#IWSG and #ROW80 –it’s Wednesday
Posted on: February 8, 2018
- In: Blog Hop
- 4 Comments
A whole month of 2018 down and once again it is time for
Another
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| 2018 ROW80 Check-in | IWSG | WWW Wednesday Post |
Post
(click below an image to go to the specific section you want if you don’t want to read the whole post)
As one of my ROW80 goals was to blog more consistently and as I want to become more active in the IWSG (Insecure Writers Support Group) and as I am reading (a lot of late) and wish to share my pleasure… this trio of hops has become a “thing”.
First things last and last things first, WWW Wednesday: where, according to the rules of the bloghop, I need to answer three main questions:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Currently? I am still plowing slowly through Cathedrals of England by Sir Nicholas Pevsner (a very information dense book, and as we’re going to England again this fall, also personal research). In Like Flynn is the Molly Murphy mystery du jour, though I find the intrusive authorial voice very distracting… (the books are set in 1st person POV, but Molly’s voice floats between her present and past, and often she knows things I cannot imagine her knowing… and sometimes she doesn’t know things that seem quite impossible for her to not know!) The historical detail is nice, but Bowen doesn’t hold as much to the history of the times, or at least I don’t feel as immersed in the period as much as I do with Thompson’s Gaslight series. (The first book of the series was delightful, however!)
Recently? I have finished all but the last of the Gaslight Mysteries (so far…), as our local library system doesn’t have the newest book yet. That’s okay. Plenty of other reading to do. I also finished my ARC of To Woo a Wicked Widow and posted my review to Goodreads.
Next? I still have plenty of Molly Murphys to go through, and a handful of other reads. This past week wasn’t the binge session I’d planned. It’s good I can renew the books. A bunch are due today, and we’re nearly snowed in already.
Secondly, we have the Insecure Writers Support Group where writers share their doubts and concerns and just express how things may/may not be going in their writing careers. Optionally, there is a question we can answer, which presently fits a lot of my recent doubts and fears:
February 7 question – What do you love about the genre you write in most often?
Hmmm, need some background for this, I think, as much because it’s not something I’d considered before. I used to think I wanted to write science fiction, stories that would make readers think and question the way we are moving in society and political thinking. The magic of fantasy however, with its touches of childhood fairy tales and themes of history and grand epics, fast out-paced my desire to “teach” the world anything. The story was what mattered to me… it was the bit that held me in my play as a child and drew me to explore new places (and look at old ones in a new light).
But writing fantasy, at least for me, always fell short somehow. As my characters became more real, they stopped being the mythical heroes of yore, stopped becoming archetypes in a bardic yarn. And they didn’t fit… the setting might still be fantasy, the situations are often fantastic, but they were much more about people living in this world I saw in my head. People who lived emotional, full and often romantic lives. And the happiness in those romantic moments constantly drew me (as well as the conflicts that often revolved around those romantic moments). It seemed pretty obvious once one of my local writing group friends pointed out the elements, that I was already writing romances… just romances in a fantasy-based world.
So… the genre is fantasy romance, stories built on a world of magic (and some machinery, though that’s not always apparent) of grand wars, political upheavals, and brave-hearted people (I wouldn’t call them heroes, since they wouldn’t call themselves that either) who are just trying to find some joy in the midst of the upheaval and do the right thing for those they love and care about.
I love how convoluted that can get. Even when we think we’re all on the same side… how we achieve a goal (and how we want to achieve it) is usually not the same as the people we are working with.
As for hopes and fears….
Well, I hope now that I’m feeling this reading binge coming to a close, that I will soon find myself filling pages with all the ideas that I’ve tossed about. Better the page than my dreams… because I haven’t been sleeping well. My characters have been talking up storms (nothing they’ve told me to write yet, drat them!) these past few nights. It’s time for the bunch of us to start earning our tea and biscuits.
And lastly, but not least, here is the ROW80 check-in (which has been somewhat answered by the prior two sections). For those who didn’t see my goals for the upcoming 12-weeks of ROWing, you can see them here. And you can find our very supportive and helpful group here, if you want to know more about the ROW80 in general.
I haven’t been writing much at all. There have been space issues and then there was being sick and there was the reading obsession… None of these helped my head to be all that creative when it came to output. But I did keep up with my blogging, and I have found sparks of inspiration and feeling a need to jot ideas down here and there. More sense of setting and place… my characters are stubbornly turning aside and whispering when they think I might be listening in on their conversations. Maybe they don’t want to talk with the characters from the books I’ve read?
As far as sponsor posts and visits, I’m keeping up… though I really do need to get on the ball and start changing the ROW80 website. I’d hoped to get together this week with Shan Jeniah to talk design and layout a bit. The weather isn’t cooperating at the moment however, and with a very whuffly Boodle home from school today, I don’t know if it’ll happen all week.
One of these days! Until then… time to read some more people’s works and see what comes to me when I set a pen to paper (well, stylus to phone). 750 words… today
4 Responses to "#IWSG and #ROW80 –it’s Wednesday"
February 11, 2018 at 3:51 am
I also go on reading binges. I can’t seem to write much during it but after it’s over, it all comes out. I like the idea of a fantasy romance and can see the appeal of reading or writing a story like that. I hope you sleep better soon!
A Garden of Delights 
February 10, 2018 at 4:12 am
Interesting observation. I remember when Stephenie Meyer’s The Host came out. Since it’s SciFi, my coworker said she wouldn’t read it even thought she’d loved the Twilight books. I told her that Meyer was all about relationships, so it wouldn’t focus on the science. She risked it and loved it.
May 13, 2018 at 7:02 am
Sounds like a great gift you gave your coworker… the chance to expand her perspective and discover new loves. Thanks for pointing this out, Donna.