tap tap tap ... tap tap tap ...
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tap tap tap ... tap tap tap ...
It's only lame if you chicken out. :):
(*whips out and puts cheerleader outfit on*) :cheer: Keep going! You can do this!!! :cheer:
50,000 words, you are *mine* !!!
so close ...
how are you other ladies going? you can do it!!!
tap tap tap
Peanutter you are making it look ridiculously easy.
Btw I went a seminar with Fiona McIntosh, her golden rule is to never not ever back over what she has written until the entire first draft is done. I reckon that'd have to be modus operandi for getting thru Nano. Is that what u r doing?
absolutely. save for typos which I correct as I go, I try not to fix up ANYTHING.
the other thing I do which I find really helps, is my self imposed "square brackets rule" which is that if I can't think of a specific word that I want, or I am on a red hot streak with one part of the story, I will summarie in square brackets what comes there, and keep going with the flow.
eg: [chapter 14 will be where Gabe realises that the girl he sold the car to is actually Ben's new fiance, and that he's going to be in *big* trouble ... Helen will come back on the radar at work, too]
or even [chapter 14 - Gabe]
and then I'll just keep running with whatever is going well.
Otherwise I'll spend 30 minutes pondering how to phrase the next bit of dialogue, the next scene entrance, where they are, what colour the grime on the dashboard is, etc ...
And I'm even worse with words - sometimes I'll have a mental blank and KNOW that I know the perfet word, but it just won't come to me, and I'll spend litterally 10+ minutes trying to push it out of my brain ... but I "square brackets" it, keep going, and just whevever the word hits me, I go back and insert it. Sometimes I use *** or ### so I can use control + f to jump right to it, so I don't have to trawl through pages looking for the blank...
:
THat's some really good advice. I must admit I spend time dithering around with stuff like that. Or deleting and re-writing. I've managed to curb it a lot lately.
I'm officially at 40,000 words. How are you going?
:cheer: Awesome work!!!! Keep going you can get this done!!!
Peanutter that is fantastic advice. I use a similar technique (esp when I'm casting about for words, which is all the time since chemotherapy LOL), I use XXX (easily searchable) and I have been known to highlight in a different colour and leave that there to come back to. I like your square brackets method.
Wanna know what I've been up to in Nov instead of Nanowrimo? It's a blog....definitely not 50K but it's involved the discipline of turning out something every day (well nearly), and has been worthwhile from that perspective.
kamarine - awesome!! keep it up! I've cracked 59, and am now gunning for 60K :D
marydean - noice blog :D I hope oprah meets you :)
Peanutter - lawdy! Fantastic effort, are you sure you can't pull out another 10K before the end of the month (call it a round 70K)? :lol:
peanutter, that's fantastic!!! And really great advice a few posts up re square brackets. I'll remember that one because I think that's where I got stuck. Sat down to write but couldn't get anything out but the idea was in my head. Needless to say my novel is still sitting at around 4000 words. Not going to make it I don't think but I've enjoyed what I have done :)
Marydean, I've been following your blog and love it! I hope you get to meet Oprah!
Eluned, that's just it, it's all about the process. Really it is. I think that's why writers write. Do any of us ever *really* enjoy reading what we've written (...there's *always* the cringe factor) - but you've got to keep doing it because that's what fuels you.
Wow Peanutter. You're amazing. Can't wait to hear your final count.
MD. I hope you get to meet Oprah. Love your blog. :)
I scraped in with 50k. I'm so pleased with myself. I achieved. I love the feeling.
eluned - that's super!! And it's 4K more words than you had a week ago. it's great that you've been able to do anything at all, with two little ones, etc.
and MD - your blog is fab. FX that oprah surprises you while she's here!!
kamarine - mega woooooot for you!! how good is it?? :D so proud of you!!! we should do it again next year :p
afm - final count - just over 72K. Amazing what happens, when you write about something so close to your heart ... not as cathartic as I thought it would be, but it's a start ...
my plan now?
January - edit this one.
February - re-read my last one
March - finish my first one
June - edit my first one
September - final edit, and decide what to them all!!
