Wednesday, December 7, 2016

IWSG: 5 Years from Now

On the first Wednesday of every month, the Insecure Writer’s Support Group encourages writers to talk about their insecurities.

 
 
Each month, they also have an optional question to answer. This month it's: In terms of your writing career, where do you see yourself five years from now, and what’s your plan to get there?

I'm going to try to take this question seriously (unlike the last time I talked about my writing goals).
Of course I'd like to have a novel published, whether that's FreakShow or ones that I'm working on now.
More short stories published. I really enjoyed the entire process of having my story in Circuits & Slippers. I'd love to do that again.
And I doubt it'll be in the next five years, but it would be amazing if my work was made into a movie or TV show. "Based on the novel by Jennifer Lee Rossman" in the credits.

But as for my plan... There isn't really much more that I can do besides writing the best stories I can and submitting to as many markets as I can.
Beyond that, I can only hope that my work gets in the hands of someone who likes it.

Now as for my general writerly insecurities, I know it was kind of a fluke that I had three things accepted within two months, but I'm a little... annoyed that nothing else has been accepted since. Like, what's so different? Has my writing gotten worse somehow? Have I not been trying as hard? I'm pretty sure the answer is no to both, but that isn't helpful.
And I'm at the point in most of my projects where I'm floundering and have no clue what happens next and feel like nothing I'm doing is any good. But that always happens and I'm used to it.
And then there's my novel FreakShow, which has been getting some really nice rejection letters and I don't know what's wrong with it.
 
But on the bright side, my story Chrysalis will be read as a podcast on Cast of Wonders in the first half of 2017. They had some delays, but are nailing down their schedule. Yaaay.
 

4 comments:

  1. Congrats on the news about Chrysalis.
    I'm sure there's nothing wrong with your novel FreakShow. Sometimes it just takes time to find the right person to say yes.

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  2. Congratulations on having your story featured on a podcast! That's great news!

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  3. This world is SUCH a rollercoaster. No, it's not any reflection on you that you've had silence since those acceptances. That happens to all of us. The good news is, you never know when something great is just around the corner! I have the same dream you do, though--get a movie made of one of my books. It probably will never happen for me, but we can dream!

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  4. The thing about writing is that a well-placed short story and /or novel submission could change your entire trajectory.

    My first two short stories were published within 2 months of each other - then I waited a couple of YEARS for the next one. So don't give up hope, keep writing and submitting and if you get a rejection get that story right back out there. Swamp the market!

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