writers group – Cynthia Hilston

Review of Second Week in November by Kathleen Joyce

secondweek

Summary: Tucked in a cozy corner of the Pacific Northwest, the charming town of Amelia Bay becomes the focus of the media who have descended on the community seeking a sensational tabloid story. A beautiful young waitress, from Harrigan’s Irish Pub, disappears. Did she simply walk away, was she kidnapped, or worse? Clare Harrigan’s brother, Finn, a successful movie producer, finds himself up to his neck in hot water. The new Chief of Police believes he has his man. Can Clare clear Finn? She and her friends have to solve another murder amid the hubbub of getting ready for Thanksgiving and her son’s wedding. Someone is determined to stop Clare from finding the truth.

Join the Harrigan Clan and their friends, as they serve up more delicious meals of comfort food served around cozy fireplaces, in the second book of the Amelia Bay Mystery series.

Note: I am part of a writers group that has read and critiqued this novel during its creation. I am also a good friend of the author and served as an editor for her. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

Kathleen Joyce is back with her engaging cozy mystery series involving Clare and her group of gals in lovely Amelia Bay. Just coming off the horrific events of the first novel, Clare is looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas and her son’s wedding, but murder is happening again in this sweet fictional Pacific Northwest small town. When a young waitress named Bets who works at the local pub disappears and a mysterious group of people belonging to the cult Evening Star walk into the bar one evening inquiring after her whereabouts, things turn bad for Clare’s ladies’ man, Hollywood producer brother, Finn, who was dating Bets. Just as one murder seems bad enough, another woman’s body turns up…on Clare’s property. Clare and her friends are determined to clear Finn’s good name and get to the bottom of these murders, but someone has it out for Clare and her family. The stakes grow higher as the story progresses, and amidst delectable desserts, warm fires, glasses of wine, and tasty meals and the elaborately-brought-to-life background of Amelia Bay, you can’t help but be written right into the action yourself. Joyce tells a carefully crafted tale that delivers a satisfying ending.

Her writing style reads smoothly. Even lengthy descriptive passages that are part of the cozy-telling formula are well-rendered and don’t get in the way of the plot. The dialogue between various characters is engaging and often delightfully humorous, as sweet as the desserts in the book and just a little sassy. Such dialogue plays an integral part in bringing Clare and her friends to life.

You will want to be sure to read the author’s final and third book in the Amelia Bay series when it’s released later this year.

My review of the first book in this series is here.

5 out of 5 stars

Purchase Second Week in November (An Amelia Bay Mystery Book 2) on Amazon

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What’s Holding You Back from Your Dreams?

Everyone has dreams, and I don’t mean the kind you have at night when your mind slips into an unconscious state.

When you’re asked what your dreams are, what do you say? Do you freeze up, unable to articulate your dreams because you claim you aren’t sure? I’m not a betting person, but I’m willing to bet the uncertainty that plagues you is fear.

Maybe you won’t even name your dreams or dare to dream because of fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of embarrassment, low self-esteem, a negative self-image, and caring too much that others think or say (which is mostly in your mind, anyway) are all factors of not daring to dream in the first place.

I have been following a vlogger on YouTube for years now who I think is beautiful (inside and out), talented, adorable in her antics, inspiring, and a fighter. She admits often that the persona she portrays to the world in her videos is much more confident than she really is.

I used to be shy, but now I am able to talk and usually joke around with just about anyone. I can laugh about life when I’m in a group, even the things that bother me. Put me alone with my thoughts, and I am not that outgoing, confident person.

I get what this vlogger is saying. We can put on a smile on the stage. As I wrote in one of my novels, a smile can cover a lot of pain. Laugh enough and it doesn’t hurt so much, right? Yeah, something like that.

I look at this lovely young woman who I know only through the Internet and marvel. She has enormous support, but with any sort of fame come those who are all too happy to belittle, threaten, and hurt. Funny how 99 people can compliment you, but it only takes that one person to tear you down. What do we focus on? The negative.

Like this vlogger I follow and think the world of, many people suffer inwardly. She admits to turning down several opportunities because she doesn’t feel worthy. She has wonderful dreams, but her low self-confidence gets in the way. That is what holds her back from her dreams. She knows that.

For years, I said I wanted to be a published author. That was my dream, at least one of them. Yet for years, I did very little to make my dreams a reality. I had ideas for my first novel (based off my late grandma’s life, who I loved dearly). You can read more about the inspiration behind my first book here.

I managed a few pithy chapters. I read my grandma’s diary and a few pages she had written about her life while growing up. I jotted down several notes. This was between October 2006 and January 2009. I then left the book sitting on my hard drive. I hadn’t forgotten about it, but whenever I thought about sitting down at the keyboard and writing, I faltered. Overwhelmed at the prospect of writing an original story, I let fear dictate my actions and reasons.

