Perhaps the NaNoWriMo folks have a point...

[Bob Crosley]

I've never actually committed any fiction to 'paper' since writing short stories for grade school classes. I've written a couple magazine articles and a chapter for a technical book submitted the week before the publisher went bankrupt (that should have been a sign), but nothing fiction. Although, for the past year, I've been working over a couple of book ideas in my head, fleshing them out a bit as I think them over.

I decided last night to start putting one of them down in Scrivener. Opened up a new project, and started typing. Everything started flowing and I knocked out 1100 words in no time flat, and was quite pleased with myself.

Until today.

Today, while I was eating lunch, I thought I'd open up last night's file and maybe get a few more details down in the project. I made the mistake of re-reading what I wrote last night.

Phew, that stunk! 3 hours later, and it still smells a bit around here. Anyone have any air freshener?

Now I see why they stress just getting it all down, and then going back and editing later!

[Lisa]

Dude, considering that you haven't written fiction since grade school, the fact that you got 1,100 words down in one sitting is freaking AMAZING! Actually, it's almost like a gift. Who cares if you have to go back and edit out 200 words or beef up key parts? You have something written! I'm incredibly jealous--I've done NaNoWriMo the last 2 years. In neither year did I finish, and probably part of that is due to me trying to write, critique, and edit at the same time.

[J4N3M3]

xD in my first sitting last November i got out almost 10k words, biggest mental self-abuse I've ever done to myself xD Rereading it now is like, omg what the hell did I write? xD

[Lisa]

Yeah, but you have to be kind to yourself. I realized that some of the shit I wrote--some passages, for example--were quite good. However, in both instances, after I thought about it, I realized the story pretty much sucked. For the next NaNoWriMo, I'm going to do what Hugh does: I'm not going to start writing until I know how the story ends. Thus, I will spend a month filling in all that shit in between the first sentence and what I know is going to happen.

[J4N3M3]

Yeah, but you have to be kind to yourself. I realized that some of the shit I wrote--some passages, for example--were quite good. However, in both instances, after I thought about it, I realized the story pretty much sucked. For the next NaNoWriMo, I'm going to do what Hugh does: I'm not going to start writing until I know how the story ends. Thus, I will spend a month filling in all that shit in between the first sentence and what I know is going to happen.

My problem is usually that I know how the story starts and how it ends. But how to get from one to the other often proves to be my biggest problem. I do a lot of preparation though. What characters (I still invent new ones as I go which sucks because then I get stuck) what places, what's happening. NaNo is a way to prove to myself that I can actually write that much, and be persistent about it. And disciplined. No fun time before I haven't met my daily writing goal. Last year I spent a week slacking and had to catch up 12k words in only a few days left. That was a good teacher about how not to do it lol.

[Lisa]

The premise underlying NaNo is brilliant, especially if you aren't obsessed with "winning." For me, NaNo means an entire month in which I take all of those "I-should-be-doing" tasks and set them aside to spend time writing (or trying to write). It's like my own mental spa. I'm fine with the fact that I haven't finished a NaNo story, and I'm cool that some of the stuff I wrote was shit. I never thought I would spend 6 or 7 months anticipating November...but I do.

[J4N3M3]

To me it's this forcing myself to sit down every day and write a certain amount. It's a good thing to show myself that I can do it.

[ThomasCardin]

For getting from the beginning to the end take a look at three act and five act play structure. Graph a chart of problems vs solutions that the characters will face. If its a journey, even a figurative one, draw a map - isolate regions and devise your method of painting the "mood" of each area with words.

Most of all keep the momentum going of writing every day...I think Stephen King says he writes ten pages every day, I couldn't even set that pace for myself but I am still over 500 pages written on my novel, whew. The cleanup part? Now thats work.

[Bob Crosley]

Thanks all for the reassurances. In spite of the tone of my post, I wasn't actually being too hard on myself. I thought it was funny how something that seemed so good the night before could look so bad the next day. Reading through it again, in a scene with no dialog, it ended up reading like one of the technical articles I've written. Step 1, step 2, step 3, etc. I reworked some of it last night, and it's better.

But I am going to try to be a little more NaNoWriMo though, and spend more time now writing and less time editing and reviewing to try to get the story in my head all down on paper.

[knmburton]

I would absolutely LOVE to do NaNo this year, but due to a lucky break (with the government, no less) I get to start college next month... full time. I know most of my classes will be online, but I don't want to cause a mental breakdown trying to write, go to college and take care of the fams at the same time. I'm really trying to boost my ego and convince myself that I can do it, but it just looks daunting. That, and the fact that I'll have to start something completely new and NOT work on my current story.