Dear Slow Writers

On the IWSG Goodreads Book Club page, we had a poll asking our members what their biggest writing insecurity is. Here are the results:

I was surprised to see that so many writings are insecure about writing slow.

If this is your insecurity, this one is for you! :)

Dear Slow Writer,

There isn’t a rule that says we have to do the same things at the same times in the same amount of time.

Some writers can write a book in a year. Others can write a book in a matter of months. There are also writers who can write a book in 30 days. And then there are writers who could spend five years+ writing a book.

All of these time frames are correct.

Our circumstances, perseverance, and whether we know exactly what we need to write (plotter or pantser) all factor in on how long it takes us to write a book.

If a writer is prone to procrastination, it’ll take them longer to finish a book. If a writer has a career or children to nurture, most of their writing time is eaten up. What we have to do is embrace the time we have to write, and actually write during that time.

Procrastination

If you procrastinate, get your butt into gear!

Threaten yourself. “If I don’t write 3,000 words today, no binge-watching TV tonight.”

If you end up writing a lot (more than usual) but don’t reach your goal, show yourself some sympathy. Give yourself a pat on the back and watch an episode or two.

Perfection

If you’re the kind of writer who is able to focus on writing more often but struggles to write a page in an hour (or a day!) then evaluate your performance to pinpoint the cause. Is it because you’re striving for perfection?

A first draft is not meant to be perfect.

Editing Every Sentence

Are you self-editing/revising after every sentence?

Save that for when you finish the first draft. Don’t even edit a chapter once you’re done with it. 

When I get stuck with my writing, I read over the previous page or paragraph and fix up some sentences, add a bit more details or emotion here and there, but the key is that I don't get carried away. What I'm really doing is tweaking, and using those tiny revisions to get my juices flowing again. Those edits, although I'm going backward a tiny bit, help me to keep going forward.

To keep yourself from getting carried away with editing as you go, limit yourself. Be strict. When you feel the need, only look at the last sentence or two you wrote. Two max! And you can’t do it after every couple of sentences either. That'll hold you back. Limit yourself to two sentences per page. Or twice a page if there's two long paragraphs.

Remember, two max!

Unprepared

Another reason why you could be spending an hour (or a day) to write a single page is because you aren’t prepared. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with writing by the seat of your pants, but going with the flow let’s in the potential for writer’s block, procrastination, and snail-like writing.

You can’t go with the flow if there is no flow.

You don’t need to draft a complete outline for your book, but figuring out the beginning, middle, and end will aid you in knowing which direction to head.

At the end of each writing session, map out what you’ll need to tackle in your next writing session to give yourself a head start. Every time you pick up or put down your pen, know where the story needs to go and what your character(s) need to do.

What else can you do to speed up your writing?

•  Participate in NaNo. Write a novel in a month (or up to 50,000 words). Prepare by having an outline and just write. And you don’t have to wait for November, pick any month that works for you.

• There are books that tell you how to write a book in 30 days. Why not see if one offers good ideas?

• Practice free writing. Don’t think, just write.

• Turn off your computer screen and write. You may create typos but don’t worry about that now. Writing with a blank screen in front of you will prevent you from editing as you go, or seeking perfection.

• Use a typewriter. With a typewriter, you can't delete so easily, so you'll be forced to keep whatever you have typed. This is another good one for those of us who edit as we go.

• Give yourself rewards. After you write one chapter, 1,000 words, or 10 pages, treat yourself to a piece of chocolate. Or a cold beer. Or movie night. Or a hot bubble bath. Whatever motivates you, use it for a bribe.

• Sike yourself up. Say, “I love writing! It’s my passion. And right now, I’m going to write. These pages may not be 100%, but they don’t have to be. 1,000 words, here I come. WOO-HOO!”

• Compete with someone. Set up a friendly challenge with a writing buddy to see who can each 50,000 words faster. Check in every single morning/evening through email/messenger/phone to stay accountable. And, if you want, you can have a reward at the end for both of you, such as promising to beta read or buying each other’s books (just one).

Slow writers are still writers.

Slow writers are just as good as fast writers.

Slow writers write just as well and have the same dreams.

Pace is unique and selective. Ignore the pace of other writers and embrace your pace!