Fear wasn’t the only culprit. It was easy to find excuses, a hundred other things that needed my daily attention. Many of those things were legitimate, like caring for my young kids and the house, but I believe if you really want something, you will do whatever you need (within reason) to attain it.

If I wanted to work out more, I would get to the gym more often. If I wanted to eat healthier, I wouldn’t buy chocolate or go through the McDonald’s drive thru. If I wanted to save more money, I would stop buying unnecessary items.

Sure, I want these things, but how much do I want them? Not enough, apparently.

I came to the hard realization that even though part of me wanted better or more, I must not have wanted those things badly enough.

I have written about having no regrets in a previous blog post. This one ties into that. Both topics involve fear of failure.

I believe the only way to fail is to do nothing.

In March 2015, I finally make a life-altering decision: I would write every day on my original story, even if I never published it, even if no one ever read it. Tired of traipsing through the lands of other authors and their characters in the world of fan fiction for 20 years, I knew that if I was to take myself as a writer seriously, I NEEDED to write every day, even if only for ten minutes.

Ten minutes. That’s all I told myself. It was a realistic goal.

To reach your dreams, you must set realistic, attainable, often short-term goals. Setting the goal of writing a whole book could have been too much. It was for me for years. As I said, overwhelming. I had already committed to exercising at least three days a week and had been doing it for three years at that point. If I could do that, I could write for ten minutes a day. Besides, I loved writing. I believe and have always believed that writing is in my blood, my fourth child (I have three actual ones), and was one of my purposes in life.

Your life purpose is what drives your desire to have dreams, but getting there is the intimidating and often difficult part. Goals at the stepping stones, every inch of pavement poured to create the road you travel from purpose to dreams. Day by day, little goal by little goal, you get there.

I finished my first draft of my first novel ten months after seriously sitting down to write it. I published it seven months after that. Once I got going, I couldn’t stop. I now have published a second novel, completed two more, and am nearing completion on my fifth.

Besides all this? I have joined a writers group at my local library, which you can read more about here. I have made invaluable friendships with several of these wonderful people who are like-minded. They are writers. They understand my raison-d’etre. I get them.

I have days when I question my ability to write, but they are fleeting. Our days are numbered in a fleeting life, so why do anything other than go for your dreams? If I hadn’t overcome my fears, I would have never gotten where I am today. I wouldn’t have shared my stories. I wouldn’t be spending time doing what I love daily. I wouldn’t have met so many lovely friends.

Speaking of friends, a long-time and dear friend of mine has written extensively on the topics of life purpose, goals, and dreams on her blog. I highly recommend you check her blog out if you would like to seriously pursue these topics further.

It’s funny that I had this blog idea for months and how its placement at the beginning of February coincided with my friend’s recent blog posts about the same topics. Fortuitous? Meant to be? I would like to think so.

Keeping dreaming, my friends, but if you’re serious about making your dreams a reality, you have to do the work. Pave your road with goals, not good intentions. Build your life with action, not ideas.

As any good writer knows, a story is driven by action. Ideas are good and all, but a good idea doesn’t necessarily make for a good story. You have one life. Make it a good story, even a great one.

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My novel, Lorna versus Laura, is available for only $2.99 here.

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The Benefits of Joining a Writers Group

There it was for probably the hundredth time on the sign outside my local library: writers group, meeting 8/18 2-4:00 PM. Okay, maybe not the hundredth time, but how many times did I drive past the library, which is about two point five miles from my house, and see that group advertised and not do a darn thing? The sign was one of those LED types that showed all the happenings at the library, from book discussion groups to story times for children. And my library had a writers group.

Of course, every time I saw that sign, I wondered, What do they do at those meetings? Do they just sit there and write? Do writing exercises? Or do they read each other’s work while there and comment on it?

I imagined a small group, maybe four people tops, sitting around a table with pens in hand and paper in front of them. These folks were nameless and faceless and voiceless. Strangers. I couldn’t really believe that there were actually other people in my own city who were writers like me!

I’d been writing for over a year last August. I was content with my progress at creating a finished book and self-publishing it, but I’d had to ask several friends to read it and edit for me. Looking back, I feel like I was pulling teeth in some regards, because only about half of them got back to me, and I didn’t wish to push them into doing something they may not have wanted to do in the first place — except that they probably would have felt guilty had they said no to reading my first draft.

While I was grateful to that group of friends, I knew that to ask my friends again for help of such a magnitude would be too much. I was writing two more books, and let’s be honest — most people aren’t writers and editors.

So I thought, Why not give this mysterious writers group a try?

On August 18, 2016, I approached the library with a mixed feeling of nervous energy and excitement. Every footstep carried me closer to the light brick building I had known and visited plenty of times in the thirteen years of living here. But this time was different. I held tightly in my grip the first chapter of my current work in progress, thinking I needed to bring something along.

I entered the library and asked the lady behind the circulation desk where the writers group met. She directed me to a meeting room near the back of the building, past the computers. When I stepped into the room, at least ten people of all ages (well, thirty and up) were seated around the table and all looked at me at the same time. The chair at the head of the long table was unoccupied, so I took a seat and offered a smile.

