Melissa Maygrove

  This is my   Insecure Writers Support Group   post for August 2024. Alex's awesome co-hosts this month  are:  Feather Stone, Kim Lajevardi,   Diedre Knight, C. Lee McKenzie,   and Sarah - The Faux Fountain Pen! Please stop by their blogs and say thank you .  💻💻💻💻💻 Because AI has become such a divisive topic - to a level that authors' careers are being harmed over the mere suspicion of its use - I have decided to skip this month's question.  I haven't been the victim of any attacks that I'm aware of, and I don't use AI to make my covers or write my books, but Id rather err on the side of not making myself a target. On a brighter note, going part time at my job has paid off. 😊 I finished the first draft of the next book in my western series. Now the editing begins. Fun, fun. Not. (Actually, it is kind of fun to see the whole thing finally come together.) I'm reviving my Street Team . If you or anyone you know is interested in joining, please  fill ou

  This is my   Insecure Writers Support Group   post for July 2024. Alex's awesome co-hosts this month  are:  JS Pailly, Rebecca Douglass,   Pat Garcia, Louise-Fundy Blue,   & Natalie Aguirre! Please stop by their blogs and say thank you .  💻💻💻💻💻 I waited until the last minute to write this post, hoping I might have a release date for my next book to shout about. Unfortunately I don't. But I have made progress on it since going part time last month. I like July's question. I'm excited to see what others use and recommend! July 3 question - What are your favorite writing processors (e.g. Word, Scrivener, yWriter, Dabble), apps, software, and tools? Why do you recommend them? And which one is your all time favorite that you cannot live without and use daily or at least whenever you write? I'm old school. I still use Word for most everything.  I make a document with images of my MCs and main supporting characters, including basic info about each person.  Ne

  This is my   Insecure Writers Support Group   post for JUNE. Alex's awesome co-hosts this month  are:  Liza at Middle Passages,   Shannon Lawrence,   Olga Godim , and me. Please stop by their blogs and say thank you .  💻💻💻💻💻 Earlier this year, I posted some bold goals . I decided to give an update on them for my IWSG post today.  I'm also revealing the cover of my next book. You can skip to that if you want. 😉 Here are the goals for 2024 and my progress (or not): Publish book 4 in my western series by June . Not going to make that deadline. But I will publish it this year, possibly even this summer. Develop a regular social media / newsletter schedule by March & send out 3 to 4 newsletters this year . I'm still working on this. I blog monthly for IWSG and Cowboy Kisses, but I need to do more with Pioneer Hearts Facebook group.  The only newsletter that has gone out is this cover reveal. That said, I will have at least two more by the end of the year, one for re

I'm skipping this month's IWSG to spend time with family. Consider visiting my February post on writing goals  and grabbing the freebie. It contains a link to a printable PDF Author Planner I made.   April's post has instructions on pre-scheduling blog posts and how to get rid of the pesky white background behind text you paste into your posts. Thanks for stopping by.  See you next month!

  This is my   Insecure Writers Support Group   post for April 2024. Alex's awesome co-hosts this month  are:  Janet Alcorn, T. Powell Coltrin, Natalie Aguirre,  &  Pat Garcia! Please stop by their blogs and say thank you .  💻💻💻💻💻 How long have I been blogging?  Twelve years.  If you want to read my very first post, you can find it here . I decided to choose my own topic this month. At the beginning of this year, I made a new plan for my author business that included creating content in batches and pre-scheduling blog posts. (If you didn't grab the free planner, it's still there. Click the link.) Today I'm going to show you how I do it and give you some ideas for staying on top of your blogging obligations. I realize many of you already know this, but skim the post, just in case. Caveat: I use Blogger, so that is all I know and the platform the screenshots were taken from. But the principles can be applied to other platforms. I'm someone who likes efficie

  This is my   Insecure Writers Support Group   post for March. Alex's awesome co-hosts this month  are:  Kristina Kelly,   Miffie Seideman, Jean Davis,   and Liza @ Middle Passages! Please stop by their blogs and say thank you .  💻💻💻💻💻 [Image purchased from Depositphotos] Believe it or not, I wrote this before Alex posted the March question. Imagine my shock when I went to get the names of the co-hosts! Have you "played" with AI to write those nasty synopses, or do you refuse to go that route?  How do you feel about AI's impact on creative writing? A few IWSGs ago, the topic was AI and whether it would replace writers. I posted, but I didn't know much about it at all.  Since then, I've dabbled a bit. Wow. *mind blown* I'm going to pause here to say that AI is a very  controversial and often divisive topic.  AI bashing within the typically altruistic writing community has risen to a shocking and frankly saddening level.  If you comment, please treat