Please click on the above link or the picture to the left for a complete list of participants (all 319 of us!)
So anyway, in the interest of full disclosure, I feel like I should warn y'all that I'm probably going to be all over the place today because that's just where I happen to be at the moment. I'm up, I'm down, I'm backwards, I'm forward, I'm inside out and upside down. I long for the days when I was more like this:
These days, if I think these four things, it's within the same breath. And I usually skip stages two and three.
The biggest reason, I think, for this mindset is that it's looking more and more like my planned 2013 Effigy release isn't going to happen. And it's making me sad. Very, very sad. In every sense of the word.
I truly thought it would happen this year. I'm pretty sure I said the same thing last year and maybe the year before that, but I really meant it this year. I did. I really did. I honestly did think it was going to happen. I thought I finally had all my ducks in a row and my bases covered, and all that jazz, but apparently my bases were covered by my inner Bill Buckner*, so now, instead, I'm stuck feeling like the most incompetent person in the history of the human race (not to suggest Bill Buckner is this person) and questioning whether I should keep going on this whole writing thing.
Then I track down a pen and my notebook and write another scene while planning three more, which, I find, is an answer in itself.
Of course I'm going to keep going. I can think I'm going to quit all I want, but I won't. Because here's the thing...I love being a writer. I'm not particularly successful at it (yet?), but I love it just the same. I love that my must-have accessory is a notebook and pen. I love that my friends never get insulted when I trail off in mid-sentence because I just had some awesome brainstorm I need to write down. I love that my significant other never complains when I turn the light on at 3am because I just thought of the greatest dialogue ever.
And—maybe even more important than that—I love my characters. They probably don't love me very much considering my main source of entertainment is thinking of new and fun ways to torture them, but I love them, and I love telling their stories. That's not something I'll ever give up.
So while I'm not experiencing the rousing success for which I had hoped (and keep in mind that by 'success' here, I only mean, you know, hitting the 'publish' button), I have heard it said that every day you write is a day you succeed. At least I'm doing that.
The rest will come. Maybe in 2014.
Thank you, IWSG-ers and other followers of this blog. This is an incredible community and I'm honored to be a part of it. You inspire me and challenge me and encourage me and all sorts of other things that would look good on a Hallmark card. This is particularly nice because I seriously worry that one of these days you're going to revoke my writer card and banish me from the clubhouse altogether. So, you know, thank you for not doing that. It's much appreciated.
Here's to many more years, IWSG! And here's to Alex J. Cavanaugh who started it all! Cheers!
*—Bill Buckner, in case you're not a rabid Red Sox fan, was a MLB first baseman from 1969 to 1990. He had a pretty successful career but he's most often remembered, unfortunately, in Red Sox circles for a fielding error in Game Six of the 1986 World Series that allowed the New York Mets to score the winning run. The Red Sox went on, of course, to lose the 1986 World Series, so there was not much rejoicing happening there. Unless you were a Mets fan. Then I imagine you were pretty damn pleased. Anyway, that's who he is.