Before I get to IWSG, I want to give a quick shout out to the winners of The Cure's giveaway.

Congrats to Jenna Massman, you won the grand prize. Runner ups MJ Fifield, Christine Rains, and J. Lenni Dorner get bookmarks. Watch your emails because I need your mailing info.

​The first Wednesday of every month is the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Posts go up the 1st Wednesday of every month. Check it out here and join if you need support with your writing. Don't forget to stop by and say hi to the co-hosts: Rebecca Douglass, T. Powell Coltrin @Journaling Woman, Natalie Aguirre, Karen Lynn, and C. Lee McKenzie!

This month's question is: How do you define success as a writer? Is it holding your book in your hand? Having a short story published? Making a certain amount of income from your writing?

For me it'd be making income from my writing. I write because I enjoy it and I publish because I think people will enjoy the stories, but saying I paid the internet bill with my writing would be cool. Maybe one day that will happen. That's why I have yet to give up. If I stop then I'm only ensuring it never happens. I keep writing then there's always hope.

Last month, I gushed a bit about how great this group was. Then shilled for help for my next release. I cringed a bit, but IWSG is a great way to get help with your latest book release. Well, this month, I have another thing to shill. It's not a book, though.

I've been writing and publishing for about ten years now. Over that time, there have been tips and tricks I have figured out or learned. It's from all over the web. Recently, I went through the notes I've taken about those tips and tricks. I complied them into PDFs and Templates for future reference. I figured if they helped me then maybe someone else will find them useful.

Introducing the
(K)eep (I)t (S)imple, (S)illy Writer's Tool Kit.

You can find check lists for publishing, simple newsletter sequences, ideas for posting to social media, and templates to write blurbs. And more! You can download it by clicking the button below.

You can do whatever you want with it. Tweak it, change, share it. I don't care. Just don't claim it as your own. At least give me some props as the OG of it. 😉

Have you learned any tips or tricks over the years that has helped your writing? Want to try out what I've figured out?

The first Wednesday of every month is the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Posts go up the 1st Wednesday of every month. Check it out here and join if you need support with your writing. Don't forget to stop by and say hi to the co-hosts: Pat Garcia, Victoria Marie Lees, and Louise – Fundy Blue!

July 7 question - What would make you quit writing?

This question feels apt for me because I have been in a deep rut regarding my writing. I haven't really done much of it lately and I felt like it either. The motivation or desire just hasn't been there.

A slew of articles going around Twitter last month about how hard it is to make a living off writing didn't help. I read them and asked myself, "Why am I putting so much effort when I'm barely getting anything in return?"

I have felt like quitting.

I've considered it and asked myself what else would I like to do? I've been dabbling in book covers, redesigning my own and attempting to find people who'd like me to make them one. Then I got rehired by my old job and I put that aside because between working and my health, I didn't have the energy for a side hustle (or the day job really, so I'm kinda glad the owner was a dick and fired me while I was off recovering from surgery.) Hell, if you've read my post last IWSG, I didn't have the energy for anything.

(Side note on that. Some of you didn't seem to know I had surgery. The surgery has made it so I'm not in that sort of pain every month anymore, but I am having some complications that might mean the endo is growing back. I have an upcoming appointment with the doctor who did the surgery to discuss my options.)

After talking to my friend Tui, I was able to start pinpointing why I was feeling so down trodden: I was grappling with mourning lost time.

Being Human was published ten years ago. I've been doing this for ten years and all ten of those years I had worsening pain that made everything harder. I couldn't write like I wanted. I couldn't promote or market like I wanted. I couldn't network like I wanted. Friendships withered because I didn't have the energy to maintain them. (Being an anti-social introvert does not help.) I had massive insecurity about my marriage because I felt like a burden to my husband instead of a partner.

It's no wonder I had these massive bouts of depression.

Now (fingers crossed) I don't have to survive a life of ever growing pain and exhaustion. I can freaking live. That realization was like a sledgehammer of hope.

But I feel left behind. I'm at square one again, only now things are much harder than they were ten years ago. Things are more pay to play, and there's a ton more players on the field. I don't believe writers are in competition with each other, but we are jostling and elbowing each other because we know a reader's time and income is limited. It is a fight to get your books found.

I think my issue is I see others who started when I did and they are doing well. They didn't have the health issues I did hindering them. Or sometimes I will see someone who does have health issues and they seem to be managing just fine. Why did I struggle so much just to function as a human being? Why couldn't I just push through like they are?

And I realize those are silly questions. No one has a smooth journey and some are way more rocky than others. I don't see the really bad days, just like no one but my husband saw my really bad days. It's more a feeling of failure, like I could have done more. I worry I lost my chance at making anything work.

And that's not rational. (Then again feelings don't like to be logical.)

My friend Tui made a really good point in her reply to me. She said, "Your physical healing is just the beginning of your transformation right now."

Life threw a really huge and painful wrench at me. One that was not easy to overcome. But I freaking survived it. I can't fret about lost time or what I could have done differently. I did the best I could in a hard situation. I may be closer to the start again, but like I said above, I got my life back. I can live.

And I really want writing to be a part of that life.