      P.S. If part of your insecurity of writing slow has to do with feeling as though you’ll never finish (well, maybe in 10 years), convince yourself that that’s okay. Because it is. It damn well is! Babies start walking eventually, and eventually you’ll have a finished manuscript.

      A dream doesn’t have an expiration date. By the end of the 10 years, your story will be 10X richer and more precious.

      And if you think you’ll never, ever finish . . . Dude, you have to have more faith in yourself. ;) Believe it! Know you’ll finish your book the moment it’s meant to be done.

      Your book is worth waiting for. Trust me. Have faith, and keep writing!

 QUESTIONS: Do you write slow or fast? Do you have advice to contribute?

Insecurity Buster: Book Signing Fear

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is all about insecurity and hopefully overcoming them. Insecurity Buster is a feature I'll do from time to time in which I’ll provide tips to help you defeat an insecurity.

Today’s Insecurity Buster is…Book Signing Fear.

When you do a book signing, you’re coming face to face with your fans maybe for the first time, you’re representing your book in public, and you have to “pretend” you’re an author. All of this can be stressful.

Here are 3 ways to help you ease into a book signing:

1. Signing at a Park

Invite your family and closest friends, who you know will support you, to the park or some other place where you can gather without drawing attention to a crowd. Set up a table with a table cloth, books, and postcards. Have a chair so you can sit down to sign books. Greet your friends and family when they arrive, sign some books or postcards, and then have a little picnic to unwind and have fun.

TIP: Get clips to keep the table cloth from flying. 

This is an image of a park book signing I did with my family. I sold 2 books. :)

2. Home Signing + Holiday Sale

I got this idea from Melissa Maygrove. Set up a book signing table on your driveway next to a table with gift baskets for a holiday. Melissa Maygrove chose Mother’s Day and held her event Mother’s Day weekend. Put out signs as if you’re having a garage sale but advertise it differently. Example: Mother’s Day Gifts + Local Author Signing.

Don’t forget to put an ad in the paper in the yard sale section. You can also create an event on Facebook, invite everyone you know in the area, and have them invite everyone they know.

On the day of, prepare your table early, have a water bottle, shade, a ready smile, and pens. Greet everyone who stops and ask them if they’d like a book or postcard signed.

TIP: Always have postcards or something else with your book promo on it, so if someone doesn’t want a book you can still send them off with info about your book.

Don’t be bummed if you don’t sell any books. I’ve read that at book signings, most authors sell an average of 1-2 books. Yes, really. This isn’t about money, though. It’s about connecting with potential readers.

Melissa's Mother's Day Sign + Sale

3. Sign-Up for a Big Event + Signing

If you’re afraid of doing it alone, you can do it with a group of authors (5 to 50!) at a book event. I will be doing one of these June 2017 in Florida at the Space Coast Book Lovers Event with about 70 other authors, including M.J. Fifield! Doing a signing with a bunch of other authors takes the heat of you, and you can see that everyone else is probably just as nervous as you are. You may not sell a book with that many other authors in one space, but you can still make countless connections. That’s why promo materials (postcards, business cards, bookmarks) and SWAG is so important.

How to ease your book signing fear:

• Hold one of your books so your hands don’t shake.

• Smile and ask the person at your table what kind of books they like. This can work if you’re nervous about talking about your book at first.

• Have a tagline ready that you can recite to anyone who asks what your book is about. Then hand them a postcard with part of your blurb on it (or your book so they can read the blurb on the back).

• Practice signing your signature before the signing and make sure you have a good pen.

• Sit down when you sign, but stand back up when you greet or say goodbye.

• Have post-its on your table to ask so you can ask everyone to write their names down. This will help you not misspell names.

• Thank them for coming and always give them something so they don’t walk away empty-handed. 

Author of Hurricane Crimes, Seismic Crimes, 30 Seconds, Ghost of Death, and Witch of Death. Blogger. Reader. Auntie. Vegetarian. Cat Lover.

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QUESTION: What are your book signing tips? Have you ever done a spin on a book signing? Tell us about it!

AUGUST 3RD QUESTION: What was your very first piece of writing as an aspiring writer? Where is it now? Collecting dust or has it been published?

