Wednesday 6 December 2017

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!