Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Plus Best Time for Blog Posts, New Releases, and Ninja News

Double shot today!
I am visiting Roan Publishing with The Importance of Community – How to Get Involved and the Unicorn Bell with What If?
Special thanks to Terri and Liz for those opportunities.

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month. I encourage everyone to visit at least a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs.

My awesome co-hosts today are Charity Bradford, S.A. Larsen, AJ, Tamara Narayan, Allison Gammons, and Tanya Miranda!

I wanted to point out that the awesome Julie Flanders wrote an article for College and Research Libraries News about some of the best websites for writers, and she listed the IWSG site! Thanks, Julie.

Thanks also to everyone who helped announce the boxed set of my trilogy, CassaSeries! (And if you’ve read all three books, the series could use with some love on Goodreads.)

At the moment, I’m working on a short story that will take place after Dragon of the Stars. Truedessa has read the book three times and she told me it was because she was hoping for a different ending for Aden and Tamsin. So I am writing one for her that promises some happiness in their future.

And finally, this just blew me away. Thanks to Edi at Edi’s Book Lighthouse for finding it. The Best Sci-Fi Books site listed The 21 Best Space Opera Books and CassaStar was number four. FOUR!!! Ahead of Dune and Ender’s Game. In reality, no way, but it was really awesome to see.

Be sure to visit other members of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group!

Ninja News

Thanks also to Edi for this one – Dark Roasted Blend listed the World’s Strangest Theme Parks. (That site always has the wildest stuff.)

The the WEP-Write...Edit..Publish Bloghop is back!
Hosted by Denise Covey and Yolanda Renee, this is a fun monthly event you don’t want to miss.

Damyanti is hosting a blogfest on July 24, 25, and 26 – The Cherished Blogfest.

MsMariah at A Space Blogyssey is hosting a blogfest – This is How I Work Blogathon. The deadline is July 20 to join and post.

Liesel Hill gave me the Creative Blogging Award.
Thanks, Liesel!
I’m passing it on to Pat Hatt and the Cat at It’s Rhyme Time.

New Releases

Hands by L. Ashley Straker (Known to the blogging world as Ash-Matic.)
A novella
Find out more about the book HERE and purchase it Amazon

A Taste of Pain by G.B. Miller
For an autographed copy, visit his site HERE

When is the Best Time for a Blog Post?

I’ve always heard that it was best to post around 5:00-6:00 am Eastern. I thought I’d do a bit of research and found some interesting stats.

According to the Huffington Post:
70% of users say they read blogs in the morning
More men read blogs at night than women
Mondays are the highest traffic days for an average blog
11am is usually the highest traffic hour for an average blog
Comments are usually highest on Saturdays and around 9am on most days
Blogs that post more than once per day have a higher chance of inbound links and more unique views

From the graphic, it appears that the lowest times are in the middle of the night for those of us in the USA. 12:00–4:00 am are the worst. However, I’m not too sure about the highest comments coming on Saturdays. (Mine come on Mondays, except for IWSG Wednesday.)

Kissmetrics had a great graphic, breaking down times and readers. They also stated:
The average blog gets the most inbound links on Monday and Thursday.
The average blog gets the most inbound links at 7am Eastern Time

Bang for the bucks, I’m sticking with my 5:00 am Eastern Monday postings.

When do you see the most comments and visits?

What are your writer insecurities today? Signing up for any of the bloghops and fests? Picking up some new books? And when do think is the best time for blog posts to go live?

Don’t forget to visit Roan Publishing and the Unicorn Bell!

Happy Fourth of July to my American friends!

Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Plus January Movie Preview, American Hustle Movie Review, and Ninja News

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month. I encourage everyone to visit at least a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs.

My awesome co-hosts today are Bob Milne, River Fairchild, Julie Dao, and Sarah Foster! Please be sure to thank them for their time and effort to make all IWSG members feel welcome.

