It’s the first Wednesday of the month, which means it’s Insecure Writer’s Support Day! Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit around the group and connect with your fellow writers – aim for a dozen new people each time – and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Also check out the handles @TheIWSG and #IWSG on your social media.

The co-hosts keeping us on track today are Louise – Fundy Blue , Jennifer Lane, Mary Aalgaard, Patsy Collins at Womagwriter, and Nancy Gideon! Make sure they’re part of your connecting today and tell them thank you.

Each month comes with an optional question to give you a starting point for your post. February’s question is: Blogging is often more than just sharing stories. It’s often the start of special friendships and relationships. Have you made any friends through the blogosphere?

To answer the question this month I’m afraid I must ask you to prepare yourselves. GUSHY, mushy, messy feels are headed your way. You are most definitely in the splash zone.

ID: Robin Williams as Mork from the sitcom Mork and Mindy. Dressed in a colorful Tshirt, khaki pants, and rainbow suspenders, with a gloriously fluffy 70s hairstyle, he’s gesturing dramatically and saying “Run for your life! The emotions are coming!”

Making friends online is a strange, tricky, definition-defying thing. We are connected, and yet have never spoken face-to-face. We interact daily, and yet have never heard the other person’s voice. It’s an internet paradox with no end. An intangible corporeal friendship. I feel like, to be pedantic, I should put friends in quotation marks because we’re not even on the same continent in some cases. But that would be inaccurate.

Let’s just walk quietly past the irony in the situation (don’t disturb it, let it nap) and agree that although I only know these people in a digital, non-dimensional space, I still share a bond of common interests, trust, and humor with them and consider them friends. Alright? Alright.

The answer to this month’s question is yes, I have made friends and yes, blogging was the catalyst.

When it comes to book recommendations, meme sharing, and incoherent flails over TV shows like GBBO I turn to Kibby @TheDarkForestCo on Instagram. I’m ecstatic to support her nerdy merchandise and the niche fandoms she represents! I also got to mail her my used Terry Pratchett copies when I upgraded to the collector’s hardbacks which she promises and swears to read someday, and really there is no stronger indication of friendship.

Purely through WordPress and the IWSG blog hop I found Karen @TheReprobateTypewriter and I’ve come to rely on her steadfast support when it comes to comments, querying, shopping around short stories, and Cruisin’ Cadavers.

In perfect author kismet I found Jessica Renwick on Instagram and not only is she willing to shoot ideas back and forth, she doesn’t run from my romance plots in horror, and she’s a developmental editor. AMAZING. Highly recommend working with her, it was worth every penny to trust my book baby to her.

Also through the IWSG I found Louise @TheDragonspire and she is wonderful about technical questions, vivisecting plots, identifying tropes, and relating them to TV shows. Always bless this kind of breakdown, it is so useful.

And last but never least is author Raimey Gallant, who sadly had to stop hosting the Author Toolbox this year due to health but still has a literal treasure trove of Toolbox posts on her website. Marketing questions don’t scare her, go see.

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