The NYC I'm-already-behind-quota-thread

You can do it! Why don't you write 1000 words about pastry making techniques, or an aside about one of the MC's coworkers. Or talk about the robot head and the women with the state names? (Is that a different book? I can't remember.)

Day 1 is nothing! Write 4k on day 2 and be ahead. We believe in you!

Olga. Famous. Tyranny.
NYC - Brooklyn Co-ML (Williamsburg/Greenpoint)

You can do it! Obviously though, you need an original character in your story, someone that needs to be described in loving detail and undergo a long and involved flashback detailing his childhood during the war and the long road trip through desolate lands that it took for him to get to your story location. Start him off with a handful of companions so that they can die when you're stuck for something to write :)

Livvy, but you can call me Weebles

Manhattan co-ML
NaNoWrimo Haiku: 30 days of noveling, 17 syllables at a time

Because of the hours I'll be putting in th is month (at least 3 seven day weeks!) I wanted to get to 5k or more yesterday. I hit 3k (via Open Office. Windows products will likely count me at about 10% fewer words) yesterday at the write in but when I got home I crashed, and didn't write any more. Sigh. Oh well. It's a long month and it's only the second. We'll make it!

Teresa
Queens, NY Municipal Liaison
Email: NYCNaNoML@gmail.com
AIM: TeresaNaNo

I have that book ('Sunshine'). Of course, I never finished it...

I am so behind it is a sin. My fault, since I suddenly decided to change storylines. (My word count is from the first story I started, and I did not want to regress so I am just leaving it and not updating it until I pass that line again with THIS story.) Now I have one of those storylines that says more by saying less... you know what I mean? So I have to work extra hard just to make the day's quota.

And I think this whole quota business is making it feel like work, which is making My brain rebel, which is making Me not want to write. Ever again.

I did not expect backfiring! :(

Adamantea -- The Force on crack.

Go to a write-in next weekend and make up whatever deficit you have at that point! NYC write-ins have the proven ability to enable you to add to your wordcount faster than you can actually type. It has something to do with Kirchhoff's laws of the transmission of creative mojo. I can't explain it, but it's true.

Consider this merely a slow start. We'll soon be in a groove and firing off hundreds of words each second!

I plan on testing that theory tomorrow afternoon!

Adamantea -- The Force on crack.

Writing is work, that's why it's considered a big deal to have finished any novel, even a piece of crap that a reader throws across the room. According to the nano media kit--excluding the first two years (29 & 21%, respectively), there's never been greater than an 18% completion rate.

It did not feel like work when I was writing on My own time. I had been working on the same novel for three years (2005-2008). Did I finish it? Yep. Just not in a month.

I mentioned the quota variable. Which changes things completely and makes Me feel like I am on a deadline.
What are deadlines associated with? Work (as in career/job work).

Adamantea -- The Force on crack.

According to a definition I saw somewhere, A writer is someone who finds writing much harder than other people do (from memory, so I may not have it exactly right).

By that metric, I must be Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens rolled into one, because I'm currently finding it impossible.

Okay, everybody in this thread is so encouraging, especially our awesome ML's, that I had no choice but to get it out of the way and donate right away. Thanks guys.

In any event, I'm going to try to write tonight as I watch the world series (baseball and football are perfect for this because of lots of pauses in action). I'm also going to try to hit up a write-in soon, maybe tomorrow. And if at all possible, I'm hitting this week's Friday get-together.

I am also in delay... but that's cause I take writing too seriously... Hopefully I'll get the rhythm soon :)

Hahaha.

I know what you mean, La_Maga. I think that is part of My problem too. That and all the damn second-to-fifth-guessing I end up doing.

Adamantea -- The Force on crack.

i'm smiling and commiserating with you in response...and i'm not really understanding the technology and that's only making me rebel more! don't think word counter is counting correctly...or, indeed, i'm not using it correctly! ay, dios mio!

lydia

lydia

I've had to turn off the internal editor; and otherwise just kept adding words that are just not what I would ordinarily put in my fiction writing ("separate and apart" has now made an appearance; I fully expect "cease and desist" to come in) and pointless adjectives have been included for purposes of word count padding ("pitifully small boxy office" - of course, my descriptions of settings are rather lacking; must punch that up as I go along...). I'm trying to stay ahead of quota since I fully expect to be behind by around week 2.

2007: "Bread and Circuses"
2008: "The Mystery of the Venerable Chalice"
Blogging at www.triscribe.com

Okay, I got back to just above quota. Disaster adverted... for now. Thanks all. I'm going to try to hit the write-in tomorrow.

No, you're not the only one. I work long hours this week and since I stare at a computer all day, sometimes the last thing I want to see is another computer when I get home! I will catch up eventually.

Good luck all you procrastinators!

