Insecure Writer's Support Group: Resolutions Anyone?

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: What steps have you taken to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing?  

Can I just state first of all that  I am loving these monthly questions? It really takes the hassle out of figuring out what I'm going to write about each month. And they always seems to be especially relevant to me. But I digress...

I've spent the past few days trying to decide what will be happening with this writing and publishing thing that I appear to have decided to do. I've mentioned previously that I published my first and only novel in September 2015. Since then I've allowed myself to go off on a tangent and write all kinds of other novels in other series. As an indie, I can tell you now, this is not good practice. Any traction that I had with my first novel is now gone. The few people on my mailing list probably don't even remember who I am anymore and the face of indie publishing has changed so much in the past 2 years that when I do publish again I'll have to essentially relearn everything from scratch. 

I guess what I'm saying is that I went into this whole publishing thing with my eyes tightly shut, hoping to just wing it on luck. I'd been writing the same novel for over 4 years and was thoroughly sick to death of it and just wanted it out so I could work on other things. Which was all well and good except that I had nothing to follow it up with. There's a saying that the best way to promote your novel is to write the next one. Well I broke that rule right off the bat. 

The other night someone on one of my FB groups shared this blog post about sustainability as an indie author. It's all about treating your writing as a business and setting long term goals so that you don't burn out. There's advice in there about how to sustain the business now that the indie market has matured and it got me thinking about where I eventually want to go with my writing career. How much I can write a year, every year, to sustain my love of writing. I haven't quite figured it out yet but what I do know is that I can't be one of those writers who chases trends and writes what the market demands. It's just not who I am. 

I guess I'm lucky in some ways because when I do write (Mostly during NaNoWriMo months), my word counts can be staggering. I could probably comfortably write 4-6 novels a year if I really needed to. I've realised too that the drafts I write are pretty clean so editing, though mentally tedious, isn't as awful as it once was. I think it's the marketing and self-doubt side of things that makes me pause and want to stick my head in the sand. That's the part that I need to focus on this year. I have about 9 novels in various stages of readiness to publish. If I don't do them soon, it's never going to happen. So I guess that's my rough plan for this year. Publish as many novels as I have ready and figure out what a sustainable number of novels I can write in year will be.

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: Writer vs Reader

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
        For all intents and purposes, this is meant to be a book review blog as well as my author blog. I can’t remember the last time I read a book with the express purpose of reviewing it. My review policy is up and I’m still taking requests but I have a sneaking suspicion that most people who submit are just ignoring the guidelines and trying their luck. This is why I delete 99% of the requests I get. Most of them don’t even refer to me by name but just called me “Blogger.” A lot of the novels I’ve been asked to read aren’t in a genre that I enjoy. 

         The thing is, the more I write the more critical I have become. I feel like I’m treating every novel I read as though I’m doing edits on it for a friend and often this is what makes me not want to read a book or stop reading it altogether.

        To date I’ve started at least four requested novels and at best I’ve read them to the ten per cent mark and then put them down and have never picked them up again. Once upon a time I used to be one of those people who would finish a book no matter what. Now the slightest thing can make me stop reading. If the plot is slow, I lose interest. If the romance is cheesy or if there’s any hint of a love triangle, I lose interest. I find myself making notes not in an attempt to write a review but with the aim of providing the author with constructive editing advice.

        I long for the days when I used to be able to read just for pleasure. But I’m starting to worry that because my mind is so geared towards writing, that those days are over. 

 

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Can I Get Another Lifetime?

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!     
      By the time this post goes live it'll be the beginning of April which means that Camp NaNoWriMo will be in full swing. Even though I've taken the first week off work I know I'll probably be behind in my writing because aside from taking on Camp I've also got other projects happening on the side and the masochist in me has decided that it's a great idea to start writing Marvel fan fiction.
        I don't know how some people do it. I've been internet stalking again and there are people on the web who have multiple accounts on social media, have a gazillion hobbies outside of writing, children to look after, day jobs to work at. And still they're producing more books than I have. This is incredible to me.
       If I had another lifetime to play with I don't know if I'd be able to go any faster or focus any better. There are just so many things that I would love to be good at but which require time and dedication that I am sorely lacking. I would so love to be a graphic artist and be able to produce images from my own novels. Or learn a trade of some kind. But I guess for now I'll just be happy with winning Camp and possibly catching up on all of the reading that I should have done months ago.