May IWSG: Time for a confession...

Welcome to May's Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG)! IWSG was created by Alex J. Cavanaugh (you can check out his blog here) and the official website for IWSG is here – I highly recommend you check it out if you're looking for inspiration/tips about writing!

Me: Hi! My name's Rachel....

Everyone else: Hi Rachel!

Me: My name's Rachel and I'm...a quitter.

There. I said it.

Believe it or not, this is actually quite a difficult thing for me to admit. No one likes to think of themselves in the wrong, or of giving up easily...but I do. I wish I didn't, and it's something I'm trying hard to work on – I don't know if flakiness is something that most people my age have, or if I'm just a dreamer that flits from one thing to the other (in all honesty though, it's more likely the second option).

I could sit here all night and try to justify the things I've given up on - I quit my first proper office job after nine months (although I did hate that job so much it was starting to impact on my mental health, and I'm a strong believer that no job should ever make anyone feel the way I did), I quit my job in China because I couldn't stand the thought of being away form home for Christmas; and I quit my volunteering work this week, telling myself that I didn't have the time for it (I do, I just wasn'tl so enthused by it to give up my spare time to do it...and yes, I'm well aware of how horrible that makes me sound, but I am just trying being honest).

But then equally, I could look at it this way:

Because I quit my office job, I got the opportunity to live in China, meet some amazing people and experience an entirely new culture...

...and because I came home early from China, I was lucky enough to get a job a few weeks after I got back – which surprised me because I went completely blank in the interview, and for one question I just outright told them I didn't know what to say. But I'm so so happy in my job now :) and if I hadn't have come home when I did, I never would've applied for that job or gone to the interview.

...I'm not entirely sure what the positive is of quitting my volunteering work yet, but I'm going to choose to look on the bright side and say that it'll give me more time and (hopefully) more incentive to write.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because just like in my everyday life, I quit a lot of the novels and stories I start to write. And once again I could try and justify why I keep quitting, but the fact is, I just give up. Simple.

But once again, there is a positive side to this. The novel I'm working on now is the one I started during NaNoWriMo last year...and I'm still working on it. By now, I would normally have discarded that novel as well as given up on several other ideas, but just the fact that I wake up willing to work on my novel – whether that's by working on my detailed synopsis (which I wanted to have finished by Easter...whoops), or just by mulling over certain plot points in the car on the way to work – is a huge step forward for me.

So, I guess this month's post isn't just about my insecurities and fear that once again, my current WIP will be doomed to end up just another unfinished file on my computer (because that is the biggest fear that I keep returning to) – it's also about positivity and hope. It's a corny saying, but every cloud DOES have a silver lining :).

If I can sit here and work on a novel six months after I started it, after a lifetime of flakiness and quitting almost everything I've ever started, then you can do it too :).

It's one small step for man, one giant leap towards my dreams of becoming an author ;)