IWSG: Returning to the Writing Routine in the New Year

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. 2024 was an upside down year for me with my mom having passed away back in October (God, rest her soul) and so I had to ease off of most of my writing projects due to that. So, things got backed up a little at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. Plus, I had to ease off the regular writing routine for the holiday season. So, below is the current status of my overall writing activity.

I normally answer the Question of the month which this month's is Describe someone you admired when you were a child. Did your opinion of that person change when you grew up? However, I'm going to skip this one because, even though I admired a lot of people when I was a child--from my own dad and grandfathers to uncles and even a step grandmother who I actually considered a real grandmother by role--what I admired them for was not really writing-related. However, many of them were good oral story tellers. 

During the holidays, I worked on some writing, mostly fiction, but lightly because I was out of town part of the time. I had no scheduled or set amount of time that I wrote. I just worked on writing whenever a free moment opened up. That was mostly during the week of Christmas. 

Now that I'm rolling again with the writing projects, a goal for me in this new year of 2025 is to get my book of short stories, "Bad  Apps", released by spring. That would be after it's been through beta reads which I'm looking for volunteers for. So, if anyone is interested, let me know. The benefits to volunteering as a beta reader are:

• Getting a free beta version of the book and, as far as “Bad Apps” goes, you can keep the beta book forever!
• Seeing the contents of the book before most other readers.
• Helping the author edit the book: when you read a beta version and give your feedback, you're basically contributing to the editing of the book because the author is likely to make changes based on that feedback.
• Receiving a free image of the final version of the front cover before the book’s official release!
• Receiving a free copy of the official release version of “Bad Apps”!

I don't have a set time yet for when I'll be distributing beta copies of "Bad Apps", but anyone who's interested in volunteering I'll definitely keep informed. 

Another goal that I've set for myself for the new year is to return to posting monthly Book-To-Movie (BTM) reviews! That's a goal that's actually dependent on the release of "Bad Apps" since, as I think I said a while back, I had put the BTM series of posts on hiatus for until after "Bad Apps" is published.

Be here at A Far Out Fantastic Site next Monday for my weekly blog post for a list of 2025's sci-fi/fantasy movie adaptations of books on the big screen! Do you have any writing or reading goals or resolutions for 2025? Who did you admire when you were a child? 

Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts:  Rebecca Douglass, Beth Camp, Liza @ Middle Passages, and Natalie @ Literary Rambles! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Until next time . . .