(no subject)

[amarra-jade.livejournal.com]

What do you do when your writing kills your enthusiasm for your story? As far as I can tell, my options are:

1. Push myself to 50K with my current plot. This is what I did the past two years, but I was miserable the entire time and didn't feel like much of a winner.

2. Put my current plot aside for now and write something strictly for the lolz so I can enjoy myself and I won't feel like I have to write well. Seems like a good idea, but I'm not particularly good at writing humor.

3. Keep working on my current plot at my own pace. Again, seems like a good idea, except that my normal pace is incredibly slow, so I might never get it finished.

4. Quit NaNo. I really don't want to do this. I hate giving up, and I get more writing done during NaNo than any other month of the year.

Yeah, I know I'm probably being way too pessimistic about this, but I'd appreciate some advice. Thanks in advance.

Comments

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

my suggestion is to find the parts of the story that inspire you. If you don't like the plot and don't like writing it - well, why are you writing it? Find the parts of the story that you love, and that you want to write, and see what you get when you write them. Work in fragments if you need to. List out the scenes that you can't wait to get to and what needs to happen first so that you have goals in mind.

and whatever you do, make sure you're ENJOYING yourself. <3

[amarra-jade.livejournal.com]

I do like the plot. Love it, in fact. I just don't like the way I'm writing it, and it's totally killing my enjoyment. I've tried writing the exciting parts first, but I still hated them.

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

hmm, then that is a problem. Can you pinpoint something specific about what in your writing is making you unhappy? Maybe the style's not working, the POV? Try switching it up - maybe change tenses or POV's or go for a style switch.

[amarra-jade.livejournal.com]

The style. I have a hard time with description, so my writing always seems dry and boring. I'm not sure how to fix that.

[pink-pet.livejournal.com]

Maybe try not describing things so much. Are you falling into feeling like you need to write in a certain way because "that's how it's done"?

Maybe try just writing the parts that interest you and leaving out all stuff that is boring you. If it bores you as the author it might bore the reader too.

Or, this idea might be awful, but NaNoWriMo is about experimenting, right?

[oraien.livejournal.com]

I know exactly how you feel on this.

I'd suggest, A) getting a book written by an author that has a very poetic style, one where the STYLE inspires you. I always go for Gaiman or Brooks, personally. Read through a couple of your FAVORITE scenes.

B) Go OVERBOARD with your descriptions. Use prose if you have to, resort to being poetic and drawing parallels and using inferences.

Whether you're writing third person or first person, try to get into your main characters head and look out through their eyes for a minute. How do THEY see things. If they see things very dryly as well, then ramp it up. Explain HOW.

[amarra-jade.livejournal.com]

I'll give these a try. Thanks. :D

[oraien.livejournal.com]

If you need someone to cheer you on a bit, I'm around most days. Add me here or drop me an email at siamensiscanidae at gmail (both is fine too).

Even if your work is dry at the moment, you can always take a couple hours to BUILD UP (add descriptions, bulk out scenes a little bit, etc) and that will only help your word-count.

[amarra-jade.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the offer. Friended you. :D

[oraien.livejournal.com]

Added back. DON'T get discouraged. Nano is a good time to give your writing a go even if you aren't satisfied with part (or even most) of it.

[amarra-jade.livejournal.com]

I know, I know, but even after two NaNos, I still can't seem to convince myself that it's okay to write badly.

[oraien.livejournal.com]

For the course of Nano I'd shift your focus off of writing well or badly and focus instead of what you LOVE to write. You will have however long you want to take after November 30th to worry about making it good.

Right now, you love your plot so focus on your plot - what you love about it, what's challenging about it, where you want to go with it. Forget about the fact that you feel your writing is too dry because Nano is too BIG to worry about that so much.

Take it one section at a time. I give myself a daily goal on word count and then I figure out what I want to FOCUS on - and then I sit down, crank up my music and I WRITE and even if I HATE what I wrote, I figure I'm that many words closer to my goal.

