Today is January's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.
What makes me an insecure writer this month?
Knowing that I’m almost done with the initial writing phase of my debut book, which means I’ll soon be moving into the editing, cover design, formatting, uploading, and marketing phases of being an author. All unknown territory for a first-time writer.
It certainly is gratifying that I’m close to writing “The End” on my story after all these years, but it will still be an uphill battle before it's available for others to read. I've been studying these other phases for a few years now and learned a lot, but there's a big difference between "reading about something" and "doing it." So yeah, I'm insecure.
As far as my 2020 writing goals were concerned, I pretty much sucked at meeting them. I didn’t finish my story (although I came close), my attempt at outreach with other authors in my genre didn’t go anywhere (mostly because I felt the need to keep working on my story), and the website I planned to build only got as far as me buying the domain name. Thank goodness my family isn’t depending on my author skills to set food on the table.
January's question: Being a writer, when you're reading someone else's work, what stops you from finishing a book/throws you out of the story/frustrates you the most about other people's books?
Lack of interest. I don’t mind grammatical errors or flat characters all that much, but as soon as the story stops going somewhere interesting, I’m out. The last book I stopped reading was by a well-known Urban Fantasy author. Her writing is excellent, way beyond my skill set, but the mystery the MC set out to solve kind of got lost as in the weeds as the story turned into encounter after encounter with the heads of the various clans (shifters, vampires, etc.), all of whom wanted to bed her.
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Sorry for the lateness of this post. Despite having all sorts of Google calendar reminders about today’s post, I somehow convinced myself that Wednesday wasn’t until tomorrow. Great way to start off the year.
Take care everyone, and stay safe!
ChemistKen