Wednesday, March 6, 2024

#IWSG-- Never give up, never surrender!

 Hello!

Welcome to the monthly clearing of the minds also known as the Insecure Writer's Support Group!

Writers from near and far join in on the first Wednesday of the month to share our worries and tales of writing life.

 





Join us!https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

 

The title of this blog is from a movie (wanna guess?) but it also sums up a writing career.

Definitely sums up MY writing career.

I just released my twenty-sixth novel--add three novellas--and this is #29. 

I'm proud of this book and the series--and SO extremely glad that it's OUT there now!

But I've never had as many problems with any book as I had with Destruction of Chaos.

1) The book just wasn't working and last fall (when it was supposed to come out) I stopped and cut out one hundred and fifty pages.

2) That cost me my preorder privileges from Amazon for a year and blocked the book (didn't know about the blocking issue until I went to release it--good times).

3) Ended up with a MASSIVE book for me. Most of my books are in the 120,000-word range--this one was 167,000. Even after a lot of editing.

4) Had to work with Amazon when I went to put it up--that whole "blocked" issue. The nice person in the chat said that they fixed it. I asked about the series number since it kept showing the original failed fall attempt. They promised it would be fine.

5) It's not fine. My trilogy all says there are four books in the series--one being the invisible blocked one.

6) I tried to set up the print version...sigh. Amazon has the ISBN for that one as already being used. On the blocked version. I might end up losing that ISBN.


7) Goodreads, since it is owned by Amazon, had that book blocked as well and I'm still fixing it.

BUT...I kept going. This book was late when I started it, so it's been two years since the prior book. Then add in all the issues and whatnot.

I could have just left that one hundred and fifty pages in, slapped on some half-assed ending, and been done.

I'm too stubborn for that. There are a lot of talents that writers need. I'd say that tenacity is the most important. All you have to do is get back up one more time than you get knocked down ;).

What about you? Where have you stuck with the fight and completed your work?

Happy IWSG day!