Yeah, I'm way behind. A lot of stuff going on at the moment, so this week is going to be pretty crappy from a word count standpoint. But that's what the next few weeks are for - this same thing happened last year, so I'm not too worried about it. The key is to just keep at it, write what you can when you have the time, and don't stress about the daily quota.

Nano 2007: Scenes from the Starlanes
Nano 2008: Waynorth

"It may not be a word. But can you think of a reason that it shouldn't be a word? Thought not. It's a word. Starting now. Update your dictionaries accordingly."

Behind as well, mostly due to trying to host a party last weekend and getting my law school apps out. Hopefully once that is done I will catch up.

"Pirates on the Radio Waves"
50,000 Words: 4:02:46 AM Friday November 30th

I'd like to think being a first timer gives me a bit more of an excuse as to why I'm behind, but I know better than that. Honestly I just find myself having difficulty getting the words out. I've never tried to write a novel before, and I've only just started writing short stories in recent months.

I distanced myself from creative outlets for quite some time, so for me NaNo is a jumping in point to get back into what I love doing. But if I'm already coming up with excuses, I don't think that's a good sign. Not to mention after I take a break from what I've written, I start going back through it and proofing it! That's been holding me up quite a bit in terms of pumping out word count.

Since I go to college during the day the majority of my writing is going to be during the weekend or nights when I'm not studying. Hopefully I can pace myself well enough to put a dent in my novel at least a couple of days out of the week. There's still to catch up, I just have to use it more efficiently.

"Gas masks are the African Tribal Masks of our time."

I'm way, way behind.
But I've been outlining

The outline is done.
Time to do the thing.

jules
Daily Blog. | Twitter.

Don't feel bad. I am behind too. About a day. Day 1, I'm getting into the groove and my daugther says mom, can I use the computer for about 10 minutes?. Then her sister says mom will you be on all day, I have homework. That was the end of that. I was surprised to come home from a 12 hr shift yesterday and pump out my longest chapter yet.
By the way, my outline has vey little to do with what has come out so far. Type-on!

I suck. I'm like way way way way behind. I'm at 1k and it's the 5th day. Maybe I should start doing meth to start cranking pages out.

AHHHH

Two nights in a row I fell asleep at the keyboard. Sigh.

I put in about two to three hours of work after I get home, so by the time it's time to write, I just want a nap.

Tonight I will try to stay up.

My desktop NaNoWriMo mantra states: "If you have time to whine about how behind you are, you have time to write!"

:P

2006-Satan: A Memoir
2007-School High Terror
2008-The Promethean
2009-The Flight of the Bumblebee

The online write-in was super helpful for catching me up a bit and getting into the swing of things!

to those of you who are behind: you CAN catch up! and, more importantly, you WILL catch up! don't stress your word count, it's only the first week! this week is about getting to know your characters and describing your world (something that i almost never do, actually. hmm, that will help boost my word count).

have fun with the story! enjoy it, massage it, love it like your favorite snack. and then the story will love you back, and the words will flow. the words will flow from your fingers faster than calories can adhere to your hips (i may be projecting my own issues here, feel free to ignore the metaphor and enjoy the reality).

you are gonna kick word count!

just let it happen.

cornbread

"drench yourself in words unspoken
live your life with arms wide open
today is where your book begins
the rest is still unwritten"
-"unwritten" by natasha bedingfield

write hard!

Oh am I behind... I'm at around 3000 words right now (that online write-in yesterday did help a lot), buuuuut.. I don't really have a but, I'm equally worried and not worried about it. I know I'll catch up, even though I want to just slam my head on the keyboard right now and consider whatever comes up as a foreign languag, and claim to be writing fully in Martian.

~End Transmission~

I wrote about 1800 on Sunday and then zero on Monday and Tuesday which set me back. I wrote another 1800 yesterday and then today I had time to write a little over 4000. I'm still not caught up but I need a break. It's going a lot better than I thought it would. I only had a simple outline sketched out in my head but it's coming together fairly easily as I go along. I should have time enough tomorrow to catch up completely but the weekend is another story.

Good luck, everyone. Keep writing.

"To get the word down proper, that takes courage, seeing the form, living the life, and getting it into the line." -- Charles Bukowski

I decided to write out basically my life (not work...other drama crap that's been going on) from January 2008 up to now to try and sort out the drama and crap that's been going on lately. I initially was going to do this, but set it in a different artistic world than the theater, but with playwriting I felt that would take too much focus to change the details and keep everything straight. So I tried something else, and I had over 7000 words with it, but was completely uninspired. And more of the drama came to a head. So...I decided to scrap the original thing I'd started with and just write my life. Technically not a novel...but if I get this down, I can change the details later and MAKE it fiction. HAHA.

So.. You see the wordcount now. TECHNICALLY I've written over 10K, but I'm not going to slap that initial 7K onto this unless I absolutely need it. I feel like going to a write-in this weekend will kick my ass further into gear. But it is coming little easier writing my life. So...we'll see.

I still have confidence. But I am behind. GAH!