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 question for March 7 is: How do you celebrate when you achieve a writing goal/ finish a story?
I suppose it depends on whether or not the writing project had a deadline. If I’m working to get something finished in time, I will usually procrastinate and then exhaust myself. Like when I participated in the Blogging From A to Z Challenge and I was writing posts the night before (I do not recommend that method if you are thinking of participating this year). Or when I wrote most of my 3000+ word fantasy story in two weeks for the IWSG anthology contest in 2016. When I procrastinate my writing, no matter how much I may have enjoyed the process, I usually celebrate with a break from writing. When I was not working my day job, I watched too much Netflix, listened to music, played hours of video games, and spent time reading during these extended breaks. The problem with this is that I often have a hard time getting back into writing after the break.
Something that has worked far better for my writing is when I get into a writing flow. If I write regularly enough, I find that it is a lot easier to come up with ideas for stories. It does feel good when the ideas are streaming through my head faster than I can write them down. That is what happened with my most recent accomplishment. I participated in last month’s Write…Edit…Publish Challenge and shared a flash fiction story on my blog for the first time. (You can read it by clicking here). Even though it is only published on my blog, it was still nice to share something new, and the wonderful comments people had were thoughtful and encouraging. I am glad that I participated and I’m hoping to get an idea going for the next one. Writing things like that actually inspire me to celebrate by writing more, which is a better way to celebrate by far.
Along the lines of inspiration, I have been particularly inspired by a piece of music a few times this month. It is the 2nd Movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony in A Major. I would definitely put this on my top ten classical music pieces list if I had one. I hope it helps inspire your writing as well if you choose to listen.
Here's the direct link if the embedded video does not work: https://youtu.be/J12zprD7V1k
Isn't Leonard Bernstein an amazing conductor?