[hooves.livejournal.com]

I can't write badly either, but I also feel that writing BADLY is not the answer-- WRITING is the answer. I don't feel that people should feel pushed to write amazingly well, or wonderfully. There's no reason to write badly on purpose (and I doubt anyone who actually writes badly in NaNo does anything with their novel), but when you feel pressured to write to the very best of your ability, it can be hard to churn out 50k in a month's time, because every day it'll feel like a chore. Give yourself the option of not writing everything perfectly.

Don't write badly, but just write to the best of your ability within reason for the month of November. ;P

[amarra-jade.livejournal.com]

I'm not writing badly on purpose. That's just the only way I can write a first draft.

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

I agree with oraien in that you should see how some of your favorite writers do things. Look for what you like in their style and try to imitate it. Obviously, don't continue doing that - but if you start doing that, hopefully soon it'll start turning into a style that's yours but that you like.

[runsamrun.livejournal.com]

I'd go with either 1 or 2. It pushes you to write, which is better than just saying "Fuck it," and never getting anything done. I know that my regular writing pace is ridiculously slow, so NaNo helps me a lot to get things done, even if I'm not happy. If it's really making you that miserable, I'd go with option 2, though.

[nlthomas.livejournal.com]

I find myself running into this almost every night. The writing is solid, but I begin to doubt my ability of finishing it. If this is the story you really, really want to write, push yourself to keep working on it. Don't stress if you cannot make the daily word counts.

What would feel worse? Continuing with it as is, or looking back the 1st of December, wondering what would have happened if you kept working on it? For me, the pain of pushing forward now is a lot better than the guilt I'd feel for axing it too soon to know if it's any good.

[anydirection.livejournal.com]

You could also skip around a bit, or take a night to work on a separate project - I didn't count it toward my word count, but I've had a rough start as well and taking yesterday to finish up a short story that was bothering me helped a lot. It's not even finished, as in it still needs more editing and work, but I managed to get the first draft completed, and that was enough for me to turn my attention back to my NaNo project.

[diedrupo.livejournal.com]

I have the exact same problem.
I'm forcing myself to just write the 50k words because of peer pressure (I have a lot of friends doing NaNo also and we're all competing on word counts and bragging about our daily progress - I would look like a tool if I quit and failed).

[kisforkurama.livejournal.com]

I tend to take a dare off of the dare thread and apply it to whatever I'm writing immediately if I start feeling like whatever I'm writing sucks. Because sure, it might suck but it'll get you thinking and it'll you can always edit it out when you do edit.

And then, sometimes, I switch pov to test out if I can write better in a different one or tell myself I can't use the word "awesome" or something to make it fun and exciting again.

[cwtyger.livejournal.com]

If it's the 3rd and you're already thinking of quitting NaNo, there's something seriously wrong with what you've already got. There's enough time to just start something new if you really don't want to continue with what you're writing. So I would probably choose option 2 for you if it was up to me.

[cmk418]

Think of the next scene in the plot that will give you joy to write. Write that. Then figure out how they got there from where you started. Sometimes, that's all it takes to give your script a lift.

Or write a non-essential scene to the plot just for kicks that gives you insight into your favorite character (think of it as fanfic for the story you're writing). If you can include it, great. If it sparks something even better.

Write what gives you joy and go from there. Good luck.

[hooves.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I quit already (I quit on Day 1, after hitting the first day's word count). <--But I have other things I'd rather be doing and can't for the life of me think about writing. I've also been unemployed since April, so writing for pleasure flew out the window the moment I quit working. Ugggh.

If I were you, I'd do as suggested above and try to write your current plot in a lighter fashion-- don't feel pressured to be quite as descriptive. I find myself throwing in extra words around NaNo time (especially the word "that") because I feel I need to write super-descriptively or I'll never hit 50k.

But if it still bothers you, you could just start something for the lolz. I feel that 50k counts if it's one story or 10. So long as you're writing more in November, it should be all good.

[jediknightmuse.livejournal.com]

Lol, it's funny you ask this, because I basically just had this issue, until around 8:30ish tonight when I made a breakthrough and started writing.

