The Insecure Writer's Support Group- Anniversay Edition

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Hello and welcome to a very special anniversary edition of  The Insecure Writer's Support Group!  Thanks go out to our amazing founder Alex J. Cavanaugh and to this month's co-hosts Kristin Smith, Elise Amata, Suzanne Furness and Fundy Blue!  Thank you all!!!

Those of you who are published, on the road to being published or have experience with marketing are hopefully all submitting your entries for inclusion in the The Insecure Writer's Group Guide to Publishing and Beyond.  If you fall into this category but have not already submitted your entry please go to http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-guide-to-publishing-and-beyond.html and submit your link to your 300 word or less entry so it can be added to the anthology and read by people like me who hope to one day publish themselves.

Seeing as I fall into the category of writers who have not yet been published I'm not including today's entry in the anthology- I'll wait for a time when I have some experience in that.  For now, I'm just going to talk about something that inspires me.

You!  I have long lived under the delusion that published authors were somehow more than human.  Be it their unimaginable talent which must have been gifted by a personal muse on speed dial or some vast sum of money that allowed them to give up work and other distractions in order to do nothing but write I always believed that there was something almost supernatural that made a published author published.  But because of this community I've come to learn that the only difference between me and published authors is good ol', unadulterated discipline.

You guys work- full time jobs 99% of the time.  You're moms and dads with kids running around your writing spaces and cluttering up your brain with everything involved in that all-important responsibility.  You cook and clean and buy groceries and fall behind on deadlines.  And yes, you sometimes also get distracted by you tube and facebook and the other black holes of the internet.  On the whole, you're just like me.

But unlike me, you take the time to write everyday.  You read and research independent publishing firms and self-publishing routes.  You help other writers market by hosting book tours and blog hops and everything else involved in marketing your own work.  You work your butts off, in other words, to get your books out there into the world.  And YOU- not those super-famous authors I placed on such impossibly high pedestals- inspire me.

So today, on the one-year anniversary of that wonderful source of so much inspiration, I say thank you to all of you published, self-published, soon-to-be published and aspiring authors out there for doing everything that you do and leading me to believe that I too will one day be among your ranks.  You guys rock!

Insecure Writer's Support Group- 2nd Anniversay Post!

Today's amazing 2nd anniversary post is hosted, as always, by the truly amazing Ninja Captain Alex.  If you haven't stopped by his site first (which I assume you have, but just in case), go there right now!  He's got big news about IWSG!

Co-hosting this amazing anniversary edition are the equally wonderful Chemist Ken, SL Hennessey, Michelle Wallace and Joylene Nowell Butler.  Stop by, say thank you, scribble happy things on their post and let them know that they rock- cause they do!

And now, and I hate to do this after so much positivity, but I am a very, very insecure writer and this is the place to let myself fall apart a little.  So without further ado, my insecurities:

I’ve been dealing with a lot of rejection lately.  Not just from prospective publishers but from a whole bunch of potential employers.  Three phone interviews have led nowhere and I’ve got a couple of rejection e-mails from publishers in my inbox that I’m not sure what to do with.

All this, needless to say, is fueling a fire that already has a tendency to burn out of control.  “See?  You should’ve known better”  “What were you thinking?”  “Of course they don’t want you- why would they?”  It uses the evidence at hand to support its case and that little inner voice who normally jumps up to defend me struggles to counter it.

I’ve been fighting this for years- for as long as I’ve been alive, in some ways.  And although I’ve mostly given up on being judge, jury and executioner I still have a very active judge and jury in my head and they make some pretty convincing arguments.

On the good days, I can shut it down pretty quickly.  Those jumping flames of criticism are dampened by my will which I’ve nurtured and nourished over the years.  I keep plugging away at whatever it is I’m doing and tell myself that the sheer willingness to do that means I’ve won.  I remind myself of my past victories and how they came to me.  I listen to the supportive people around me and their voices drown out all those doubts and harsh words.

But on the bad days, the ones like yesterday, it gets much harder to defend myself.  My will isn’t as strong and that judge and jury could set the entire library of my ideas on fire like an angry mob.  I imagine a book burning in my head where my story ideas, dreams and hopes for the future get thrown onto the pyre with a chorus of destructive calls as a soundtrack.

