If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

February 1st question – If you are an Indie author, do you make your own covers or purchase them? If you publish trad, how much input do you have about what goes on your cover?

Jayden: I’ve designed all of my own covers.

From left to right, in the order I designed them. The first novel I published, Slave, I took off the market. It needs some editing just because I’ve learned a lot in the years since I published it. I also have different feelings about the title, but since the main character is only ever given that name (in a kink context), it would require a total rewrite. But, fun fact, the person on that cover is me.

The sneakers on Runaway are also mine. (In retrospect, at least when it’s small, it’s hard to read the “A choose your own erotic novel by” part.

The last one is also a picture I took. The rest were ones I purchased online.

I have a minimal amount of graphic design knowledge, and since I’m just publishing for fun, I’ve decided that although the covers would be better done by a professional, they’re fine for my <$5 novels. My first pinned post has the purchase links for all available books if you’re interested.

What makes a good book cover for you?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

January 4 question – Do you have a word of the year? Is there one word that sums up what you need to work on or change in the coming year?

Jayden: My word for 2023 is consistency. I need to be more consistent in many facets of my life. Work is the one place I’m probably the most consistent because I’ve developed my routines. But I need to be more consistent at home with completing the chores that pile up (Richard helps me to be good at staying on top of the daily chores). I need to be more consistent with getting my school work done on time. I need to be more consistent with advertising for my side job. And the big one is that I need to be more consistent with my blog. On that note, did you see our big announcement on December 31st? I really hope that I can stay consistent this time, so be sure to read my posts, like, and comment, so I know you’re out there reading!

Richard: Graduate! Once I’m done with grad school, it’ll open up a ton of time and energy for other things. I have a ton of writing projects that are kinda sorta ready to move onto the next step, but keep getting shoved out of the way for schoolwork instead.

What is your word of 2023?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

December 7 question – It’s holiday time! Are the holidays a time to catch up or fall behind on writer goals?

Jayden: I think it’s bad. I get out of my routine so much that I fall behind on everything. Even though I have more time off of my day job, it’s hard for me to keep a writing routine when I’m not working. It’s weird, honestly, that when I have more free time, I get less done. I guess it’s just a mindset.

Richard: Probably about neutral? There’s a bit more free time to write, but I’m also usually recovering from Nano. I usually hit January pretty hard though.

Do you find that that you catch up or fall behind during the holidays?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

November 2nd – November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever participated? If not, why not?

Jayden: Yes! I’ve been participating since 2007 or so. I’ve made it to 50k or more every November (but rarely in the Camp months). I’ve even managed to write 50k in 24 hours three times. Never again, haha. It’s a lot. But I was proud of that accomplishment. With how busy I am now, I’m only planning to aim for ~50k this year for NaNo. I’m sure I’ll feel like I need to get more, but we’ll see what happens.

Richard: My first NaNo was also around 2007 or 2008. I’ve won the last 3 or 4 years. NaNo is actually how Jayden and I met. (Jayden: THANK GOODNESS FOR NANO! <3)

Are you participating in NaNo?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

October 5th – What do you consider the best characteristics of your favorite genre?

Jayden: My favorite genre is romance. I love that there’s always a Happily Ever After. Real life is often serious and sad, so when I invest time in reading, I like that it can have a nice, neat conclusion. What’s your favorite romance novel or who is your favorite romance author?

Richard: Not a genre per se, but I’m going to go with serial fiction in all its forms. I like the way the spread out pacing gives a story room to breathe and for people to speculate and interact in “real time” with it as it develops.

What do you love about your favorite genre?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

September 7th – What genre would be the worst one for you to tackle and why?

Jayden: Historical fiction. I don’t have a great grasp on history, so I’d have to do *a lot* of research, which I don’t particularly care for. I love to read it, but writing it would be awful.

Richard: Does Fanfic count? I’ve tried it a couple times, and I just can’t wrap my head around writing other people’s characters.

What would be your hardest genre to tackle?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

August 3rd question – When you set out to write a story, do you try to be more original or do you try to give readers what they want?

Jayden: I write for myself. I tried writing to get published, but especially in the world of kinky smut, they often want very specific things. As a bisexual switch, sometimes I want a variety of things in one story. It depends on my mood. So when I write and self-publish, I can write whatever combinations I want. It’s very freeing. I just keep reminding myself of the best writing advice I’ve ever been given: write what you want to read.

Richard: For most genre writing, I think you should be trying to do both. If you’re writing a fantasy story, people want to see some dragon slaying or whatever. But you should be trying to do your dragon slaying in an original way. Have your peasants give the dragon more and more tributes until it’s suffocated/crushed under it’s horde!

