IWSG For March – Time For Spring Cleaning

Hidey-ho all my blogger buddies! Guess what. It is the first Wednesday of the month and we know what that means! It’s time for my posting for The Insecure Writer’s Support Group #IWSG which was founded by the incredible Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh, our resident Sci-fi master, author extraordinaire, and all around in-house celebrity nice guy. The purpose of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group is give all writers a safe haven where they can express their doubts, concerns and insecurities without fear of appearing weak or foolish. We can even celebrate our triumphs and successes!

Posting is the first Wednesday of every month and you post your thoughts on your own blog. It is an awesome group to be a part of and I have been a proud member since I started blogging last year. If you are interested in becoming a member of our élite group of insecure writers, please click on the image and you will be transported to the #IWSG site where you can add your name to the list. This is a blog hop, so whenever you post, make sure you visit other insecure writers and offer them support as well.

This month’s  #IWSG co-hosts are: 

• Elsie, over at http://www.elsieiswriting.com,
• Tina Downey, over at http://kmdlifeisgood.blogspot.com,
• Elizabeth Seckman, over at http://www.eseckman.blogspot.com and
• Julie Flanders over at http://www.julieflanders.blogspot.com.

I’d like to thank our co-hosts for doing an amazing job this month!

I’ve been very busy these past few weeks. I was extremely proud to share my NaNoWriMo win on my December post for the IWSG. Um, yeah. Out of those 50,091 words or so, I’ve probably chucked about a quarter so far and will probably dump more before I’m done. Kind of like the Spring cleaning I’m going to be doing shortly; packing away the winter stuff and bringing out the warm weather wear… Hey, I can dream!!

Mind you, the work is nowhere near complete, but I guess Ernest Hemingway was right, “The first draft of anything is shit.” Aside from the fact that I had a bunch of useless junk in it, I also noticed that while I was reading it, my POV has a tendency to shift every so often, which is frustrating as hell. It’s bad enough that I have to really focus on what I’m doing so I don’t wander, but every so often I go from third person to first and don’t even realize it until I’m in the middle of reading the story; makes me want to pull my hair out. I’ve really got to get a grip on POV. Sometimes I feel like a toddler trying to swim in the big kids pool.

I’ll admit that while I haven’t been able to write or blog most of December through the better part of February, I was able to get in a lot of reading; not only novels that I’d like to review, but books on the craft of writing as well. I bought another copy of Stephen King’s On Writing, the original I misplaced long ago, and The Elements of Style, which is turning out to be a priceless tool for me. I’ve also been doing some research and looking at various writers resources because I know that I have weaknesses now that were not present before my hemorrhage, mainly focus, attention and memory.

My one promise to myself this New Years was that I would self-publish something and it would be good. It may not be a novel, but I will be happy with a short story or a novella. I think I’ve put so much pressure on myself to be the person I was before, and truth be told, I will never be the person I was before. I’m not going to look at it as a bad thing though. The things I used to take for granted before, I don’t anymore. So it’ll take me longer to finish my works and that’s OK. I’ll make sure I have good people behind me reviewing and editing them so when I do finally put out my project, it will be something I can be proud of.

I’m just curious, does anyone else have a lot of trouble with POV? A little is understandable, but I seem to be all over the place at times. I do know that first drafts of anything are always bad, but if almost half your manuscript is unusable, isn’t that worse than bad? I’d appreciate the truth on this, gently, of course.  🙂

That being said, that’s all I have for this month’s post for The Insecure Writer’s Support Group. Please feel free to comment and if you are interested in being a part of this phenomenal group, as I stated earlier, just click on the image above to join.

Until next post, Ciao!

My First Post for The Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Hi, my name is Lily, and I am an extremely insecure writer…

Um, so I should mention that I recently joined what I hear is an awesome writing group called ‘The Insecure Writer’s Support Group’ founded by the wonderful Alex J. Cavanaugh. The Group meets the first Wednesday of every month. If you’re interested in joining, just click on the image below and the image will direct you to Alex’s page to sign up.
I need to get a bit of history out-of-the-way so we can focus on my insecurities as a writer aspect of my post. 🙂 Most, if not all of my followers know that I suffered a stroke in November of 2011.  Mine was hemorrhagic in nature; meaning that I ruptured an aneurysm in my brain, causing the excess blood to cause damage to my nerves and tissue. Because of the sudden onset of this type of stroke, mortality rates are usually very high. Fortunately for me, I survived and made tremendous strides in my recovery.

