IWSG & Ringing Out the Old

Today's the day for the February meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Visit here to see this month's co-hosts, a list of group participants, or to join the group yourself. The IWSG is a welcoming and supportive community and if you decide to join I know you won't regret it.

I know New Year's is generally the time we "ring out the old and ring in the new," but I am doing that a month late this year.

I've whined for probably six or eight months about the story I've been working on and finishing, then starting again, then finishing again, and then oops, still not really finished. I wrote about throwing in the towel on it more than once and also wrote about finishing it more than once. But last week I realized that it's not only not finished, it simply isn't a good story. IT. DOES. NOT. WORK.

I came to this realization while I was lying in bed enjoying the fact that I did not have to get up for work that day. For whatever reason, it became crystal clear to me that I was not going to finish that story and that was okay. Sometimes you just have to accept that something doesn't work and all the revisions in the world aren't going to change that.

It sounds crazy, but this simple realization caused me to breath a huge sigh of relief. For almost a year now I've been putting everything else on hold saying I needed to finish this story before I started on anything else. I stopped nearly all blogging and social media insisting that I needed to simply focus on this story. The story had become an albatross around my neck. So being able to give myself permission to let it go and move on was just what I needed!

Now I'm excited to be back to blogging again and giving other forms of social media another try. I've got some ideas for blog topics lined up and I even signed up for a blogfest, (see above) which I was fairly sure I'd never do again.

Source: publicdomainpictures

I'm even more excited to be working on a new story, something totally out of my comfort zone. I've had an idea for a children's book based on the farm animals I met at Sunrise Sanctuary last year and I actually started working on it now! I have no idea where it will lead but it's fun to try something totally different. My main characters are an ambitious but naive cow, an anxiety-plagued dog, and a streetwise but compassionate cat. My goal is to write a book I would have loved reading as a child.

I hope your month is off to a good start and I look forward to visiting and getting caught up with everyone!