This is me. If I was 10 years younger. And a woman.
Oh yeah, I’m deep in the pit of the blue monster. He’s singing to me discordant jazz, and I keep snapping my fingers and thinking, “Woe is me!”
Actually, most of my fellow writers will probably throw me little to no sympathy, as I’m around 5-6 days ahead of schedule, word count-wise, and am not eager to lose that lead. But wherever you are in your word count on the second week, that’s when it hits you. Writing gets hard. First week is all sorts of fun and open possibilities and huge gushings of paragraphs. Now I find myself slogging through chapters, absolutely hating the dialogue, and desperately trying to pick up the lose plot threads and elements to connect them together. What I once thought was a fun, breezy book is now mired in a whole bunch of question marks. I don’t know where I’m going, exactly. And even a little over halfway to 50K, I’m feeling the pull to just not write. To lay down the pen for one day and stop.
It’s tempting, especially if you have a bit of a word count buffer built up, but down that path lies the dark side. You stop writing one day, and it gets easier to not write the next, and the next, and before you know it, you’re behind.
My wife’s feeling it too. She did a massive writing spree over the weekend in an attempt to catch up, and even though she topped out 20K on Sunday, it’s getting tougher to keep on going.
I’m struggling with the feeling that this novel has no potential past the end of the month. I was hoping, as I always do, that a demented sort of genius, or at least competency, would pour out and I’d end up with a product I’d want to refine and perhaps let others read at some point.
I also feel hemmed in by my two rules for this novel: that no matter what, I would not descend into either fantasy elements or wacky, unbelievable comedic setups just for the sake of a laugh. I wanted it to be something that could, possibly, happen, and that means that when I have to characters that start back up a defunct college radio station, I’m straining to think of ways that security wouldn’t just figure out either where to find them or how to shut it down. Kind of hard to move a 900 watt transmitter, methinks. And they don’t want to go to jail, so much. So I don’t know. I have to figure this stuff out in a way that is reasonable and present it so that the reader doesn’t think I’m just full of crap and ignoring the logic of the situation.
Just me venting. It’s almost easier to write about NaNoWriMo than it is to dig down and hack out the cursed thing. The best advice I’m following is what the NaNo founders said today — not to focus on the whole book, the 50K or what’s wrong, just to do 1,000 words at a time. It makes it more bearable that way. 1,000 words I can do.
What’s driving me crazy about NaNoWriMo right now is that I’m not finding it hard at all. *When* I sit down to write, it just flows like I hadn’t stopped for 15 or so years*. The problem has been actually finding the time — and I haven’t even been playing DA:O! What with sudden workflow, water heaters melting down, car tyres slowly leaking down (2″ bolts will do that when you drive over them), and trying to get stuff ready for a 5-day trip to NM and I suddenly find myself WANTING to write more than I have time to write in.
Oddly enough that’s the exact opposite of how things have been for me the last many years, so I’m not too irritated. I’d much rather have a drive to write and less time than tons of time and no drive to write.
So for me, it’s frustrating but good. Even if I don’t get my 50k in, I’ve broken the block. Yeehaw.
If you can’t think of ways that the security wouldn’t figure it out, then maybe they do figure out. Maybe that’s another character.
Maybe the security guy figures it out, confronts them, they win him or her over and he’s on their side, agrees with what they are doing and helps them out.
Or maybe they do go to jail, and get publicity, and are able to get backing to restart it legitimately after a struggle with various powers that be.
What I’m saying is, that when you can’t figure out how something can’t happen, then maybe you can try just letting it happen and see where it goes.
I’ve lost my lead and am now just barely keeping pace. But today is the first day where I just don’t feel like writing at all. It’s going to take a lot more willpower to get my words out today, but I have to do it. I can’t fall behind. Wish me luck!
At the risk of sounding preachy (last thing I should be with regard to writing), I’d like to add that you might want to consider this exercise for its own sake and not necessarily for the finished product. The way to improve one’s writing is to write (as I’m sure you know), regardless of how crap it may seem while you’re doing it — or even after. I bet even Leonardo drew stick figures when he was 5.
It’s weird how these things work out. I’m just so glad to be writing again that I don’t care (or let myself care, more accurately) about how good or bad it might be. The process IS the message for me right now, and I’m very grateful for it. Thanks for bullying me into it.
@ Ysh – Oh, I know, I know, but it helps me be more motivated to write thinking that this will be something (even if it’s not) rather than just a huge writing exercise. Good for you tho!
Just merge your story with your wife’s and call it a day!
Or write a NaNoWriMo story about a guy participating in NaNoWriMo, since it’s easier to write about it
Also, I approve of Syp in girl form.
On a more serious note, never assume that you can maintain your current writing momentum. I remember churning out around 15-20 pages on my thesis during spring break and thought the rest would be a piece of cake. Big mistake D:
On a more random note, why is there a teeny tiny smiley at the bottom of the page?
@Fuzzy — It’s a theme thing, I think. My blog uses the same theme and, not surprisingly, has the same minismiley at the bottom.
“500 words….I am not moving until I get 500 more words. Just five more paragraphs and I am not doing anything else until I get five more paragraphs.”
That has been my mantra on many sessions the last few days. Sometimes those 500 hundred words are fertile and grow another 1000 words. Sometimes they are 500 words of drivel that I know are for the cutting block during revision.
Hang in there and just keep pounding the keys, Syp! Inspiration is waiting in the next sentence!
/motivationalspeechoff