I’m not as bad as I used to be- I have to remind myself of this.  I used to be able to tear myself down so thoroughly that even the support of friends and family couldn’t make a dent in the shell of self-hatred I enclosed myself in.  Now I don’t let myself get that far down- even on the bad days.  I do something else, distract myself, force myself to engage in another activity.  Action has always been my greatest defense against negative thinking simply because it forces me to think about something else.

But the will to try again- to submit another story, send out another application- that’s the key.  Because every story I write makes me a better writer.  Even if the story is terrible and leads nowhere- I learn, I grow.  And every application gets me one step closer to the one that will finally click- the magical combination of the right time, right company, right interview.  And every single time that I try again I dump a giant bucket over those flames of self criticism (and that judge and jury look pretty darned silly when they’re soaking wet!)

My friends and family help a lot with this.  Being gentle with myself helps a lot.  And you guys- boy do you all help a lot.  Because you are still writing.  And you struggle with self criticism, and rejection from publishers, and book deals pulled out from under you with no warning, and bad sales, and pressure, and doubt and everything else.  And you’re willing to share it all with me, and to keep writing.

I’m not worried about getting published right now- I’ve got a day job.  And staying at that day job a while longer won’t kill me so if it takes some time to find a better job that’s OK.  The most important thing for me is the ability to try again, to not give up in the face of rejection.  Because every time I do, I win.

Don't forget to stop by the full list and visit other bloggers.  I've got some new peeps to meet myself, and I'm sure they can use the support just as much as I can.

A Reflection

This is my 499th post, tomorrow will be my 500th.  I've never celebrated a Blogoversay before and actually didn't know that was a thing until I started reading other people's blogs and seeing them celebrate theirs.  My blogoversay isn't until next month but 500 posts, I think, is a pretty big deal and deserves recognition.  But since tomorrow is already slated for IWSG, I'm going to be doing my 500th post reflections here.  And so, I present to you:

The history of Bev the Blogger in 5 absurdly truncated steps:

1)  The blog starts.  Bev writes.  She and one other person read it, no one else knows it exists.  She seriously consideres, more than once, just ending the thing completely.  The blog exists in limbo.  (This denotes the first 2 to 2.5 years of the blog’s existence).  It is a very sad time for Bev.

2)  Bev submits her first story for Friday Flash.  Other writers read it.  They say nice things.  But Bev is still largely isolated due to irregular submissions and no other outlets.  (This denotes the next 0.5 to 1 year of the blog).  Bev is hopeful, but still plagued by doubt.

3) Bev discovers Am Writing.  Then the A to Z Challenge.  Then Celebrate the Small Things.  Then IWSG.  Then a whole array of other fun, helpful, supportive blog hops.  Then signing up to do book reviews, host author interviews and use the blog as an avenue to spread the word about other writers.

Every day she posts, she is exposed to more writers, more potential blog hops, and more positive comments from wickedly awesome people who blow her mind with how nice they are.  Connections on Twitter, Google+ and other networking modalities explode.  (This denotes the past 3-4 months of the blog’s existence, so it’s a pretty recent phenomenon).  Bev vibrates right out of her chair with excitement.

4) Bev decides it’s time to try to get published.  A whole host of old fears she’s been able to keep at bay thanks to consistent positive feedback from supportive bloggers start to crop up again.  But logic dictates that they are no more rational than any of the other fears she has been able to overcome whilst blogging so much, so tries anyway.  She enters writing competitions.  She submits her poetry.  She scans the web for calls for submission.  She blogs, almost everyday, and allows herself to experiment more with her writing than she ever has before.  She starts to (finally) think of herself as a writer after refusing that label for years.  She hits her 500^th post on her blog.

5) ...?

And now, I will stop talking about myself in the 3rd person and ask you to join me in celebrating my soon-to-be 500th post.

I know it's not technically till tomorrow, and I'll probably mention it again in my IWSG post.  But given the upcoming holiday I figured the graphic should have a place, so it's here.  And here I will say, officially, YAY ME!

A GIANT, genuinely heart-felt "THANKS!" to all of you for reading, commenting, connecting and supporting me.  My growth as a blogger is due largely to you.  And I couldn't be more grateful.