Insecure Writers Want to Know: Are You a Risk-taker When Writing? Try Something Different in Style/POV? Add Controversial Topics to Your Work?

Who me? A risk taker? I’m a big chicken, remember? But you know, if we really dive deep into this question. Aren’t all writers risk takers?  

We risk sending out our tender new stories—our babies—to strangers in order to be published. To see if gatekeepers feel our stories are good enough to be out in the world. We send them to agents or editors, small presses and publishers.

Or -

We risk publishing them ourselves to see if others feel our stories are good. We take on the personal responsibilities of editing and revising them, laying the stories out, spending our hard-earned capital for book covers and publishing methods. 

So maybe the answer is yes, I’m a risk taker of sorts, when it comes to my stories. To getting published. To getting out there in the world with my voice, my themes, my morals. No matter which publishing method I try.  

As for trying something radically different in style or POV or adding controversial topics to my work, no. I haven’t tried any of this in my creative writing. Not yet! How about you? 

It will be interesting to see how you’ve tackled this month’s question. It’s wonderful having a topic to share our thoughts on each month. I am extremely thankful for all of you for being my sounding board and advisors in this writing and publishing journey.

A small update about my college memoir:

·       It’s about 60,000 words.

·       My current title choice is The Courage to Believe – One Mother’s Journey Through College.

·       This is a story about a mother who learns to believe in herself and her dream of college after someone tries to rip the same dream away from her daughter.

·       How many beta readers do you usually have?

Please feel free to offer any insight on this.

Thanks again for visiting! Be sure to stop by Adventures in Writing again. 

This post was written for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.  I’d like to thank our co-hosts for April: PK Hrezo, Pat Garcia, SE White, Lisa Buie Collard, and Diane Burton. Please visit them if you can. 

Our group posts on the first Wednesday of every month. To join us, or learn more about the group, click HERE.  

Insecure Writers Want to Know: If you could choose one author to be your beta partner, who would it be? Why?

            First, I’d like to thank you, my fellow Insecure Writers, for your patience while we moved. In that short space of time, we moved our oldest daughter in with her sister and her family. My husband and I packed up our home of 36 years, sold it, and moved three hours away. And finally, we moved my 96-year-old mother-in-law into a nursing home. Sheesh! I’ll be going through boxes forever looking for what I need at the moment. You can read a short post with photos about our moving adventure at http://campingwithfivekids.blogspot.com.  

            Now let me think…the perfect beta partner for me, if I could choose anyone, would have to be the writing teacher and author Beth Kephart.  Kephart has the ability to look at themes and characters from many angles. She sees the story beneath the plot. This is a gift for any writer.        

            Kephart is a memoirist as well as a YA writer and poet, and it never ceases to amaze me how she can uncover such deep emotional truths in life through story, in both fiction and memoir. 

            I write both YA fiction and memoir and would love to hear her feedback on whether I have reached the inner core of the story I’m trying to visualize for the reader. However, being that highly insecure writer that I am, I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to hear it. Of course this is why writers need to be brave in order to improve their writing. We must learn from each other. Share ideas and methods. Choose the ones that will work for us to make our stories the best they can be. And then we need to be brave enough to let the stories go and send them out into the world for others to judge whether we have accomplished our goal of creating a great story. 

I’ll be interested to see how you’ve tackled this month’s question. It’s great having a topic to share our thoughts on each month. I am extremely thankful for all of you for being my sounding board and advisors in this writing and publishing journey. 

Thanks so much for visiting! Please follow Adventures in Writing if you haven’t already and connect with me online. Leave your blog link in your comment so I can be sure to do the same for you.

This post was written for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. We post on the first Wednesday of every month.  To join us, or learn more about the group, click HERE.