IWSG August - Where did the summer go?

 

It's IWSG time! What is that? For you who don't know, it's a writer's support group and the brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh.

On the first Wednesday of every month, this group gets together and posts anything and everything about writing...the troubles, the dreams, the support, the thoughts, the drama.... well, about anything.

After all, writing is better when not done alone.

This month's co-hosts are: PK Hrezo, Cathrina Constantine, PJ Colando, Kim Lajevardi, and Sandra Cox! 

I came to post today and realized I haven't posted on here since May!!!! Oh wow! Okay, I knew that I'd skipped one month, but the whole summer?  Yeah, I'm a little out of it this time, aren't I?

Usually, I'd answer the month's question, but I'm going to skip that due to greater things (hmmm...or not so great).

While my posting is horrid, awful, terrible....seriously, it's been bad... my writing is actually going better than it has in the last couple years. (Yay!!!!)  I actually wrote and completed a short story last week and entered it into a little contest. That's the first story I've written from beginning to end in...ummm...2 years. (To say I've been in a writer's slump is an understatement.)

But I'm rolling along on several manuscripts because while I haven't completed anything in 2 years, I have started a few which I love. Now, I'm going to get them done.

Here are the reasons my writing has been off (just to show that writers are humans, after all):

1) Time and stress—with my husband gone all week on the road for the last years, that leaves everything in life on me. We love our lives, at the moment, but I've become a plumber, car mechanic, tractor guru, craftswoman, and electrician...and that while still running the kids around, volunteering, running the review blog, doing the animals, house hold stuff and...and...and...    When I get time, I'm often too tired to write. But we're getting that back on track!

2) Self-doubt monster—I have a huge one of these. Even the short story I turned in is being mutilated by this beast. I liked my story, sent it off, reread it, and now think it's a piece of trash. I hate it. Still, that story is off into the world. So, that's good.  Keeping this monster at bay is tough because it also makes the 'inner editor' a tyrant. Nothing is ever good enough. Never.

3) Co-authoring—I've been working on a series with someone....which because of circumstances has ended up switching gears to another manuscript first. This one is now on round two of edits, although this manuscript isn't so much as co-authored as 'being heavily supported and edited' from my end. Which I am loving and very glad to be doing, but it shoves my own work on the very back burner.

So, that's my life. Do you have some similar problems in yours which keep your writing down? How do you keep pace when 'life' gets in the way? 

I'm actually very satisfied with everything. Just busy and not blogging. And trying my best to fix that.