Some of you have heard me mention the angst and despair that inevitably attack me somewhere between 15k and 30k of any major project. Well, they got me yesterday.
I sat down in the morning and wrote 1500 words in an hour. Then I decided to take a break. That was a big mistake! While helping my husband juggle spelling lists and math papers and rulers, the gloom-and-doom struck. Why was I wasting my time writing when I should be helping keep the kids' lessons organized, and getting them ready to go out the door, and fixing gourmet meals (or at least not leftovers again), and unpacking yet more boxes and...
I agonized for hours, hours that should have been very productive writing time! My family went out to do a few errands, leaving me peace and quiet to write, and instead I worried. They came home and offered me lovely snacks and I fussed. Eventually, I went off by myself to sulk. In a last, desperate effort to get back on track, I decided I'd post an accountability thread on the forums, promising to come back in an hour to post my word count (to be the subject of laughter and finger-pointing ridicule if it didn't improve), but the forums were down!
In the end, my problem was solved by every mom's best friend--guilt. If I was going to give up writing in favor of something "more important", I'd better actually do it, rather than sitting around and making everyone miserable. I set my timer for ten minutes, ordered myself to write at least 200 words or quit for the evening, and put my fingers on the keyboard.
After about three minutes, a character did something clever. I produced 2000 words in the next 80 minutes, and kept going. The agony just disappeared, and I'm having fun again. I'm sure I'll have my moments of doubt, but if this project is like others I've done, I'm over the Really Awful Part!
Just had to share with people who might understand...and remind anyone who's in the middle of it right now that it's worth pushing past it.
More words! More fun! Keep going; it does get better.
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50,051 / 50,000
nov. 10, 2009 - 11 56
I hit mine on Sunday. I had to take Saturday afternoon and evening off due to company and a million errands. But I wasn't worried because I had the next day's morning and evening completely open for writing time. And I figured, being a beautiful Sunday, I would be able to produce at least 3,00 words. By 8pm, I had written less than 400! I did much of the same fussing and finally I just simply gave up and went to bed. I had decided that I was going to crash and burn in a glorious show of flame.
Then last night I yelled at myself and made myself list out the facts of my story. Pretty soon, I had fresh ideas and switched from list mode to story mode. My fingers were blurring across the keys and by 10pm, I had written 4,000 words total for the day. I love my story again and I'm finding new motivation for my main character. And despite the confusion, the chaos and the cussing, I'm reminded that I live for this!
50,516 / 50,000
nov. 10, 2009 - 12 37
You guys are so inspiring! I'm going to hit that point myself any moment now and am just dreading. I'm hoping all of the new characters my mains are just about to meet will help me sneak past that 25k hump!
63,534 / 50,000
nov. 10, 2009 - 12 51
That's actually the funniest thing. I hit my block too... It was the point where I had all my beginning written out(this is normally where I stop and start another project and put this one on the back burner) and I needed an actual plot to happen but I had no idea what to do.
Sunday night, I had a breakdown (not writing related... long story) so I didn't write much that night, like nothing that night and just went to bed.
Monday night I sat down to write and... I was to that point. I had no plot from where my two characters end up in each others worlds/time periods.
At that point I spent over an hour and a half grumbling, I even asked for some pretty paper to be pulled from the box... >.>
Finally I was talking to my friend (who always rides me if I don't get my word count by the time I go to bed), and they said something about enslavement and demons... and It was like a light bulb turned on in my head and I went.
"OH!!!!!!!!! I have a PLOT!!!!!!!!"
Then cranked out over 5k last night, and I know where I'm going and I think this story may ACTUALLY be finished by the time NaNo is over.... which would be amazing.
So yeah, if you just keep writing, you can get through it. And listen to stuff your friends say, sometimes they say the most random things and suddenly it's like a light bulb turns on in those cartoons!!
*goes back to writing*
~Lexa
----------NaNo 2007: Lonely Nomad (2k) -- Loss
NaNo 2008: Wolf Princess (56k) -- Win -incomplete
NaNo 2009: The Doorway (63k) -- Win - Fin
NaNoApr 2010: Wars of Destiny: Touch of a Wraith (add 200 pages in that month) -- (?)
50,008 / 50,000
nov. 10, 2009 - 13 24
I pretty much fell into the same category as Amanda. She and I pretty much wrote around the same time Saturday & Sunday, which is to say, we didn't write on Saturday (Company) and Sunday was looking like a miss day as well, but I stepped away from my desktop pc, and took me and my netbook downstairs away from all distractions, popped Pandora on, and started forcing myself to write.
Then I saw a post of Facebook that I just had to re-post, and it started this huge discussion between several friends, which of course sparked a whole chapter of my story. After I was done I'd gone from 12k to 14.6k. And I have a huge amount of data now to use for back story purposes. I think I even may have come up with a name to my story.
50,126 / 50,000
nov. 10, 2009 - 19 46
I'm with you, although I haven't broken through the slump yet, which is part Week-Two-Blows and part 20,000-30,000 word suckhole. My story is terrible, the sentence construction is unvarying, the characters are annoying and I want to set the whole thing on fire in a blaze of glory.
So...I have pledged not to look back. I will not succumb the temptation to reread and burn. I will just keep typing and get it out of my system....oh Nano, I missed you. Now go away.
----------"The system gives you just enough to make you think that you see change. Then it sings you right to sleep and screws you just the same." - Ani DiFranco