#TheEnd

Gosh, itching to insert Napolean Dynomite meme, what does that mean to you? A frightening thought for writers or beyond.

For this, the first week in July of 2018, The Insecure Writer’s Group posted on the glorious day of Tuesday, the 3rd…I, however, am posting on the enigmatic, as the enigma I am, day of Friday the 6th which means in seven more days Friday the 13th, and Jason, shall arrive… & precisely 6 days after, as in the 6th, turns into Thursday the 19th of July where a very cool writerly opportunity shall be hitting the #twitter #feeds. Yes, #BigBrother will also be holding eviction that night.

But, #Writers #Authors #Wordsmithy #Friends this could be an #AmazeBalls #Opportunity for #pitching that #manuscript! (2 #agents, NOT out the door, into the fire or even against your siblings head…) Just make sure it’s ready & varnished to a high-level spit-shined gleam that would make your Nana proud. Your elbow should be aching if, in all honesty, you’re ready. Joke, I do not.

Click here for more information. Thank you Insecure Writers Support Group!

Will I attend said event, “Oh’ hell no.” Not this year…I have attended #PitMad, a quarterly event, once before & my claim to fame came in a full #MS request, but alas, I sucked and rightly ’twas my 1st completed work lacking due diligence as an understudy should devote and fell full frontal. I’ve learned to suck-up said suckiness with a smile and thankfully my teeth still intact. All I’d genuinely accomplished, at that point, was proving to myself I could pen those magical two words #TheEnd and since then I’ve done so three more times, each with a little more flair than the last.

the could’ves, would’ves, & should’ves…

...A top 10 for the year known as -whispering- 2017...
(I get it, like, so...eleven days ago.)

#1- Posted for #IWSG on the required 1st Wednesday of every month.

Details…details… Not much to ask, right?

Following said instruction with the included advice from my very well-meaning, makes me smile because her brain stem tingles at a rate faster than mine, baby sister, “You can schedule those…” Yeah, thanks. And, she is right. And, because self-deprecation is something I no longer indulge, inhale or include in my personal evaluations, my response is, “Brilliant.”

#2- I could’ve, would’ve, should’ve answered the damn questions in the monthly writing prompt.

Questions? Yes, it’s that easy.

As usual, I have a way of veering in a direction less traveled and impressively farthest from any ones cares. My rantings surely touch home base with my doppelganger, wherever she, or he, may reside and what a curious thought, do these strangely familiar individuals act like you or simply possess your devastatingly impressive looks?  (Note to self: too freaky to research further.) 

#3- Splurged in the wealth of information and sane advice from other Insecure Writers Group members.

Why haven’t I?

This is the real question, but one I shall relish in remedying. The site is filled with valuable, relatable, inspiring articles. If I reached out to Insecure Writers creator, Alex Cavanaugh or his helpers, without hesitation, they respond. It’s true, he has talked to me before. (An event in comments I am sure he remembers.) Also, a quality only occasionally found within these fickle writer-type creatures, well-intentioned, but most-times distracted.

The fresh theme at IWSG begs you to dive into the library and, do what? begin…unabashed, belly-flop back flat with no hesitation or fears. The Write Life for year #dos has listed #IWSG as one of its 2018 top 100 websites for writers, sectioned under Writing Communities. Bravo team! Hu, hu, huzza!

#4- I could’ve, would’ve, should’ve made time for me in whatever crazy spaces I inhabited.

Poof! Recently zapped by an acquired Hogwart’s magic wand, I remember what I’ve always known. Time is elusive and not guaranteed. Whenever feeling the need to justify my situation, instead use solutions, like, this phone has notes & a voice recorder!

I will, going forward, utilize commuting and wait times wherever this life finds me. I am sure there are a million other squandered opportunities my wayward identical twin or inspired sister will unearth in a blaring beacon of light further awakening my dragon, who now, by the way, works for me.

My eyes, my eyes, these, I need ‘computer reading glasses’ tired, inflamed eyes will embrace most assured.

#5- Shown NO fear of splashing, zinging, singing.

La, la la…

Why not? be gallant in…everything, especially life’s missteps.

Just call me #Guinea – #Pig if your NaNoWriMo’ing

…my mascot is throwing down to Janet Jackson’s, “Nasty”…

There is a new heart-breaker in my world and her name is Cait Reynolds. She is an mucho-fab-lady and liaison. While I hold her in high esteem, I am afraid I still dive head-first at break-neck speeds into the #ultra #newbie category of hip and happening #AmWriting kind of peeples, deemed guinea pig and proud to wear the badge. Through her careful, non-shaming coaching and “F yeah” attitude she has taken this top-grade A #panster and shown her the light of what being a #planner is all about, or at least a fledgling dot in the outlining a novel hemisphere.

