'Tis the season.... IWSG December

Time for another IWSG post!  Check out the website and sign up to join us!

This month, I want to take a moment and offer my thanks.  I've had a wonderful year, both personally and professionally, and I really appreciate all the support I've received from the blogging community.  This is a really great group of people, and I want you all to know that the time you've taken to visit my blog and your kind words mean a lot to me.

I hope everyone has a lovely holiday season!  See you next month!

IWSG - December edition

It's time for the last IWSG post of 2013!  For more information on IWSG, check out Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog, or the IWSG website.

One of the nice things about being a writer is that I always get to ask 'What's next?'  What is going to happen in the next scene?  The next chapter?  The next book?

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The anticipation of not knowing exactly what is coming around the bend is one of the things I like most about writing.  On the flip side though, the uncertainty of working without a net can be stressful.  How are my characters going to get out of this scrape? How can they overcome these conflicts? What am I going to write after I finish this story? And most distressing of all: will I ever come up with another decent story idea again?

I think most writers are plagued by a surfeit of ideas.  The problem is picking one that you want to live with for any length of time, to really dig in and explore.  The insecurity comes from worrying that none of your ideas merit such examination.

So what's a writer to do?  I think the key is to keep writing.  Pick an idea and play around with it.  Maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but at least you're trying.  You may find that a tiny seed of an idea sprouts into a fully-developed story.

What about you?  Do you have the same worries?  What's your approach to overcoming the stress of the unknown?

Insecure Writers' Support Group - December edition

It's time for another edition of IWSG posts!  For a full list of participating blogs, be sure to check out Alex Cavanaugh's blog.

Can you believe it's already December?  I thought for this month's post, I'd take stock of my year in writing and tally up where I made progress and where I fell short.

Good things:
--I finished Edge of Trust.
--I submitted Edge of Trust, and the editor requested some revisions, which I am currently working on <yay!>

Needs improvement:
--I started 2 books and made progress, but I really wanted to have a second book in the can by the end of the year.  That's not going to happen.
--I participated in NaNo (twice, if you count Camp NaNo during the summer), and failed to win.

I think the biggest lesson for me is that I need to work on my daily writing progress.  I can't just plan to write for large chunks of time on the weekends, because that doesn't always work out.  I need to do a better job of taking advantage of the odd 30 minutes that pop up every now and then.

I also need to learn to ignore my internal editor.  I think that's my biggest roadblock to using the aforementioned spare blocks of time I have--I start writing, and wind up deleting because the words 'aren't good enough.'  Really though, any words are better than no words, am I right?

There are still a few weeks left in the year, and I'm coming up on my winter break at work.  I hope to take advantage of the time off and finish up the revisions for Edge of Trust and make additional progress on Edge of Danger and Edge of Truth.  The holidays are already a crazy time of year, but I think I can do it!

Good luck to everyone on meeting your writing goals during the holiday season!