It might be a little selfish of me to post a whole new topic about this especially since I'm whining despite already having written 50K, but oh well. See last year I hit 200K, and it wasn't that difficult to me. So this year, I figured, I am going for 300K. The first few days I was on track, wrote 10K a day. But now my days off are over, and I feel that I underestimated it. I type very fast, but I don't have enough motivation or energy to write 10K in the evening after my internship or work. I will be able to do sprints on Sunday, but not enough to make up for the other six days of the week.
Also, my nanos always turn out to be crap. And I'm not talking normal crap. No, extreme, horrible, utter crap. Like, written by a three year old kind of crap. Which would be fine, you'd say, if you edit afterwards. But I have, in the last three years that I have done Nano, barely edited anything. And this is both because my writing is so crappy that I won't feel like it, and because I don't feel there is a point, because I don't want to be published or anything. I know that's not the main reason, but I'm a very....unmotivated person, if I feel like there is no point. Anyway, I don't feel like doing that for another year, writing several 100k of crap and not editing it, and just throwing it into a dark corner to let it rot there. It even makes me feel like I shouldn't be proud of whatever big word count I'd reach, because if anyone read it, they'd be like 'oohh, yeah like that I can do it too'.
Nano is really important to me for several reasons. I'm mostly doing it now because it's always been a part of my life and I like the community and I met friends and my girlfriend here. It's more important than writing itself. I often think about giving up writing in general, because as you can tell it doesn't make me happy, it makes me depressed. But nano has always been the one thing in my life that I didn't quit, and even now changing my goal to 250k or 200k, would feel like quitting to me. I don't want to be a quitter in every aspect of my life. I'm a very self loathing and depressed person, and I feel like there is nothing I am good at, and then there is my girlfriend who says that she will help me but with writing only, and she feels like I should write. But I'm not even sure if I want to anymore. Then again I don't know what I do want to do.
Ugh, this turned into a long rant. It was mostly just to get it out, but if anyone has even gotten through reading this and has got advice, I'd be glad to hear it >.<
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70,281 / 50,000
nov. 6, 2009 - 13 51
I can tell you that you are a good motivator for others here. Even when I'm not doing the word wars I check them and you've inspired more than one person over there. You come across as helpful and fun, big pluses I'd say. If you don't write anymore this NaNo I have to say I'd miss not seeing you in the word wars. Besides, don't think you're the only one who thinks what they write is crap! :) And, I recall giving you permission to wipe the floor with me!
----------85,257 / 50,000
nov. 6, 2009 - 14 30
If you don't have enough energy to write 300K, it's not quitting or giving up to lower your goal. It's far better to only write four times as much as everyone else and not be a total wreck, than to have six times as much done as the goal, and be mentally exhausted. I don't care how important NaNoWriMo is to you - believe me, I know - it's better to be a 200K-reaching psycho who's got time to enjoy the community and forums, than to be an overachiever who's one bad sentence away from a mental breakdown. You're painting yourself into a corner by feeling like reaching a more achievable goal would be quitting.
Second: if you don't want to write, don't. No one can make you do something you don't want to, and don't you listen if someone tells you what you've 'got' to be. YOU are the one who should 'feel like' you should do something, and no one else. You can be happy just participating in NaNo on the forums and being your inspiring self, (it's not just me! I have Mel as a witness ^^) or not if you don't want. NaNo is about having fun, not getting so stressed out that you have a breakdown. You're a good writer, even when you don't think so. Everyone has days when their writing is less poetic than horse crap, and that doesn't mean that every piece of writing you've ever done is of similar quality.
If you want to reach some kind of next-to-insane goal, how about taking the three-year-old (three year olds can't write, by the way, unless they're superchildren, so your argument is invalid) parts that you've already written, and rewrite them? Start them over, and add that to your wordcount, but focus on bringing them up to a five-year-old level. (for argument's sake, since we already established that I'm right) ;-) That way, you can lower the wordcount goal, but your overall goal will still be just as tough.
Besides, I need someone to wordwar with who can actually beat me. ;-)
54,559 / 50,000
nov. 6, 2009 - 15 40
Well, you can either lower your goal or hit it. Or quit. You have a few choices.
I want you to consider something, though: is this track sustainable? What if you hit 300K this year, what's next? Why do you have to keep raising the bar on yourself for length? Can you raise the bar on something else, like quality? Maybe you should drop back to 100K next year and go for plot coherency and other blasphemous sentiments of normal NaNo.
If I were you, I'd lower my goal. Why did you raise it? Was it because you wanted a bigger challenge, or does it stem from the self-loathing you speak of? Do you feel that you should be suffering more? Is this because you don't deserve to have it easy? Maybe you should do an easy NaNo and try to rekindle the fun.
----------100,241 / 50,000
nov. 6, 2009 - 17 01
Ok, let me get this straight. You're talking about being ashamed about quitting something you don't like to do because you're afraid you are going to be a quitter. And yet you don't like it.
Well, I can see your point if you feel like you quit other things in your life all the time too. But in my opinion, if you're not doing this to learn something about yourself, or try to be published -- if you don't see what you're getting out of it other than writing a lot -- then why?
Be honest with yourself, what really are you getting out of NaNo and what do you want to get out of it? What adjustments can you make?
This is life, you know, learning about what you can do and what you don't want to do and what you do want to do a whole lot. You just have to keep trying to figure it out. There are no easy answers.
"Fall down seven times, stand up eight" -- that is victory. Maybe you need to stand up in a different way somehow.
