(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

[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.