#IWSG: Covers

 

Purpose: 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!

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG

The awesome co-hosts for the February 1 posting of the IWSG are Jacqui Murray, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, and Gwen Gardner!

Every month, our wonderful leaders announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. 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.

February 1 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?

I like this month's question. I'll add the suggestion that if you purchase covers, you might share a bit about how you source them, to help others in search of covers.

For me, I've largely purchased my covers, custom designs by Dani English at Kanizo arts. I have done some on my own--ebook covers for my short-story collections. I'm not really a visual artist, but I do have some amateurish fun with Photoshop and am pretty happy with the results. I think that if you write in genres that use photos on covers, as opposed to original art (almost universal in cozy mysteries), it's worth working up some Photoshop skills and playing with doing your own--but if they don't look good enough, bite the bullet and pay.

That out of the way, I'll throw in my writing progress update. I've written a couple of bits of flash fiction, and have a more coherent vision of what my class down at the senior center is looking like. Oh--and I sold a story, something that hasn't happened in a very long time, so a little celebration here. That leaves one on submission, and two I'm working on to send out.

Still, perhaps the most amazing success is that I've finished my Xmas letter, well ahead of my usual schedule (but still have to mail it out, of course--that can take a while too). That's the letter I send to friends and family. You know, the one that most people do before the holidays? Which may tell you all you need to know about my relationship to time.

I've also read a number of books, with reviews and commentaries starting to come out on the blog. Many of the books have to do with my mission to educate myself about trans persons, in the weeks since my adult child came out to me and the world. Her journey, IMO, is her own business and I won't be trying to write about that. My journey I am preparing to talk about. Short version: I have direct experience of what is worth grieving over. My kid finding her way to greater happiness is not something to grieve over. Shock and confusion are inevitable, but sorrow? Not really.

That's all I have to say for today, but I'm sure I'll have more thoughts as time goes on, aside from the one that wandered in the other day: is Big Al of the Ninja Librarian books trans? You could read it that way. 

 

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2023

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