I’m about seven thousand words into the new manuscript and it’s starting to come together. There will be rewrites of the first several pages, but I’ve hit a good spot now.

The most difficult thing is creating everything new from scratch. My last two books were easier because I knew the universe and I knew the main character. But for this story, it’s a brand new part of the galaxy, a more complex world and political scene, and a new character.

The last one is probably the most difficult. I’m still not a hundred percent sure of Aden’s voice. I found some character exercises online and the one that was the most helpful was writing what the characters thought of one another. At first it was odd, as I don’t write in first person, but it helped to see what the characters were like based on how they viewed everyone else.

Still hope I can pull it off. The whole story came from one song, and expanding it to fill a whole novel has proved to be a challenge!

Anyone else work on a story that wasn’t part of your previous work? What helped you get into that world?

Be sure to visit the Insecure Writer’s Support Group site and other members on the list!

Ninja News

Don’t forget our Online Marketing Symposium is on January 20! Sign up and let us know what has worked (or didn’t) with your online promotions. Open to everyone, not just authors.

Hart Johnson released episodes 6 and 7 of Shot in the Light today!

SA Larson posted the Writer’s Creed for 2014 – sign up at her site.

Charity Bradford is now in charge of blogfests at the Unicorn Bell, and she announced their first one this year - Love is in the Air Blogfest, which runs January 20-24.

Movie Reviews

American Hustle
A fictional retelling of the real life Abscam, which took place in the late 70s. A con man and his partner are forced to work for an FBI agent who wants to take down politicians and the mob.
It had a slow beginning, but once it got going, it was a game of who is hustling who. Similar in tone to Silver Linings Playbook, all of the characters are very odd but likeable. (Typical for a David O Russell film.) The leads were all amazing – Bale, Adams, Renner, Lawrence, and Cooper. Lawrence’s character in particular was just plain crazy but brilliant.
The theme was reinventing yourself if you don’t like who you are and doing whatever it takes to survive.
Definitely an Oscar contender – highly recommended!

Escape From Planet Earth
Had no idea what to expect from this small 2013 release, but it was actually entertaining.
Scorch is the daring hero brother and Gary the nerdy, smart brother who always gets him out of trouble. When Scorch is held captive at Area 51, Gary comes to free him. The animation was good and the characters funny. It’s a simple story that’s just a step below the top animated films out today.
If you liked films like Megamind, you’ll enjoy this one.

January Movie Preview

Here are the upcoming movies for January! Such a sad offering that I included some DVD releases as well. As always, descriptions courtesy of the IMDB. Snarky comments by me.

14 – DVD – Riddick

17 –

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Jack Ryan, as a young covert CIA analyst, uncovers a Russian plot to crash the U.S. economy with a terrorist attack.
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Stars: Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Branagh
Excellent cast and director – this one has potential.



21 – DVD - Captain Phillips

24 –

I, Frankenstein
Frankenstein's creature finds himself caught in an all-out, centuries old war between two immortal clans.
Director: Stuart Beattie
Stars: Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Miranda Otto, Virginie Le Brun
It’s either going to be really cool or really bad, not sure which…


28 – DVD – Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs II

Some awesome things coming next week!

Monday, I have a special guest with a wit that can’t be beat!
Wednesday is huge – another awesome guest, I have a guest post about space opera, and the IWSG is hosting its very first guest!
And coming soon – one epic contest!

Signed up for the Online Marketing Symposium? Taken the Writer’s Creed? Seen American Hustle? Any movies look good to you this month? And what are your writer insecurities…?

Ninja News, Trivia Answers, Blogging Question, Video Feature. and Cassie Invasion!

The Dark Knight Rises is out today! Yes, I will be skipping out on work early to catch the first showing.

Invasion!

The delightful Cassie Mae has invaded the Ninja turf today!

Wow, did Alex really let me invade his blog?? *looks around and pinches self* It is so! Now, before I get into it, I have to say, THANK YOU to the Ninja Captain for asking me to spend the last month fretting over what the heck I’m going to say to his huge ninja army.

