Purpose of the IWSG: 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!
The Insecure Writer's Support Group posts the first Wednesday of each month to talk about whatever is making us insecure. Or writers. Or whatever requires support.
When Planning Fails
So I did my first IWSG post as we were swinging into NaNoWriMo, and I was worried about pulling it off. Now, 60,000 words later, I have a new worry. Obviously, I can spew an adequate supply of words. And I'm not even too worried by the fact that they are, many of them, superfluous or merely badly chosen, since that can and will be fixed. No, what worries me is that I need about 20,000 more words to finish up, and my rather hastily-constructed and unfinished outline has gone the way of the scythe and the plowhorse--left behind by progress. As a result, I am left, watching each person through the door hoping they'll drop some clue to tell me who the heck committed the murder (the novel's a mystery, the 3rd in my Pismwallops PTA series).In other words...my efforts at outlining failed. Two years ago, I put together a great plan for Death By Trombone, and sailed through to the end with some surprises but nothing too disruptive. This time, I started with only about 2/3 of an outline (more on my outline technique here) and a lot of unanswered questions. Then I killed my prime suspect halfway through. That was a bit disconcerting, and maybe if I were taking my time about things I'd have gone back and changed it, or spent the day or three needed to re-work the outline (and finish it). Instead, the corpse remained a corpse, and on I went. Now that NaNo is over and no one is looking to see if I've written 1667 words each day, I may want to take a day or two and go back to working out some of the questions.
Meanwhile, I'm facing a few other writerly challenges. As I was sending the final draft of Death By Trombone to the proof-reader, I got some comments from a rather intelligent reader of Death By Ice Cream that led me to re-write the ending (thanks, Rodney!), so I added that to my burden of tasks during NaNo. The result is, I believe, a decided improvement and awareness of a mistake I won't make a third time. The publication date has been pushed back to January 8 (okay, I never dared set a date until now. That should keep me in a panic).
Then there is the really big writer's challenge: the annual family Xmas letter. This one really is tough this year, because, well, this author who publishes at least one book a year...hasn't managed to finish a holiday letter in 4 years. Distilling those 4 years into a modest bit of readable text and a bunch of photos is a daunting task by any standard! On the other hand: if I master that one, move over Hemingway!
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| Coming January 8! |
If you haven't already, grab your copy of Death By Ice Cream today--because it's only 99 cents until I log in and change the price back up!
