Wow, it's time for another Insecure Writer's Support Group post already!
This month's questions asks:
As you look back on 2017, with all its successes and failures, if you could backtrack, what would you do differently?
I'm pretty happy with the past year other than one small endeavor in dealing with a small local publisher. If I had a do over, I would have listened to my gut and avoided that whole interaction. There was no contract and no money involved so no real losses other than one more thing to be annoyed about. Disappointed, sums it up nicely, I guess.
Without getting into specifics, because I'm not here to bash anyone and other authors seem to love these people, when your gut tells you to keep walking, even when your friends tell you to stop and check it out, listen to your gut. It's there for a reason. When a publisher will not answer emails, update you the status of the project, produces one of the worst covers and blurbs I've seen (and I've lurked on those lousy cover sites), and runs a six month and counting pre-order with no publish date in sight, it's time to walk away and maybe buy your gut an apology gift - like maybe a big chocolate shake or some cheesecake.
Enough about failures, let's talk about success, because I wouldn't do that differently. NaNoWriMo just wrapped up and it was a great November. I wrote 60,000 words (my highest single month word production) and reached 50K five days earlier than ever before. Year twelve of doing NaNo was fantastic! The story isn't done yet, I'm still writing. Though, not at the manic November pace. I do try to get 500 words a day or so to keep working toward the end.
I hope you had a great 2017 or at least a year to learn from if it didn't go so great. I suppose, with the new year approaching it's time to start pondering what my one word will be for 2018.
