IWSG - October

Insecure Writers Support Group is a monthly opportunity for writers to support one another, gripe, whine, cheer, and jeer about this crazy thing we do. It was created by Alex J Cavanaugh, and this month's super-fab co-hosts are: TB Markinson, Tamara Narayan, Eva E. Solar, Shannon Lawrence, and Stephanie Faris.  

So... I started a new job a few weeks ago. Awesome! I had a lovely six months of sabbatical, during which I learned so much about writing. Craft, and business, and found a writing group. Fantastic. During that time I started gearing my blogging more toward writing-centric topics, because that's what I was doing at the time, and it's what I'd heard people (fans?) enjoy reading - about the process, where you're at with writing, etc.

And I started dreading writing blog posts.

Not my IWSG posts, because those are more about connecting with other writers. But the ones about what I was up to and how my writing was going, and interesting tips or things I'd learned? Ehhhhhh... Not that I don't care about those things, but I don't seem to care to write about those things. And so my blogging slowed.

And then, the weekend before I started my job, I attended a writing conference. Awesome! Met incredible people, learned a lot, watched a gal from my new writing group place in the top five of a competition. So great. I pitched one of my novels to an editor and she requested a full manuscript.

Holy. Crap. Let me say that again - she requested a full manuscript. Not just the first couple chapters. The Whole Thing. So freaking amazing! I never in a million years imagined that my first ever-in-my-life pitch would result in a request for the full manuscript.

Said manuscript is currently in a first-draft pantsed version that is in no way ready to be seen by an editor, agent, or anyone else.

I'd rather write about places like this than about writing,
ya know? (This is from our Mt. Zirkel trip in July)

So for the last three weeks I've been getting accustomed to my new job, schedule, etc, trying desperately to figure out how in the heck I am going to edit the pantsed beast I have on my hands, and utterly ignoring my blog.

I've made a decision. I'm going back to my blog being about whatever random thing I want to write about - recipes, hiking photos, thoughts on current events. If people want to hear about writing progress they can sign up for my email list. Hopefully this will mean that blogging goes back to being a fun thing, and I can feel less anxiety about writing as a whole.

And then maybe between now and next IWSG I will have something written on my blog that isn't just about how much I suck at blogging.

What do you do when you've lost focus on your blogging or other writing? Any fun accomplishments lately?