#IWSG: On Not Quitting

-
http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html


Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group (click on the badge above for the list) and connect with your fellow writers - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!
This month's question is: Did you ever say "I quit"? If so, what happened to make you come back to writing?

Before I get to the question of the month, I need to share my current insecurities. See, what with one thing and another, the edit I'd expected to finish by mid-May at the latest is still far from done. And that's not because it's bigger than I'd hoped (which, alas, it is), but because I've just not been working on it. Life got in the way again. Every time it does that, I wonder what the heck is wrong with me. Worse, I have trouble getting my momentum back. Now it's worse, because the kid is out of school, and that means he's sharing the den with me in all but the earliest-morning hours. And without having to get up and get him off to school, I'm missing those early-morning hours! 

Someone please apply a firm kick in the seat of my pants?

Okay, now for the question. Did I ever quit? A better question might be "how often?" I have left my writing to molder for months and years at a time, up until I published my first book in 2012 (and even since then, well, see above...). I finished and shopped around 3 novels over about 20 years, and got nowhere. Each of them took years tot write because I kept leaving them behind, and each time I couldn't find an agent, I figured I might just give up. 

Why did I come back, or not give up? I'm not completely sure, but I think it's because the stories just keep bubbling up in me, and I have to do something with them. If they didn't, it would be easier just to let it all go and go hiking or something. But instead, I keep planning and writing another.

What about you? What keeps you coming back when logic says to quit?


P.S. Check out my guest appearance today at the Coach Daddy Blog, talking about kids and hiking.



©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2017
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

Comments

Post a Comment

Let us know what you think! We love to hear from our readers!

Popular Posts

Non-fiction Audiobook Review: Falter, by Bill McKibben

-
Image
Important stuff, but hard to hear. Title: Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Author: Bill McKibben. Ready by Olivery Wyman Publication Info: Macmillan Audio 2019. 11 hours. Hardback by Henry Holt & Co., 291 pages. Source: Library Blurb: (Goodreads): Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out. Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature -- issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic -- was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience. Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control. And t
Read more

#WEP--The Scream

-
Image
WEP challenges are FREE and open to all. On the 1st   of the challenge month, there will be a   get-your-thinking-caps   on post. The badge will include the dates of the challenge and the winner’s   prizes. The InLinkz sign up will open on the third Wednesday and close 3 days later. It will contain no news, just the sign up. Participants link up with their DLs (Direct Links to their entry).  Learn all about it here .    My entry this time is based on an actual incident. Mom and my brothers will recognize it. My apologies to them for the non-trivial liberties I took with history and their personalities. We are now also meant to provide a tag line for our stories, so here's mine: What terrors lurk in the root cellar?     The Scream The house we lived in that year wasn’t much. The wind blew in everywhere you could imagine a draft, and some places you couldn’t. The old enclosed porch we used as a root cellar was worse. It wasn’t just the wind that could get in through the chinks a
Read more

#WEP: December Flash Fiction Challenge

-
Image
This December challenge wraps up the year of artistic inspiration from some great works of art. The WEP is open to all, following the simple rules: 1. SUBMIT your name to the list below on December 1 thru the 15th . Add your link (URL) 2. POST your entry, put WEP is in the TITLE along with The Narcissus badge within your entry. 3. STATE feedback preferences and word count at the end of your entry. 4. READ other entries, giving feedback if requested. 5. SHARE THE CHALLENGE on social media. Tweets are ready on the WEP blog. PLEASE NOTE: ENTRIES CLOSE Dec. 15th @ midnight (NY Time - check WEP blog clock) ALL GENRES WELCOME except erotica - 1,000 words maximum My story for this month's challenge is maybe cheating a little--I didn't write it for the challenge, but I decided that the common understanding of Narcissus and narcissism fits well enough, even if the story doesn't relate to the painting. I wrote this while trekking in Nepal last month, highlighting a character w
Read more