NaNo screw up

[whochick]

Nooooo! I am over 4,000 words behind!

Woe.

How did this happen? Now I am so totally uninspired to write. It feels like I'll never get back on track. I really don't want to throw away the 15 grand I've already written but making myself sit here and slog out a further 4 grand is just ack!hell.

Comments

[alto2]

Wait. If you've written 15,000 words, you're well on track for NaNo--even a bit ahead! Why are you torturing yourself over 4000 extra words?

15,000 ain't nothin' to sneeze at, and I sure wouldn't throw it away. Don't put so much pressure on yourself that you make it impossible to use what you have. Give yourself a day or two to relax and fill the well--after all, you can't take anything out if nothing's gone in. I hit a wall this week and had to go do something different rather than keep staring at the same page until my eyes bled.

*hugs* You can do this! Really! And nothing says you have to finish by the end of the month. If it takes some extra time, who cares? You've still done something most people just sit around and think about doing.

[whochick]

According to the NaNo-meter I'm ahead, but I made a spreadsheet that calculates the number of words I have to write a day and it says I'm behind. I think the NaNo-meter is a bit dodgy ...

I really, really want to do this properly. This is the one year in the forseeable future where I'll have enough time in November to stand a remote chance of finishing. If I can't finish this year, I'll never be able to do it.

I guess I'm disappointed in myself because the only reason I'm behind is a lack of dedication.

I'll take a break and come back to it. Thanks for the idea and support - xoxo.

[alto2]

50,000 words divided by 30 days=1667 words/day. You're either ahead or spot on. Don't sweat it :) Anyone who can write 15,000 words in 10-11 days does NOT have a dedication problem. It took me months before I got that far on my story. I started in mid-May and only had 10,000 by mid-August. (Of course, I also thought it was going to be a short story, hahahahaha.)

Hang in there. And if you want to write a novel, must it be in November? Does it matter when you write it? Maybe for you it does, I don't kow, but most people take way more than a month to write something, and while I think NaNo is a cool idea, I also think it can be a way to drive yourself crazy and really burn out your muse. (That's why I'm saying if you finish in December, so what? You might end up with a better product.) I'm not against NaNo--part of me wishes I was doing it--but I am against letting it get you down unnecessarily.

*hugs*

[alto2]

Ooh, another idea--I've found this week that I do really well when I challenge myself to write 500 words in 15 minutes. Sometimes that's all I get, sometimes I add more later, and sometimes I just take off from there. I don't know how it'd work for anyone else, but it might be worth a shot :)

[whochick]

I find that when I get really stuck skipping to a bit that I'm really looking forward to writing will yield upwards of 1,000.

[alto2]

Yeah, that works, too, though I am always reluctant to skip ahead. I have done it with this piece and had it work well, but I'm just stubborn about trying to stay sequential :) But hey, if it works for you, go for it!

[whochick]

Ah, I hear you. However, I'm one of those people who has grand ideas and never finishes them. I can edit my heart out after November, but I need the "finished" product to polish.

That's the number of words I got too ... so why does NaNo tell us we only need 13,216 on day 12? By my math it should be 20,004 ...

[alto2]

Day 12! I forgot, you're a day ahead, aren't you? Oops! Still, I'd imagine that's by the end of day 12, and you have plenty of time :)

I can't speak for the NaNo, but I agree wholeheartedly with the person who said that these things come in waves. I did not expect to write 3400 words on Tuesday, and another 3000 on Wednesday this week, but it happened. Thursday, I think I wrote 100. Just take it as it comes and hope that it works out for the best. And I'd be damned surprised if you got anywhere near finished by the end of November and weren't motivated to wrap that sucker up in December. Just because you're *that* close. 'Course, you may be wired different from me, so I could be totally wrong about that, but at that point, it'd be ludicrous to let it go.

[whochick]

I leave for work in an hour and I don't think I'm going to find 2,600 lying around in the recesses of my brain before I go.

I just like to be on top of things. If it was 500 I wouldn't be worried ;)