Some of the residual problems (as it pertains to my writing) I still face from time to time are problems with my short-term memory, inability to focus for long periods, finding myself unable to find the right words (even though they are right at the tip of my tongue), and general feelings of frustration and being overwhelmed.

I have read posts by other stroke survivors who I have come to admire for the way they write and how easily their words seem to flow. Towards the end of my speech therapy, my therapist said that I was performing at the highest level possible. I will admit that I still need to practice every so often because when I find myself becoming overwhelmed or flustered, I tend to stutter slightly and find myself unable to find my words.

I think I have become so afraid of failing because of everything that has happened, that I haven’t finished any of my projects. I have several in the works. I even signed up for NaNoWriMo in April. Came close to finishing my word count. Didn’t quite make it. I was practicing for November’s big event. I am full of ideas; they usually come from the weirdest places… My imagination runs wild. It always has. That’s why I’ve loved writing since I was a little girl. It’s why I started this blog; to get out there and fulfill my dream. Whatever it takes, I will do this and so many people have helped me get out of my shell little by little. I need to build up the confidence to finish my projects and hopefully get some good stories out there.

I do a lot of reading on the subject of writing as well and am aware of what writers go through. I understand all about the writer’s block, the stories laying dormant in drawers (or computers in my case) for months or years at a time, and the fear of rejection and ridicule. It’s what I go through all the time.

So, I guess what I’m asking is, am I more irrational than most? Do you think my problems are due to whatever residual effects I had from the stroke or is this what most of you have gone through as writers?  I really don’t know. I haven’t personally met any writers to ask. Please be honest. I don’t offend easily as long as you’re not malicious, rude or crude! Lol.

Thank you all for listening and again, my name is Lily and I am an extremely insecure writer…

Welcome!

 

Hello all! I started this blog under the pen name Lilica (Lily) Blake in February of 2013,  and welcomed everyone to my little corner of the world. I am was somewhat new to the world of blogging, but I’ve gotten better since then, thanks to an amazing network of blogging buddies and friends that I’ve made. I started this blog to chronicle my writing journey, but then it began morphing into my struggles with health recovery and personal losses. I’m not going to get into it on my About page since most of it is contained in the blog itself.

In a nutshell though, life had a funny way of getting me back into writing.  I was a single mother at 22, worked full-time, went to school, occasionally did side work in addition to my obligations and responsibilities. They were all priority. After rupturing an aneurysm in my brain in November of 2011, and having to undergo emergency brain surgery secondary to a hemorrhagic stroke, I finally realized that life is far too short to continue putting my dreams on hold. That’s when I started lilicasplace.

When I started blogging about the struggles I was having, I thought this was a good outlet for me. I was able to get my thoughts on paper (screen) and practice my skills… right? When I suffered losses of people close to me from the same thing I had, it was a call to action for me to start the second blog I have, called My Miracle Life. You should stop by some time. Somewhere in there, I came clean and introduced myself by my given name.

Let’s do this again. Hi, my name is Eva Solar and lilicasplace is the blog I run under my pen name for anything writing or book related and My Miracle Life is my second blog where I post about life post brain hemorrhage and life’s little celebrations. There I use my given name; don’t worry, some of my earliest friends and followers still get confused!

I’m still on my journey towards publishing my first novel; it’ll just take longer than I expected. I’ve been a loyal member of a wonderful writer’s group founded by the amazing Alex J. Cavanaugh called the Insecure Writer’s Support Group since my second or third month blogging. We ‘meet’ the first Wednesday of every month. If you are a writer as insecure as I am, this is the place to go! They have amazing resources, a website, Facebook page, and just published a FREE e-book, The Insecure Writer’s Support Group Guide to Publishing and Beyond. I’m proud to say I was able to contribute an article to the Anthology.

Any advice, comments, resources or feedback offered will be humbly accepted and appreciated, as always.  I follow a lot of blogs, read a lot of articles and get a lot of eBooks. I’m always trying to research. I’m a firm believer in helping our fellow writers with their accomplishments by helping them promote their work, posting book reviews, author interviews, and blog tours. We should always have each others backs. I’m just sayin’. 🙂

You can tweet me, comment me, Facebook me, Pinterest me, email me…they’re all good! I even have boards on my Pinterest that look for protagonist and antagonist types to inspire me. Feel free to look me up and pin away!! If you follow my boards, I’ll be sure to invite you. I love inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and have a great day.

Lily aka Eva… Now that you all know my real name~  🙂

(Updated January 24, 2015)

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