Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Taking The Next Step

  1. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Let’s begin the Fight
  2. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Rejection – The Ugly Word
  3. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Learning to Juggle
  4. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: To Dump or not to Dump
  5. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Keep the Faith
  6. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Finding Your Identity
  7. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Just for the love of it
  8. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: 5 Step plan for success
  9. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Planning Issue
  10. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Crossroads
  11. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Overwhelming Effect
  12. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Waiting Game
  13. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Reflection 2013
  14. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: New Year New Challenges
  15. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Am I a real Writer?
  16. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Taking The Next Step
  17. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Submission Phobia
  18. Setting Self Doubt On Fire: How To Get Ideas
  19. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Dealing with Fear
  20. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Only Guarantee
  21. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Doubts of others
  22. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Let those positives shine
  23. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: First Draft Blues
  24. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Time-wasting issue
  25. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Embrace the bad ideas
  26. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Writer or Author?
  27. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Negative Feedback; the double slap
  28. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Pat yourself on the back
  29. Setting Self Doubt On Fire: The Deflated Eureka Moment
  30. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The doomed quest for perfection
  31. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Writing Group fears
  32. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Horror Tree Crew tackle Mr Self Doubt
  33. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Read aloud challenge
  34. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Find your inner belief
  35. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: NaNoWriMo and Self-Doubt
  36. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: We are NaNoWriMo winners
  37. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: New Year’s Resolutions for Writers
  38. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The benefits of organizing
  39. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Editing Strain
  40. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Writing Group Experience
  41. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Dealing with second stage fears
  42. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Reading aloud to an audience
  43. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Importance of perseverance
  44. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Self-Doubt or Gut Feeling
  45. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Get ready for NaNoEdMo
  46. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Benefits of Writing Goals
  47. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Rejection Gets Better
  48. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Writers, take care of yourself!
  49. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: How to Boost Your Self-Confidence
  50. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Why You Should Go to a Writing Festival
  51. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Help! A Publisher has Dropped Me
  52. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Setting Self Doubt on Fire Challenge
  53. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: How to Prepare for a Book Reading Event
  54. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: It’s NaNoWriMo and NaNoEdMo Time
  55. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Help! I Didn’t Reach My NaNo Goal
  56. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Let’s Beat Self-Doubt in 2017
  57. WIHM: Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Female Horror Writer and Proud
  58. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Don’t Let Self-Doubt Make You Miss Deadlines
  59. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Hey! Where’s My Book Reading Audience
  60. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: 5 Tips on How to Ignore the Negative Voices
  61. Video Refresh: Rejection – The Ugly Word
  62. Video Refresh: Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Learning to Juggle
  63. Video Refresh: To Dump or not to Dump
  64. Video Refresh: Keep The Faith
  65. Video Refresh: Finding Your Identity
  66. Video Refresh: 5 Step plan for success
  67. Video Refresh: The Planning Issue
  68. Video Refresh: The Crossroads
  69. Video Refresh: The Overwhelming Effect
  70. Video Refresh: The Waiting Game
  71. Video Refresh: Am I A Real Writer?
  72. Video Refresh: Taking The Next Step
  73. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Let’s Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway in 2019
  74. Video Refresh: Submission Phobia
  75. Video Refresh: Dealing With Fear
  76. WIHM: Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Female Horror Author Reading Challenge
  77. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Writer or Author? Video Refresh
  78. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Beat the Fear of Self-Publishing
  79. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: Do NaNoWriMo Differently This Year
  80. Setting Self Doubt on Fire: How Can Online Groups Help Writers?
  81. Setting Self-Doubt on Fire – AuthorTube – Learn How to Describe Emotion
  82. Setting Self-Doubt on Fire: How to Set Realistic Goals for NaNoWriMo

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Hi folks, I’m back again, and this week I am going to expand on a topic that I briefly mentioned in my New Year New Challenges post. For those who haven’t read it, I mentioned how with a new year upon us it was time to give ourselves some challenges, that will help push us further along this writer’s journey. I listed 10 challenges that you could try, and hopefully they have been of some use to you. It’s while doing that list I’ve come up with this new blog post, so today I will be discussing how do you know when it’s time to take that next step, to move on from doing the short stories and commit to a longer project.

