Fight the re-write!

One thing I do is I acknowledge it's crap and remind myself that my inner-editor returns from vacation next month. I've found that once I have the whole draft finished, I do a lot better at going through and pinpointing not just where it's crap but also how to make it better in a way that will help the whole story instead of just the sentence I'm on.

My first year, I had one chunk of writing about seven thousand words long that just felt like it was taking the story in the entirely wrong direction. I tried to keep at it for about two days, but I could tell it wasn't going to go any further as it was. I decided to go back and write an alternate take from the point where things had started feeling they went downhill. That alternate take worked out a lot better and saw me through to the end of the month and my first 50K.

It's sort of... situational and personal, I think. For me, I try not to let the crappiness bother me so long as I can say, "It's okay, I can go back and fix this later, and I can also move ahead in the story." If I've written myself into a corner and I feel like there's no possible way out of it, I think about doing an alternate take, maybe adding a character or changing an action or killing someone off.

One awesome thing is that alternate takes count toward the word count :) I've got three retakes I wrote on day two, just testing the same scene out from different characters' perspectives. Doesn't matter which I go with in the long run just right now. What does matter is that I felt satisfied enough that I could move past that scene.

Hope that helps!

Between the worlds of men and make-believe I can be found. ~ Scarecrow's Dream, by Dan Fogelberg

Part of what I've been doing to resist the urge to rewrite/revise is finding ways to prevent the need to look back over my previous work. I decided before I started not to worry about chapters; instead I separate out everything by day. (If I were using a word process, I'd have one file per day; as is I'm using StoryMill for Mac, so I have one "chapter" per day. When I start writing on a new day, I allow myself to look back over the last few paragraphs I wrote the day before to get back into the mood/style, but that's it. No other backtracking is permissible. If I think I might be writing in a plot hole, or feel like referring back to a day or so before to recall what I named so-and-so, I resist the urge and try to just power through.

So far, it's worked pretty well. The only revising I've done is some minor word-swapping as I write. For that kind of thing, I try to keep an eye on myself, though. If I feel like making a revision that leaves me with the same amount or more words, I'll let myself do it. If it will remove words, I stick a comment on the text that I want to revise to remind myself to look at it later.

I saw an interesting idea in one of the pep talks or something, too, which was if you write something that you think is total crap and you just have to remove it now, don't delete it but instead change the color of the paragraph white. That way it's out of the way, you'll be able to easily spot it for removal when December/rewriting rolls around, but you also won't see it while you're working.

Good luck fighting the urge to rewrite!

Ian
http://beckism.com/

The front page had a good suggestion, of if you absolutely have to go back and re-write stuff, change the font to a different color of the section you're removing. As for the rest... you've got to be confident in yourself and in your writing that it isn't that terrible. Obviously you've written other novels before (at least i would assume you have prior to doing NaNo) so keep your faith in that. This is just a fun experimental month. No biggie. The faster you write 50,000, the faster you can go back.

I agree with the person above me though... it is kind of just a personal choice. I don't do redos during NaNo unless they're under 500 words and I try and keep those to a minimum. Just go with it.

"Do or do not. There is no try." -Yoda.
Do write 1667+ words a day or do not sign up for nano.

Thanks everyone! This is very helpful!

I've drugged my inner editor with sleeping pills for the month of November. And you?

Try this: add in a bracket and roughly the change you want to make.

That way you can be sure you inner editor will know exactly what to fix when you go back over it after you finish.

So then you can move on and not worry about it.

I know what you mean, I almost constantly go back to re-read what I've already done. As Chris Baty said in his "four tips" video, revision is for December.

One way I satisfy my inner editor is this: I've been writing by hand on a notepad at write-ins. Sure enough, as I'm transcribing it all to my master document I make little tweaks here and there on it.

Other than that, I've been doing like others have said in here: write, write, write. I thoroughly hope to have this story published so I tell myself NaNo is my "rough draft" document that I'll be working from come December and beyond.

SeattleKos
"The Time Before"
(a spec-fic original)

I'm a fan of the marking system as well. Parenthesis, brackets, whatever. When you get to the end, you can run a find/replace to go back and fix them.

The magic of NaNo hits you around 20 or 30k, when you've gotten to know your characters, your main plot arc has started to shine, and you start coming up with more ideas than you know what to do with.

Right now, just focus on getting things rolling-- once you know all the secret motivations your characters have been hiding, then you can go back and rewrite. (That's what December is for!)

Personally I find that once I've marked a passage as needing a re-write, it gets a lot easier to move on and keep writing.

...sleep in a pool of vigilance so bright...

No - I have never wrtitten a novel before! Plays, short and full-length. Playwriting is so much different. But you obvioulsy have! Have you been published? Can I find your stuff and read - after November of course! :) Happy writing!

I've drugged my inner editor with sleeping pills for the month of November. And you?

I have been cursed with the inner editor so bad when I write I can't misspell and if it doesn't go the way I want it to I get frustrated. I had a set way I wanted things with this current book. Not sure how many times I've started over before finishing it.

2 edits before this, it flowed well for awhile and people were loving it. But I read some of what I wrote and realized it wasn't what I wanted. I finally had a beginning with the last edit but the story felt forced as it wasn't going the direction I wanted.

With this one I am forcing myself to not care. I have events but that's it. i don't go back to read. I write down character names, locations and anything important so I don't have to go back and so far it's been going great. I hit a hard spot and instead of forcing it, I jumped in the story. First draft I think should be simply to get what you want on paper. Don't force it, just let your pen, or hands go and keep going. If you hit the "writer's block", skip ahead to a point you know you want to do and keep going. It's a cheat to start fresh. Like in mine I hit that block, I jumped to a new character which allowed a new fresh look. Then when I hit the next one shortly after, I jumped 3 years in my story. The rewrite I'll fill in the rest, but the idea is to force your mind to go "dumb" in a sense and let your creative side unleash.

The idea I had for magic changed in my book. It was supposed to be rare and dangerous. Well it's not rare but still dangerous.

If you find yourself forcing yourself, jump to a point in the story next in line and go from there. So far it's been working for me.