Wednesday, August 7, 2013

IWSG: Achievements and New Angst


It's time to share insecurities, achievements, and court the support of the like-minded. Or, well, it's time for another Insecure Writers' Support Group, that amazing once-monthly internet gathering of writers sharing their trials and successes in an effort to let us all know that we aren't alone.

I have to say, this group has been a major help for me.  It has forced me, in some pretty dark hours, to think of my writing.  i have never wanted to abandon it, but there have been some life challenges that made me face some massive self-doubt demons.

So, if you have any demons whispering in your ears, check out the list at Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog: here.

This month, however, I have a major success to share.  I signed up for camp nano and picked a half-formed, hastily outlined novel to write for it.

I finished.  At 50,300 some odd words, I won the July nano! This is big.  As many of my previous posts for IWSG have expanded upon, I have been having a ton of issues "finishing" things, so this is a big step in the right direction.

It feels really good to have a shiny new rough draft for the first time in years.

But now  the new worry is:  I wrote it in a month, how can it be any good?

I'm almost done with my first read-through, and I'm compiling notes on where to expand, where to increase tension and how to build the characters better.  But it is going to go to critiquers as well... so we'll see.  I'm at once both hopeful and horrified.

6 comments:

  1. Yay, congrats on completing a project. I have problems finishing too, so I know what a great feeling that can be. As for worrying it won't be very good - well, the first draft is just to get the story on the screen where you can work with it through editing and revising. Its good just to let the ideas flow, then mull over their effectiveness later.

    Congrats :)

    .......dhole

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    1. Yes, thank you Donna! I definitely feel accomplished. I am ready to move onward and finish two other projects that are just hanging around. One of which is close to an ending, I just have to get through the climax and conclusion scenes. Now, I am feeling confident I can, that I don't need to worry about plot holes until that 1st draft is done. So here's hoping that the confidence from finishing *one* project will lead to the completion of other projects!

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  2. Congratulations on winning NaNo. Don't worry about it not being good - think of it as a pre-first draft, and now you get to read through it and see what's working and what's not.

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    1. Thank you Annalisa! Yes, that is *exactly* what I did. And it felt Great!

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  3. Yippee! It feels great to type the words 'the end' doesn't it? Hope you celebrated big time. Seriously, just getting to the end of a first draft is a HUGE accomplishment, you should be very proud. Don't rush the next stage, start thinking about the next book. Then when you head is clear from this story you can sit back down to look at your story, structure (usually this needs the most work), characters, setting etc and rewrite your second draft. Then it'll be fine tuning and before you know it - your story will be perfect!

    Did you know you have word captcha turned on? It just makes it hard to comment.

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  4. Thank you Charmaine! I will address captcha... My fingers itched for that read through, and I made notes, and now it's sitting. I have a few other projects hanging around that need an ending, so I'm hoping to complete them. :)

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