November IWSG: Giving Thanks

            Time for another posting with the Insecure Writer's Support Group, where writers can share their insecurities and encourage one another.  IWSG was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh and we share our posts the first Wednesday of the month.  The co-hosts for November are: Tyrean Martinson, Karen Walker, Denise Covey, and Stephen Tremp.  

                This past Saturday night, I was feeling particularly insecure about the short story I submitted to the IWSG Anthology Contest and I thought I would be writing about that today. I’ll be honest, I don’t think that my story was that great. I procrastinated too long and I feel like I could have put more thought into developing my characters and plot if I had more time. But my story is no longer an insecurity for me. On Sunday, I spent some time with a good friend of mine and got a lot more than writing insecurities talked out. And on Monday, I read this post from Chrys Fey about her gratitude challenge. So, I felt inspired to share some things I’m grateful for with writing over the last week.

                I’m grateful that I finished my story. I may not have polished it up as much as I would have liked, but I’m glad I wrote it. I now have a 5000 word short story completed, which is much longer than any other fictional stories I wrote in high school. I know this may not seem that big to those who write novels or are participating in the NaNoWriMo, but this is a huge first step for me! Plus, I submitted my story to a contest for others to judge, gasp! By the way, good luck to all those participating in NaNo! I only recently found out about it. Maybe I’ll be ready to try it out next year, we’ll see.

I’m grateful for those who commented on my last post who were encouraging me to write my book. I actually haven't thought about it for a while and I have not added very much to my collection of stories, journal entries, and introverted frustrations for months. I was reading through some of my collection before I posted and thinking about continuing my work on it. Maybe it is time to turn it from collecting dust back to a work in progress.

I’m grateful for our Ninja Captain Alex for sorting through all those emailed contest submissions and making sure we have them in an editable file format, lol :) I’m grateful for Chrys Fey for her reminder to look at the positive things in life. And I’m grateful for my friend, Shannon, I’m glad we had that chat, it really helped me put my story (and other things) in perspective :) In fact, I’m grateful for all my wonderful readers and followers, family and friends. Thanks for stopping by!
 

 

What are you grateful for with your writing or the blog community this month?