Melissa Maygrove

  This is my   Insecure Writers Support Group   post for September 2024. Alex's awesome co-hosts this month  are:    Beth Camp, Jean Davis, Yvonne Ventresca,  &  PJ Colando! Please stop by their blogs and say thank you .  💻💻💻💻💻 I originally planned to post links to some of my past blog posts on the craft for IWSG, but after reading this month's question, I decided to do both. September's question:  Since it's back to school time, let's talk English class. What's a writing rule you learned in school that messed you up as a writer? Hm... 'Sentence fragments are not acceptable.' Other than that and generally writing in a more formal, flowery way, English class didn't hurt my writing. It gave me skills that have allowed me to write professionally and freelance as an editor. The way English class - and school in general - harmed me most was forcing me to read boring stuff for assignments. It turned me off to reading for de...

  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 inf...

  This is my   Insecure Writers Support Group   post for March 2022. Alex's awesome co-hosts this month  are:  Janet Alcorn,   PatGarcia,   NatalieAguirre,   and   Shannon Lawrence! Please stop by their blogs and say thank you .  💻💻💻💻💻 March 2 nd question - Have you ever been conflicted about writing a story or adding a scene to a story? How did you decide to write it or not? I'm a natural plotter and only pants the small stuff, so -thankfully- I rarely struggle with this. But I do have my moments. 😃 I encountered this problem in the second book of my Scarlet Knight duet, when the threat of a leftover villain from book one was mentioned but didn't materialize. I let my CPs read the draft first (so as not to bias them), then I asked them what they thought about that particular issue.

I'm a combination plotter and panster. I come up with a basic plot and list of characters for my stories, but the scenes often take a different path than I envisioned when I actually write them. Character's come to life and flesh themselves out as I type. It's kind of neat to watch. Of course, I have to be flexible. When I start writing a particular interaction, I sometimes realize a line of dialogue or character reaction is implausible and have to change course. At other times, the research alters something about the scene or a character's backstory. It's fun and interesting at times, frustrating at others.

After a long hiatus, I'm finally writing again. (Yea!!!) My time is still limited, so - of two planned WHR projects - I chose the WIP that required less research than the one I had originally planned to write next. (Seriously. I was so sure the other WIP would be first, I had already had a cover mock-up made.) The one I ended up choosing is the less inspiring one, but the one I knew would be quicker to finish.

As you might have guessed, this post is about plotting. :)   It's also my Insecure Writers Support Group post for September. Happy one year anniversary, IWSG! So many times, we newbie writers read a book on the craft only to be punched in the gut by how much we still have to learn.  I'm here to tell you that isn't always the case.