 

Why do I feel the need to mention this again? Well because taking the next step is scary, and for all those who are fighting Mr Self Doubt you know that this could result in you hiding yourself in your imaginary cupboard. You will come up with many excuses why you couldn’t possibly try a longer piece of work, see below for examples.

 

  1. I’m too busy and just don’t have the time
  2. I think I was only meant to do short stories
  3. Rejection will hurt a lot more if I’ve spent months on a project
  4. I don’t know, I don’t think I can commit to such a project
  5. I’m not ready

 

The list goes on, but none of these excuses or any of the ones you’ve come up with are true, you are just allowing Mr Self Doubt to gnaw away at you. You’re not alone in this, I have messed about when it comes to writing my first novel. I’ve been “planning” it since August/September last year and truth is I could have finished writing it in the same time I’ve been “planning” it. What has delayed this process is of course my self-doubt, I know the story, I know the main characters, but I convince myself I need to plan more. Now while there’s more I need to look into I doubt very much that I needed as much time as I have allowed myself. So, how do I plan to overcome this? Well I have given myself a deadline. I have allowed myself to plan until 31st January 2014, and then on the 1st February 2014 I will start writing regardless of whether I feel I have planned enough or not. This deadline is important it tells you to stop talking about doing it and do it. It’s terrifying I can already hear myself say, “But Nicole, what if you haven’t finished planning?” However, the answer to that is simple the planning stage doesn’t stop when you start writing, as you write your ideas and plans will change and even after you’ve completed your first draft there are still things that will be changed and revised once you start that editing process, so don’t worry about it and start writing.

 

I will keep you posted on how I’m doing regarding this novel, I’m planning to try the 50,000 word a month challenge, again it’s all about deadlines and challenges because it’s so much easier to put off writing and listen to Mr Self Doubt.

 

Some people don’t necessarily need to plan a novel and can just write it, but as I’ve said before I’m a planner, I can write a short story with no real plans, but a novel with 3 plots and loads of characters does need a plan. So for those other planners out there, if you feel that you are using planning as an excuse to not start writing then be firm and give yourself that deadline. If you don’t need to plan and keep on putting off starting to write then again give yourself that deadline, and regardless whether you feel ready or not just do what the experts say and ‘just write’, you’ll be amazed what finally comes out.

 

For those who don’t feel confident enough to jump from short stories to a novel there are many other things you can do to build yourself up to that level.

 

  1. Short story collection: This will help to open your mind to creating a book, but rather than a book based on one story you can do a book made up of many short stories, all with the same theme or topic. I have toyed with this idea, but for me I think I will consider this once I’ve written that novel.
  2. Novelette: It’s a step up from the short story, and the word count ranges from 7500 to 17000 words. This will allow you to build up to a longer project rather than going from the average 5000 word short story to an 80,000 plus novel.
  3. Novella: this is the one just below a novel; apparently, the max word count is 40,000 words. With the novella, you can also add a sub plot so you kind of get the same experience of writing a novel but on a smaller scale.

 

Now while building up to a novel can help, it can also be an excuse to not try a novel. So yes, if a novel petrifies you then do consider something smaller, but do make sure that you are moving forward and approaching that novel rather than blocking yourself from it.

 

You’ll ask yourself often enough if it’s time to take the next step, and you’ll sit around waiting until you “feel” ready enough. By doing this you won’t get anywhere fast and that novel idea will always be just that, an idea. So my suggestion to you is that if the idea of a novel (or a longer project) has entered your mind and you even have a story idea then you are indeed ready to start something longer. So stop thinking about it and do it that’s what I plan on doing. Sometimes the softly approach doesn’t work, you need to just jump off that cliff and dive right into it, and shove all fear and doubt aside because writing the novel is only your first challenge.

 

So there you have it folks, whether you decide to go straight for that novel or build up to it the important thing is that you do take that step forward. This is a journey of discovery and you will often find yourself trying things that are scary but in the end, it will all be worth it if you are prepared to fight for it.

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