Insecure Writer's Support Group: Ahh Hindsight

Insecure Writer's Support Group is a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh where totally insecure writers can get together and share the things that are making us go argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IWSG Day Question: As you look back on 2017, with all its successes and failures, if you could backtrack, what would you do differently?

Isn’t hindsight just the greatest and worst thing at the same time? I have just come off a month of brutal NaNoing and can barely think so this post is going to be in list form:

-I ended up writing just a little over 162k this NaNo. That was on top of working full time and also dealing with a few real life issues. Though I’m proud of the amount I wrote, from a self-care perspective, I’ll never do that again. Over the course of the month I got so many headaches and migraines from the stress of trying to keep on top of everything that in the end it just wasn’t worth it. I’ll always participate in NaNo but I will be much better prepared and I won’t have such high expectations of myself next time.

-I can’t really say I’ve had much success in my writing career in 2017. Aside from having written a whole bunch of words, I have gone another year without publishing again. My first and only book was published in 2015 and for an indie the lag time has been too long to make it worthwhile. I've got plans to publish quicker from now on but I need to somehow stifle the insane perfectionist in me. One thing I would do very differently is not allow my focus to diverge so much. I could have published so much more if I didn't just allow myself to write whatever new story came to mind. Right now I have 6 unfinished series underway. All at various stages of completion. That has to stop. 

- I think I spent too much time this year stalking people and groups on social media to the detriment of my own writing. I read somewhere that if you want to be successful you need to focus on your own progress and not compare yourself to others. I found myself lamenting why someone else's writing career was going well when mine wasn't and then  came to the realisation that if I spent as much time writing as I did stalking, I would probably be much further ahead. 

So I guess to sums things up, 2017 was a year where I learned a great deal about myself and it will lay the foundation for 2018 which is looking to be a very busy year!

 

Insecure Writer's Support Group: NaNoWriMo Edition

Insecure Writer's Support Group is a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh where totally insecure writers can get together and share the things that are making us go argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IWSG Question: Win or not, do you usually finish your NaNo project? Have any of them gone on to be published?

I think I’ve mentioned before in previous posts that NaNo is just about the only time these days when  I get any writing done. I fact, I’m currently working to change that because I obsessively write for a month only to burn out and not write for months after. As a result, I always finish my NaNo projects. In fact, I got in to NaNo and Camp NaNo with the express intention of writing my next novel with a view of eventually publishing it.

This year I took leave of my senses and decided that on top of NaNo I would also join a yearly writing challenge called Get Your Words Out. This is a challenge done out of LiveJournal and Dreamwidth in which participants pledge the amount they’re going to write for the year. For some reason that I now cannot remember, I chose to pledge the insane amount of 500k. At the moment I’m sitting on about 300k words written. So I have another 200k to write before 31 December or I fail. Suffice to say, my anxiety level is through the roof right now. I know I should cut myself some slack but the thought of not winning really bugs me. Hence the reason for the word obsession in this blog name. I just hope I don’t burn out completely by doing this.

To all those participating in NaNo, good luck! See you all on the other side.

 

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Pet Peeves or This is my Life

Insecure Writer's Support Group is a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh where totally insecure writers can get together and share the things that are making us go argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

August’s Question is: What are your pet peeves when reading/writing/editing?

This post is super late I know! Thanks to post Camp Nanowrimo madness I seem to have lost the ability to think about anything else writing related.
      This topic is probably a little too close to my heart. I'm one of those people who gets ticked off really easily by small things and because of my obsessive personality, those small things can then turn me off of something completely.
      When reading, stuff like love triangles and stupid characters are a death sentence for a book in my eyes.
      Writing is such a lonely pursuit sometimes that I think about giving it up for all the stress it causes me but that's not really a pet peeve. It's life.
      So then there's editing. If you know me at all or have read any of my past IWSG posts, you'll know that I despise editing with a fiery passion. I just write 175k words in July for Camp Nanowrimo. The thought of editing any of those words is almost physically painful. It doesn't feel productive to me (which is known is crazy). It feels like grinding the same axe all over again and that's tedious. In the time I'm editing I could be writing so many more words.
       Then today something occurred to me: I write  so quickly that I sometimes conjure up worlds, fall I love with characters and then before I have a chance to enjoy them, the story is over. Editing is my chance to slow down and remember why I loved the writing in the first place. It's a chance to revisit old friends I didn't know I was missing. I don't know if I'll feel the same way after re-reading my novels dozens of time before I press edit but anything is better than the no editing limbo I've been in for the last 5 years!

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Over the Edge

Insecure Writer's Support Group is a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh where totally insecure writers can get together and share the things that are making us go argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

June’s Question is: Did you ever say “I quit”? If so, what happened to make you come back to writing?

I actually feel like I want to quit right now! It’s not the writing that gets me down as an indie, it’s the marketing and keeping up with everything that needs to be done in order to stay on top of my game. It doesn’t help that I’ve recently joined an indie FB group with over 10k members, a lot of whom are very experienced and make over six figures a year (some even make six figures a month!). It’s hard not to do the comparison thing when I see their posts and it makes me feel like no matter how much time and energy I put into this pursuit, I’m already so far behind and I’ll never catch up. On top of that is the fact that I despise technology. It’s a miracle that I even have a blog. So to think about all the things I need to do just to make sure I remain relevant makes me feel exhausted before I have even finished writing. The only thing that keeps me going is stubbornness. I refuse to be that person who gives up when there are so many out there making it work!

