Hello readers! We’re here today to bring you the first in a new series: Bloganuary! It’s a challenge to blog every day in January with a prompt from WordPress. Even though we didn’t find out until the very end of the day on the 1st, we decided to give it a shot! The prompts don’t come out until almost the day of, so we have to write every day for it to work. (And hey, this will help inch us closer to our 1,000,000 words goal!)
So here is the first installment. Day 1:
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.
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!
November 3rd: What’s harder to do, coming up with your book title or writing the blurb?
Continue readingRichard here with an update on some of our ongoing goals:
1. National Novel Writing Month
Jayden and I will both be leading our writing group in Nano again this year. Jayden is writing some kind of futuristic Jeff Goldblum dinosaur smut,
Jayden: That is such a misleading tag for what I’m writing. I have no idea what it’ll be, but it sounds like there will be a Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcom clone…or something.
and I’m working on a GSM super hero story. We need to hit 100K+ each in order to have any chance at making…
2. One Million Words
Currently, we’re at around 555K. We’re behind (but not completely out of it) on our goal of ~70K each for October. Not counting whatever else we write this month, we need to average a little over 100K each of the remaining two months (if we can make it to around 70K this month, we drop to about the same for December) to hit our goal. That’d be extremely difficult, but not impossible. SEND PROMPTS!
3. 524 Sexes
On a better note, we’ve cleared the “one to one” threshold on our goal of 524 sexes! With 69 (nice!) days to go, we only need 67 more sexes. I’m hoping to get one more in tonight, depending on how Jayden and I are feeling, but either way it’s a relief. While having a ridiculous amount of sex is fun, at this quantity it starts to feel kind of chorish/check boxy sometimes. I think we’ll shoot for a nice, reasonable, 400 or so next year.
by Jayden
Welcome back for some more Kinktober! Today, I have a story that I wrote back in the early 2000s that I rewrote for Kinktober. I had thought about just editing it, but…no dice. I’m still not sure I’m happy with it, but… here we are!
Continue readingby Richard
Welcome back for some more Kinktober! Today I have a story for the prompt Worship.
Continue readingby Richard
Welcome back for some more Kinktober! Today we have a comic from guest artist GS from the 5th and a post from me about Being Recorded!
Continue readingby Jayden
Welcome back for some more Kinktober! I have two posts to share with you today. Biting for the 8th and Pregnancy/Impreg for the 9th. Enjoy!
Continue readingby Richard
Welcome to our first traditional Kinktober post. Jayden and I divvied up the list, so you should be getting at least one post from each day. I tend to write fairly short pieces for Kinktober, so I’ll be doubling up some nights so we can finish by the end of the month. Enjoy tonight’s Degradation and Dirty Talk/Elevator sex prompts!
Continue readingWe’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!
October 6 question – In your writing, where do you draw the line, with either topics or language?
Continue readingby guest artist GS
Kinktober day 2: Crossdressing. I get the sense that, even in a world teeming with toxic masculinity, Maurice wouldn’t be averse to playing at being a girl. Cathy would happily switch genders – she’s into performance arts, and she’s not very attached to her own identity. I wouldn’t say she’s nonbinary; more like… flexible. I thought it would be fun to emphasize the clothes here as they let their regular identities fade into the background.
by guest artist GS
Kinktober day 1. Prompt: train molester. Cathy molests her own husband on a train. Is she creepy? Maybe. Maybe she just needed something to hold onto and the ceiling straps were out of reach.
Hello! We have a brand new feature for this year’s Kinktober! A friend of mine was looking for somewhere to share their kinky art, and I offered to host it here on my blog. We’ll keep going with some of our regular posts (TMI Tuesday and Eventually Ever After) and you should get some Kinktober posts from Richard and I as well. So buckle up! After being sporadic with our posts in September, we’ll be making multiple posts some days!
~Jayden
I’m GS and I make a webcomic called Alien Romance. It’s about two people – Maurice and Cathy – with almost nothing in common, not even a language, who decide to make a go of it. This Kinktober, I’m letting my characters explore their sexual options, mostly with each other, although there are some supporting characters who may also appear.
Usually my scenes are 1-5 full pages long, but this time I plan to do just one or two panels per prompt, and they will be cute.
But please note that my characters are in their mid-20’s. They look a lot younger, but that’s on purpose. I’ve lived for three years in Vietnam, and 4 years in China, and the men here run the gamut from sweet femme bois to hardened bodybuilders. But they are very rarely large people – most of them, by Western standards, are quite diminutive. Immigrants may arrive from these areas and discover that they can’t compete with the social standards of physical appearance in their new communities. In fact, the idea that East Asian men have racial features that are not sexually appealing enough is an ugly trope.
Maurice is a Vietnamese American who grew up in the homogeneous heartland. Cathy is French, and should have enjoyed a life of privilege, but some invisible disabilities and serendipitous misfortunes have landed her in the United States. It’s a story celebrating nonstandard beauty, reclaiming your desirability when it’s been taken away from you, and the joys of being an alien.
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!
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?
Continue readingWe’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!
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?
Continue readingWe’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!
July 7 – What would make you quit writing?
Continue readingWe’re back for a third month of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Getting into the groove!
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 2 – For how long do you shelve your first draft, before reading it and re-drafting? Is this dependent on your writing experience and the number of stories/books under your belt?
Continue readingWe’re back for a second month of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group! We’re mostly even on time for this one!
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 5 – Have any of your readers ever responded to your writing in a way that you didn’t expect? If so, did it surprise you?
Continue readingMarquessa Matthews challenged herself and other bloggers to answer 31 questions during the month of March. You should check out hers and comment below with a link if you’re playing along!
Jayden: Safety. I feel safe and loved and happy, and that’s a feeling I haven’t felt for a while.
Richard: I just had a wonderful piece of home made bread as a snack. I’m very grateful for it. It’s really not a big deal, and I’m sure it won’t be my number one in five minutes, but sometimes it’s nice to just appreciate the little things in the moment.
Without you, our readers, what would our blog be besides talking to ourselves? We appreciate your views, likes, and comments. We love reading and responding to your messages. We’re super excited to take on the A to Z Blog Challenge, “meet” new bloggers, and most importantly, develop our blogging community even further. Feel free to drop us a line in the comments here or via email at jrvincente@gmail.com. We’d love to have your feedback!
– Jayden and Richard
Marquessa Matthews challenged herself and other bloggers to answer 31 questions during the month of March. You should check out hers and comment below with a link if you’re playing along!
Jayden: Happiness. Finding a new balance for myself. There have been a lot of major changes in my life recently, and balance is going to be an important part of the rest of my year.
Richard: Getting into grad school. I need it for work, and I’m going for an MFA in Creative Writing, so I’m excited to improve my craft.
UPDATE: I got in! Still going to leave this up, since doing well in school is still going to be a major priority for me.
J R Vincente 