Late Insecure Writers post + Shakespeare Sonnet Winner! + Random Awesomeness

"I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye! I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!" - White Rabbit in the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland

As an insecure writer, I have often felt pressure (from myself) to hurry up and get things done. I love writing, but I have too many ideas and not enough time. Will I ever finish the second draft of The Crystal Sword? And when I do, will it really be finished?

Last year, after NaNoWriMo, I fell into a three month writing slump, where I only wrote poetry and journal entries. I like writing poetry. I like writing in my journal. But my novel was at a standstill. I didn't even want to look at it. When I did, it was so bad I laughed my way through reading it. It was either laugh or cry. Then my kids told me they expected me to make it better. They "knew" I could write a better draft. So I started, then I stopped, then I started again. Right before NaNoWriMo, I was only a little over halfway through with my second draft. It felt like it was taking forever, and my mind was in daydream land over new novel possibilities.

So, I took a month off from my revision work to write On One Wing, the sequel to The Crystal Sword.

Then I took a week off to write poetry. However, this had an unexpected benefit . . .

I won the Shakespearean Sonnet Contest I entered!!! This was totally unexpected, and really cool, and even better - the prize for winning is a free edit of 2,500 words of my current manuscript! To see my "Sonnet of Leaves" go to Winner of the Shakespearean Sonnet at Aimee Beatrice Jordan's blog A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman. Thank you Aimee!

That (editing) is just what I needto dive back into revising The Crystal Sword.

So, this year, in an unexpected way, my poetry writing has given me a way to get back into revision, back into prose.

So this is my advice for myself and for all Insecure Writers:
Just keep writing. Write beyond NaNoWriMo. Write something every day. Enter your writing into challenges, contests. Submit your work. Write, and then write more. Surround yourself with encouraging people. And then keep writing.

In Random Awesomeness:

Cherie Reich is having an Editing Giveaway on her blog. Go enter and win a free edit of your writing here: Tis' the Season for Giving Critiques

Go Read Emily Ann Benedict's book, The Father Christmas Confessions

And Watch this Video. It made me laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
Cello Wars - Watch out for Darth Vader, and his . . . accordion?