regrets – Jennifer Lane Books

Would you like to join the Insecure Writers Support Group? All writers are welcome here. We post monthly about our hopes and fears. Thank you to Alex Cavanaugh for bringing together this supportive community.

This month’s co-hosts deserve applause! Shannon Lawrence, Diedre Knight, Liza, and Pat Garcia.

August 5 question – As a writer/author what is something you regret? Or something that you wish you’d done differently in your writing process?

Regrets…I’ve had a few… *croons Frank Sinatra*

One regret? Failing to learn more about the craft of writing before releasing my debut novel. I wrote With Good Behavior in third-person omniscient POV, not as a deliberate choice, but as a default style for the fan fiction that sparked my writing career. This point-of-view has quite a few limitations, especially head-hopping. And my novel hopped like a bunny on crack! (Here’s a post about omniscient POV.)

The small liberal arts school in Ohio I attended for undergrad — Kenyon College — has a strong literary tradition. While I did take a few English courses, I wish I had signed up for more, especially creative writing. I also wish I had gleaned more wisdom from fellow writers (like the wonderful ones in IWSG) earlier in my career. I appreciate fellow author Darcia Helle educating me on POV.

There are probably quite a few other things I could’ve done differently. For the most part, though, I believe I made the best decisions I could with the information I had at the time. That’s the thing about regrets–we view the past through the unfair lens of hindsight bias.

I’m grateful I found a small publisher in 2010 as well as made the leap to self-publishing in 2014. I couldn’t have improved my writing skills without first making mistakes along the way. The small successes I’ve experienced are due to lessons from countless failures. (Speaking of bouncing back from failure, I loved the movie Young Washington.)

Happy 2022, insecure writers!! I love our founder Alex Cavanaugh’s inspiring message about the new year:

“We all know it’s been creatively challenging the past two years. Some managed to write like maniacs, but a good portion of us were sidelined by events wrought with turmoil and uncertainty.

But 2022 can be different. We can take control of our own creative future. We need to maintain hope. Without it, we won’t make it. We need to feed that spark of hope. That creative spark! That’s our wheelhouse.

So, we need to believe in ourselves. Believe in the words we write. And believe 2022 is our year!”

Thank you to our competent co-hosts: Erika Beebe, Olga Godim, Sandra Cox, Sarah Foster, and Chemist Ken!

January 5 question – What’s the one thing about your writing career you regret the most? Were you able to overcome it?

I regret not knowing more about the craft of writing before my first novel was published. Though I still feel a fondness for the characters of my first novel, adverb abuse, head-hopping, and bloated prose hurt the writing quality.

I have tried to overcome this regret by learning more about the craft through reading, studying writing, and working with my critique partner and editor. It felt great to edit my debut novel to reduce my cringe reactions.

Cheers to a healthy, happy 2022!