Setting Self Doubt on Fire: The Crossroads

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  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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I’m back again, and this week I got a topic that I hope will make you think, and even better offer you some solutions for you, while you travel along this guideless road. So what do I have for you this week? Well I will be talking about when you reach that crossroad in your writing journey, and this is something I have reached myself.

 

There comes a time in your writing journey where you need to ask yourself. What am I doing this for? Where do I want to go? For most, it will be to be able to write full time and have your work loved by readers (this isn’t necessarily global success). I know for me a liveable income and the ability to write stories full time would be the greatest thing ever; I often daydream of my book in Waterstones. But to be able to reach this goal there comes a point where you need to take a risk, jump out that plane and hope your writing dream is there to catch you.

 

When you start out on this adventure at first the odd hour or two is enough, but as your confidence grows, success follows and the thought of a bigger project comes to mind, it becomes clear that those few hours are no longer enough. This writing journey takes time, not only is it writing that first draft, you have to edit and hunt for publishers, plus develop your skills. So when you have work and other commitments it is hard to fit everything in and this is when you have to ask yourself. “How much am I willing to commit to this?”

 

I read on a career-changing website about a girl taking a huge gamble, quit her job and worked on her novel (she saved up some money and did the odd job here and there). She finished the novel and got it published; she is now working on her second novel, and has an advance that allows her to work full time. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this story before, but it makes you think what if I took the risk. However, for those suffering with self-doubt taking that risk is even scarier, so many questions and fears jump in front of you and push out that idea. So what do you do because you can’t stay in limbo forever, well for those of you (like me) who has Mr Self Doubt leaning on you I’ve come up with some solutions that may involve small risk taking rather than big.

 

As always, I have come up with 5 solutions.

 

  1. Reduce work hours: If you have no responsibilities (or even a supporting partner for those who have kids or married etc) then you could possibly see if you could reduce your working hours from full time to part time. This enables you to still earn but it will free up a lot of time. This option is mostly best for the ones who have no real responsibilities because the rent and mortgage won’t pay itself.
  2. Change job: This is similar to point one however, this is moving from a demanding job (that requires lots of over time) to one that will stick to the basic hours.
  3. Save up: One of the fears of taking a gamble is money, so what could help is saving up as much money as possible, enough that will allow you to have some time off to write. This again is more for the ones with no responsibilities. However, if you can take an unpaid sabbatical and save up enough to cover those months then that’s something you can do.
  4. Make the most of your time: I made this point in the learning to juggle post, but it is important that you use your time better. Get up an hour earlier, write while travelling to work, switch off the TV and get some work done. I found that I waste a lot of time in the morning when I could actually start work earlier and then have time to write.
  5. Work from home: This isn’t always possible, but if you have a career that you could possibly go freelance with, or if you don’t mind working remotely then this will save you plenty of time. You won’t have to get up so early to travel to work, so at the end of your workday you won’t feel so tired, and will be willing to spend that hour or two on your writing.

 

So there you have it, 5 possible solutions, they might not help and you might find yourself again at that same crossroads, but for now it’s a solution that I plan on trying, and hopefully it will help me get that novel finished (I should actually say started).

 

On a final note for those who have attempted the NaNoWriMo hopefully you have reached your 50,000 if not you are still a lot closer to that finished novel.

 

All that’s left for me to say is, go follow that yellow brick road and hopefully you’ll meet your goal at the end.

 

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