& this being the reason it is sooo important

Writing, something, isn’t the issue, but focus, laser vision, a definitive instruction sheet instead of the over-active brain stem instability I am most known for and I don’t think I am alone. Hey, but I don’t mind being on the island, believe you me. The great thing, like most manuals, is you don’t even have to follow the darn thing to a T, but use the pre-work as a guideline…(when completed it cleans up into a tight synopsis, boo ya’)

No more getting bogged down in the 30,000 word quagmire.

Here in lies the real work, for me, I whined and whimpered a bit, but my hissy-fit was a lonely dramatization for one. I doodled and assigned actors in my leading roles, classic procrastination. I was tasked with the challenge of saying NO to inking chapter 1 until I’d written the “story before the story” (see caitreynolds.com) and how my main characters interacted with each other.

If I wanted to be a part of N.A.N.O. , and she’s so stealth I’d no idea I’d be attending, I needed to honor my story-line with a sense of understanding or I’d be doing myself and my fresh “twinkle in the eye” a horrible dis-service.

W.A.N.A. International offers a variety of educational, fun and affordable classes for everyone with a slew of talented instructors.

And the great news is…I completed my challenge. Not until the final hours, because why would I ever do anything without a flair for the over-dramatic, and not without concern I’d have to start my attempt at outlining again, but I did it! 

I get to begin the real chapter 1, my golden cherry, tomorrow with a gazillion other “I think I can” writers of the world.

We will see how this new guinea progresses in the most magical month of November, but freak out I won’t. I did that already, gosh. 

In my short, 321,562 word, but whose counting? tenure I have found an incredibly fabulous group of writers, non-condescending, albeit at times cricket-like, among the W.A.N.A. nation

and their esteemed super-warrior founder/queen Kristen Lamb, who in turn led me to Cait, not because Cait needed my kind of vanilla, but because Kristen cared enough. These two are, in my mind, the greatest love affair or ice cream combination of all time. 

Now I beg all my #IWSG friends not to get in a Lizzy-kind of-tizzy over such a statement, as both groups offer support in ways I am honored to be affiliated with and writers need writers who care, remembering how the streets were paved back in their “I think I want to be a writer” days. 

November 1 question – Win or not, do you usually finish your NaNo project? Have any of them gone on to be published?

Well, I can dream, right? 

Write On! ❤ Jess

 

 

 

 

Raised by Wolves…a child’s interpretive

I have recently been diagnosed with an “overactive brain-stem.” I tell you this because I find the diagnosis hilarious, and not a slap-the-knee…holding-my-belly… bent-over kind of funny, after spending thousands of dollars on specialists from allergists to ENTs to neurologists and so on.

I should have quit after hearing the term “highly reactive.”

I’m not hyper-active, but my mind leans heavy on overdrive. I wish my physicality had the tendencies to stretch in the same direction. The funnier thing is I am the calmest person I know…unless you really piss me off then I will never let that shit go.

Dear Self….get your #^! SH*t together

Ummmmm…where has American Writers Exposed Gone?

Because I surely do not know…

It’s possible I do, so let us see if we can unearth this unkempt void to the beginning. 

What the triple heck? As surely as eating better, my quest to post articles in a regular, meaningful fashion became lost. Sandi has been long on tour and I languishing on holiday in the cavernous recesses of Mt. Blockheadiness. A dismal vacation I promise.

Excuses are poor and so I shan’t give one.

Let’s talk.

My three year do or die clock has struck. 

The window I gave myself to make my writing gig happen or pack up. 

There was a time I believed I never procrastinated. My littles complained I stuffed way too many stops into a single trip to town. In this day, I find it hard to prepare for a 3 o’clock appointment. My wonder woman invisible mountain blocks my way.

I mean I have to wake up, which could turn into a 2-hour event. There is showering involved, some primping and whining no doubt. My bed is never made so I don’t have to worry about that, but looking in the closet, the dresser drawers? Yikes, pressure begins to build.

So where in the life of lives of mine does my writing fit? I have acclimated into this clinging seaweed monster of advanced stall tactics smack dab in the middle of living my authorly dreams.

(This is very close to me but you must add a spin, plus another…circling in the same spot.) Annoying, I know.

Over the past 6 months, I have hooked up with some great people. A phenomenal person. A clever-witted brilliant individual with vision, excitement, and knowledge to catapult me into the penman atmosphere of global literary enlightenment. Like POW, where have you been my whole life?

And what have I done?

