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Welcome to The Literary Pig's blog - a safe haven for all those afflicted with
the unbearable urge to write.

Thursday 28 May 2015

How to jinx your writing

A month ago LitPig posted here how I was aiming to have 50 short stories published by 28 June (my 50th birthday). The total was 45 on 28 April. Go on guess how many have been accepted for publication since then ...

ZERO
NADA
ZILCH

So yes I jinxed my writing big time!
I believe it's important to set yourself writing goals & targets. I also believe it's good to publicise them too. Put them out there in the universe. I'm not going to stop setting targets ... and you never know I may get a sudden splurge of acceptances in the next month. That's how the writing life seems to go sometimes.

Oh another way to jinx your writing is to upgrade your laptop's operating system. Having done this I'm now having problems with this blog, Twitter & Facebook. Ho hum ...

Hope you're all still on target for your writing goals. Do you have any writing superstitions? Why not come clean and share them with LitPig.

18 comments:

  1. I don't know that it's exactly a superstition, but I've stopped discussing any writing projects in any detail. The ones I talk about never seem to get finished.

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    1. I definitely agree, Patsy. Talking about WIP is usually the kiss of death for me.

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  2. That splurge will definitely happen, Tracy. xxx

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  3. Like Patsy, I find that if I talk in detail about a project to someone, I grind to a halt! Why don't you just change your target, Tracy, to having 50 published WHILE you are 50? Hope those acceptances come pinging in soon. 45 is still a very impressive number!

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    1. Thanks, Linda. As someone suggested on Facebook I may just change my age instead!

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  4. Well if you will write a novel and do an MA at the same time! My target is to get to 20% of your target.

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    1. Ooh think I got my trotters slapped there. Think with your recent successes you're going to be catching me up soon, Richard :)

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  5. I felt similar when I told people I intended to do a half marathon... Then got injured a few weeks before, had to pull out because even walking was painful and couldn't run for several months. However, time helped put things in perspective and I realised that without the goal, I probably wouldn't have kept running and been the fittest I'd ever been. Without your goal, would you have published so many stories? I know it's a cliché to say it's the journey that counts, but often having goals is more important than achieving them.

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    1. Wise words, Hayley. The journey is important & without goals I doubt we'd get started on anything. Glad to hear you kept up the running too :)

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  6. No rubbish. Drown sorrows in tea and teacakes next week, Tracy.

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    1. 'No rubbish' is that your superstition, Wendy? With you on that. Looking forward to teacakes & putting the writing world to rights next week :)

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  7. I quite like my husband's idea, which he applies to his business life - to only set targets over which you have total control. x

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    1. A good principle to follow, Joanna. I usually stick to this rule when setting goals but slipped up this time!

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  8. I'm so superstitious I'm not even prepared to discuss what my superstitions are...just in case, you understand.

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    1. Thanks, Natalie, this made me chuckle :) Know how you feel!

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  9. At least you had targets, Tracy, which is more than I had in the end! Or at least, I didn't write them down and that was a mistake as I just ignore those in my head. I try not to talk too much about what I'm working on but I fail all the time. One thing I can't do yet is to plot ahead as I'm sure I wouldn't actually write the story/book if I did.

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    1. I'm an obsessive list ticker, Rosemary. So setting targets is another part of that obsession. I've read elsewhere that it's a good idea to write down goals/targets too. But you've achieved so much I don't think you need to worry :)

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