#IWSG Regrets About My Writing Career? Not Even One

This post is for Alex Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writers Support Group (click the link for details on what that means and how to join. You will also find a list of bloggers signed up to the challenge that are worth checking out. The first Wednesday of every month, we all post our thoughts, fears or words of encouragement for fellow writers.

This month’s question — What’s the one thing about your writing career you regret the most? Were you able to overcome it?

The always-awesome co-hosts this month are Erika Beebe, Olga Godim, Sandra Cox, Sarah Foster, and Chemist Ken!

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I sat in my new X Chair for a long time, trying to figure out what I regretted about my writing career. I finished an entire cuppa, downed my morning pills, and listened to most of Beethoven’s Ninth (well, maybe half), but came up empty. So I searched the question on DDG (the safe version of Google). Here are my responses to what the Harvard Business Review came up with as the most popular regrets people have about careers:

1. I wish I hadn’t taken the job for the money.  No writer does that!

2. I wish I had quit earlier. I occasionally wish I’d started writing earlier (I waited until my kids were in college and not so needy), but I see no last book, no too-bored-to-continue, no burn-out, no ran-out-of-ideas. Do I wish I’d started earlier? No. I was busy raising my children. All you parents out there–you know that is a 25-hour-a-day job!

3. I wish I had the confidence to start my own business. Did that, as have many Indie writers. It makes publishing our books so much easier.

4. I wish I had used my time at school more productively. Not at all. My BAs in Economics and Russian, and the MBA in Business add a depth of understanding to my stories I wouldn’t have been able to add otherwise.  

5. I wish I had acted on my career hunches. Did that! In my early 30’s, I quit a good job to be a dancer, bought a studio, got swindled out of it, and went back to traditional jobs. I don’t regret that, either. I learned a lot about people by owning a failed dance studio.

When I think back on my writing career, I can’t help but grin. To discover writing–to call myself an author–is a gift, albeit with some assembly required. No problem. I’m your girl for doing that.

I look forward to reading your ideas on this question!

#iwsg #amwriting

@TheIWSG

Here’s the sign-up link if the image above doesn’t work:

https://forms.aweber.com/form/87/838503387.htm.

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular prehistoric fiction saga, Man vs. Nature which explores seminal events in man’s evolution one trilogy at a time. She is also the author of the Rowe-Delamagente thrillers and Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. Her non-fiction includes over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, reviews as an Amazon Vine Voice,  a columnist for NEA Today, and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. Look for her next prehistoric fiction, Natural Selection, Winter 2022.

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