 *Add this question and your answer to your August 3rd IWSG Post.

To Be a Writer and Not Be Writing by Kamy Wicoff

INTRO: All writers can be insecure, even authors who have a publishing press. Kamy Wicoff is the founder of She Writes and She Writes Press. She is here today to tell us about her writing insecurity. Her story is one that will resonate with so many. Please help me welcome her! 

***

Amazon

Last spring, my first novel, Wishful Thinking, came out. For six months I lived the Writer-with-a-capital-W life, touring the country giving readings, begging book clubs to have me, doing some interviews and speaking on a few panels, and, of course, obsessively checking Amazon. And then it was over. It was time. I had to get back to work, to be a writer-with-a-small-w again, working alone.

Initially I was thrilled. I was exhausted from hocking my book to anyone who would listen, and the faint taint of humiliation that comes from constantly selling yourself had long overstayed its welcome. Ah, to be back at the art again! To immerse myself in a world of my creation, taking dictation from my characters and barreling through a story, rather than struggling to be heard in a crowded marketplace, hammering away at inane social media I could care less about!

So I sat down. And nothing came.

It’s now been another six months. Still nothing.

I am terrified.

I have only published two books in my life (the “only” depends on your perspective, of course, and right now, without an idea in sight, it is how I feel)  – the first was nonfiction, and the second was a novel. Between the nonfiction book and the novel, there were several years where I was fairly sure I’d never write again. But I had some good excuses. I went through a painful divorce. I had very young children. I didn’t want to write another memoir, and had never written fiction and had no idea if I could. When the idea for my novel came to me it was like a bolt from the blue, a lifeline from the gods of creativity to a new way of being a writer that I was sure was the right one at last. I’d never written a novel before, and I wrote one I was proud of. Surely now there would be no more dry spells. Surely now I had found my groove.

The thing is, writing, for me, anyway, doesn’t work like that. I know lots of writers who start the next book before the last book has even come out. (I am Facebook friends with a lot of them, unfortunately for my ego.) But I have spent the last several months trying to make peace with the fact that that isn’t me. It’s hard. It’s scary. I have told myself that by reading, journaling, living life and focusing on my business (I am the founder of SheWrites.com and its publishing arm, She Writes Press), I am “filling the well,” preparing myself in ways I can’t understand now for whatever it is I’m going to write later. But it is very hard to have faith, to be a writer and not be writing. Can I say I am a writer during the times when I don’t write at all?

An age-old question, I know. The muse is fickle, and more likely to visit when we are not chasing her. But it’s hard to wait without panicking that I may be waiting forever. 

So I ask you: what do you do in the in-between, when inspiration doesn’t come yet? I’d love to know. I’ve got some time to kill.

Thank you, Kamy, for being our guest today!

Bio:

Kamy Wicoff is the bestselling author of the novel Wishful Thinking and the nonfiction book I Do But I Don’t: Why The Way We Marry Matters. She is the founder of one of the world’s largest communities for women writers, www.shewrites.com, with 27,000 members worldwide. She is also the founder, with Brooke Warner, of She Writes Press, a “third way” publisher leading the way in creating alternative publishing companies for authors. Kamy serves on the board of Girls Write Now, a New York City nonprofit that pairs high school girls with professional women writers as their mentors. 

To learn more, visit: www.kamywicoff.com.  

Insecure and Proud! / IWSG Day

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month and encourage everyone to visit at least a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs.

The awesome co-hosts today are Stephen Tremp, Fundy Blue, MJ Fifield, Loni Townsend, Bish Denham, Susan Gourley, and Stephanie Faris.

Hey, everyone! Chrys Fey here. This is my first time posting on our site for IWSG Day and I am thrilled. I have a motivational post for you today. :)

Many of you may know the motto “Mutant and Proud” from X-Men: First Class.

Well, I think our motto should be “Insecure and Proud!”

“Insecurity has always been defined as a negative emotion, yet it can be a motor, a driving force. ‘I’m insecure, but I’m going to work harder to be better’ . . . an insecure person is always striving for perfection.” – Sylvia Browne

Insecurity feels as though it is negative because it comes from us thinking we’re inadequate.

We aren’t good enough.

We don’t know enough. 

We don’t write enough.