Original or Give ’em What They Want?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

July 6 question – If you could live in any book world, which one would you choose?

Jayden: That’s hard because a lot of the books I read are dystopian, and that doesn’t sound so great! Harry Potter is a very cool world to live in, once You Know Who is gone, anyway. I guess I’ll stick with that one.
Richard: One of those safety instruction books, where people drop blenders into tubs and stuff. It just seems like a very strange place, I’d like to find out more about it.

What book world would you want to live in?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

June 1 question – When the going gets tough writing the story, how do you keep yourself writing to the end? If you have not started writing yet, why do you think that is and what do you think could help you find your groove and start?

Jayden: I know that if I don’t finish a project in one go, I won’t ever finish it. It’s too hard for me to come back to it after a lot of time away. That’s why NaNo is so great for me–I can write the whole novel in one shot. (Not one day, generally, but one month at least.) When I switch between projects, I tend to get distracted and lose track of details, even when I outline what I’m writing as I write it. So that motivation of knowing I might not ever finish the project is a big part of getting to the end.

On the other hand, I’ve been kicking around this erotic novel set in a world with societies of Dommes (and dinosaurs!) but I haven’t, and Richard and I even did the whole worldbuilding outline! I don’t know what’s stopping me there, but I am hopeful that I can get to in July for CampNaNo. Having other people to support me definitely helps a lot!

Richard: My favorite trick is to switch how I’m telling the story. A lot of my writing has mini-epistolary sections, so those are a great opportunity to think about it from a different angle and get unstuck. Swapping to a different part or character can work too, but I find the little snippets I get from writing travel guides, new casts, etc. are more useful.

How do you motivate yourself?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

May 4 question – It’s the best of times; it’s the worst of times. What are your writer highs (the good times)? And what are your writer lows (the crappy times)?

Jayden: Oh, well, let’s see. The best times were writing times with friends. I can’t count the number of evenings I spent laughing, writing, laughing some more. My best friends and I co-wrote a story. We all sat with our laptops taking turns writing paragraphs. It was entertaining. Slow going, but entertaining. Then we would get distracted talking, but it was an amazing experience, and I hope that we’ll be able to get back to it.

The worst times were the deadlines. Self-imposed deadlines, for me, but still. Staying up late, getting up early, squeezing in words in every available moment. The times that I had to type with my eyes closed because I literally couldn’t keep them open anymore. But all worth it for the novels and short stories I’ve written, and the love I have with my writing friends. And of course, the fact that through my writing group, I met my partner. We blog together, we live together, and now we’re married. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Richard: The best part of writing is when you finish a project. The worst part is any time anyone reads anything I write.

What are your writers highs and lows?

It’s our one year anniversary with IWSG! I’m impressed with us that we haven’t missed a month, though we’ve squeaked in a little late here and there.

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

April 6 question – Have any of your books been made into audio books? If so, what is the main challenge in producing an audiobook?

Jayden: I can answer for both of us. Nope! For me, I don’t even know where I would begin to produce an audiobook. Although, fun fact, I once recorded about 90% of a novel as an audiobook for a boyfriend in high school. It was his favorite book and there was no audiobook of it. When I couldn’t buy one, I wanted to record it just for him, but I never finished and then we broke up. Ah well. Would’ve been a copyright issue, anyway

Richard also said no, but he did make a writing observation today that we’ll share: He’s enjoying our A to Z Challenge blog posts. I (Jayden) am writing the worldbuilding details, and he’s writing a story to go with it, except he’s purposefully not quite writing about the same thing I am. For example, coming up on 4/7 is “F is for Food” but he somehow wrote more about firepower and scarecrows than food! It’s worth the read though!

Have you ever had a novel made into an audiobook?

Happy one year anniversary to our participation in IWSG!

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

March 2 question – Have you ever been conflicted about writing a story or adding a scene to a story? How did you decide to write it or not?

Jayden: Absolutely. I write a lot of smut (pretty much exclusively smut) and over the years, my kinks have gotten less mainstream. It’s sexy as hell to me to write smut about golden showers, ass to mouth, etc. but sometimes I question if I should publish those scenes. I write for myself, but I like to share. So in the end, I write what I like and hope that others like it (or will skip over the ones they don’t like).

Richard: I think all writers are conflicted about something at some point or another. For me, the answer is almost always, “right it now, edit it later.” Usually I can tell part way through the scene if it’ll be a keeper or not.

Have you been conflicted?

We’re back for an 11th month of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Almost a full year!