The woman to my left and the man to my right immediately introduced themselves to me, and a minute later, the man who ran the group (and worked at the library) told me his name (let’s call him Jack) and asked me to tell them a little about myself. I was at ease in this group, for they were welcoming and pleasant. And I wasn’t the only newbie that day. Another woman (let’s call her Kate) about the same age as me (mid-thirties) was there for the first time. Kate smiled at me across the table. I was at home.

I sat there for the next two hours and got a handle on how the group functioned. Everyone present had read everyone else’s work and had made comments on the content and suggestions for grammatical or punctuation changes. As they went around the table, whoever was next in the lineup got their turn to have their work critiqued by the others. Not everyone spoke, but most did. I could tell most of these folks had been meeting for a while. Their easygoing manner was inviting. There was plenty of humor. No one was offensive or rude. It was like stepping into a group of good friends who were hanging out and enjoying some good food and drinks.

At the end, Jack asked me what I thought and if I’d like to come back. “Yes!” I said. I gave him my email address, and he explained how the group worked: They met every two weeks. I needed to send him up to ten pages of my stuff before the first week was up, so he could then send out everyone’s stuff about a week before the next meeting, giving us all enough time to read and comment.

I was so enthusiastic that I sent him my chapter the very next day, even though I had a week to do so! And so began the tradition that’s continued for almost a year.

People have come and gone from the group over the last several months, but there is a core group that keeps coming. I have had the pleasure of reading what I consider good stories from a variety of genres from these folks: regular and cozy mysteries, romance, horror, nonfiction, short stories, sci-fi, and more. There have been a few recent additions to the group who have become core as well, and it’s been amazing to see how the dynamic has stayed positive and inviting, with the humor never far away, since I joined.

What’s funny is that some people will shy away from joining groups like this out of fear. If you’re a writer, maybe you just write for yourself, and that’s fine. There are, however, many writers who want to get their stuff out there. They write for their own pleasure and to share it with other people. To allow fear of what others might say about your work is debilitating. If you are serious about publishing your work, others will eventually read it…at least I would assume that’s what you want if you’re publishing it!

There have been times when what I submitted to the writers group needed some work, sometimes quite a bit of work. I have gotten tough to swallow feedback, especially when it’s right in the moment. Let’s face it — our writing is kind of like our baby, our kid. We sort of fall in love with it (at least some of us do), and it’s hard to hear someone rip it apart. Okay, that was harsh. I have not had my stuff ripped to shreds. No one in the group has ever discouraged me from writing or said I was wasting my time. No one name calls or says that the work of another is only good for wiping someone’s backside.

Constructive criticism is meant to build up. It may be tough to take, but swallow it down and let it digest a bit. Realize that not everything you write it going to be stellar. Some of it’s downright crap. And that’s okay. Because you know what?

You and I, we work at it again and again. And come back better and stronger for it. I am extremely and deeply grateful for my writers group. I have told them this a few times, and I hope they believe it.

I recently finished a whole manuscript with them. Ten months of edits on that baby have improved the story tremendously, and without this group of amazing people, I wouldn’t have been able to have the finished product I do.

If you’ve been looking for a writers group, check out your local library. If your library doesn’t have one, maybe there’s one in the next city over or in the county. In this digital age, there’s no excuse not to pop online and do a search. If you’re still out of luck, perhaps suggest to someone at the library that they start a group…or even offer to run it if they don’t have someone for the job. If you know at least a couple of other writers who are looking for a group like this and they’re local, start a group that meets in your homes, a coffee shops, or wherever works for you. But make the commitment to meet regularly. Have a routine, a schedule. Hold each other accountable to it.

If none of that works, there are plenty of groups online. It’s not as great as face-to-face contact, but it’s better than nothing. Facebook has loads of groups for writers, but I recommend 10 Minute Novelists. This isn’t a group to share your story directly, but every Tuesday is Buddy Day, and you can ask for someone to read your story and edit, often in exchange for doing the same for them. Don’t expect people to line up to read your stuff if you aren’t willing to give back.

Besides the invaluable feedback on my stories I’ve gotten from my writers group, I have made friends with them. There have been times when the subject matter of a story has triggered something for someone in the group, and real life stories have been shared in that meeting room. Stories of loss and heartache. Tears have been shed. Hugs given. Our hearts bared.

We’re writers. We write about our deepest fears, desires, and our heart’s song, so why wouldn’t we also express those thoughts face-to-face? That sort of genuine interaction isn’t easily come by.

Friendship. Constructive criticism. People reading your story. Improving your writing.

What’s not to love? I’d say it’s a no-brainer. Go join a writers group!

Like what you’ve read? Please subscribe to my blog, where I post a new blog at the end of every week and a book review blog the 15th of every month.

Also, check out my novel, Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful, available for $2.99 any other time on Amazon: Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful