The IWSG is run by Alex Cavanaugh and invites writer’s to post on the first Wednesday of each month. The idea is for the post to be about something in your writing that makes you feel (even a little bit) insecure about what you’re doing and where you’re going. I think it’s a fantastic idea! So here goes…

This month’s topic: Gathering information for a non-fiction book.

I have decided to work on putting together a book about the stigma faced by metal health patients by medical doctors. I recently put out a call for anyone with experience with this topic. My most successful attempt was at the Absolute Write forums. I got feedback, suggestions and snippets of personal stories. It was an awesome start. I also got arguments against the topic, suggestions to write an opinion piece instead because researching for a book is hard, and one reply that was just telling me I had no place writing anything in general. And all that was okay too. It helps to thicken my skin :D

Since I haven’t had anything come to my inbox with people willing to share stories or be interviewed I have considered making it more of a personal experience piece mixed in with statistics. Still, I only put the word out there last week and I plan on doing so more in the future in the hopes it will grab someone’s attention. I would much prefer to have a wide variety of experiences, but it’s nice to have a back-up :)

In other news a flash fiction piece I wrote and submitted to The Story Shack was accepted for publication :D It will be published online March 4th and have an accompanying illustration. I’m pretty excited because this will be the first time anyone besides myself has put my work out there. I’ll add a link when the time comes.

Thanks for stopping by this month! I’m hoping to hit a few of your blogs this afternoon before my mother-in-law flies in this evening to stay for the week.