Oh, it’s not that bad — yet. But as NaNoWriMo writers are past their first few days into this challenge, reality sets in. It’s not some new, unknown, exciting event any longer. It’s still fun, but at this point you’re either panicking because you don’t have an idea, you can’t really get the writing engine up and chugging, or you are realizing that it’s tough to come up with even 1,000 words of original, interesting story — and you have to do that 49 more times.
This is why, traditionally, week 2 of NaNoWriMo is where they see most of the dropouts. Writers hit that wall where they just feel overwhelmed by the constant responsibility of writing and underwhelmed by their story (which hasn’t quite gelled yet, for most folks), and they’re staring down over a half month more of this.
But all is not lost! You just have to be encouraged that it gets better, because it does. Like someone standing high up on a tightwire, you cannot look down and get overcome by the vertigo of the sheer word count. You just plug away, faithfully, and one day discover that you’ve passed the halfway point and things are starting to get fun again. It’s like the runner’s high, that boost of endorphins after a whole lotta pain.
I have a friend who disliked her story so much that she threw it out, all 6,000 words of it, and decided to start over. And knowing her, she’ll do it, too.
I had a rough couple of days this week where I got bogged down in a couple chapters that were endless stretches of dialogue and exposition, necessary to set up the big plot line, but agonizing to make interesting. Happily, I broke past that and into a new chapter that’s a lot more action packed (spiders and ghosts, oh my!), and hence, easier for me to care about and write.
It’s also proving difficult just to find the time in the day. I’m squeezing in 500-word writing blocks here and there, breaking it up instead of sitting in front of a computer for two hoours, which proves to be death. But yesterday I had a ton of work that kept me occupied, and then when I finally had time to write, my son decided that it’d be a great opportunity to start shrieking nonstop because of teething pain. So, very little writing accomplished.
This is all just to say to my fellow writers, hang in there. There’s going to be good days and horrible ones, you’re going to feel like everyone’s doing better than you, and Ysharros is being a total slacker and she knows it. Let’s all point and laugh.
Feel better? I know I do.
I’ve been struggling with this too. After a few days of writing ahead, I’ve hit my first wall, and today is the first day where I’m actually starting from behind my cumulative quota. I’m struggling to find the time to write, especially when getting over this hump in my story seems so daunting. Keep the posts coming, because I’m finding the social reinforcement very useful.
I’m in a good groove now bur it was hard to get started. I threw out about 2,000 words in the begining and now I am behind by the master plan of 1667 words a day. I need to write 3k or more words a day to catch up for a week.
Will we be able to see the final project?
@ Chris – Hm. I don’t know. We’ll see when it’s done. Might be total crap that I’d be embarrassed to ever show, or needing rewrites.
It’s going okay here. I try and write 1800+ a day, and power through the dull stuff. I can always go back and edit after november is over. A lot of my intro is crap, setting up the life of my main characters before they meet.
I have more trouble logging on to the site than writing it seems. I know its nonprofit, but they need to get better servers or something, or farm it out to a third party forum board.
I think we need a full novel-planning month in October. If that happens in 2010, I might consider it. But I’m really not much of a fiction person. Did some character backgrounds in the olden days, but not so much anymore.
I had a crisis of confidence yesterday, but I’m back at it today. I’m liking my thriller-mystery set in the world of high-stakes poker, but it’s a challenge for my plotting brain to keep up with the complexifying events that my fingers persist in typing. I figure if I can manage another 2,200 words today I’ll be back on track. My dog is going to daycare, my partner is going to a movie and my work client thinks I’m busy with another engagement, as in a way I am.
i’m in full crisis mode. I have written 4k words in 2 days because I missed the start, and now I’m struggling to see what else I could write that could be interesting about the story (as it’s more an essay on how I think when trying to write a novel than a novel).
I’m really, really tempted to throw it all away and start , this time a novel, from scratch.
And, yes, hard to find time. Strangely, my girlfriend wants me to spend time with her, not with the computer when i’m home, and writing while commuting isn’t possible when you can’t sit…
Don’t throw away 4,000 words! Change the text color or something to indicate they’ll eventually go, but meanwhile consider them the novel’s preface.
[...] the meantime, Syp, Ysharros, Stargrace, Scarybooster (who is attempting the task using an iPhone) and a bunch of [...]