IWSG #12 - Deadlines and Disappointments

It's that time again for sharing with the Insecure Writer's Support Group.
What is that you may ask, well their mission statement is this:

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a home for writers in all stages; from unpublished to bestsellers. Our goal is to offer assistance and guidance. We want to help writers overcome their insecurities, and by offering encouragement we are creating a community of support.

The first Wednesday of each month, we blog about our fears, insecurities, or even an accomplishment we had. 

Normally I write this post the night before it's due, but this time I wanted to have it posted on this day specifically.  April 28th, 2014 I hit that publish button on my first book.

I was both excited and scared about putting my first book baby out in the world. When I'd finally gotten it done, the idea for Not Broken came to me and I started writing it right away. I had a 'new publish' high if you will and a great outlook on my career as a writer because of it. 

Reviews came in, and they were positive only adding to my excitement. Work on Not Broken was going slow, but it was going. I had, at the time, clear direction on what I wanted from the story, everything was looking up. 

Then the writing began to stall. I hit roadblocks with Malcolm's character, lost direction, and started making excuses. The first twelve chapters of Not Broken came easily then nothing. To add to the struggle and self doubt the not so positive reviews came in. They weren't terrible, but not glowing either. My very first post for IWSG was about just that. No matter how much I told myself I knew not everyone would love my book, those not so positive reviews were the fertilizer feeding the seeds of self-doubt that had already been planted. 

After that the excuses came easier. Any and everything took importance over my writing. Days, weeks, months, and finally years went by without me even opening my WIP doc. I still made one or two sales a month on Fiendish. I got a few emails and messages via Facebook from readers asking when Not Broken would be out and I'd feel like crap for not having completed it by now. 

I learned about this group in April of 2016, made my first blog post in May. Reading other posts and getting the encouraging comments on mine had me blowing the dust off my WIP and the want to work on it came back. Since then I've made great progress on it, but not without road bumps along the way.

Being self-published means I don't have anyone expecting anything from me by a certain time. Any deadlines are of my own making. That brings me back to the point of this post for this day. With all the setbacks I encountered I tried to give myself a deadline for having Not Broken out into the world. The day you ask? April 28, 2017. I wanted to have it out on the anniversary of Fiendish's release. The day has come, but the book remains unfinished. 

I'm disappointed in myself for taking so long. I'm disappointed in myself for making excuse after excuse on why I didn't have to work on it. The book is still an active WIP. I'm determined to get it done and out in the world. I owe it to myself and the few people that I hope are still out there wanting to read it. I wish I could say I'm close to being done. I wish I could have a tentative release date to give, but I don't. There are still eight months in 2017, and the best I can say is that Not Broken will (hopefully) be out at some point in one of those eight months. I wish I could offer more, but sadly I can't.

Thanks for stopping by

~Meka