How to know if/when you should drop out of NaNo...

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Mary Love

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Aw, what a disappointing question to be asking one week into Nano. :cry:

I love Nano. I've lost once, won twice, plus got 50k in camp nano in June.

I like the concept of my story. But guys, I'm not feeling this attempt AT ALL. It's such a chore to write. I know beginnings are rough so I cut myself slack when that wasn't going well. But normally by now (10k) I'm really starting to hit my grove and like my characters. This time, I'm not and I don't. I so don't.

I blame it on the fact that I didn't have enough time to outline. I didn't sit with the characters long enough in my head. I didn't brainstorm enough possibilities and twists. I'm distracted and stressing and rushing it. I'm already a quarter of the way through my outline (which is very loose, but 50k would nearly finish it the way I'm writing.) And the way I'm writing is badly. I can tell I'm forcing it. It's bad.

Do I keep writing knowing that every word needs to be rewritten (which is part of what's been discouraging me, I think) or should try I starting over immediately? Or should I admit defeat :flag:on the 50/k in Nov. idea and give myself more time to brainstorm and connect to my characters, possibly resuming in Jan?


It's equally wonderful and terrible to consider giving up on NaNo. I don't know! But I've never considered it this seriously before, and that's a terrible sign of how this book is going.
Thoughts?
 

ZachJPayne

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Even if the words were flying out like fire, they would probably all have to be rewritten, anyway.

My advice, as someone who's done NaNo 6 years in a row (this is my first year since I graduated high school that I'm not doing it, and that's because I'm working on a stageplay): give it another 10k words. If it still feels like a chore, if you still want to quit it, then quit.

There's no shame in dropping out. I've only won NaNo twice in all my time. But I got plenty of work done the other times, saving last year (where I dropped out after 8 days due to ... events.)

Onward!
 

BryanT

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There’s nothing that says that you can’t ‘pause’ on the direct writing. After all, developing your character / world backstory, and doing additional development on your characters is still writing that goes toward producing the final work. In the middle of Camp, I had to pause because I didn’t understand how I got to where I did. And taking the time to understand allowed me to push forward dramatically at the end of camp. With everything that I had taken the time to do, I was able to catch up on my word ‘deficit’ quite a ways because all of the sudden the writing became easier.

And ultimately, it led me to realize that I started my book in the wrong place. Now that I am close to being able to merge the new beginning with what I already have written, I can see the benefit I gained by sacrificing word count. It also let me regain the joy in my writing, with the added benefit of learning a bit about turning off the inner editor.

Only you can decide whether withdrawing is the right thing. But if you really don’t want to withdraw, then how about taking a pause to reinvest in this story so you can move forward in that same joy.
:e2bear:
 

Layla Nahar

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What if you work on the story every day of November, but stop counting words?
 

DarienW

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I feel your pain, Mary. I hit that unplotted element too, and damn, I was pacing all around losing my mind! I agree with you that there's a problem if you're not feeling it, and even if you restart, the words you have will count. Maybe start a new doc with character sheets and more info delving, and some lose plotting. I'm all over the place when I do them, and maybe launch into some dialogue, or a bit of a scene.

Try doing that, and go ahead and count those words too!

I follow this editors site, and she's doing support for us nanoers. Join us if you like. She's got a bunch of posts with inspiration too. Really helped me a few times! Here the link.

Hope to see you all there, and best of luck!
 
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Sage

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Hey, Mary,

I have lots of NaNo experience, but I can only speak to my own feelings.

I only lost NaNo once. But I have had years that have been more fun than others. Sometimes the fun years produce something I love that's completely unsaleable. Sometimes the slog years produce something that I end up loving in retrospect. Sometimes the slog years are just that: something I'm going to abandon in the end.

There are times when the slog is because I feel like what I'm writing is bad. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it's just slow and I'm overanalyzing. My 2014 book, the 2nd book in a trilogy, was so hard to write. I hated writing it. The third book wrote itself, but the second was a struggle. I was certain the words were crap and the characters weren't themselves. Yet, the 2nd is the one my trilogy betas love most (I still love the third most; they're both better than 2008, 2009, 2013, and 2016).

I personally need a clean first draft to work with or else I probably won't come back to it. In 2013 and last year I told myself that the ideas were good enough to come back and fix the novel, even though it'd be a complete rewrite. I never did. I can do major revisions with guidance from betas, agents, and editors, but that first draft has to feel like it has the bones of the novel for me. If you're like me, that may be worth taking into consideration if you're passionate enough about the idea that you really really want to pursue later. For me, if NaNo doesn't work out, I consider it a wasted month, but that's all it is. There'll be more books.

