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on nanowrimo failure.
OK, OK, it's only the 25th and not the end of the month... but the chances that I'll write those 46500 words I haven't yet gotten around to before the end of the week are slim, to say the least. 9000+ words a day during the holidays when I'm expected to pay attention to my family? I think not.
So, in light of having written only 7% of what I intended to for National Novel Writing Month, what have we learned?
Mostly that I'm less likely to write when I feel like I have to, I suspect. I guess something about knowing I have a goal brings on the procrastination reflex, and knowing noone's enforcing that goal makes me fail to do the last-minute cramming or typefest or whatever. Though with five days left I might not eat and sleep for the rest of the month and finish the book -- yeah, right.
I guess another big part of my problem was that I had a starting point, I had an Idea, I had a setting, more or less, I had a vague plot, but nothing specific. So far as prose goes, I'm used to writing essays for class, short stories, that kind of stuff. Either way I tend to have a point that I'm aiming for. (We'll leave the more random of my fanfiction out of the discussion here -- the bits and pieces and scenes and stuff -- because really, the point of those is that I like writing them, not that anyone will ever see them.) Anyways. I'm not even sure how I'd have liked it to end. I didn't have examples A, B, and C that I needed to introduce and support with quotes; I didn't have a half-dozen scenes to write to lead up to the punchline; I had a couple of characters sitting around in their universe acting bored 'cause I hadn't plotted how to get them from point A to point B. Lesson: anything more than three pages, I need an outline to write.
On the plus side, I still have this Idea with its 3500 words and ten pages or whatever, and it's a halfway decent Idea and I think I might be able to do something with it eventually. I guess I'll probably keep working on this monster, maybe even get somewhere on it, and if it turns out somewhat OK I'll post it here or on ff.net... but just as likely it may spiral downwards into badly written oblivion and sit on my hard drive till I delete it. We'll see. :)
So, in light of having written only 7% of what I intended to for National Novel Writing Month, what have we learned?
Mostly that I'm less likely to write when I feel like I have to, I suspect. I guess something about knowing I have a goal brings on the procrastination reflex, and knowing noone's enforcing that goal makes me fail to do the last-minute cramming or typefest or whatever. Though with five days left I might not eat and sleep for the rest of the month and finish the book -- yeah, right.
I guess another big part of my problem was that I had a starting point, I had an Idea, I had a setting, more or less, I had a vague plot, but nothing specific. So far as prose goes, I'm used to writing essays for class, short stories, that kind of stuff. Either way I tend to have a point that I'm aiming for. (We'll leave the more random of my fanfiction out of the discussion here -- the bits and pieces and scenes and stuff -- because really, the point of those is that I like writing them, not that anyone will ever see them.) Anyways. I'm not even sure how I'd have liked it to end. I didn't have examples A, B, and C that I needed to introduce and support with quotes; I didn't have a half-dozen scenes to write to lead up to the punchline; I had a couple of characters sitting around in their universe acting bored 'cause I hadn't plotted how to get them from point A to point B. Lesson: anything more than three pages, I need an outline to write.
On the plus side, I still have this Idea with its 3500 words and ten pages or whatever, and it's a halfway decent Idea and I think I might be able to do something with it eventually. I guess I'll probably keep working on this monster, maybe even get somewhere on it, and if it turns out somewhat OK I'll post it here or on ff.net... but just as likely it may spiral downwards into badly written oblivion and sit on my hard drive till I delete it. We'll see. :)