Writing, writing groups, and being a pantser.

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There is a frustration with writing. I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s there often enough to give me pause.

Not understanding where the story is heading. Not being able to control the story. As a pantser, these two things plague me daily.

Now, don’t tell me, “Use an outline. It helps.”

Not for me it doesn’t. When I write, it’s about jumping off the bridge and finding wings on the way down.

I’ve tried outlines and beat sheets. They hinder my writing. I don’t know why, but they do.

I’ve written eight books, seven of them written by discovery/pantsing. The one book I wrote with a beat sheet feels stilted. I tried to enjoy writing it, but I slogged through it to the ending.

Now that we’re done with that part, I’ll talk about today and this week.

This week I started something new, ending the story from last week. This feels different from the other horror stories I’ve written. It feels closer to me.

Getting personal in a story is something I know I’ve needed to work on. With this one, that’s why I’m doing. It’s closer and because of that, it won’t be the 86k in a month I wrote a couple of months ago. I’m working through this one more slowly. It feels like its needed.

I will start submitting my horror stories around for critiquing as I’ve found that my writing group doesn’t understand it. They don’t read horror, which is causing a problem.

Anyway, I hope you’re having a marvelous day. I will be posting pictures from my bartending event Saturday on Instagram.

It should be a nice wedding at one of my favorite venues.

When it clicks.

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There was a moment this past weekend while writing that I found the story going in a direction that I hadn’t anticipated.

This sent me to rework the story and go after it from a different direction.

It started, as many stories have lately by being a story prompt. This one took me where I hadn’t been before in my writing. It became more personal.

The personal aspects of it is leading me towards questions I’ve asked about my family while growing up.

Where did we come from? How did our family get to America?

I don’t know why this came up. My family has been in the U.S. on my father’s side since the 1600’s. The other side has been in the U.S. since the late 1800’s.

I know bits and pieces about aspects of my family members on one side. To me it always felt like aspects of my maternal grandmother’s family weren’t told. Those aspects are things I’ve wanted to know.

I’m choosing to delve into them with my writing.

Rough week.

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This week didn’t start how I wasn’t expecting it to.

The story I thought was a novel, wasn’t. Now I don’t have story to write in the morning.

The world decided to throw whatever it could at me and my wife this week.

Our son is having issues with his grades. Our daughter is having issues with her attitude and my wife and I are trying to keep it together.

I don’t usually get personal, but not every week is sunshine and rainbows.

Hope you’re all having a good week.

Keep writing.

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There are moments as a writer when you have to ignore the world around you.

This is related to my post on Tuesday.

I often consider going quiet on social media, in text messages, and everything else.

I want to take this break to finish projects.

There’s a worry, especially as an unpublished writer, that going offline for long amounts of time you’ll lose eyeballs.

I feel this is true and if I leave all my social media I’ll lose everything I’ve built.

Being that I’m publishing on Amazon later this year, I know I won’t leave my blog or Twitter and I may have start a new Facebook account.

I don’t want to but in order to get eyeballs on my writing I may have to.

I’ll keep going on the blog because I’m enjoying talking to all of my readers.

I hope you’re having a good day!

Stop caring about other’s perceptions.

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Over the last year there have been more moments where I felt alone in my process and journey.

Where, other than my wife and one or two others, I didn’t feel there was the support I thought I’d get.

Those moments grew throughout the year. They led to decisions in my writing as well as in my social media activity.

As a writer working towards publishing, especially in the past year, I felt it was time to address this.

I went off of Facebook a year ago. Have taken breaks from Instagram and Twitter, as well as this blog.

I learned a lot from those breaks. One of things is, there are a core group of people who want me to succeed in writing, then there are those who don’t care.

A few years ago, this would have hurt like hell. Today, it burns a little, but that’s all. Those who don’t support my writing are not necessary for me to write. Nor are they necessary to my every day life.

It may sound like a rant, which I don’t do often, but maybe it is. I’ve reached a point as a writer where approval isn’t necessary for my mental health , that’s good right?

The last few days I’ve been writing something different and it’s been hard. It goes against a lot of who I am. It’s also a great story idea. When we, as writers and humans, reach a point where the approval of others is no longer necessary. That’s when we’ll stop caring what people think about us. It’s freeing and scary.

Today, I put some words on the page on this story. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it once it’s done, but its fun as hell.

Hope you’re having a good Tuesday. Make sure to take care of yourself today and I’ll see you on Thursday.

Happy Writing!