#IWSG March 2025: General Update

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 March 5 posting of the IWSG are Ronel Janse Van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, and Liza @ Middle Passages!

The following link will allow you to peruse everyone in the Blog Hop.

Link | IWSG Blog Hop Participants 

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March 5 question - If for one day you could be anyone or thing in the world, what would it be? Describe, tell why, and any themes, goals, or values they/it inspire in you.

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Hello, friends!

I try to draft this post ahead of time to get it posted early but almost forgot it was the first Wednesday already. The short month always throws me off.

I had a super eventful January so I have tried to slow down a bit in February. At least the last half of the month.

I had to do an edit on The Tinsel Twist which is my book that is on submission to publishers, so my agent could send out my second round of submissions.

I don't think I've shared any of the character art here yet that I commissioned for my book. Here's one of the commissions! This one is by artsy.mica on Instagram.

Meet Adelaide, Jace and Ziggy the Cat! They're trying to enjoy a quiet evening (although things go quickly awry because this book is also full of suspense).

After those edits, I had to do a quick edit of SportsWIP that I finished writing in January. I had a dev editor booked for mid-February. The final word count came in at 107k, and I was trying to get it below 100k before it went to the dev editor, but I only managed to get it down to 104k. Whoops. I probably won't be getting the dev edit back until April so I have some more time to let it sit, which is probably good. I think I was struggling editing it because I had just finished writing it and needed to give it some space to breathe. However, I do think I'm going to get the first two chapters critiqued by a few readers and shoot them off to some unpublished competitions that are open right now.

The webinar I presented on February 15th on Surviving the Query Trenches as part of the education mission of The Writers' Troupe group went so well. It was truly a crash course and a lot of information rolled into a 90-minute webinar, but it was so much fun and I'd love to do more webinars/classes in the future.

After that, we went to Con Nooga in Chattanoga on February 21-23rd. It was a ton of fun! It was the first time we'd went to Con Nooga, despite living a couple hours away, and like ChattaCon in Janaury we'd decided to finally check these out. It was a great mix of a fandom con and a con with a lot of panels for writers and horror and fantasy enthusiasts and all kinds of things. And the VENDOR HALL, omg. It was HUGE. I have never seen a vendor hall that big at a con that also offers a full panel schedule.

We got to hang out with our writer friend Bob McGough again and I got to meet my previously online only romance writer friends Beth DeWeese and Kelle Z. Riley.

The writing panels were great, especially the ones with Michael J. Sullivan and his wife Robin. It was awesome to hear how their book empire was built.

I didn't take as many pictures at Con Nooga as I did at ChattaCon last month. I wish I had! But it's okay. I'd recommend checking it out if you're in the area though.

Then on February 26th I hosted an Author Hype Event on Bluesky from my WIPSnips account. WIPSnips is a daily prompt hashtag where people share snippets that include the daily word or are inspired by the daily word. To build community, we had an Author Hype Event where people could pitch their work, no matter if it was finished or published already.

I did see a couple agents get involved and request material, so that was cool! Although industry participation wasn't the goal of the event. It was to connect with other writers.

It was so much fun to see everyone's pitches, and I definitely added a couple books to my TBR and KU.

Did I say I tried to slow down in February? LOL. So I might've slowed down on the actual writing front, but not on the writing-related things front.

I'm working through some beta reads and ARC reads I've got on my plate this month, but I am hoping to get back to some actual writing.

March Question

Today's question asks: -  If for one day you could be anyone or thing in the world, what would it be? Describe, tell why, and any themes, goals, or values they/it inspire in you.

Honestly, I just want to be myself, but I want to be myself living my dream life as a best-selling full-time author.

I want to be working for myself, setting my own schedule, living where I want, traveling where I want, and maybe having a little dash of the celebrity thrown in signing books, going to a premiere of a movie adaptation of one of my books, and inspiring people who are writing their first books.

I don't want to be anyone or anything else. I just want to the fully realized version of myself. And if I could just get a taste of it for a day, maybe it would help me hang onto the vision through all the trials and waiting and rejection that is going to come between now and then.

Unless I can be a lazy house cat on a warm sunny day with a doting owner who treats me like a real child. I might consider that as an alternative. But I might not want to leave that life after a day.

Thanks for stopping by!

What about you? How was your writerly February?

Drop a comment below.

Looking forward to traversing the blog hop this month.

Be sure to see my links for other places to keep up with me online and sign-up for my newsletter! I promise I won't spam you. I don't even have an onboarding auto-welcome post set up yet, but I am working on a reader magnet.

For now,

Rosie J.

Link | Rose on Twitch

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