirting with Albert and his friends than in engaging in her duties. That evening, the boys hold an arm wrestling match, involving wagers for a few coins--and kisses for the winner from Pixie. George catches Albert and Pixie canoodling in the kitchen, but decides he's in no position to say anything because he is ready to embrace Alice, the governess.
The next day, George decides to reveal to both Alicce and his sisters his secret--the full extent of his artistry. They discover that Eleanor is also a budding artist, and the siblings, guided by Alice, agree to continue to develop their talent and to hide it together from their disapproving parents.
The girls return to the house, and Alice and George, alone in the enclosed garden, sit side by side on the bench. They kiss, and Alice, too, reveals her secret. She discloses her true identity to George, and they openly discuss their newfound feelings. They also talk of Alice's attachment to the cottage and the birds, and what they might tell his family, if anything, about her pretending to be a governess for the past couple of weeks. Then they talk of George's hopes and plans for his future career in art-- and what might happen if war comes.
In chapters 30 to 34, they all attend the banquet and dance at the nearby luxury hotel. Alice juggles her governess duties with unwanted advances from Albert--and affairs of the heart. Earlier than planned, Alice and George return to the house together and draw closer than ever before, until Albert interrupts.
Following an argument between George and his brother, Albert disappears with Pixie. Alice and George take their relationship further than they have before, until George says the wrong thing and Alice storms upstairs to bed.
The next morning, Alice wakes to find all the birds gone from the aviary. She rushes out to seek them, all the while speculating about who might have left the doors open. She manages to catch most of the birds, with Eleanor's help. Yet just when she thinks all might be salvaged, things take a turn for the worse when George, goaded by Albert's jibes, reveals her true identity to everyone at once.
In chapters 35 and 36, we see the aftermath of the birds' loss from George's point of view, then Alice's -- and Alice leaves the cottage!
Now, in chapter 37, we're back in Montreal...
The day after her return, Alice threw herself into her work, slipping back into all the roles she'd forsaken for one delirious summer.
If she was rather more silent and reticent than before, her family did not question it. Likely they assumed she was still in mourning and, soon enough, the world tilted on its axis and gave them all a new reason to wake to fear and worry.
Two weeks after her return to Montreal, Great Britain declared war on Germany, and Canada began to mobilise.
Alice spared herself a moment's speculation that, if George's cast was not due to come off for another week and if he was prescribed at least two months of physical exercises after that, he would not have a chance to sign up until nearly November--and the war ought to be over by Christmas.
No mention of the Cunnicks appeared in any of the society columns that week, even as other families declared their intentions and made statements concerning the war.
On Friday, she received a letter from Eleanor and Lucy. Except the envelope was addressed in George's handwriting. She heistated, letter opener in hand, then tore into it and turned the envelope upside down. Alongside his sisters' letters, George had enclosed a one-line note on cardstock: Have found and rescued the mynahs. Will you come see them?
Incensed at his matter-of-fact tone and his omission of any information about Mr Palmer, she sent a reply by return post on the back of the same card.
–Pleased to hear of Thor and Kedi. Trust Mr Palmer was satisfied, shall I write him?
His next missive arrived two days later, even more curt and cryptic, scribbled directly below her line.
–No need. Watch post.
She puzzled over their disjointed correspondence for another two days, in between Ladies' Aid meetings and newly established Red Cross committees and casting on yet another pair of socks.
On Tuesday, an item on the Cunnicks finally appeared in the newspaper, a brief notice that Albert had signed up and that hockey champion George had returned to the city, to continue his convalescence at home.
Alice went out and stayed out, keeping herself occupied with her various committees in an effort not to dwell on the fact that George was here, only a few blocks away. She came in late that evening, only to find his calling card on the salver by the door.
She didn't need to ask for details; apparently her mother had been home when he'd called, with Eleanor, and was all too eager to talk.
"Such a sweet little girl," she gushed, and Alice thought how wise George had been to bring a well-mannered buffer to hold before him. She bent her head over her knitting, focused entirely on the turn of a heel, hiding her face from her mother. What might have happend if she'd been at home to receive George? Would she have spoken with him? Turned him away? No, she couldn't have done that to Eleanor. And how did he look, out of his cast?
"I didn't know you were so well acquainted with the Cunnicks as that, my dear," her mother went on. "Didn't we decide to cut them after they refused your debutante invitation? This George was polite enough, at any rate. A dashing figure, with the cane and–"
"Cane?"
"Why yes, you must have known. Recovering from a broken leg, he told me. Dear, dear, young people are so reckless nowadays. And this war will not help, the young always–- Never mind." her mother waved an airy hand. "We've all been invited to tea tomorr–"
She dropped her needles, and a row of stitches slipped off. "We? Tomorrow?"
"Alice, dear, I hope you're not going to act like a one-trick parrot at the Cunnicks'." The front door slammed downstairs. "There's your father. I must go tell him and make sure he cancels whatever golf game he's arranged. Then you'll have to tell me how this rapprochement came to be."
Claire Learns to Knit, from Diana Gabaldon's Drums of Autumn
"Jamie snorted briefly and picked up a needle and a ball of yarn.
"‘It's no verra difficult, Sassenach. Look – this is how ye cast up your row.’
Drawing the thread out through his closed fist, he made a loop round his thumb, slipped it onto the needle, and with a quick economy of motion, cast on a long row of stitches in a matter of seconds. Then he handed me the other needle and another ball of yarn.
‘There – you try.’”
From A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
"It was additionally disconcerting to have madame knitting all the way there, in a public conveyance; it was additionally disconcerting yet, to have madame in the crowd in the afternoon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited to see the carriage of the King and Queen."
from Song of the Shirt, 1941 by Dorothy Parker
Knitting, once you have caught the hang of it, is agreeable work, a relaxation from what strains life may be putting upon you. When you knit, save when you are at those bits where you must count stitches, there is enough of your mind left over for you to take part in conversations, and for you to be receptive of news and generous with it.
Pattern for Favourite Scarf - Where the Blog Title Comes From!
Recommended needle size is 5mm, but any size will work!
elcome to Insecure Writer's Support Group Day!
arksong is so close to the end!
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