IWSG: Writing During the Pandemic #IWSGbloghop

 

Insecure Writers Support Group Blog Hop

#IWSGbloghop

What is the Insecure Writer's Support Group?

Founded by author Alex J. Cavanaugh, the Insecure Writer’s Support Group offers support for writers and authors alike. It provides an online database, articles and tips, a monthly blog posting, a Facebook and Instagram group, Twitter, and a monthly newsletter. 

To find out more, click here.

  

The purpose of the group is 

* to share and encourage. 

* Writers can express doubts and concerns 

without fear of appearing foolish or weak. 

* Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. 

*It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! 

You're invited to become a member of this supportive group. 

Click here to sign up and/or to visit the bloggers this week.

Happy IWSG Day!

Welcome February 2025!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello and welcome to the February IWSG Blog Hop! I am looking forward to visiting many of my IWSG friends and meeting new IWSG bloggers! 

Thank you for joining in on the fun.

💖💖💖

The awesome co-hosts for the February 5 posting of the IWSG are Joylene Nowell Butler, Louise Barbour, and Tyrean Martinson!

Every month, there is a question that members can answer in their IWSG posts. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say. 

Remember, the question is optional!

February 5 question - Is there a story or book you've written you want to/wish you could go back and change?

Yes, probably every one of them!!  Okay. I know you all probably said the same thing. If I had to pick just one, it would be my memoir, Arranging a Dream: A Memoir. 

I had been working on the story about our first year in the flower and greenhouse business when COVID struck. Recognizing the profound impact this tragic period had on everyone, my publisher reached out to authors whose books were set to be released in 2020. She offered to postpone the book's release and encouraged us to take the time we needed to complete our manuscripts.

I truly needed that time. Instead of meeting the June 1, 2020 deadline, the publisher released the book on January 1, 2021. What a coincidence. That was the anniversary of our first day as business owners 45 years ago!

Arranging a Dream
a feel-good memoir
eBooks available
at all major online bookstores
and in print

When I read through the book many months after publishing, I could see where the pandemic had interrupted my life and stolen my sense of storytelling. The memoir reads as if was written by two different people. The last part of the book is stilted and includes too much narrative instead of including dialogue, reflections, and emotions. 

The anxiety and fear that we were living with drained me both physically and emotionally. I could not write about that turning point in my life when my husband and one-year-old daughter and I moved from our friends and family in Central Illinois to West Michigan to follow our dream. And we did!

Yes, I would like to write the last part of the book again, but maybe not. Maybe that was the way the end chapters were supposed to be. I am thankful I was able to finish it and we made it through the pandemic alive and well.

I know your life was disrupted during that horrific time. How did the pandemic affect your writing? 

Please leave a comment below. Do you have a turning point in your life that you need to share with your family and/or publish for the world to hear your voice? Go for it!! You'll be amazed at what you learn about yourself, plus your family will love to know all about the "good ole days."

💖💖💖

Happy Valentine's Day from J.Q. Rose!

Thank you for stopping in today! I'll be hopping about cyberspace visiting IWSG bloggers!

Click here to sign up to join the monthly blog hop and visit the bloggers this week.

Connect online with JQ Rose:

Email: jqrose02 @ gmail dot com

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What Do Gardening and Writing Have in Common? #vegetablegarden #writingstories #tomatoes #growingvegetables

 Hello and Welcome to the Focused on Story Blog. I am JQ (Janet) Rose, your host.

Tomatoes
Photo by JQ Rose

We have been enjoying some fantastic vegetables from our garden with an abundant crop of
tomatoes at the moment. GT, (Gardener Ted), made 1.5 gallons of tomato juice yesterday!

The question is:

What Do Gardening and Writing Have in Common?

What do gardening and writing have in common? You may smile at that question because that sounds absurd. But, after much consideration, I realized they are very similar.

GT in our garden

Perhaps you’re wondering why I would even think about such a comparison. It’s because my husband, Gardener Ted, is the gardener in our family. I am the writer. These two topics are foremost in my mind in the growing season.

Read on to find out what similarities I see in gardening and writing in preparation, planning, nurturing and harvesting. Can you think of more?

*Preparing a garden for planting—Before a gardener can plant the garden, she has to turn the soil over to get rid of all the dead plants, leaves, and detritus in the plot. Perhaps the garden needs added nutrients to grow the plants, so a soil sample sent to the County can help determine what is required to grow plants. A water source close to the plot is ideal so one does not have to carry buckets of water every day.

A writer prepares to write by gathering the seeds of inspiration that try to root in our fertile brains.  Select one, then focus on that one. It seems that ideas fill the writer’s brain while walking, in the shower, or in the middle of the night when one does not have access to writing down those brilliant ideas for characters, settings and situations.

Gardening and Writing

*Planning a garden—Before doing any planting, the gardener sits down and sketches the layout of the plot to determine how much growing space she has. This will help her decide where to put the plants and how many she needs for the season.

In my case, as a planner, not a pantser-style writer, I make notes about the story I am going to write. Some writers outline their story, make a storyboard or sketch scenes that they see clearly. Then there are the pantser writers who write by the seat of their pants with no planning. I have tried that, and I made more work for myself because I had to remove a LOT of words that did not move the story forward.

*Planting the garden-- One does not haphazardly decide to throw seeds in the garden or plant seedlings anyplace without considering the shade and sunny areas. Read the back of the seed package to discover when to plant the seed and how many days it will be for harvesting. Be practical and realize the size of the area you have for a garden. Don’t buy a ton of plants with no room to plant them!