In 2015, I hated what i was working on so much that I chose to work on other things instead. In 2009, I slogged through the novel, took the only chapter I really liked, and wrote a whole new novel in January out of it.

Count all the words you've written. Even if you start over (just put a strikethrough or highlight them or put a note: "Novel starts over here"). Even if you spend the rest of NaNo making an outline and character profiles (count those words!). Even if you write something else. Which is the right path is up to you. The good news is: there's no wrong answer!
 

Fruitbat

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I don't think it makes much sense to keep producing pages that you know are way off track but I don't think you have to give up, either.

Why not be a "NaNo rebel?" I frequently participate in NaNo but the closest I've ever gotten to winning was 40,000 words and that was nonfiction. But so what, it became a self-published book (under a different name) and I've gotten an income trickle from it for several years now. This year my goal is 25,000 words on a novel, whether that ends up being a skimpy first draft, a good start, or a collection of scenes with gaps. I haven't been able to do 50,000 NaNo words on a novel that would be decent quality, so I just do it my own way. Good luck.
 
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Sage

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Cheering you all on!
It is possibly worth noting that NaNo has now added a "Goal tracking" feature, in case you want to have a non-50K goal. You can track by words or hours.
 

AW Admin

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1. If it isn't fun, don't do it. NaNoWriMo is meant to be fun; it shouldn't be all miserable and grueling.
2. Can you stop writing the thing and spend some time noodling around or freewriting about the characters, about the story. Do some thinking and outlining and planning and world building. Know that that's what you're doing, that you're working on story, rather than writing story. Those words still count; you'll just know that you're doing things a little differently in that you're planning and brainstorming and outlining now.
3. You can change your goals; you get to decide what NaNoWriMo means to you in terms of hours or words or yes, being a rebel.
 

Mary Love

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Thanks everybody! I took yesterday off and feeling under the weather today, but I did have an inclining of a revelation last night. I'm going to (try and) stop worrying about the word count and focus on the story. And my health.:tongue

But I feel much better about the project--you're all such a great support! :snoopy:
 

AW Admin

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Thanks everybody! I took yesterday off and feeling under the weather today, but I did have an inclining of a revelation last night. I'm going to (try and) stop worrying about the word count and focus on the story. And my health.:tongue

But I feel much better about the project--you're all such a great support! :snoopy:

Good for you! The primary purpose of NaNo is to have fun writing, writing without self-doubting revision. YOU GO!
 

Mary Love

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So, yesterday I made 50k on this project.

It was, and continues to be, a really interesting drafting experience--quite different from my normal process. That's also what made it so grueling at first and made me doubt the project so much. But I'm really glad nano and you guys convinced me to continue on it because I've made new discoveries about my process as a writer.

I never considered myself a panster. I never understood how one could do that and, omg, the mess you'd be left with! And, like most of us, I find drafting haaard. So, with this one, having only a few days to outline (instead of my normal few months), I just had to accept that this was a 'discovery draft'. It's junk and that's okay, it's just meant to help me brainstorm a (far more thorough) outline for draft two. I started leaving myself all kinds of brackets and footnotes and moving on and the drafting started going a lot faster. And you know what? I kind of almost liked it at times. I was learning about my characters and plot twists creeped up unexpectedly (with no foreshadowing--but a footnote later, I was onto the next scene). I used to really struggle with moving on from stuff like that. It would eat away at me (nooo, she was supposed to do XYZ! Now WYK won't work *edit, edit, edit*). In this draft, somebody didn't die that was supposed to. (Not even sure how that happened.) The escape went easier than it should. It's okay, because maybe in draft two they won't escape at all, or someone else will die. I put notes and move on and something else happens that I was expecting. Better or worse? Or maybe... I put a comment about another possible idea I just had and I move on. Not only does it make drafting more exciting but it takes the pressure off the rewrite too. I always struggle with diverging too far from my original draft ideas (killing darlings) but this one being so loose, opens a lot of possibilities.

Work is getting really busy, but I hope to keep up my 2k/day wc. The plan is to (hopefully!) finish this draft before Christmas with lots more possibilities unlocked, then read a bunch of books in the genre, as well as writing craft books over the holidays. Then I'll start working on a new outline, trying to keep in mind all the details that a book should have (arcs, subplots, active characters). Then it's draft two, but again, I'll try not to hold myself too tightly to the outline and stress so much that the draft is sparkly clean. It just has to exist. I realize that now.

So yeah, thanks for the kick in the pants guys!! I'm really happy for this year's nano experience, hard as it was (a lot of late whiny nights where the family was like "why do you do this to yourself?").

I do it because winning yesterday was so satisfying. And because I never would've discovered this about my process otherwise, thanks to nano. And thanks to you guys! :e2arms:
 
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