IWSG DAY, December 4, 2019, Seeing Myself in the Future by Pat Garcia

Hello Everyone,

It is the first Wednesday of the month, and IWSG Time. 

IWSG is a writers' support group created and led by Alex Cavanaugh. It is a big help to many of us who do not mind sharing our insecurities, our successes or giving encouragement and help to others. 

So, if you are interested and would like to join, the link below will lead you directly to us:

The Insecure Writer's Support Group 

SUBMISSIONS

The Wasteland – The Masters Review

Unknown Faces – Carve Magazine

Seeing Myself in the Future

My daily routine starts out with me using the early mornings to connect with myself. Writing in my journal, reading the Bible, and speaking positive words of affirmation over my life, are impregnated within me. I do these things even when I don’t feel like it. I usually drink one cup of coffee in the morning and one cup in the afternoon. I still see myself doing that after I have become a published author. I start writing around eleven a.m. but allow myself time to be late. There are some things that catch me on my blind side that must be taken care of. 

I like to write in my office, downstairs in my basement. No matter what, I believe I will always have a home with a cellar regardless of where I live because a cellar is my favorite place to write. 

Besides, having become a career novelist, I see myself continuing to compete in writing competitions, receiving fellowships, and helping other writers in their careers. 

In many ways, I am living the dream already. Sure, I am not yet published, but that's only a matter of time. I believe that the life I am living now as a writer reflects the kind of writer I will be in the future. For me, my writing life is a process that evolves one step at a time. It doesn’t happen overnight and then suddenly I’ve arrived, but it starts in the here and now. 

Wishing all of you a lovely month of December.

Shalom aleichem,

Pat G

IWSG DAY, November 6, 2019, A Soft Soul by Pat Garcia

Hello Everyone,

It is the first Wednesday of the month, and IWSG Time. 

IWSG is a writers' support group created and led by Alex Cavanaugh. It is a big help to many of us who do not mind sharing our insecurities, our successes or giving encouragement and help to others. 

So, if you are interested and would like to join, the link below will lead you directly to us:

The Insecure Writer's Support Group 

 A Soft Soul 

The weirdest thing I’ve ever googled so far is information concerning doing an autopsy. Some chapters in the second book, I am writing, deal with an untimely death.  Untimely, in that none of the main characters, are expecting that person to die. 

 I have to admit it kept me awake afterward for some nights. My appetite dwindled.  The research that went into examining the post-mortem of a body seemed harmless when looked at on television or seen in a film, but an in-depth search on the what and the how on Google gave me nightmares.  

Wishing all of you a great month of November. 

Take care.

Shalom aleichem,

Pat G

IWSG DAY, October 2, 2019, My Reasons for Reading by Pat Garcia

Hello Everyone,

It is the first Wednesday of the month, and IWSG Time. 

IWSG is a writers' support group created and led by Alex Cavanaugh. It is a big help to many of us who do not mind sharing our insecurities, our successes or giving encouragement and help to others. 

So, if you are interested and would like to join, the link below will lead you directly to us:

The Insecure Writer's Support Group 

My Reasons for Reading

The first brick laid in my storytelling was by older people who told me stories or read me stories from books. These simple stories like Jack and Jill or Humpty Dumpty fascinated me. They awakened my desire and made me hungry to learn how to read. That hunger is still within me, and I doubt that it will ever disappear. 

I am a voracious reader, and I take great pride in reading books by other authors. Books that are written by different authors expand my horizon and educate me over the writing process.

For me, writing your story deals with utilizing the craft. I am able to learn and use writing techniques from my favorite authors, which helps me interweave my words into a tale where the reader can slip away from his or her everyday existence. 

I honestly don’t believe I would be as far as I am now in my writing if I didn't read.

Wishing all of you a lovely month of October and take care.

Shalom aleichem,

Pat Garcia

IWSG DAY, August 7, 2019, The First Win by Pat Garcia

Hello Everyone,

It is the first Wednesday of the month, and IWSG Time. 

IWSG is a writers' support group created and led by Alex Cavanaugh. It is a big help to many of us who do not mind sharing our insecurities, our successes or giving encouragement and help to others. 

So, if you are interested and would like to join, the link below will lead you directly to us:

The Insecure Writer's Support Group 

 The First Win

My very first win as a competitor in a writing competition caught me totally by surprise. 

It came at a convenient time. Not that I had planned on quitting or giving up on my writing, but I had become complacent with the rejections. My expectations had turned to negatively expecting something to return to me as rejected. 

It was December 2016. I had been sitting at my computer, writing a story that had to be submitted to one of my writing classes.  The email came in. It was from the WEP. I believe I read that email at least eleven times before it hit me what had happened, and I cried. 

I had finally crossed over onto a higher level. Some writers believed I wrote well.

My year ended with a bang, and my new year started with me being encouraged.  My focus changed, and the expectations for my stories turned positive once again.  

I will never forget that win because it was my first. The first one is always special. 

Wishing all of you a lovely month of August.

