IWSG July: Summer's in the air

Welcome to July's Insecure Writer's Support Group post! IWSG was set up by the amazing Alex J. Cavanaugh. It's a place where anyone can post their monthly writing insecurities - to find out more about this fantastic group, visit the official IWSG website.

A few weeks ago I decided to make a writing schedule for the rest of the year. I've never done anything like this before - normally I'll pencil a date in my diary when I want to finish key milestones by (e.g. first draft, final draft) but that's it. Also, I've only ever worked on one project at once before, so it wasn't like my writing schedule was exactly full (although, for a first time author, I still found it very demanding).

This year I've decided to set myself more of a challenge. Instead of just writing one book this year, I've decided to try and write four. Yup, that's right - it's my aim to complete four novels by the end of the year. Why would I put myself through this, I hear you cry? Well, as much as I loved taking my time writing Synthetica, the fact is that I'm not going to grow as an indie author if I don't write more books. I don't want to be an author that churns out a book every month (I doubt I could do that, even if writing was my full time job!), but I do want to start converting all those ideas that are in my head into actual books. I love writing so much, and eventually I want this to be my full time career, which means I'm going to have to start and get serious about how much I'm writing.

I'm actually already behind schedule if I'm honest. But luckily me and the Engineer are currently housesitting for a friend for a couple of weeks, so I'm hoping being in a new place without so many distractions will prove to be a positive (I think it'll also help because that house is the place where I wrote the bulk of Synthetica last summer. So I feel like this house has good vibes). Also, it's nearly the summer holidays (yippee!) which is when I'm planning on getting most of my writing done. I find that the long days and light nights (as well as the six week break from work, obviously!) really help to boost my writing confidence.

However, I'm trying not to get too discouraged by the fact that I'm already behind schedule, and the fact that I'm finding it a struggle to write about new characters and worlds that I haven't invested much time in yet. I know all my characters from Synthetica, and I know their world like the back of my hand (mostly). But I'm so scared that I don't have it in me to do it all over again, with a brand new set of characters in a brand new world. I think I've kinda forgotten how much effort goes into creating new worlds, that I'm daunted by the thought of starting all over again. But I guess we'll just have to see how it goes.

Do you think it's possible to write four novels in six months? Have you/would you ever attempt it? Do you find it hard to write multiple books at a time? Do you find it hard to switch from finishing one series to starting work on a brand new book?