#IWSG: Are some months more productive for writing?

The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. It’s an opportunity to talk about doubts and fears you have conquered. To discuss your struggles and triumphs and to offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling.

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December 2 question – Are there months or times of the year that you are more productive with your writing than other months, and why?

Yes, without a shadow of a doubt. I recently took leave for two periods each a fortnight long in order to finish an important writing project. The first period in October went OK, but the second period in November was a total washout.

During the second period, an unexpected family medical issue raised it’s head, but if I’m honest, I was already struggling. I’ve never considered taking part in NaNoWriMo because the final months of the year get swept up in a frenzy of Christmas and family birthdays. I’ve long been the family organizer, and although I am now sharing out those duties, when it comes to this time of year, the people I share the duties with are busy celebrating their birthdays.

But what’s become clear is that’s it’s not just a matter of the time available, keeping my head in the game also becomes unaccountably difficult. With the coming of the year’s end, my mind strays without any prompting to the process of reviewing the year against any hopes or goals I may have set, be that formally or informally. Of course, part of that process is the building of plans for the year to come, which is daft when I’ve not had a chance to finish the old one yet.

So, for me, November – January (inclusive) are bad writing months. I can blog, I even get brief flashes of the story, but despite sitting down immediately to capture it, I find it’s drifted away. It’s enormously frustrating, I’ve decided it’s time I turn to my professional NLP and coaching network for their help to change it.

The awesome co-hosts for the October 7 posting of the IWSG areare Pat Garcia,  Sylvia Ney,  Liesbet @ Roaming About,  Cathrina Constantine and Natalie Aguirre – do take a moment to visit them.

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While you’re here, can I tempt you with a #FlashFiction prompt?

Every month, we run a different #FF prompt. This month it’s time for one of our regular features when we celebrate the anniversary of Project Gutenberg being unleashed on the world on 1st December. The aim of Project Gutenberg is to help people access books that they might not otherwise be able to get hold of.  This can get a bit tricky because of copyright issues, but in some ways it becomes easier, because there are some fantastic books that are now out of copyright which would get lost forever if it weren’t for PG.

The prompt goes live on 6th December, for this month’s #FlashFiction prompt, head on over to Project Gutenberg, trying not to get distracted by the 50,000 or so books on the site!  Take a look at the Recent Books section and pick one that you like the look of – the title of the book is the title/prompt of your story.

Tell us your tale – any style any genre, just nothing NSFW.

Word limit: 500-750 words
Deadline : Sunday 13th December @ 7am GMT

If you miss the deadline, you can always post your story to our #TortoiseFlashFiction page

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A reminder to new readers/writers, please post on your own site and add a link to the prompt page once it’s published. If you don’t have your own blog or similar outlet, do send us your story via the contact form on the About page and we’ll post for you, with an appropriate by-line.  

Two caveats if you want to go down this route: if you want to retain the copyright, then you will need to state this, and this is a family show, so we reserve the right not to post anything that strays into NSFW or offends against ‘common decency’.

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© Debra Carey, 2020