See, yesterday I realized that I'd written myself into this hole, both in terms of the actual writing and in terms of the plot. I started hating it. I made the mistake of trying to write in first person for the first time in several years (since 2004), and then I just...started not liking what I'd written so far. So last night, I decided to start over completely. For me, I knew that I could potentially make up for it this coming Saturday because I have the day off from work and am just going to a baby shower, so I made the decision.

But then I had to come up with a new plot. I ended up coming up with a really vague idea, but I was struggling to even come up with a new way to start off...like, even the first sentence. I had a few LJ friends who basically helped me through this, and tonight I was able to start over and I'm almost 1,000 words into the new story and still going.

I definitely agree with starting with the parts that inspire you, that you picture clearly in your mind. You can always fill in the rest later, after NaNo. Another thing to keep in mind is that you do not technically have to write in any sort of order during NaNo, as long as what you're writing are all part of the same story. If you want to write a middle scene, write a middle scene. If you want to write the ending scene, write it. Whatever scenes come to you the most clearly and will help you get past the lack of enthusiasm, write them.

Another suggestion I have is to look at places like the NaNo board for inspiration...opening lines/paragraphs, adopt a plots, whatever.

Good luck! Don't give up. :) I'm so glad I didn't give up (not that I would have let myself do so anyway, not when it's only three (well, now four for me) days into the month and I still have a while to go.

5: Try dusting off your old plots and looking at them again.

[vinawrimo.livejournal.com]

I have a question. What about the last two plots you wrote? What happened to them? Did you write the entire arc and finish the stories or did you just hit 50k and then scrap them?

Asking because I've done Nano three times now. At the time I was doing them, I felt they were disasters. The writing was crappy and purple and the characters were unreal and flat. But now when I look back on them, I find the characters have grown into real people. Some of the prose (very little of it, but some of it) really turns me on. And the plots are fucking amazing and compelling. I would love to rewrite them/write them well someday, though this year I'm doing a totally new plot.

I find that there are two pleasures in writing - creating something completely new from scratch, and laying the finishing touches on a finished product. The problem with Nano is that it tries to do both in a ridiculously short amount of time.

Good luck! Whatever you decide, definitely do not go with Option no. 4. It's not about winning - there is no winning in Nano. It's about the struggle between entropy and creation. And every person who slogs through it and finishes is a tiny victory for the writing spirit, which is the spirit of discipline and hard work, not the spirit of inspiration (that's a myth). All us crazed typing monkeys will produce Shakespeare, even if it takes us an eternity. ;D

[puddles21.livejournal.com]

I treat nano like a big stream of conciousness writing project. What I produce at the end won't even be a draft but a framework for my story. My writing is 50% waffle with Nano and I will probably never use anything I write this month.

BUT I still love nano and you should too. Beacuse Nano teaches you about writing. You need the discipline of writing every day and the training to force yourself to be creative even if you don't really feel like it today.

My number one piece of advice for Nano is think about what you are learning. Just the fact that you don't like what you are writing is a sign that you have learnt something about you and the way you write. The only way to learn to write is by writing. This Nano my goal is to teach myself the thinks I like and dislike about writing, my good and bad habits while writing. That will be infinately more valuable to me as a writer than 50,000 words.

There is a reason NaNo has the no edit rule, because it is hard to see what your mistakes are when you are so close to them. Write what works for you, if you think it's awful make a note. I have a notation system so I can come back to the bits I thought were awful and the bits I thought were great in December, I am always suprised how my opinion changes. Of course there are parts that are still awful and I learn valuable lessons, such as my creativity dives after midnight and I don't write dialogue well.

[notemily.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one writing this way! I'm a first-time Nanoer and I definitely don't have a story yet, but I sure do have some words.

[tehexile]

one big thing for me is, don't try to do it in order. find a bit of the story you like, then another bit, then another, then join them up at the end. filler chapters aren't fun to write, until you end up with an airship scene then a high speed elephant chase that you need to somehow join together.