Well, folks, this year seems to be worse than most. I'm so out of practice. I haven't actually written a word since last November (until this November, I mean - I've written a fair amount in the last five days). And my writing has certainly suffered. Take a look at this small excerpt:
“Is there a full moon tonight?” The voice came from behind Jose. It was Elise. She may be a tiny woman, but her voice was not. She was quite loud, in fact. She had a huge smile on her face because she startled Jose.
“Jesus, woman, don’t sneak up on a guy like that!” he said. Martin burst out laughing.
“Yo, I’m gonna go get some food. Laura, I’ll buy you lunch,” said Martin, reaching for her hand. It was a gesture Laura wasn’t expecting, so she blushed a bit when he touched her. “I figure, if it’s out in the open, I might as well do the right thing and be good.”
“Wait, what?” Jose demanded. “Are you two a thing now?”
Just awful. I can't change it, of course, but that means I have to live with it.
Who's in this boat with me? Share your most horrible writing so far this month in this thread. It can't be as bad as mine!
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Embrace the Crap!
35,825 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 15 37
We're all in this boat with you!
But WE'RE NOT ALLOWED TO ASK!
So stop reading your writing. Trust me, you'll never notice the quality of your writing if you don't read it.
;-)
----------Serena Mira Asta
Visit my blog! Forces Of Nature
Never place a period where God has placed a comma.
- Gracie Allen, 20th century American comedian
34,238 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 16 55
It's not that I went back and read it - I knew how awful it was as I was writing it!
----------4,456 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 18 20
“What? Tobias! Ugh, no, this is not the place I was talking about. You were supposed to follow me into the other shop.” Tobias’ blank look told her all she needed to know about his powers of observation. Beth gave an exasperated sigh and grabbed his hand. “Downstairs!”
She pulled him back onto the sidewalk and about ten feet away to the same building’s basement entrance, the one Tobias had previously assumed to be too dirty and smelly to be the entrance to anything except maybe an old storage room or a place where homeless people go to perform unspeakable acts. It certainly smelled like the latter might be the case. Tobias tried not to breath as he followed Beth down the crumbling cement stairwell.
Most of my writing so far is of uniform low quality in my own eyes, although some of the more recent descriptive passages of book shop that I wrote last night have me smiling right now.
I don't think it's fair to yourself for you to wonder why your writing is of poor quality when you intentionally take part in a challenge which is explicitly meant to produce fifty thousand words of exceptionally poor quality.
By the way, I don't like Slayer. I am trying to listen to a whole CD of theirs but it's difficult. I guess they're not horrible, just kind of pointless to listen to. I recommend Gojira.
----------iliketoridemybikesiliketoridmybikesiliketoridemybikes
18,695 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 20 11
I don't like what I'm writing, either. I'm just out of ideas... so I keep re-using things, and I am just writing for the sake of writing. I hate it. But when I produce sentences or paragraphs that I love- then I feel proud of myself. So it's worth it.
----------"I'm just a musical prostitute, my dear." -Freddie Mercury
34,238 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 05 53
I wonder what that's like? Writing something you love... yeah, hasn't happened yet. My entire not-quite-six-thousand word "novel" is all horrible. Every single sentence.
----------35,825 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 06 10
Buppyspeak,
Snap out of it! You have got to let it go, girl! Which may sound impossible, but believe me, ti is not. You gotta find a trick to snap your attention away from this self-judgment. It's a killer. I you can't find a way to Turn Off Your Inner Editor in November, it WILL impact your wordcount, and more importantly, how much fun you have writing your wonderful, awful, truly terrible, crappy first draft.
Possibly helpful ideas:
- Most of the writers you admire cannot write a good first draft to save their lives. They are good EDITORS. Ask them. It's true!
- The entire purpose of November writing is to write a really terrible first draft. Otherwirse you'll have nothing to do in December or January! SAVOR the horrible first draft - enjoy it!
- Read some of the drivel that is actually being published these days. After which EVEN YOU can honestly say, "Holy ***', I can write better than THAT!"
I know there are lots of better ideas to help Buppy (and others like her) to snap out of it, move on, have fun -- what are they, people? (Maybe have Cher stop by and give her good slap?)
----------Serena Mira Asta
Visit my blog! Forces Of Nature
Never place a period where God has placed a comma.
- Gracie Allen, 20th century American comedian
43,449 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 07 53
ARGH!
I really loved my novel last year. It was a story I always wanted to write but just never had. When I finished it, there was such a sense of accomplishment and eccstatic joy.
This year...I kinda hate my story. It's a story I got roped into writing a few years ago, but stopped because of creative differences with the person who wanted me to write it. Then I decided to try it out on my own--I never was one for creative collaboration--hoping that sans the drama the story would turn out better.
But it hasn't.
Now I'm 14,000+ words into this beast and don't want to turn back and start all over. So it's turned into kicking this sad, dying story around until the end of November when I can finally kill it once and for all before I scrap and strip it for plot parts.
Eh.
5,909 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 09 02
I have actually never hated what I've written. My first nano needs work, but I don't HATE it. I'm actually quite pleased with my second nano. As for this year, well, life has been insane and stressful with my sick cat and I have only cranked out a little over 1000 words. I am going to try to write more today. What I've written so far, though, I like.
----------Emily W.
2007: Deep In The Dark
2008: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
2009: Twelve China Cups
10,236 / 50,000
Nov 7, 2009 - 05 55
For the first few thou, I must admit, I was pretty stoked about my writing. I kept going back to read from the beginning, smiling happily, nodding, chuckling where I was supposed to chuckle, sighing where I was supposed to sigh.
Then things changed. As my word count crept into the sevens and eights, my paranoia grew with it. "Surely I can't be writing anything good, can I?" I wondered. "I mean, there's just too much of it to be good." From there, things took a turn for the even worse. I can now no longer look at the screen while I'm typing.
Thinking about the novel while I'm doing other things turns me a delicate shade of green (though that could also be my Swine Flu). When I sit at the keyboard, I steadfastly plunk out a steady stream of what I assume is nonsense. Since I have never actually read any of it, or know what it is I actually wrote, I can't be sure. Perhaps I'm the next Shakespeare. I couldn't tell you. I'm too afraid to look.
All I know is, right now I'm doing the mental equivalent of 100 monkeys in a room full of typewriters.
----------A story can brighten the darkest of days, if clever the subject and witty the phrase.