Shalom aleichem,

Pat G

IWSG Day, July 3, 2019, What Personal Traits Have I Written into My Characters? By Pat Garcia

Hello Everyone,

It is the first Wednesday of the month, and IWSG Time. 

IWSG is a writers' support group created and led by Alex Cavanaugh. It is a big help to many of us who do not mind sharing our insecurities, our successes or giving encouragement and help to others. 

So, if you are interested and would like to join, the link below will lead you directly to us:

The Insecure Writer's Support Group 

Submissions:

Submissions:. 

Entered the WEP – Results not yet posted. 

What Personal Traits Have I Written into My Characters? By Pat Garcia

My characters determination and willingness to go the extra mile or miles reflects who I am. Their sense of purpose and focusing determinately on that purpose deal with how I have analyzed my own goals. They are kick-ass characters and aren’t afraid to take risks because that is in my DNA. However, my characters also struggle with depression and insecurity, and I have to admit that they come from me too. 

I will even go so far as to say; all of my flaws are planted in my characters. Their mistakes are mistakes that I’ve made, and their successes are triumphs that I’ve celebrated. 

Do I see them as an extension of myself?   Yes. They are a part of the vision incorporated in me.

 An author who goes deep into the waterfalls of life discovers who he or she is, the good and the bad.   Like William Blake, one of my favorite English Poets wrote so ardently in his book of poetry entitled Songs of Innocence and Experience, one must face the cesspool within oneself as well as face one's goodness.

  

My vision of the world  define my characters.  My perception is their perception. 

Wishing all of you in the United States a Happy Fourth of July, and for the rest of us, have lovely month of July. 

Shalom aleichem,

Pat Garcia 

IWSG DAY, June 5, 2019, Charlotte, Emily, and Mary Ann by Pat Garcia

Hello Everyone,

It is the first Wednesday of the month, and IWSG Time. 

IWSG is a writers' support group created and led by Alex Cavanaugh. It is a big help to many of us who do not mind sharing our insecurities, our successes or giving encouragement and help to others. 

So, if you are interested and would like to join, the link below will lead you directly to us:

The Insecure Writer's Support Group 

Submissions:

No submissions so far this month. I’m still pondering over whether I can find time for the WEP.  My plate is rather full because of a class I am taking. 

Charlotte, Emily, and Mary Ann

If I had to pin myself down to one genre, even though I mix in elements from other genres that I like in my writing, I would definitely say that I am a romance writer. I believe wholeheartedly that love changes people and makes miracles happen. Therefore, I do my best to write positive, realistic romance and romantic suspense stories that impact hope, faith, and acceptance in a human race that seems to be growing more and more antagonistic toward each other. 

I have to admit that I had a hard time accepting that I was a romance writer, at first. Having received a minor in Literature at what is now the acclaimed Georgia Regents University, where I studied the classics and deciphered with the microscope of my mind the books written by great authors, it shocked me. Dickens, Salinger, Fitzgerald, Conrad fascinated me, but I fell in love with Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, and Mary Ann Evans (better known as George Eliot). Their stories regenerated my mind and changed my way of thinking about relationships, physical attraction to men, and life twists that challenge you to examine yourself. 

Charlotte, Emily, and Mary Ann didn’t have it easy either in a male-dominated world,  so, when I start floundering around in the murky waters and want to complain about things that I cannot change, I get a big boost from them. 

I see their writings as romantically inclined and the inspiration I receive, after reading a passage or a chapter out of one of their books, is a stepping stone upward that inspires me to hold my head up and keep moving forward.

Wishing all of you a lovely hot month of June.

Shalom aleichem,

Pat Garcia

IWSG Day, April 3, 2019, The Second to Last of Anything Syndrome by Pat Garcia

Hello Everyone,

It is the first Wednesday of the month, and IWSG Time. 

IWSG is a writers' support group created and led by Alex Cavanaugh. It is a big help to many of us who do not mind sharing our insecurities, our successes or giving encouragement and help to others. 

So, if you are interested and would like to join, the link below will lead you directly to us:

The Insecure Writer's Support Group 

My report: 

Still Outstanding

Glimmer Train: Very Short Fiction

The Second to Last of Anything Syndrome by Pat Garcia

The second to the last chapter of a novel, or the second to last paragraph of a short story or a piece of flash fiction or the second to last verse of a poem gives me severe headaches.  My mind goes blank, and I shut down. I sit at my desk asking myself why I even started writing, as I go through my mood swings.

Beginnings don’t phase me. Neither do the middle passages. I confess that even the endings don’t give me headaches. It could be because I usually write the conclusion of anything I am going to write first, and then I move back to writing the beginning. But that the way I read. I start reading books by other authors in the last chapter, and then I go back and read the book or the poem, or the short story, or flash fiction from the beginning.  

I have never given it much thought as to why I do that. I just do it. 

I haven‘t figured out any solutions to deal with this queer syndrome of second to last of anything. But again, I have to be honest and say that I haven’t really looked for any solutions.   I believe everyone has quirks that no one can iron out, so I face it and deal with it every time I write, and that is A-Okay with me.

Wishing all of you a lovely month of April. 

Shalom aleichem,

Pat Garcia