To count or not to count?

[azriona.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I completely wrote like mad yesterday and clocked in just under 4K. And then this morning, my brain decided to go on hiatus and refused to write more than 800 words, and they were horribly painful words too. Not in reading - in reading they sound fine. But writing was like pulling teeth.

My husband and I went for lunch, and talked, and I figured out why those 800 were impossible - I was writing in the wrong direction. I backed up and I'm writing the same situation from a different angle, and it's moving much better and the words are flowing like wine and all is fantastic.

Here's the question. I KNOW I'm not going to use those 800 words. They are completely unsalvageable, and I'm okay with that. But should I count them against the 50K or not? Thoughts?

Edited to add: Thanks much for all the suggestions so far, folks - don't worry - I never delete gigantic chunks of text like this - I'll save it in a separate file marked "outtakes". I've decided for now not to count the 800 words in my final number, because while I agree I did write them and they totally should count and I have no issues with anyone else counting their words in a similar situation - I also know me. I'm twenty kinds of verbose. It's not going to come down to a question of 800 words if I hit 50K by 30 November! *grin*

Comments

[syntheticjesso.livejournal.com]

It's up to you, but I'd delete them if it was me, because you're already ahead if you did 4k yesterday and you're trucking along today.

Last year, though, writing was like pulling teeth, and I did pretty much the same thing where I decided I was going a different direction, but I left all the old words in because I didn't want to waste time editing it out.

[irishkitten441.livejournal.com]

*High 5s your icon back*

The houses are united for once! :)

[sativa]

Nanowrimo is fairly loosely structured and it's really all up to you in the end. The main question is would you feel guilty using those 800 words towards your end goal even though you know it won't be included in the novel or would you still feel accomplished at the end knowing you wrote 50,000 words in a month even though not all of them were included in the finished product?

Me personally, I would probably discard those 800 words because they aren't being used, but on the other hand, I have included scenes that I knew weren't going to be used in a novel because I learned something about the character. That scene just never actually fit into the working rough draft. So, it's really up to you.

Good luck!

[azriona.livejournal.com]

I think I would feel guilty - but I feel guilty for stepping on worms. I am doomed, as far as guilt goes.

I'm not deleting the words (I never delete stuff like that anyway), but I've got a strikethrough through them now; I'll probably count 'em on my personal daily, but keep them out of the large file that holds the entire novel for the actual end-of-month count. If that makes sense.

[sativa]

I didn't mean to imply delete them all, just not include them in the word count. I think my brain flew the coup several days before Nano XD

And it does make sense, just remember that at the end, you'll need 50,800 words now rather then 50,000. That's where I would get into trouble.

*laughs*

[hireadd.livejournal.com]

I don't remember if it was on the NaNo site or in No Plot, No Problem that I got this tip, but according to Chris Baty, if you write something that you realize is totally the wrong direction- keep it, but either italicize it or white it out so that you can come back and delete it in rewrites. You wrote them, so they count.

[azriona.livejournal.com]

I've still got them, I just did a strikethrough on them.

I'm thinking if Chris Baty says keep 'em, that's sort of like gospel, isn't it? *grin*

[hireadd.livejournal.com]

Yeah, as far as I'm concerned- if it was just a sentence or two, I'd say delete them, but 800 words is almost half of your daily minimum, so that's definitely worth keeping. :)

[cornerofnowhere.livejournal.com]

agreed! i do the strikethrough thing too.

[ionicaq.livejournal.com]

Keep 'em, count 'em, take 'em out in editing. :)

[beckyblack]

You count them, absolutely. They may not be part of the book in the end, but they are part of the process. Also, you're not far enough from them to judge right now. It's always possible that in a couple of months time you'll see something in them you can salvage. Even a single line that might go elsewhere. Never delete!

[netbug009.livejournal.com]

Keep the words, but add "No, that's not really what happened." after them. XD

[azriona.livejournal.com]

Plus, that's another six words. *grin*

[elbereth-light.livejournal.com]

I stick all my 'oh, that's just bad' writing in square brackets for now, so I can decide next month what I'm going to do with them. Even if I already know they'll be facing the delete key.

[beckyo.livejournal.com]

I love my square brackets. I haven't come up with a good name for my ski lodge yet, and so far it's "The [something ski] lodge". *g*

[cloverdew.livejournal.com]

Most definitely keep them if they are part of your novel, regardless of whether you plan on editing them out later. That's my mantra today.

[lmeighmy.livejournal.com]

You could put them in brackets ( [ ] ) and then, later on, you can remove them if you still want to. But it will pad your word count until then, just in case. :-)

I always give my inner editor some room when I write, but I don't give it complete control. I usually go over what I've written and do some minor editing, but that's it. I usually just leave it mostly intact.

Last year's novel ended up being two completely different stories, but I left it as it was until Nano was done.

[13-stories.livejournal.com]

This is just my opinion, but we're talking about 800 words here. If they are not going to stay in the final manuscript, I would chuck them out. On the other hand, you did write them. The other possibility is to put them in a junk file and wait until November 30th. If at 11 pm, you have 49,200 words, heck stick 'em back in and count them. I'm willing to bet that if you are at (I'm guessing) 6 to 8k by now, you won't have to count those measly 800 words in order to get to 50,000.

[azriona.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much my thought. I'm keeping each day's writing in its own file for the moment, and adding the finished stuff to a separate document for the final count - for now, everything but the 800 words is going into the final count document. If I do finish and I'm 800 words short...well, all bets are off! :)

[nanokat.livejournal.com]

I'll add my two cents to what seems to be the general consensus. You wrote 'em, so they count. Count them without guilt. They can come out during the editing, but that's *editing*, not Nano!!

[yellowhorde.livejournal.com]

I agree 100%! You wrote them, count them. You can always edit them later. God knows there's a lot of stuff I put in my first drafts than never see the light of day, but during NaNo, they COUNT.

[alessandriana.livejournal.com]

I had to cut seven thousand words last year and start over because they were going in the wrong direction, and you better believe I counted those. I wouldn't have made 50k without them. So whether you decide you want to count them or not is up to you, but as others have said, there's nothing in the rules against it.

[st-aurafina.livejournal.com]

I keep all my cut words in a separate file - you'd be surprised at how often I dip back in and get those words for another section. I think our brains work in very strange ways - what seems unsalvagable now is sometimes just a weird kind of planning ahead. I didn't need to count those words in the end, but I would have if my word count had been under.

OH YEAH!

[with-new-eyes.livejournal.com]

Chris says in his book (No Plot No Problem) to just italicize or highlight those words so you know to take them out later but KEEP THEM IN to count toward your wordcount. 800 words just might be what you need to get you over 50k. Good luck!

[nebulosity.livejournal.com]

I personally wouldn't count them, but you can do whatever you want.

[lucidscreamer.livejournal.com]

Keep 'em, count 'em. Delete nothing during NaNo and count everything. It's allowed.

[hendrikboom.livejournal.com]

If you delete them, you're editing in November, YOu're letting the Internal Editor get a toehold in your mind. Kepp them Keep them. Mark them as spurious in some way, but keep them. They will likepy come in handy when you really start to edit. I've had stuff I intended to delete turn out to get merged with other stuff I intended to keep when I finally did an edit.

Keep them. It's official that you can; it's also good policy.