Welcome,
all! You’re just in time for the monthly (1st Wednesday) on-line
gathering of the Insecure
Writer’s Support Group, where you’ll find helpful tips, handy resources,
the latest trends in publishing, and a comfortable place for hundreds of
writers – just like you and I – to share
our writing journeys!
Feel
free to meander and mingle. Our gracious co-hosts this month are:
In
a recent newsletter, Sci-Fi author and IWSG
founder: Alex Cavanaugh, shared a
cautionary post on the subject of writers voicing opinions on controversial
issues and the possible effects of doing so while hoping the world will still
love and buy your books. Having
witnessed (along with the rest of the world) the devastating consequences of controversy,
I agree with Alex on avoiding it altogether.
However,
I do have one question: should the same precautions be taken with regard to a
memoir? Do you dare tell generations to come that you always hated the holiday ham
(not to be confused with Uncle Whoever) or that it was, in fact, Uncle Whoever
who burned down the barn that fateful summer night? Of course, if you’ve been
chronicling your life all along you have essentially recorded history; yours as
you knew it. In attempting to write my own, and ghostwriting for others, I find
there are contemporary constraints in recording life in retrospect. Should
there really be an issue?
Of Quotable Note:
“Wherever I go, I’m watching” ~ Richard Scarry;
renowned children’s book author and illustrator would be 100 years old
today! “You spell dessert with two “s”es cuz together they look like whipped
cream!” I still have a few of those
Little Golden Books around the house. How about you?
“Girl in the wind blowing wide open the
closed doors of my life,” ~ Christy Brown Irish author and painter
whose autobiography was made into the Academy Award-winning film “My Left Foot.”
He would be 87 years old today!
Optional IWSG
Question: “Of all the genres you read and write, which is your favorite to
write in?”
That
thankfully brief, and sometimes painful period in life; so often referred to as
“coming of age” when one day a stranger stares back at you in the mirror.
Parents won’t ever admit that this is the real ‘Stranger Danger’ they were
afraid of (ha!), and you won’t admit you’re more afraid than they are. So, you
soar headlong into the realm of uncertainty, through failing grades and
heartaches, dust-ups and break-outs, learning to swim on a bicycle, until the
day you recognize that face in the mirror as having been yours all along, you’d
just been away for a time – absorbed in self-discovery.
Fun fact:
Editor Bennett Cerf challenged
Dr. Seuss to write a story using no more than 50 different words. The result
was: “Green Eggs and Ham”
Happy
Writing!