Froze. Deer in headlights, the whole gambit. I have no shame to admit such. What is my issue, fear? Didn’t I give that up the 1st time I submitted anything? posted on the internet? stepped forward and admitted I write romance? 

I’m doing everything I said I’d never do like a middle-aged driving disaster going 35 on the interstate and not in the right lane with hazard lights, but to the left. My personal blog and AWE have been left unattended. Don’t you like that acronym, AWE? See I’m doing it again. 

Deep down I understand my fear. When I started, I believed the hype I’d been told. Never did I dream I’d have more downs than ups. Couldn’t imagine the lack of support I’d receive from my community of related personage. Or realized my ability to be impetuously drawn into non-factorly tasks.

What a load.

So I ask the greatest community of wordsmiths in every stage of their multiple WIPs to send this block of dirt a surge of well wishes to “get er’ done!” (I hate that quote too!) Like, tomorrow, or if I’m seriously serious, today.

 

Write On ❤ Jess!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful new sunflowers images and heartfelt quotes for everyone! #SendSunshine

https://upliftingquotesdaily.com/2017/07/22/july-etsyshop-sunshinesent-sale/

Procrastination, self-sabotage & the fear of using words clearly…

1st let me blame my current paradigm on #Starbucks.

(Yeah, not my name or what I said, but strangely, “this time”, my coffee…)

In my current situation, I find myself with a stomach ache. A self-induced need to vomit due to a class I am taking tomorrow. A one-on-one plotting adventure with a writing coach I admire “too” much and as I try to prepare I find myself with the urge to post here.

Hey ya!

What am I to take from this?

I have hand-scrawled papers strewn about my 10′ long dining room table. My office and desk have become a tangled maze where I can no longer sit comfortably or house the twenty devices I power while writing. I am unable to find the digital files I would like to reference or which apparatus I used while working endless hours on the questions I am sure will be asked.

A mess, a hot, freaking homeless looking disaster would describe me in perfect detail.

Why do I choke? When this is everything I have been working for?

Somehow, someway trying to place an order through the drive-thru has made me doubt my ability to speak perfect English. I live in the PNW, Pacific Northwest. We don’t have accents unless we are expats from across the country or continents, in which I am not. I have left any valley-girl tendencies back in the eighties, like, totally.

I have, over the years, wheedled my order to the barest of necessities. (the stress involved in a more complicated drink, NOT worth the effort) Americano. Bam. Phlewy. Simple. I need to determine two things, my preferred size and if I’d like my drink iced. There are no bells or whistles. So how does my coffee turn into a Trenta, stirred, non-fat, caramel mocha, extra hot, hold the whip, with drizzle and added cream? ?? ??? 

Aliens? Gremlins have invaded my left frontal brain lobe? No longer do I speak words, but wheeze instead, and the baristas are forced to make the order up?

There are no cars behind me in line. I am alone. There is only 1 drink on the reader board. And if that was my drink, God forbid, I should state my preferences in the wrong order, but it is not. I am 100% positive I am unilingual, sad, I know, and the only words to come out of my mouth were, “May I please,” being polite and all, “have a grande Americano.” Inferring I’d like it hot since the words “iced” were not used.

The whole ordeal defies any form of logic and makes me doubt EVERYTHING. ,

This will be me.

Because, how? if I am unable to relay a ridiculous coffee order through a drive-thru voice box in clear detail will I ever be able to define the projects I am working on? And storylines are a tad more complicated than ordering a cup of “Joe” or are they?

Write On! ❤ Jess

P.S…wish this girl luck, I have the feeling this is my key to unlocking the magical golden door to the kingdom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

#CGGC a.k.a Critique Group God Complex

Never heard of it? Yeah, neither had I, but I’ve met a few, so I made one up, lol! We know some are suffering….

All in love and good fun, Write On! ❤ Jess

these things I do

Welcome to Thursday, June 8th, 2017 the day AFTER June 7th, 2017, the 1st Wednesday of the month and the official day of IWSG.

( Déjà vu…I feel as though I’ve been here before, many times, many, many times. 😦 )

It’s a very real possibility my membership has been dissolved, being tardy for the party and all.

Which is exactly why I am the perfect member for The Insecure Writers Support Group.

#Happy #June #Baby

That’s right, so let’s get up and dive in!

(The inspiration is more for me than anyone else, yikes.)

Over on my blog jessicaedouard.com, the one covered in cobwebs and filled with chirping crickets, because I’m a happenstance, infrequent visitor to a blog plastered with my name.

#WTHJ (What the Heck, Jessica) #GYST (Get your s___together, stuff people, lol) But don’t I make a cute #Kenny?