Insecure Writers Support Group Post - is your book good enough? Margaret Attwood hits the nail on the head!

Hello there, fellow insecure writers and friends.

Thanks Alex J Cavanaugh for this group where there's always something to learn. Today I'll keep my post short as I know there's a gazillion bloggers signed up these days.

Jokey Attwood

Margaret Attwood (novelist, poet, essayist, critic, activist) was recently interviewed on ABC television in Oz. She is one witty, acerbic, sharp dame. She likes a joke, rarely stops smiling, and does a wonderful sneering French accent. She doesn't come across this way in her books, none of the ones I've read anyhow, rather the opposite, but there you go. (A bit like a How-to-Write-Thrillers-and-Crime-Novels book I'm currently reading where the author claims that crime writers are lovely, carefree people as a general rule--they get all their angst out on the pages of their latest tome.) Ha...ha...ha....

Anyhow, Margaret Attwood says some great things, the best being IMHO (I paraphrase): 'Finish the book! Don't spend all your time wondering whether it will sell, whether it will receive bad reviews, whether it will reach the top of the best seller list. Just finish it!' I really like this advice as I have 4 books unfinished, lol!
I'm working on getting one finished as we speak...or read...

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Attwood's latest words of wisdom are (I quote, as I recorded them on my phone):

'There are only four kinds of books -- good books that make money, bad books that make money, good books that don't make money and bad books that don't make money.' Of those four, she says, 'You can live with three of them.'

Margaret Attwood quotes are kind of famous. I found this one as my mind's on RomanticFridayWriters and the whole month of June is devoted to the theme: June Weddings. (Hubs and my wedding anniversary is today!) At RFW, there'll be posts about weddings, a guest post from best-selling romance writer Kate Walker (with a giveaway), and a prompt to write about weddings -- for which there are prizes. Now wouldn't that be lov-er-ly! Join us if you can!

"The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love."

Margaret Atwood 

• What do you think? Do you agree with Attwood on love or books? 
• I still haven't been able to fix my lack of blogger feed. Do you know anyone else having a similar problem?

The Insecure Writers Support Group - Finish that novel!

Hello there!

It's great to be back to 'normal' posting now that my NaNo novel is finished. I have participated in NaNoWriMo for several years in a row, but this is the first time I feel really happy with the first 50,000 words of my novel. Perhaps that's something to do with the fact that it's been simmering around in my head during my 6-week hiatus in Fiji in July/August this year. As I cruised the Fiji Islands at leisure and chatted to the locals, I was always on the lookout for locations/characters for the story I knew I'd write back in Oz.

Two kava ceremonies turn up in my novel. Hard to do if I hadn't participated in a few!

Funny, I was reading yet another 'how to' book before NaNo, and it said it would be difficult to write about some places, such as Fiji, without visiting. I know what the author meant. There are so many customs, ways of thinking, histories and characters that would be difficult to find on google.

So many quirky characters, so many ceremonial dresses,
so many things to experience - and write about.

Which brings me to the point of my post today - Finish the novel.

Margaret Attwood said it, others have said it - if you don't finish your story, why are you worried about whether it'll get published or not? Similarly, if you don't ever finish anything you start, what is the point of twittering away on social media (if you have opened accounts expressly to promote yourself) if you never have anything to promote? Luckily, I just twitter away promoting other authors and places.

So insecure writers (isn't that everyone?), get that novel finished - first draft, edits, re-writes, whatever it takes, but eventually call it finished and ready to launch into the world. Hopefully, you won't have as many unfinished novels as I have, but how about we work towards at least getting one completely finished? That aside, I consider my unfinished novels the best hands-on writing course I ever did!

• Tell me about your writing journey and aspirations. Have you finished your novel yet? Are you published?