I Don't Ever Remember There Being A Wall Here Before...

Okay, so, today didn't quite go as planned...

After making the plan to write 3334 words per day and aim for that awe inspiring target of writing two novels this november, I had my first official down day. I didn't get as much sleep as I should have last night, and had to go to work this morning. I spent the day in a daze, and got maybe a few hundred words written if I'm lucky. I'm going to keep going tonight, let me assure you, but it doesn't change the fact that it feels like I've hit the wall already. And it's only day 4! If that wasn't bad enough, my psyche has decided to lock up the rest of my story behind a steel wall, and only tease me with insubstantial details. Needless to say, It hasn't been a good day...

I love writing, I really do, but sometimes, it is the absolute last thing that I want to do when I look at my laptop. I have to keep reminding myself that it's about discipline, and routine, and making an effort to do some work every day. But then every time I even look at my novel, all I can think is how good it felt to take a break last night and re-watch season 1 of Dexter last night with my wife and a friend of ours.

Hopefully I'm over this before tomorrow, or I'll find myself in real trouble, being 6668 words behind doesn't really appeal to me all that much...

Days Remaining: 26
Words Remaining: 38779 / 88779

The Great Annual Spreadsheet

So, last night at work, I tackled the annual spreadsheet. I always spreadsheet my NaNo writing. I can't see any other way to hit my targets than to schedule out my words per day, and just write something every day, hoping to hit those targets. I'll post a screen shot of my spreadsheet at some stage, but that's not really what I'm writing about it for.

The reason I've decided to mention it here is because, I still don't like my story. And for some insane reason, I've decided that it's not fair to stop this story and start again just because I've had another idea (I've actually had several now), so I'm going to finish this one. The reason this is insane is because, I've also decided that I want to write another story this month. Another NaNo challenge for myself. Yeah, I know, crazy, as if 50,000 words wasn't enough of a daunting task. So on my spreadsheet, my daily required word count isn't 1667, its 3334. Like I said, crazy.

The good news is that if I can knock off this story in its normal 50,000 words by the 15th, then I should, theoretically have enough time to repeat it and write a second novel. Of course, I assume that I won't have let go of my last shred of sanity, and decided that the world is better off if I burn it to the ground. That last scenario, I reckon I could get at least 50/50 odds on it happening you know...

Well, clearly I've lost my mind, even more so than most NaNoers, but, at least I'm not giving up right?

Days Remaining: 27
Words Remaining: 39678 / 89678 (crap that's a lot of words...)

Why did I even bother

Have you ever been writing along, and realised that your work is absolute crap? I don’t just mean bad, I mean quite possibly the most self indulged, grammatically poor, worst laid out, boring, dull, dreary, characterless story that has every existed? Truly, and utterly crap? Well, I have, several times now.

In my first nano, this wasn’t really that much of a problem. I decided to write a mainstream fiction story, and whenever I would get bogged down in something not so interesting, something that just slowed down the pace of the story, I would cut to the chase, literally. Whatever my next action sequence was, that is what I would cut too. And it was good, or at least so I’m told. I’m told that it was engaging, and exciting, and gripping, and interesting, and most of all, fun. It was everything a good mainstream fiction should be. I even managed to make my wife cry when I killed off a main character, and again in the final scene held in a cemetery. I’m actually quite proud of those two.

My second attempt, wasn’t so successful, and to be honest, I can’t even remember what I was trying to write. I actually didn’t even manage to make my 50,000 words. I suspect that I changed stories multiple times during the month and therefore couldn’t make the word count, despite having on regular occasions pulled out well over 10-15 thousand words in a single day. 

My third attempt was a poor, poor, really really poor, science fiction attempt. It made 50,000 words, but I’ve since dumped it into the bottom of a drawer (metaphorically, its actually in a  zip file hidden somewhere obscure on my hard drive), and haven’t touched it since. I mean, really really bad. But, I had to try it, I loved the idea of writing a science fiction, even if I couldn’t pull it off, or even come up with a decent concept to base my story on.

My fourth attempt was good, or at least, once again, that’s what I’m told, but I never actually finished the story. I was writing a murder mystery, and I had an interesting killer, with an interesting technique, and an interesting plot development that was going to eventually finish with the hero finding out who the killer was, and have one final plot twist at the end, just for good measure. Because I never finished the book, there is no way for me to say whether or not it was worthy of the praise my wife gave me in writing it.

Now I’m on my fifth attempt and I’m going back to science fiction. It’s a good concept, in a good world, with an actual story to tell. The only problem, it’s still horrible. I’m four and a half thousand words into the story, and I’m hating every word I’m putting onto paper. My first fifteen hundred words were excellent, and my wife thoroughly enjoyed the way the scene played out. But ever since then, I’ve not been able to write anything worth reading. 

I know nano is all about turning off your inner editor, and just letting the story you have inside of you out, putting it onto paper, good or bad, and enjoying the challenge. But there is still this part of me that says: “No Ian, this is terrible work, you must give it up and try something better!”

It’s only my second day of NaNo 2010, and already I want to scrap what I’ve got and start again. I’ve even been tempted to become a NaNo Rebel and try rewriting my original story again, but only this time, with more actual story to tell. I don’t think I will do that, but it doesn’t change my extreme desire to scrap everything past my first fifteen hundred words  and try again... I suppose even then, if I did that, what would I put in its place? pudding? I should think not. I’ve got no other idea to put in place of the terrible work I’m putting into the story now. 

Every year I think this is a good idea, and then, as with this year, a day or so in I begin to wonder why I put myself through it. And I want to become a published author? Ha! I clearly don’t have the backbone. Now I just have to figure out what the rest of my story is going to be filled with if it isn’t going to be the tripe that’s coming out of me at the moment... I hope you are all having better luck than I. 

Days Remaining: 28

Words Remaining: 44670