Who's struggling?

I'm definitely struggling. Despite that I'm on schedule, a quarter of the way there, I can't help but think I should be further. Juggling every thing's pretty difficult, and I've actually been neglecting school work and studying a bit just to stay on track.

And despite every thing it feels like each word is being dragged kicking and screaming from my head. It's like pulling teeth. I never have this much trouble but I just cant think of what to write, despite that I have a fairly decent outline.

Then again, this is my first time writing romance. Or at least, a book whose main focus is romance. Really have no idea what i'm doing! ^^;;

And it doesn't help that I keep getting distracted by t.v. or reading other things. X_X

Only thing keeping me motivated is seeing those little word-count bars go up each day.

Still, I suppose at least I'm not falling behind, right? I'm just struggling for different reasons. My books isn't coming out like I wanted. The words aren't right, and I really want to go back and edit the whole thing, but I know I can't. Gotta prevent myself from doing that.

Good luck to everyone else on finding time to write though. Just don't do what I do and stay up late every night trying to get a few thousand words out just before the clock strikes midnight! :P

*~*NaNo2008*~* - 100,956words
*~*NaNo2009*~* - good luck!

I am officially struggling to keep up with my previous pace or even start writing at all- it's official-i've hit the week two wall.

Yesterday I used MR IAN WOON (anagram of nanowrimo) as a character and then killed him off in a very sinister suicide. It gave me a thousand extra words. The rest of my characters were flailing about giving out teapots( with a bee motif on it.) and being way too polite for their own good. Mr Ian Woon's suicide note has introduced another character. Pity he turns out to have the same name as a tosser from 2007's nanowrimo novel...

It's at this point where I win or lose so I keep on typing. But isn't it amazing how the washing up seems so attractive and cleaning the kitchen floor seems so necessary.. I have to say to myself. 25 more words to round up the count. Just type a hundred. Round up to the thousand... Small goals are so necessary.

May your writing get easier folks.

Well, I scrapped novel number one and started all over again. I think I've caught up spectacularly from just two days' writing, but I'm still behind and I don't know how much longer I can keep up the pace.

I think I'm struggling in the sense I'm running out of plot to get where I want. XD I had an idea of where I wanted things to go and what to happen, and I'm almost at the end of that, and my head hasn't supplied me with anything much else since. Hopefully it will with the next few scenes. Hoepfully. :x

I was beginning to lag behind till the week end, but got back up to schedule by passing my target of at least 5K Sat & 5K Sun!

The way I'm working this time around is to make notes of things to bring in later (or go back and introduce) whenever they occur to me, but keep writing otherwise - so apart from a quick note I don't interrupt any flow I've got going. Then when I freeze up I just look at the notes and start on one of those. Then later if I do get a way out of the freeze I note it and go back when I finish the current scene. You can keep the notes under/next to a rough timeline if that's appropriate.

I also don't worry about details or whether I should be writing more/better dialog, descriptions, character development or all the rest - that's for when you edit it.

I do tend to just go with the stream of consciousness approach, which can look muddled when you reread it, but it usually keeps the words flowing.

Basically my philosophy for NaNoWriMo is:

1. I know I can do it (the first time around I just assumed that because other people have)
2. Turn off your internal editor (as it says in the NaNoWriMo book)
3. I aim for 2K per day, then I have leeway to take the odd day off.
4. Write when you can, even a few hundred words here and there add up over the day - though I'm 'lucky' as I have a 50min train commute each way each weekday
5. it doesn't have to be good writing: quantity not (necessarily) quality - i.e. turn your internal editor off.

and...

6. Remember - it's supposed to be fun!

Cheers!

P.S. I did have an idea, which I haven't tried myself of what to do if the plot runs out -

a. kind of a Sliding Doors deal - at some point in the earlier plot, what would happen if instead of X he did Y? You could even write it as one of those stories where you have choices in it like a computer game: If you choose A, then go to page N; if you choose B, then go to page...

b. Slightly different: you could go back and follow a different characters story on a complete tangent, e.g. Because I bumped into this guy on my way out of the bank he was upset and didn't convince the bank manager to extend his loan so he decided to rob the bank... Or kill his wife, or disappear without trace?

c. Years later [hero/heroine] discovered [a new problem, their spouse was cheating?] and so they were starting a new adventure, part two begins...

Andy
(firemonkey)

Yeh, I'm struggling a bit. I know it looks like my wordcounts going well, but I tried to write yesterday and couldn't come up with anything. I think I need to get rid of the tiger cub. The other problem is that they're supposed to be reaching the actual start of the plot, where they get to begin the proper story and start digging on the Moon. But they've not even got to the First Colony yet. Meh. My MC kept getting distracted and fighting people. So yeh. Struggling plot wise although not wordcount wise yet.