50,700 / 50,000
nov. 6, 2009 - 22 39
What a way to make me feel helpful. If you listened, you'd know that I didn't say I'd only help you with writing. I've been trying to help you with everything. I'm not good at it, but I try anyway, because you mean so much to me. I just know that if you manage to do something you're proud of, then you'll finally stop hating yourself. And writing is all I can do, so it's the only thing I can help you with. It's the only thing you do - that I know you do enough of - for me to help with. Maybe you should just ask someone else from now on.
----------NaNo09: The King's Secret (Poem) 334/500 lines (2999 words)
53,017 / 50,000
nov. 6, 2009 - 23 12
I'm sorry x 345394859845598475 Holly. By now you know I didn't mean it that way.
Everyone else: Omg thank you for taking the time to reply, I honestly didn't expect anyone would even feel like going through my rant. Well, some of you are saying something pretty different than others, but you all made sense in a way. I've decided that I'm going to keep writing insanely, just this year. I'm not lowering my goal, I'm not setting any goal: I'm just going to write as much as my mental and physical condition at that moment will let me. So I'll probably do really big sprints on Sunday and when I'm too tired during the week, I won't push myself. And I'll just see how close I'll get to my original goal.
And next year, I think that I am going for 50k or 100k and focus more on the quality. And yes Kaisen, you make the best wordwar buddy, you're good at beating me. Thanks guys!
----------53,017 / 50,000
nov. 8, 2009 - 00 35
Okay, I quit. It can still go two ways: I might start another story and write slowly on it as though it wasn't nano and add up the words, but I doubt I will cross 60k that way, or I might not ever write another word again. I'm leaning towards the last one. Writing has only made me feel inadequate so far. This year Nano isn't good for me, I'm too depressed and I'm fighting with my girlfriend over it. She's just quit as well. It's no fun, and I feel like a loser but I'll get over this at some point and I'd rather not feel like that for another month. So yeah. I hope I'll have enough spirit to do nano again next year. I really enjoy this community, and I'd hate to miss out on it because of my self esteem getting in the way. Thank you all for your advice though. You rock.
----------35,666 / 50,000
nov. 8, 2009 - 01 05
you could spend the rest of novmeber editing your novel? i know thats a bit against the point of NaNo, but still
----------'09- alone in the sky- pending!
62,187 / 50,000
nov. 8, 2009 - 01 39
Many professional novelists say that to be a good writer, you have to be willing to write AGAINST the tide- that is, most of the time you'll be digging through shit, not getting anywhere, wanting to be anywhere but there, certain that no one will want to read the rubbish. Every now and again you'll hit a good seam of creativity and things will easy, but then it will go back to crap again.
The sign of a writer, to me, at least, is someone who can keep going through the crap. And doesn't measure their writing against anyone else, or what they managed last year (or the last book), but keeps going. Because, as with life, it is the times we wade through the crap that we prove ourselves- and, amazingly, probably when the best writing comes out of it eventually (once it's been edited).
Everything in your OP hints that nanowrimo fulfills something that has nothing to do with the writing itself, and if nanowrimo is no longer fulfilling it, then as others have said, you have a number of choices. ALL of these choices are valid, and no one else, other than yourself, is putting a judgement against any of those choices.
So you need to sit down and ask yourself some questions- why do you write? Why do you do nanowrimo? Really? The deep bitter core of the many, many reasons? Once you've sussed that out, you can start to work your way through the rest of the questions.
If a marathon runner hits the wall, gets cramps and has to start walking, or even crawling, until the muscles lighten up again, do they hit out at those around them? Do they just decide, that's it, I'm not going to beat my last time, so I might as well give up now, or do they just keep going? It depends on the runner.
23,036 / 50,000
nov. 8, 2009 - 01 51
A novel isn't about the length it's about the story! Why put yourself through hell to achieve such a high word count if you're not going to like what you've written. Focus on the story, not the word count then maybe you might like what you're writing!
Good luck.
53,017 / 50,000
nov. 8, 2009 - 02 01
Skitten: And the answer is that I am not really a writer. I try to act like one for 1 month a year because I just love the nanowrimo community so much. I'm not a writer. And that's why I give up. Because it's not my passion. I don't know what my passion is, and that's another reason why I'm so depressed, because I feel like there's nothing I'm good at, I enjoy and I don't quit, but I know that writing isn't that.
----------53,847 / 50,000
nov. 8, 2009 - 10 36
I don't have anything useful to say, but I'm kinda glad to hear your writing is crap. I found the idea that someone could write 200-300k in a month and have it be decent kinda disheartening. Made me wonder what I was doing wrong, having never written anything much over 30k.
I don't know, this might come across as impertinent or dismissive, but I don't really get your problem. You don't like your writing, and aren't invested in being a writer, and don't want to be a writer? So quit. Walk away. If it's making you depressed and feel like crap, then hey...don't do it. Really that simple.
If its the forums that you like, then hang out on the forums. Help people in Character & Realism by doing research for them. Say nice things to those crashing and burning in Ate My Soul so they don't hit that big delete button in the sky. Tell people in Better Than I Thought how freaking awesome they are.
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nov. 8, 2009 - 10 51
((( HUG ))) to you.
Community is everywhere -- you just have to find it. So although you love the Nanowrimo community, know that where-ever you go and whatever you do, you will find a lovely community that goes along with it and will be just as nice as the Nano'ers.
As for finding what you are good at, enjoy, and don't quit -- don't be so hard on yourself. Lots of people have trouble finding out what they want to do in life. I think you are beating yourself up so much you can't hear what you really like. You have to learn to relax and accept yourself in life. Maybe you should take up meditation, that is very good for people. Be who you are and don't worry about all the crap you seem to be loading on yourself. Relax and enjoy and take your time and trust yourself. You will find your bliss. Just listen to your small still voice within. When you are shouting at yourself and trying to make your life go one way -- it is hard to find her.