Peanutter... I've been stalking this a lil bit :hide: and I want to know when we might be able to read something you've written???
:o
maybe ... maybe when it's finished ...:hiding:
I'll take a maybe :D
Just popping in for the NaNo wash up - how did it all go?
just over 72K :D
:cheer: Woohooo!! Are you really on a roll now, do you think you'll just keep rolling til you've got it all out, or is real life making increasingly incessant demands now the month is over?
the incessant demands have arrived :lol:
but I hope to finish everything off soon!
Wow Peanutter, that's amazing. :clap:
Kamarine, well done!!! :)
peanutter, you're a pro! Thanks for introducing this to me. I am definitely in again next year where I'll hopefully have more time to write more. When I get five or so minutes spare, I think I'll continue on writing what I started this time and see where it goes.
well done, ladies!!
we'll have to get into again next year :dance:
Eluned & Peanutter. Definitely have to go together next year!
Eluned - last year I wrote about 3-4k words. And Im pretty sure Peanutter and Marydean are a big reason why I finished this year haha.
Kamarine...OMG i can't believe I missed your post where you told us you MADE IT!!! :cheer: Massive well done! Not that you need us telling you how awesome it is...you already know that yourself :D
I've been looking into this again, and I'm going to do it this year. EEEKKKKKK!
Anyone else?
Can you continue working on something you've been working on, or does it have to be something new?
I write book good.
:D
It's supposed to be a totally new work.
Lots of people break that rule ;)
I'm in.
[hey, that's 20 words already!! Now it's 28 ... ]
Hmmmmmm......wanting motivation to continue writing what I've started. So might break the rule and see if I can add 50,000 to what I have already. Let's face it...I might only have one in me! :lol:
Naughty naughty!
I reckon you can count the emoticons as words.....after all, you have to type a word to get them :P
this is very very true ...
I am very tempted to write the second 50K of my first novel too ... I started it for Nanowrimo 2008 and have hardly touched it since ... last year I wrote about DS's birth and the complications afterwards ... it was hard but I really needed to get it all out ... I'd made notes throughout the process, but there's a lot to be said about writing it all out - I did about 80K over the first two weeks!
Compared to 2008 when I was going great guns, but then fell behind and ended up having to write the last 17,000 in the last 28 hours!!
I got there, though ... I mean hey, who needs sleep, provided that you've got enough coffee ;)
80K in two weeks! That's sensational! Hope that writing it out was healing for you :hug:
I was always a good writer, as in could just go for it and the words would flow. And then I started looking at it from a publishing perspective and hit the wall. Struggle ever since. I'm hoping to go back to basics and just finish what I've started, write it for me, not for anyone else. That's the plan anyway!
yes. sometimes some brain dumping is needed ... I actually started turning the computer screen off, to prevent me from trying to edit as I typed - I wrote sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much faster, and it meant that the flow kicked in within a paragraph or three, and rather than having one page of brilliance at the end of a session, I'd have a few lines of crap, a few paragraphs of fluff, and then 5 - 10 pages of real narrative, action, character development, etc ...
and let's face it - the hard part is getting it out.
the time consuming part is the editing, the research, the checking, the fixing of continuity errors, etc - but that is all very very doable, once the words are in the pages, and once we've figured out what the story actually is ;)
that's what I find, at least :)
the thing that I will actually be struggling with this year is that I haven't actually enjoyed writing since DS's birth ... I just lost all enjoyment from most of my hobbies, so I am really, really hoping that I will be able to do Nanowrimo this year and just get back into loving writing ...
I know it's a big ask and it's awfully simplistic, but I hope with all the writing vibes and creative juices flowing from everyone around me, that the feelings and desire will just snap back into place.
Does that sound ridiculous?
Love the idea of turning the screen off! I might put a towel over the laptop screen...have no idea how to turn it off!
11 days to get my brain into gear and not chicken out. I CAN do this.
yes you can.
Peanutter that's so interesting that you used nano10 to write about your birth experience. I'm in the throes of deciding whether to do same (recent biographical material) for this year.
Has anyone who did it last year gone back to their work and developed it further since?
Nope.