NutmegAngel
Inspired by chocolate.
Fuelled by tea.

my word count says i'm struggling more than you guys, but i still only need about 2200 words per day to hit target. it was a bad year to give nanowrimo another shot (busiest period all year in my current job combined with my starting a new job in a couple of weeks' time, combined with just having started a new game of fallout 3... sigh...) but on about the 3rd november i had a hint of an idea for a plot/device, and then two days ago while i still hadn't committed to the idea of doing nanowrimo i woke up with pretty much the whole structure of the novel in place in my head. the year i succeeded in writing 50k words i dreamt the main plot one night early in november, so i guess i owe it to the world to follow through and y'know, actually put in some effort now.

Possibly me. Feel free to check my official Word Count of 346 in all it's glory : ) This is typical of my normal writing habits. Which is why I need Nano to break me.

The muchly appreciated "official ML support" though has actually motivated me to carry on.

Plot ninjas are ninjas that you randomly throw into your story because its slowing down. They interact with your characters and make stuff happen. When December rolls around, you edit them out but leave in the effects that they had - usually awesome effec

I lost 5 days of writing - including the weekend where I was looking forward to writing quite a lot - and that's put me behind schedule. Like someone else said, it seems to have been a bad time to write for this November (I'm working about 60 hours this week alone due to my brother going away on holiday and my psychiatrist is trying to get me to sleep more - he seems to think 3 hours a night isn't good for you). I've still got the will-power though. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of it at the write-in tonight (if I can make it). My current word count is a couple of hundred above what it shows at the moment - I wrote a little last night on the bus but haven't had the chance to count it.

A rose by any other name would still have thorns...

i haven't written anything for 6 days its not going great. I had an article in on monday and then i went to birmingham. yeah my excuses are lame!...

I'm finding it hard but then I kind of expected I would. The good thing about Nanowrimo is that it gives me a reason to come back and keep prodding the big scary monster for a whole month rather than resigning myself to being happy with a 1k-or-so short story and giving up an idea after a day or two.

Don't give up yet - you've got another few weeks of self-torture ahead of you!

G

I've been finding it hard in the last few days. Been really trying but m head just seems like it's full of fluff, which isn't particularly inspiring to write about.

And to top it off, I can feel a cold coming on....

sigh :(

Oh wow! Man, good luck with that, that's a big decision to scrap something and start over. Hope you can manage somehow. Might have to bail on a few nights at the pub ;P heh...

but yeah, looks like we've all got our problems this year. Is it me, or was last year a lot easier and less stressful? And really...who picked November. Should be August or July, during the summer months when most people usually aren't as busy...

*~*NaNo2008*~* - 100,956words
*~*NaNo2009*~* - good luck!

i dunno, i think i'd find it a bit of a big ask to get myself back behind a computer when i got home from work if it was sunny out and the light lasted 'til bedtime. november's good for me because it's nice to sit in a half-lit room with some quiet music and shelter from the gloom.

if i wasn't switching jobs in the middle of the month i'd probably be looking forward to some days off work to sleep/write/sleep/write and push up the word count.

still not made the big breakthrough that i'm hoping for. banking on this weekend for several thousand top-notch words to somehow appear out of the ether!

I'm definately struggling. Started flagging last week after not recovering from a lost day. Slowly ramping up again this week with today being quite productive. Finally breached the 10k mark. Yay. Still it is alot more than I wrote last year.

http://www.thirteenth-talon.com
http://twitter.com/Sham_13

LMAO. OK I've written like 300 more words now - that *bleep*ing big enough for you yet?

... just you guys watch. I'm like a big mossy stone at the top of a hill. Slow, almost stationary, to begin with ... but then I'm gonna roll all the way on home before you all ; )

I ended up losing over 2 weeks worth of writing due to one thing or another (work issues to start with, which turned into health issues). I'm not going to make the grade this year, although I *am* still writing. The ideas are still flowing and I think I can get them all to flow together eventually. But just not by the end of this month.

Even today I managed 500 words in the last 3/4 hour of work - though that's been the first time I've been able to write at work.

At least NaNo has gotten me off my fat arse and motivated me to tackle this novel - I've been wanting to, but shying away from it, for years. And at least I've found I can still write after all this time.

Congrats to all those who have made it already, and those who surely will. Hopefully I'll get that triumphant feeling next year,

Ps... still aiming to go to tomorrow's write-in, money permitting. I've enjoyed the two I made it to earlier. Wish I'd have made the last one, though - I wouldn't have been hung up with swine 'flu for four days then. :p

A rose by any other name would still have thorns...