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...

I am skipping this month's IWSG due to work obligations  (annual skills fair + NICU re-designation, for those in the know - Gah!).  So, I will leave you with a link to a past post about speed writing.  Maybe it will help you NaNoWriMo. Click here to go to >  Speed Writing (Eleventh hour help for all you NaNo people) Thanks for stopping by. :)

  This is my   Insecure Writers Support Group   post for November 2022. Alex's awesome co-hosts this month  are:  Diedre Knight,   Douglas Thomas Greening,   Nick Wilford,   and  Diane Burton! Please stop by their blogs and say thank you .  💻💻💻💻💻 November 2nd question - November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever participated? If not, why not? Nope. I'm one of those authors who wishes NaNoWriMo participants well then disappears for the rest of November.  Why? I work full time in addition to my writing. And,  because of the holidays,  November and December are two of the busiest months of the year. There's just no way I could squeeze in writing a novel, so I don't even try. Honestly, I often shake my head at whomever chose November for this. Maybe it's because the kids are finally settled into school, and the weather is turning too cold (up north, at least) to be outside much, but I don't get it.  I mi...