NaNo Trials and Tribulations

Wow. Mine are not nearly as bad as yours.

All I've got is a roommate who's been determined all month to distract me as much as possible (to the point I've thrown two pens, a remote control, and a spoon at him...as far as I can recall), the fact that every time I had to write a battle scene I almost burst into tears at the extreme effort I had to put into possibly my BIGGEST writing fear (battle scenes are the devil), and the fact that part of my company was sold and my job with it. Not knowing where I'm going to be working or what I'm going to be doing there in a given day is rough. Luckily, things are settling and I'll be working for the new company...starting in December. My frayed nerves are starting to calm and I'm able to write at a tolerable pace again.

Now, 1k more to my nano x2 goal. Can't afford to get distracted now!

on the re-write, whack her husband. reallly realllly messilllly.

then call it chick dicks. cause that's funny.

My biggest challenge came around the 20,000 word mark. That's when I hit the Mid-Book Blues and thought the story wouldn't go anywhere.

I thought this because the last line of one of my chapters read like the last line of a book.

So I made it the last line of a 'book'. I decided to do an H.G. Wells and write the book in parts that I called 'books'. Officially, The Dragon Princess has four 'books' in it, just like Mr. Wells's book The War of the Worlds was divided into two books. That pretty much solved my problem, and the writing went pretty smoothly after that.

For me, it was hard because I had 3rd partial exams and proyects during the first week of November. Then, during this past week I've had final exams and proyects, which has been extremely drained.

Also, we moved to a new city on July and, as of now, I haven't been able to adapt even though I've really tried. So yeah, I've been emotionally drained and had to practically kick myself to finish 50k. To the date I still struggle to write my target word count and stop the moment I reach it, even if it's mid-sentence. I'm going back to spend a week with my friends, but that's not going to happen until Dec 10, so until then, I feel like I'm on hold, just moving because I have to, just passing the time until Dec 10.

So yeah, crappy moment to write a novel, but hey, I did it!! And that kinda makes me feel much better about myself.

Keeping my momentum was the hardest part about this whole thing. Only in the last week and a half did I finally say, "you know what, I can do this." The rest of the time I was like oh God I have to write another 2k words today? How in the hell am I gonna do that? And then I'd fall behind, but then hit a good day and catch up (the write ins really helped for this). I figured out I pretty much work in an up and down pattern like that... gradually get behind for 2-3 days and then have a spurt to catch up and possibly get ahead. Granted, I was ahead of the minimum goal the whole time but most days I was failing miserably on the personal goal.

Which was another good thing. I realized that even if I didn't meet the personal goal, it was very satisfying to realize that I was still ahead of the minimum, even if only by a few hundred words. I started out as a 500 word a day girl and now I look back and think, damn, that was it? 500 is like a 30 min spurt for me. A slow 30 min.

So yeah, I didn't lose half of my novel and I didn't have major family issues to get in the way. Most of my trial and tribulation was a sort of writer's soul searching. I've tested my limits, found out some neat tricks to get me out of a funk, and I'm rather pleased with the results.

Kudos to all the participants even if you did not finish. Chocolates and flowers and whatever else you like to the people who managed to pull through despite some hardships!

The awesomeness of it got to me sometimes...do I have to write today...I am so burnt out. But I did and it was certainly a learning experience.

Sassee said:

I figured out I pretty much work in an up and down pattern like that... gradually get behind for 2-3 days and then have a spurt to catch up and possibly get ahead...I realized that even if I didn't meet the personal goal, it was very satisfying to realize that I was still ahead of the minimum, even if only by a few hundred words. I started out as a 500 word a day girl and now I look back and think, damn, that was it? 500 is like a 30 min spurt for me. A slow 30 min....Most of my trial and tribulation was a sort of writer's soul searching. I've tested my limits, found out some neat tricks to get me out of a funk, and I'm rather pleased with the results.

Click to expand...

Wait, are you me? I could've just about posted all this!

This is why I never tell people when i'm modeling characters on them. And when I do I say it's 'very loosely, she has some of your qualities, that's all'. It's your book. Your character, while like her, is not her. Write it how you want to write it. If she gives you a hard time, tell her when SHE writes a book with a character slightly like YOU, she can make you a dope fiend and kill as many of your significant others as she wants.

Or, you may want to put it more gently if your friend doesn't take well to blatant sarcasm.

Joyce, tell her if she wants to change so much of it she can write it herself. It's your story. Do what you want with your characters.

I'm with Sassee and Denryu, YOUR story, YOUR characters, you can do whatever the hell you want with them. Just... you can find a gentler way to say it. Sort of:

"You know, this character isn't you. I just used all of your best traits to create a great character, but she isn't meant to be you. I just have to add some defects for the story, but really."

Joycecwilliams said:

Now, my same friend who DIDN'T WANT ME TO KILL OFF HER HUSBAND. Thinks I should take this line out of my story.

"She was a bit of a pothead in her youth, but then weren’t we all."

. . .

What would you do?

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Quit showing her the manuscript.

Huh, yeah. It's your story. You don't have to show it to anyone.

Joycecwilliams said:

Now, my same friend who DIDN'T WANT ME TO KILL OFF HER HUSBAND. Thinks I should take this line out of my story.

"She was a bit of a pothead in her youth, but then weren’t we all."

#1. I don't use her name.

#2. No one is going to know who it is...

What would you do?

Click to expand...

Leave it in and don't show it to her again. Perhaps she has a guilty conscience?

I'm putting all my friends in my novel. They all want to be in it.

1. If said person is in my novel they have to critique it when it's done.
2. Names have been changed to protect the author.
3. Characters are loosely based on said people. Just because something happens to a character doesn't mean I want it to happen to you. Just because a character does something doesn't mean I think you will do this.