Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The awesome co-hosts for the September 6 posting of the IWSG are Tyrean Martinson, Tara Tyler, Raimey Gallant, and Beverly Stowe McClure!

September 6 Question: Have you ever surprised yourself with your writing? For example, by trying a new genre you didn’t think you’d be comfortable in??

The biggest surprise I ever got with my fiction was when I switched from Mysteries & Thrillers to Science Fiction.

I wasn’t really looking to change genres… After all, I had finished manuscripts just waiting to revise, and I was getting fairly upbeat and positive rejections on the one I was sending out at the time.

But, NaNoWriMo was coming up, and I was pretty much stuck in one of my WIPs. (Well, come on… just exactly what is the response when someone throws a human hand through your front window?)

And the stories were getting darker.

I also had a bunch of friends who wrote Science Fiction and Fantasy waiting for me at NaNoWriMo, so when I realized I needed a break from the slicey-dicey stuff, I knew where I should go for that break. Take some time off, entertain a few friends… maybe a nice trip to Mars.

By the time I was finished with my first draft, I think I already knew that I wasn’t going back to the thriller end of the universe. At least, not full-time.

I’m a lot happier spending months and years debating how to populate a spaceship than I am thinking about how badly that murder in the news was messed up by the perpetrator, even if reading thrillers is…thrilling… for a week or two.