 

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Bane of My Existence

Insecure Writer's Support Group is a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh where totally insecure writers can get together and share the things that are making us go argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May's question is:  What is the weirdest/coolest thing you ever had to research for your story?

I think I’ve complained on here a number of times about how much I dislike research. It’s number two on my list of things I hate about being a writer after editing. Sadly, much like editing, research is unavoidable. Which is why I try and write what I know as much as I can! Most of my characters so far have been gardeners/florist/horticulturalists. For my novel Poison which has its base in genetically modified organisms, I watched a lot of documentaries just to get a bit of a big picture idea of who the key players are. If you haven’t seen Food Inc. I really recommend it. I don’t know if I would class it as cool but all the things Monsanto do to our food supply is eye opening.

I’m going to be starting an urban fantasy series soon that’s going to require a lot of research. Though I’m not exactly looking forward to it, I’m hoping the copious amounts of research that I do early on will mean writing will be a breeze. Only time will tell! 

Insecure Writer's Support Group: What's Old is New Again

Insecure Writer's Support Group is a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh where totally insecure writers can get together and share the things that are making us go argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

February's question is: Have you ever pulled out a really old story and reworked it? Did it work out?

When I saw this question in the IWSG newsletter, I couldn't help wondering if the universe was trying to give me a sign. When I was 16, I started writing a YA story about teenagers with telepathic powers. Twelve years later I dusted off the idea and wrote my very first novel. It wasn't the greatest thing ever written but I thought it was good enough to query to agents. It wasn't. After a couple of rejections, I put the manuscript aside and started working on something else.
        Then, in 2013 I was struggling to come up with an idea for camp NaNoWriMo when two days before the start it hit me. I suddenly came up with an idea for a novella based on my old story idea and lo and behold it only took me eight days to complete the 30k needed to win. Since then the reworked story has spawned two additional novels and a villain origin story. I worked on the second novel during last NaNo and plan to continue writing the series until the whole thing is done before I even think about publishing.
          The story as it currently stands is more nuanced in every way than the original. The voice is stronger. The characters are better. The world building is far and away the biggest difference. I know a part of it is probably that I'm slowly becoming a better writer. But there's a part of me almost thinks that I needed to take such a long break in order to see the story more clearly. It makes me wonder if writers who have already published sometimes look at their novels and wish they'd waited because they've come up with a better way to tell the story!

Insecure Writer's Support Group: The Evolution of a Reader through Writing

Insecure Writer's Support Group is a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh where totally insecure writers can get together and share the things that are making us go argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

February's question is: How has being a writer changed your experience as a reader?

I think I actually considered a similar question a while back. It had to do with whether as writers we should continue to review books. At the time I was coming at it from the standpoint of someone who didn't want to lose credibility as an objective reader simply because I also happen to write. I didn't want to become one of those writers who has to tiptoe around book reviews for fear of it coming back to bite me. I thought nothing could ever change the way I read if I just refused to let it.
           And then a few months ago I realised that the number of one star reviews I gave got fewer and further between. I stopped caring about forcing myself to read the popular books no matter how much I was hating it along the way. I began to see the effort that would have gone into a book regardless of whether it was one that I was enjoying reading. I began to be less finicky about small things like typos (unless they were rampant!). I wasn't fixated on coming up with snarky one liners for book reviews. If anything, my reading became less about the technicality of writing and more about the storytelling. It's made me see that there's always more than one way a arc can go and a character can act.
         In short, I find that I have begun to give authors the benefit of the doubt. I might still not enjoy the novel but I'm less inclined to be disparaging of anything but the most glaring diversion from my own values.

Insecure Writer's Support Group: The Curse of Unpopularity

Insecure Writer's Support Group is a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh where totally insecure writers can get together and share the things that are making us go argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      A while ago , I wrote about not having the natural writing skill that some others are just born, this month I want to address the other thing that I have always lacked: popularity. Or rather my ideas have never been popular. I’ve always been somewhat of an outlier but it’s never really bothered me until recently when I’ve come to the realisation that the way I see things, my plots and characters, just don’t have mainstream appeal. As much as some writers and some readers will pretend that certain popular tropes don’t exist, they do, and they’re not the kind of thing I enjoy reading or writing.
       None of my novels have love triangles, not all of my characters are attractive, often my heroines aren’t “nice,” and I don’t prescribe to competitive female behaviour which is so prevalent in the YA genre. For a long time now I’ve thought of myself as a writer in the way that Michael Bay is a director. I like all the flashy, action stuff without much emotional substance behind it. I don’t care that it makes sense as long as things are blowing up.
       In an attempt to  break out of my comfort zone I tried to write one of these tropey novels. I've written all of two lines in two weeks. Clearly this isn't working out and I am now trying to make peace with the fact that what I write will never be wildly popular but maybe I can find my small niche of readers one day if I JUST KEEP WRITING.