I’m a watcher of The Big Bang Theory. And if you are not, you should be. It’s HILARIOUS! There’s a character on the show who always asks questions not everyone thinks of. Such as, “Does Aquaman poop? And if he flushes the toilet in Atlantis, where does the poop go?”

So I talked to a few friends of mine and asked them this: What if Darth Vader wasn’t Luke’s father? Like, he took a paternity test and BAM! Whoopsy, you’re not my kid after all. Would the dark side win in the end? Lots of different answers for sure. Some said if Luke didn’t succeed Leia would have. Some said, heck yeah the dark side would’ve won. And some said if Darth Vader wasn’t their dad, their father would’ve at least had to be a Jedi, or the entire thing of Luke having the Force wouldn’t make sense. Whew! So many things rely on that one fact.

Since Star Wars is my kind of ‘Fairytale’, this is exactly what I thought of for a Plot Twist when we announced the… what is it called? Oh yes, the WHAT IF BLOGFEST in August. :D

Oh, yikes!!! I’ve hit my word limit! I’m going to wrap this up real fast before Alex cuts me off. Think of your stories (if you write) or think of any fairytale (if you read) or just try to answer that Aquaman poop question (if you do neither) and ask the possibilities of ‘What if?’ You’d be amazed how many stories rely on one single element to make them work :)

And did I mention the What If Blogfest? ;)

I totally do the same thing. I wonder if I changed one element of a story, how much it would affect the rest of it. Hmm… sounds like exactly the premise of the What If Blogfest I’m co-hosting in August. (Yes, I’m not above shameless promoting :))

Ninja News!

C. Lee McKenzie’s new book, Alligators Overhead, is out now. Congratulations, Lee!

Rick Daley’s children’s book, Rudy Toot Toot, is also available now. Congratulations, Rick!

DL Hammons of Cruising Altitude announced that the next round of Write Club will begin July 30. This time the stakes are raised, as the final round winner will be selected from a panel of publishing industry experts. What is Write Club? Well, we’re not supposed to talk about it, so you need to visit Cruising Altitude for details…

Howling Wolf Records is offering some cool giveaways – t-shirts, books, CDs, films – you name it! Check out their site for more information and some cool soundtrack and CD reviews. Remember, this site features our very own Retro Zombie, Jeremy!

Charity Bradford announced that the Unicorn Bell is holding a School’s In Query Contest. Check out their site for details.

And finally, Laura Josephsen just signed with agent Natalie Lakosil. Congratulations, Laura!

Blogging Question

Do you post when you can’t access the Internet?

I know some people schedule posts for while they are away. (Lee found a clever way to do this!) Do you? No right or wrong answer. I’d just decided a long time ago that if I couldn’t visit my blogger buddies that day and respond to comments, I wouldn’t post. (Which is why I skipped Wednesday this week. Meetings at work Wednesday and Thursday. As in, six hours a day to cover thirty minutes worth of material.) I just don’t feel right asking you guys to comment when I can’t visit your blogs.

80’s Trivia Answers

1 – To avoid an X rating, ten seconds is cut from this movie staring Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet. Angel Heart

2 – This expansion team joins the NBA the same year as the (former) Charlotte Hornets. Miami Heat

3 – What was the last Bond film to feature Roger Moore as Bond? View to a Kill

4 – This computer company introduces its VIC-20 model personal computer in 1981. Commodore

5 – What movie contains the line “This is pure snow. Do you know the street value of this mountain?” Better Off Dead

6 – Name U2’s first #1 single on the Billboard chart. With or Without You

Video Feature!

Today’s book trailer is for Laura Eno’s Immortal Desires. Enjoy!




Well guys, Cassie wants to know – does Aquaman poop? Excited about the new books, contests, and giveaways? Ready for Write Club? (Remember, don’t talk about it!) Do you post while on vacation? Like Laura’s trailer? And who is ready for The Dark Knight Rises????