It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. One challenge I had occurred last week.
My Writing Challenge for the Month
The challenge was a bit of writer's imposter syndrome. I felt like I was playing writer rather than being writer because it seemed like the one-hour time slot that my day job as library technician allows for me each weekday evening hasn't been enough to write and come out with a new book frequently enough. I was even more limited on time to writing fiction because I was working on my monthly Book-To-Movie review. Because of that, I had to take the week off from working on my concept sketch for the illustration to the cover for "Bad Apps", my soon-to-release book of short fiction. I was finally able to return to working on the concept sketch this week. I'm now in the colouring phase. After I'm done with the sketch, I'll send it to an illustrator in which I'll be soon be contacting one out of several I've been considering. Hopefully he can offer me a good deal.
IWSG Question of the Month
Now for the IWSG monthly question. Answering the monthly question is optional. So, the question is Do most of your story ideas come from one place (the news, dreams, etc.) or do they hit from all over the place? They mostly hit from all over the place. That's why when someone ask me the question so many of us writers get tired of hearing, which is "Where do you get your story ideas from?", I simply reply to them, "Life." Everything we write in our stories comes from our life experiences in one way or another. It can be an event that happened to us, such as getting lost for a day in the mountains, or it can be another person's experience told to us which the stories we receive from other people are a part of life themselves.
My ideas for stories are so infused with things that happened to me or that I heard about happening to someone else that I don't even think of them when I write my stories. When I get an idea for a story, I usually jot it down in my journal and then will develop it into a work when I feel enthused enough to. If I don't feel enthused enough, then I'll look for another story idea that I have written down.
Upcoming Author's Newsletter
If you're subscribed to it, look out for my next free author newsletter coming out in the next week or two. In that edition, I'm planning on featuring the concept sketch for the book cover for "Bad Apps". If you're not subscribed to the newsletter, then you can subscribe here.
If you work a day job in addition to your writing career, how do you balance the two? Do your story ideas come from one source or several? Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Victoria Marie Lees, Sarah Foster, Natalie Aguirre, and C. Lee McKenzie! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels!
Until next time . . .
Yup, life. Sounds about right.
ReplyDeleteLife, where would our stories be with out it? Lol
DeleteI do work a day job and it is constantly throwing me barriers to get writing done, but I'm trying to work out some flexibility in my schedule to allow for more writing time. I hope you can figure out something that works for you, and congratulations at being at the point where you're working on the book cover!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yeah, I may just have to move some activity around or reduce it to get more writing done.
DeleteFrom life experiences - good answer.
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm dedicated to writing a book, I guess I just force myself to work on it for an hour or two every night.
Force: that's what I have to do with myself to get any amount of writing done. Its all about self-discipline.
DeleteWhen DLP was churning out 5-7 books a year, I didn't do any writing for myself. Only when things slowed down did I finally get to put together one of my own books.
ReplyDeleteWhen you're a publisher, its very hard to get the time to write your own books. I think that's why I never went into publishing (not counting self-publishing) because i knew I would never get the time to write my own material. Plus, I dont do well reading and editing loads of on a schedule! Lol
DeleteLife is definitely a rich source of inspiration for the majority of our stories.
ReplyDeleteRight. As I told Jamie above, where would our stories be without it! Lol
DeleteLife provides much inspiration for stories. And life can get in the way of completing our stories, our writing. Stay strong!
ReplyDeleteI'll do that. Thanks! Yes, life can be ironic in the sense of writing. But, as they say, that's life. lol
DeleteHi, Steven! Thanks for visiting my IWSG blog. I feel like a writing imposter most days. 😂. I could never balance my writing and my work. Petroleum geology and then teaching were too demanding. And I HAD to work! I couldn't be that starving artist in the garret. My stories come from life too, and the best I can do is one day at a time. All the best to you!
ReplyDeleteThanks! We can only do the best we can.
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