IWSG post - If you're writing to publish, stop. And WEP returns!

Greetings from New Caledonia!

Having a great time exploring this wonderful island in the Pacific, but before I left to come over here, I scheduled my IWSG post. I was considering giving it a miss this month, but then I came across this paragraph on writing in Writing Unboxed when I was doing my nonchalant surf of the bloggers I follow. Dave King, the co-author of Self-Editing for Fiction had some good writing advice.


I don't know about you, but there's a lot of pressure for blogger/writers to get their novels out there. I'm taking longer than most as I feel I'm still learning my craft and yes, well, I'm a perfectionist. So I get pressure from blogger friends and family to get something out there into the market. But I don't intend to publish until I feel my books are ready. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a prolific writer, and if you've published a novel, you know it sometimes feels like it takes more hours in the day than God gives us.)

We have the Slow Food Movement. I belong to the Slow Writing Movement. I choose to be someone who takes her time playing with words, rather than live in a state of panic because the years are racing by and I don't have a published novel. Lalalalalalala! It's not like there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for writers. I know there is validation for the gazillion hours spent on the laptop and in your head. But to me, the real reward of writing is in the writing itself.

Dave King, editor, says:

So if you’re writing to publish, stop.  Instead, write to write.  Do it for the moments when your characters say or do something so unexpected that you wonder if you ever really knew them before.  Do it for the moments when you overhear something in the supermarket and think That was beautifully put and would make great dialogue.  Do it for the mornings when you wake up and know exactly how the atmosphere of one of your settings feels, when you have to hurry to get it down on paper before the feeling fades.  Do it for the late evenings when you finish a scene with tears in your eyes.

Exactly.

• How about you? Do you feel pressure to get your novel out there, from yourself or from others?

PS: You may have heard a whisper that Write...Edit...Publish (WEP) is starting up again! It's true! Yolanda Renee has joined forces with me. Couldn't do it without her. Our first challenge begins on August 19. There was a post on Monday at the WEP site. Go there if you want more info.

So if you got this far, you deserve a picture. [INSERT IMAGE HERE] If there's no image, it means I'm having so much fun I forgot!!

At the Baie de Citron, Noumea.

Thanks to Alex J Cavanaugh and the team for this month's IWSG. Click here for more posts.