Flashback Friday

 

            **Is it really time for Flashback Friday already? I have spent most of the past week in my personal bubble of solitude trying to simultaneously finish, edit, and revise my story for the IWSG anthology contest. I will try to come back up for air when this thing is submitted! Back to Flashback Friday, participants use the last Friday of each month to repost an old post that needed more attention, that you're very proud of, that you think is still relevant, etc. It is hosted by Michael G D'Agostino at A Life Examined. This is my post about my insecurities from last year's anthology contest. The only difference this year is that I have no mixed feelings about my entry, I just got to get it ready for submission!**

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October IWSG  (October 7, 2015)

  



            Time for another posting with the Insecure Writers Support Group, where writers can share their insecurities and encourage one another.  IWSG was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh and we share our posts the first Wednesday of the month.  The co-hosts for October are:

TB Markinson, Tamara Narayan, Shannon Lawrence, Stephanie Faris, and Eva E. Solar.

            In September, IWSG announced that they would be having an anthology contest for group members.  We have until November 1 to submit a short story about a parallel universe or alternative history.  This is my insecurity this month.  As soon as I saw the contest, I was so excited about it, but now I’m having mixed feelings/second thoughts.  I really want to submit a story, I have an idea, I have the characters lined up, and I even started writing.  I am just not sure if I can pull this all together in a sensible way by November!  During this process, I realized that I have not written any fiction since high school, beyond a list of ideas and a couple opening paragraphs to stories that may never come to be.  I don’t even know if my fiction will be likeable, but I guess this is an opportunity to find out.  I have to start somewhere.  I hope I can get it done. 

If I Were a Mobster Blogfest

Today, I’m participating in Chrys Fey’s If I Were a Mobster Blogfest. She decided to do a blogfest to celebrate the release of her latest novella, 30 Seconds Before. I thought this sounded like fun and it was also a great opportunity to practice character creation. Here is my mobster:

Mobster Name: Joanie Fiotta

Rank: The hacker/undercover agent

Crime Zone: Orlando, Florida

Look/Disguise: Operating from the shadows and a master of disguise, Joanie can create any identity she wants for herself and her partners.

Weapon of Choice: Computer

Mobster Vehicle: The most technologically-advanced vehicle available, like the Batmobile, except less obvious.

What She’s Known For: She is able to hack into complex systems and create new identities. She can supply passports and get her cohorts wherever they need to go, including overseas locations. She also excels at undercover field work because of her keen observation skills.

Catch Phrase: “Don’t worry boys, I can hack this!”

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            I read Chrys Fey's 30 Seconds and I liked it. It was action-packed and had some interesting twists and turns. And, guess what? She has it on sale for 99 cents until Nov. 4! Now, I'm turning this post over to Chrys:

30 SECONDS BEFORE BLURB:

Blake Herro is a cop in the Cleveland Police Force. Ever since he was a child he wanted to do right by the city he loved by cleaning up the streets and protecting its citizens. Red, a notorious mobster, has other plans.

On a bitter December night, ten police officers are drawn into a trap and killed by Red’s followers. Blake wants to bring down the Mob to avenge his fallen brothers and to prevent other cops from being murdered. Except the only way he can do that is by infiltrating the Mob.

Every minute he’s with these mobsters he’s in danger. Around every corner lies the threat of coming face to face with a gun. Will he make it out of the Mob alive or will he be their next victim?
 

 

BUY LINKS:

Amazon US / Amazon UK /  Amazon CA

NOOK / KOBO / The Wild Rose Press

To celebrate, 30 Seconds, the follow up story, is on sale for 99 cents!

Sale Oct. 21^st – Nov. 4th

SALE LINKS:

Amazon / The Wild Rose Press / NOOK / KOBO

BIO:

Chrys Fey is the author of the Disaster Crimes Series (Hurricane Crimes and Seismic Crimes), as well as these releases from The Wild Rose Press: 30 Seconds, Ghost of Death, and Witch of Death. Website / Blog / Facebook / Twitter


 

Now please hop around to the other participants:

IWSG: Is It Ready?

            Time for another posting with the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, where writers can share their insecurities and encourage one another. IWSG was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh and we share our posts the first Wednesday of the month. The IWSG poses a question for us to answer in our monthly posts. Here is the question for October:

When do you know your story is ready?

            Honestly, I have not completed enough stories to know how to answer this question. Most of my stories remain incomplete swimming around in my head. I think I have a chronic start-a-project-and-never-complete-it problem. Is there a word for that? There should be. I have so many blog posts and stories that I’ve started and never finished. And this problem is not exclusive to writing, I also have incomplete craft and sewing projects, organizational projects, and other substantial projects on my to do list. That being said, I will know when my current IWSG anthology entry is ready when I figure out which way it’s going to end. Of course, with the story I entered in last year’s contest I knew the ending before I had a plot, and since I decided that I want to try to fix that story, it has gone back to not ready mode. I think it depends on the story.

 

            On a side note: My brother used up most of our monthly 4G data the last week of September (yes, I still share a cell phone plan with my family, it's more economical this way) and our data does not reset until the 10th. So, I am stuck with the Wi-Fi that only works part-time :(   I have also been feeling slightly under the weather due to allergy and sinus problems this week and have been going to sleep a little earlier. The late night is my usual blog visiting time. I have visited and read some posts that managed to load in the past couple weeks, but I did not leave any comments. I'm hoping to visit/revisit and comment tomorrow on my day off, if the Wi-Fi agrees with me. In the meantime, congrats to all those who have released new books recently, I noticed quite a few blog tours going on.

Question of the Month: Looking Back

 

The Question of the Month is a bloghop that occurs the first Monday of each month and this is the last one that will be hosted by Michael G D'Agostino from A Life Examined. I’ll miss having Michael as our host, but I wish him well in all his future endeavors. Here is the last question he posed for us:

“What’s a decision you’ve made in the past that you know, logically, was the right decision to make, but which you still feel guilty or regretful about?”

            Looking back on the decision I’m writing about today, I also have to go back to my thought process at that time. Now, I can see many other paths I could have chosen, but at that time my choice seemed perfectly logical. It was choosing to major in education at college. First of all, for most of high school, there was this constant pressure to get ready for college. We were bombarded with questions: “Where are you going to go?” “What are you going to major in?” “How are you going to pay for it?” By my junior year, at the ripe old age of 17, I had already made my final decisions. "I’m going to OBU and I’m majoring in Elementary Education." At first, I thought it might be nice to take a year off, but then I had a case of FOMO (fear of missing out) and I didn’t want to be “behind” my peers. I don’t regret my choice of school. I enjoyed OBU’s small class sizes, variety of curriculum within my major, and integration of Christian faith. I chose to teach because people told me I was good with kids, and I liked kids, and the only job I could think of that involved working with kids was teaching. I realized the summer before my final year of college that I did not really want to teach and there were other directions I could have gone. At that point, it was too late to change majors and still finish in a year. My parents and I could not afford to keep me in college longer. Yes, I probably was too quick to give up and give in to my circumstances, but I stuck to my initial plan and even taught kindergarten for a year before calling it quits. After that, I somehow ended up stuck in a pharmacy, and I often look back and wonder what else I could have done. The positive of this path I’m still on is that I have a job with no homework (unless regaining energy counts). So, over time, I have been able to reanalyze my life, I have grown closer to God, and I have renewed my interest, and gained a passion, in writing, all of which can help me pursue a new path in life.