looking for encouragement!

hey V, don't give up! If you think it will help, go ahead and figure out how many daily words you need to do to get there, but the important thing is to just keep trucking on. The way I see it this project is a lot more about putting in the commitment to do the little bits it takes every day to eventually take on a project that looks huge and impossible. just take it one day at a time :-)

Any particular challenges you're struggling with? Maybe someone will have some advice or suggestions.

Yep, there is... add more stress situation, or more cliffies, or what about humor in-between.

*Hugs*

Sivan Shemesh

Shalom VR50,

Like the man said - don't look up at the mountain, look down at your feet. Take it one step at a time - at you own pace. Lets be honest, if you finish 50k words by November 30th we'll all dance together in the center of town, but if it happens that you personally finish a few days later .... that means you have less reason to celebrate?

Look at it like a sport. You don't always expect to win the first time you compete. In fact most the time, you're just happy to participate, learn the ropes. NEXT time you'll have trained properly, be prepared and be better able to reach the finish line with everybody else, on or before the 30th, so, don't despair. Just keep writing.

If you can join a Write-In, I promise you the face-to-face meeting with others facing the same challenge as you will give you the extra push you need to keep going, so see you there!

Yoel

Thanks for the encouragement! When I get writing I can go very fast, and with this story (fantasy fiction) I don't seem to get stuck so much. I've written in the past but never managed to get this far or tried anything this long - I always planned a lot and got bored by the time I got to start the actual writing. Here I started with one sentence and two characters and let it flow - and was totally surprised when it did.

Now I find that I keep having to re-read to remember the puzzles and situations that have opened up and to remind myself to follow up and tie them in. It's taking away the flow, and (apart from procrastination, perfectionism, work, and phone calls) holding me up! I think maybe too much is going on the whole time, I seem to have a ton of dialogue which is not usually the way I write (although I was once interested in doing plays rather than fiction), and maybe I should just slow down on the action and start fleshing the characters out more. Maybe that's what I'll do. I also made a list of the puzzles and situations so I can use it as a checklist rather than constantly re-reading the entire thing.

Anyway, thanks all. The story itself is keeping me in - without the challenge I know I won't finish it, and my family are all waiting with baited breath to know what happens next, so I'd really like to do this!

Good luck to all of us! Are there any write-ins in Jerusalem?

V

Something that got me stuck the first time I did a huge thing like nano was re-reading a lot and worrying if I was tying up all my loose ends. I worried a lot about remembering all teh stuff I had started.
But then in the third week the coolest thing happened--when I got past that point, all of a sudden things started to come together. Like the characters I had created all of a sudden knew what they were doing, and the loose ends tied themselves up.
I think that you should not worry so much right now--just let go, and let yourself get lost in your story. Make up stuff that's irrelevant, write long, boring paragraphs that you know you will want to cut later, and just have fun with your characters. First drafts, especially nano ones, are not meant to be anything more than first drafts. So don't worry about forcing the plot, or keeping up with the characters. Just let them have free reign and write whatever makes you happy for now. When you get to 25,000 words (and you WILL get there), you'll see that it will all come together, and you will know where the story's going. Until then, though, don't stress it too much, because all that will come later.
The most important thing: if you're having fun, and pushing your limits to do something impossibly hard that you've never done before, you are on your way to winning, no matter how many words you write or how fast you write them.

*sorry, double post*

I believe you still have a chance to win!
look at it this way, you are right now 10824 word behind schedule and it looks like it is a lot but its not!
I'm serious. you have 17 day left and that means you need to write only about 636 more word per day.
it is doable! and you can do it!!!

now, this is my first nanowrimo so i am not that comfortable with giving advices.
but i think all you need is to get the enthusiasm again, like you were when the idea for the novel came.
and.. well, I use a computer-diary for that. every time you feel the inspiration or you feel so proud of yourself for the speed that you type, or you just sow your word count and couldn't believe it write it down. and always write it with enthusiasm. (and only good things! there is not one bad thing about my novel that I wrote there.)
and if in the end of the day you have nothing good to write about write how good tomorrow is going to be!
well, it works for me... and it is a great place to write in when you have no inspiration for your novel.
and it is helpful to read it again if you wrote it right (right for you).

hope I helped.
good luck!

Thanks to you and to all! Feeling more cheered up (this month we don't have to write grammatically, right?), and starting to believe it's more doable. I wrote about 1500 words over the last hour plus 1/2 hour last night.

What is great is how the story takes over - which I have seen from the beginning. It's me who's lagging behind, no time, procrastination, should be doing something else, but when I sit down to write the characters and ideas are pulling ahead, so that part doesn't get stuck at all. Oddly enough I have a disc of "The best of Arik Lavi" which seems to be the best writing music I've used so far.

V

Well, for music, Linkin Park, Fort Minor, and Step Up soundtrack... make me write faster, it helps.

*Hugs*

Sivan Shemesh