Planting for a writer is putting words on the page. Beginning a story can be difficult for those who are perfectionists. Don’t be paralyzed by trying to get the perfect beginning to the story. From experience, I realize the beginning usually has to change once the ending is written. The first draft is written knowing there will be changes to make a tighter, stronger story in the second draft, and the next and the next... Ernest Hemingway said, “The only writing is re-writing.”

*Nurturing the garden—I love gardeners. They are optimists. Every spring when they plan and plant the garden, they always look forward to a great harvest. Even if last year’s crops were pitiful, they plant with happy hearts seeing only a productive, tasty outcome. But they do not plant the garden and then leave it to grow on its own.  It takes work to get results--caring for the plants by weeding, fertilizing, and fighting pesky insects’ invasions as well as, protecting the plants from hungry rabbits and deer. Because Mother Nature likes to play tricks on gardeners, they are always watchful of temperature changes and rainfall.

A writer doesn’t write the story and then leave it alone either. There must be many readings to edit for the flow of the story, character development, grammar, punctuation, making sure your character has blue eyes and drives a red car throughout the story and a satisfying ending that wraps up loose ends.

*Harvesting the garden—The reward for the hard work is a crop of delicious vegetables brought from the garden, washed, prepared and eaten at the gardener’s table. Another unexpected reward is the smiles on neighbors and friends when the gardener shares her vegetables with them.

Much like sharing the harvest, the reward for a writer is finishing the story, poem, novel or essay and sharing it with others. I know many write for the joy of telling a story but keep it locked in their computer, a drawer or hidden under the bed. I encourage you to read or tell your stories whether reading them to a friend or group or publishing them for the whole world to enjoy.

Another reward I didn’t know about until I was a published author is meeting other authors/writers along the way. I have met so many generous, kind writers through the Internet. Many I call friends even if we have never met in person. The whole world opens up to you when you join the amazing folks who are writing their stories.

Wishing you lots of tasty vegetables from your garden

and a feast of stories to write and enjoy.   

Are you a gardener? What is your favorite vegetable? 

Please leave your answers in the comment section below.

Thank you for stopping in today!!

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I Am a Storyteller! by J.Q. Rose #storytelling #writingstories #writing #readingoutloud

 

Fiction and Non-fiction Books by J. Q. Rose

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog!

I chose the title of this blog because I love stories!! Reading them. Writing them. Teaching how to write or tell them. Listening to them.

JQ presenting a life storytelling workshop

I broke into the writing business after we sold our flower shop and greenhouse operation in 1995. (uh-oh..that may be a spoiler if you're reading my memoir, Arranging a Dream!)

Pumpkins growing in our garden. 

I collected all of my courage to ask the regional newspaper editor, Rich Wheater if he would be interested in having some features on people and businesses in our local area. He asked me to submit an article, so I did. I wrote about a local farm family who raised pumpkins and sold the plump beauties displayed in long lines in their front yard. It was October, so it was a timely story. Rich accepted the story and many more that I penned about West Michigan. 

I learned a lot about writing for a newspaper and about writing crisp, to-the-point articles. I did not like it when Rich had to shorten the story to make way for advertisements! That's when I learned all the essentials, such as location, people or business names, time and dates for events, had to be at the beginning of the article. I always appreciated his editing the stories to improve the readability. 

When we decided to make our fifth-wheel camper our home full-time in 1998, I wrote about the RV industry for magazines and newspapers as we meandered across the country. I also wrote for e-zines, now known as online magazines, as a garden editor. The internet became my best friend for articles.

After a while, I tired of writing non-fiction stories and turned to creating fictional stories, a love of mine since I was in second grade. 

Your Words, Your Life Story

On this blog, I also encourage folks to write their fiction and non-fiction stories. I have many articles about helpful tools for writers.

Life Storytelling Evangelist! 

I am a storyteller, and I believe everyone has a story to tell. In fact, I am such a life storytelling evangelist, I created a journal from the life-storytelling workshops I have taught through the years. Your Words, Your Life Story: A Journal for Sharing Memories helps to guide readers through ways to spark memories and record their legacy for their families and friends, and/or publish them for the world to read their messages.

Listening to Stories

 Do you remember listening to your teacher read a story out loud to your class? Mrs. Beyer, my 8th grade, yes 8th-grade teacher, always read a story after lunch. Even at 13-14 years old, our class loved listening to the story. I had to read the heart-wrenching ending to Charlotte's Web because Mrs. Beyer was so emotional, she couldn't continue. Have you read Charlotte's Web? You'll understand.

When I taught third grade, I made a point to read to my kids after lunch every day. Every year, I read Charlotte's Web, and we all shared a teary moment. 

Diana Kathryn Plopa invited me to read a story out loud for her series of Indie Authors Read Aloud, so I am sharing the video with you. I hope you can take time for a break and enjoy listening to the beginning of Terror on Sunshine Boulevard. Some day I'll have to tell you the back story to this book!

The reading begins about 5 minutes into the video.

Click here to watch.

Do you love to listen to audiobooks? Do you love to read to kids? Please leave a comment below. I enjoy receiving feedback. Thank you.

Quick Tips on Vegetable Gardening
by J.Q. Rose

We celebrated the first day of spring on Sunday, March 20. Ready to plant your garden? Click here to download this quick read for 99 cents. Get started growing your veggies for 2022!

Wishing you a delightful spring season and a bounteous summer of gardening!

Podcast https://anchor.fm/diana-kathryn-plopa/episodes/Episode-Three-with-J-Q--Rose-and-Terror-On-Sunshine-Boulevard-e1etgkq

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHrZvVix9sE&t=5s