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

February 2 question – Is there someone who supported or influenced you that perhaps isn’t around anymore? Anyone you miss?

Jayden: Of course there are. My grandparents are a prime example. I miss them terribly. Although they didn’t always understand me, they always supported me. I hope they’d be proud of me if they could see me now.

Richard: I’m also going to say my grandparents. I wish I’d learned more of my Gramma’s recipes, and I think my grandfathers would’ve had all kinds of cool stuff to teach me. We have a lot of hobbies in common, and they supported me while they were alive.

Is there someone you miss who influenced you?

We’re back for a 10th month of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group! We’re excited to be back, and to have at least one challenge we haven’t dropped the ball on. This is still the only one we’ve been consistent with, though we’re mostly back on track with TMI Tuesday.

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

January 5 question – What’s the one thing about your writing career you regret the most? Were you able to overcome it?

Jayden: Well, I’ve published a few novels and don’t really market them. I like writing a lot, but editing isn’t my forte. I can line edit and continuity like nobody’s business, but keeping track of all the details and big picture things just isn’t what I’m good at. One of my good friends once said to me that there’s a market for write book, grammarly, read once, publish. I think that’s about where I am in my writing process. I’ve done *a lot* of writing, but not as much editing or publishing especially in the last year. So I’m working on overcoming it.

That said, writing is NOT my primary career, and I don’t really have a goal of that being the case. Someday, I would like to retire young and use writing to fill in the gaps until I can be really fully retired. But… I’m in my 30s, so I have a looooong time until it’s even a concern. So ‘overcoming’ isn’t really a big deal right at the moment.

Richard: I don’t really think I have a writing “career” as such, so it’s hard to have regrets for it. Like Jayden (and probably 99% of writers) I wish I’d written more, published more, started earlier, etc. I wish I’d pushed a little harder for other MFA programs. I may still have wound up where I did, but it never hurts to put out more applications, have more options, etc.

What are your stresses and delights when writing? Drop them in the comments!

We’re back for a 9th month of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group! We’re excited to be back, and to have at least one challenge we haven’t dropped the ball on. (Actually, we were good with NaNoWriMo, we just went below our original goals.)

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

December: In your writing, what stresses you the most? What delights you?

Jayden: I guess it depends on what I’m doing. If I’m writing something for the sake of getting words, then what stresses me out is generally just getting enough words in the time I have. If I’m writing for a specific story, I’m stressed about getting my details correct. I try to keep copious notes, but I have yet to find a way to organize them so that I can keep them all straight. I can’t outline ahead of time (it just doesn’t work for me) so my characters become who they are as I write them. It makes keeping a profile on them difficult.

What delights me is learning who my characters are and what challenges they face. It’s awesome to see them become their own people in front of my eyes as their stories pour out of my fingers. It’s really cool. And I like happy endings, so it’s also great to see those happy endings come to fruition.

Richard: I feel like I just talked about this during the TMI Tuesday roundup. Time management is the biggest thing for stress. Between our million words goal, the blogs, and trying to keep up on my MFA (and trying to balance between writing a half a million words, while making sure at least ten thousand or so a month aren’t total garbage) it’s a lot of word balls to keep in the air. Going back to “regular” work, moving to the new apartment, and all the other stuff in life also means I’m a lot busier. Getting 50 or 100K in a month is a lot easier when you don’t have to commute, can do the dishes on your lunch break, etc.

My biggest delight is when I hit on a character’s voice just right. I can be prone to long, wishy washy dialogue and it’s nice when I hit a sentence that feels good. Doubly so when it happens with both people in a conversation at once.

What are your stresses and delights when writing? Drop them in the comments!

We’re back for an 8th month of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group! It’s hard to believe it’s been 2/3 of a year!

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

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November 3rd: What’s harder to do, coming up with your book title or writing the blurb?

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We’re back for a 7th month of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group, and we’re right on time!

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

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October 6 question – In your writing, where do you draw the line, with either topics or language?

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We’re back for a sixth month of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group, and we’re a little late. We had a great run of daily posts, but…all good things must come to an end. But don’t worry. We aren’t going away, and we’ll be resuming regular posts this week, but every day just might not be possible. Life, you know?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

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September 1st: How do you define success as a writer? Is it holding your book in your hand? Having a short story published? Making a certain amount of income from your writing?

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We’re back for a fifth month of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group!

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

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August 4 question – What is your favorite writing craft book? Think of a book that every time you read it you learn something or you are inspired to write or try the new technique. And why?

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We’re back for a fourth month of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group!

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

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July 7 – What would make you quit writing?

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