It's the first Wednesday of the month and of course that means it's time for another round of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Hosted as ever by the erstwhile Alex J. Cavanaugh, and co-hosted this month by Pat Garcia, Victoria Marie Lees, Chemist Ken and Louise - Fundy Blue, the aim of the group is to offer a safe space where writers of all kinds can air fears and insecurities without fear of being judged.
Let's have a look at this month's optional IWSG question, quite a dramatic one:
What would make you quit writing?
I could only think of three circumstances under which this eventuality would come about: 1) if I died, 2) if I suffered from an extremely debilitating condition such as dementia, or 3) if I found myself in the position of providing 24/7 care to a loved one with such a condition. Otherwise, I can't think of a good reason to stop. It's the only thing in life I can really control and is something I can always rely on to sustain me, no matter how insane the world gets - and that's been thrown into sharp relief over the last 18 months or so. So no, not planning to stop unless I run into one of the dire outcomes mentioned above. I accept the first one will have to happen at some point, but hopefully the other two don't.
While I'm here, I probably should provide an update on what I've been up to. I'm at a completion phase on two WIPs, tying up loose ends - which is great, and exciting in lots of ways, but of course always comes with looming insecurity with the idea of how they might be received as I start to nudge them out into the daylight. The first of these is a standalone YA story that has already been out with CPs. At that point it came in at a slim 50k, but based on their suggestions, I have greatly expanded the denouement and added much-needed worldbuilding details to bring it up to a much more healthy 70k. It'll be going back out to them soon. The other book is the final part of my trilogy, which has taken a bit longer than I planned - the second part came out back in 2019 - but here again the ending took quite a bit of work to get it right. This is also still at first-draft stage, so I don't see it coming out before early 2022. A bit of work still to do there, but it'll be nice to get this series done and dusted.
All told, I can't ever see myself without a project or two on the go. I'm interested to see how others answer this question. Check out other IWSG entries here.
