Today’s the day for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) where, on the first Wednesday of every month, writers get together to share their insecurities and offer encouragement. The IWSG was created by Alex J. Cavanaugh, and you can learn all about it and sign up for it here.
My insecurities this month revolve around the use of social media. There are so many social channels out there, how do you know which is the best to use to connect with potential readers? And what is the best way to find those readers?
I have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, and I recently started an Instagram account. I’m also on Goodreads and, of course, WordPress. And my book trailers are on YouTube. I find Twitter overwhelming, so my blog posts are linked to it, but I haven’t done much else with it. Finding the time to keep up with social media is also a challenge.
I’d love to know what social media channels other writers use most effectively and how they organize their social media time.
The IWSG question for this month: Do you have any secrets that readers would never know from your work?
I couldn’t think of anything to reply to this, so I’ll be interested to read how everyone else answers this question.
Now on to the A to Z Challenge!
I’m taking the long way around with A to Z this year. My plan is to post every couple of weeks, so I will have time to visit other blogs in between and still have time to write.
E is for – England, Edinburgh, and Easter Island
England!
On that same 1995 trip to Scotland I wrote about for A to Z A, we also visited England. My Dad’s side of the family hails from Northhamptonshire. We flew into London, stayed there for a couple of days, then rented a car and drove around the countryside. I had made a list of places I wanted to visit, and we hit as many as we could. We saw the usual tourist sites in London: Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, the Tower Bridge, and Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London (both from the outside).
Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, London
Buckingham Palace, London
White Tower of London, where royalty was imprisoned before execution. (Rumored to have many ghosts.)
Tower Bridge, London
We had to ride the double-decker bus.
Me, 25 years ago, doing the tourist thing.
I have to admit, though, that as lovely as those places were, I was more interested in the castles and ruins outside of the London area. The cathedrals were pretty spectacular, too.
Penshurst Place and gardens, near Tonbridge, Kent
Hever Castle, Kent (postcard – I couldn’t get the whole thing in one photo)
Bodiam Castle ruins, East Sussex
Arundel Castle, West Sussex
Arundel Castle Library (postcard – my favorite room in the castle)
Pevensey Castle ruins, East Sussex
Salisbury Cathedral, Salisbury (Restoration in progress.)
Tintagel Castle ruins, Cornwall. Steeped in the legend of King Arthur.
Warwick Castle, Warwickshire
One of my Dad’s ancestors came from Sulgrave, a small town in Northamptonshire. Interestingly, Sulgrave Manor, built in 1539, (PHOTO) is the ancestral home of George Washington, First President of the United States. Unfortunately, we drove through the area on a Sunday, and the manor house was closed to the public.
Edinburgh!
We visited Edinburgh, capital city of Scotland, in 1995, as well. We spent quite a bit of time at Edinburgh castle, taking in (figuratively) the Honours of Scotland and touring the Scottish National War Memorial, United Services Museum, St. Margaret’s Chapel, the Royal Scots Museum and the Prisons of War. So much history in one of the oldest fortifications in Europe.
Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland. One of those misty, moody days.
Interesting fact: The Honours of Scotland are the oldest crown jewels in Britain. During WWII, the Crown of Scotland was hidden for safekeeping by burying it in a medieval latrine closet.
For information on the storied history of the castle and more interesting facts, click HERE.
Easter Island!
Ancient monoliths have always intrigued me. Who built them? What was their purpose? Easter Island, one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world, is home to one of the world’s great mysteries: the massive stone heads called Moai.
The Moai were carved from volcanic rock by the Polynesians who settled on Easter Island sometime between 800 AD and 1200 AD. The island, also known by its Polynesian name of Rapa Nui, lies over 2,000 miles west of Chile in the South Pacific Ocean. It’s mainly made up of three extinct volcanoes, and along with surrounding small islets, it forms the summit of a 6,600-foot-tall underwater mountain, part of the Sala y Gomez Ridge, a Pacific undersea mountain range.
Rapa Nui was given the name Easter Island by Dutch explorers who first landed there on Easter Sunday in 1722.
One theory is that the stone statues were built to honor the settlers’ ancestors. There are nearly 900 monoliths, and almost all of them stand with their backs to the sea, looking inward toward the villages as if watching over the people. Only a very few face the ocean; those that do also overlook a village. One possible suggestion is that the statues facing the sea were placed there to help others find the island.
The statues averaged 13 feet tall and weighed 14 tons, with the tallest being closer to 40 feet and over 80 tons.
Between the late 1700s and mid-1800s, all of the statues on the island were toppled, either by civil war between the islanders, conflicts with European explorers, or earthquakes, according to various theories. Many have since been restored.
Maybe someday I’ll see the statues for myself and contemplate their existence like those ancient explorers did.
And now for the Writing Update:
Between vehicle problems and life in general, I only added maybe another 100 words to my WIP, Trouble Times Three, since my last A to Z post. Still, that’s a little progress, miniscule as it is.
Anyone else have any bucket list items beginning with E?
© Lori L. MacLaughlin and Writing, Reading, and the Pursuit of Dreams, 2020. All rights reserved.
Writing, Reading, and the Pursuit of Dreams 