We aren’t published yet.

But these insecurities come out of a good place...passion. If you weren’t passionate then you wouldn’t be insecure. You wouldn’t worry that you’re not good enough. You wouldn’t strive to be better. You wouldn’t have dreams of where you hope to go with your writing.

The fact we’re insecure means we care. We care about this beautiful and often cruel publishing business. We care about our characters. We care with every fiber of our insecure bodies.

And that is good.

No, that is great!

Embrace whatever insecurity you are feeling, because it means you’re dedicated. Because it means everything in the world to you to one day publish or write the story of your dreams. Because writing is who you are, and without it you would be lost.

As you work through your insecurity, you’ll grow. You’ll get better. That is what an insecurity is supposed to do if you handle it correctly and don’t let it defeat you.

So say it with me and say it like you mean it...

INSECURE AND PROUD!

***

NOW OUT!

Parallels: Felix Was Here

An Insecure Writer’s Support Group Anthology

Enter the realm of parallel universes!

What if the government tried to create the perfect utopia? Could a society linked to a supercomputer survive on its own? Do our reflections control secret lives on the other side of the mirror? Can one moment split a person’s world forever?

Exploring the fantastic, ten authors offer incredible visions and captivating tales of diverse reality. Featuring the talents of L. G. Keltner, Crystal Collier, Hart Johnson, Cherie Reich, Sandra Cox, Yolanda Renee, Melanie Schulz, Sylvia Ney, Michael Abayomi, and Tamara Narayan.

Hand-picked by a panel of agents and authors, these ten tales will expand your imagination and twist the tropes of science fiction. Step through the portal and enter another dimension!

PRINT LINKS:

Amazon / Barnes & Noble 

DIGITAL LINKS:

ITunes / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

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Fighting Insecurity at Conferences and Events with Jennifer Hillier

In the past three years since my debut novel was published, I've been fortunate to have attended five conferences (four ThrillerFests and one Bouchercon), I've gone on a book tour in the Philippines (which included a feature spot at the Manila Book Fair), and I've done a variety of other book events across the US and Canada, including a charity ball for the Toronto Public Library. It's actually not that much when you compare my schedule to that of other authors, but for someone like me – who's relatively new to publishing, and naturally shy to boot – in-person events like these can be terrifying.

For starters, the other authors I meet at these events seem to be so much more confident. They've been around longer. They know they belong. Unlike me. I'm always wondering if I have anything to contribute to the conversation, and I'm always scared that I don't. Whenever I receive a panel schedule only to discover that I'm discussing serial killers with authors who are consistently on the New York Times bestseller list and who have movie deals in the works, I always want to email the conference coordinators to ask if they made some kind of clerical error inserting my name in with theirs. That little song, "Which one of these is not like the others?" always goes through my mind.

And then, of course, I'm genuinely amazed that anyone even shows up to my panels. Surely the audience isn't there isn't to see me, when everyone else on the panel is funnier, smarter, and more interesting than I am. After the panels, when I'm sitting at the signing table, I always assume someone is lost when they approach me. Even if they're holding a copy of my book in one hand and a pen in the other, I'm still thinking they probably just need directions to the bathroom.

At the Book Lover's Ball, a charity gala for the Toronto Public Library, I found myself at a table filled with corporate sponsors who'd paid good money for a chance to talk to a published author all night. The hotel ballroom was packed, and each table seated eleven people – ten dinner guests and one author. And even though there were exactly ten copies of my book at the table, I still found myself waiting for the real author to show up. I had a hard time accepting that the author for my table was me.

It's an insecurity that I doubt will ever go away. I think I've managed to write each book more confidently than the last, but when it comes to feeling like I belong in the publishing world, I still feel like a fraud most days. I keep waiting for the moment when someone will tell me that I'm in the wrong room, that my name was accidentally added to the panel, and that the kind-looking lady approaching me really does need my help finding the bathroom.

If she does, I will gladly show her the way.

* * *

Jennifer Hillier is the author of the psychological thrillers THE BUTCHER (2014), FREAK (2012), and CREEP (2011). Find her on Facebook at JenniferHillierAuthor, and on Twitter at @JenniferHillier. She blogs at Serial Killer Files and her official website is here.