Comments on: Bill’s NaNoWriMo Diary – Day 1 http://writeabetternovel.net/bills-nanowrimo-diary-day-1/ Practical wisdom for novelists and other storytellers Thu, 19 Apr 2012 03:32:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Bill http://writeabetternovel.net/bills-nanowrimo-diary-day-1/comment-page-1/#comment-126 Bill Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:21:16 +0000 http://truevoice-blog.com/?p=104#comment-126 <p>450 is a start, Mohana. The art here is to post some pages EVERY day. Don't miss a single one. If you can't make it to 1,500 or even 1,000 on any given day, so what. You've added words to your count, and one day you'll get hot and post 3,000, 4,000. But if you let that one day go by, before you know it another one goes by, and another...and inevitably the day comes when you look at your word count and say, "I'll never catch up. It's hopeless." At that moment, NaNoWriMo, and the first draft you might have earned yourself--no matter how rough or confused--will be over, caput, an opportunity lost, a bruise to your morale, and so on. To end on a positive note: slow and steady wins the race. In my book, if you post SOME words every day for 30 days, you're a winner, whether or not you top off at 45K. </p> 450 is a start, Mohana. The art here is to post some pages EVERY day. Don’t miss a single one. If you can’t make it to 1,500 or even 1,000 on any given day, so what. You’ve added words to your count, and one day you’ll get hot and post 3,000, 4,000. But if you let that one day go by, before you know it another one goes by, and another…and inevitably the day comes when you look at your word count and say, “I’ll never catch up. It’s hopeless.” At that moment, NaNoWriMo, and the first draft you might have earned yourself–no matter how rough or confused–will be over, caput, an opportunity lost, a bruise to your morale, and so on. To end on a positive note: slow and steady wins the race. In my book, if you post SOME words every day for 30 days, you’re a winner, whether or not you top off at 45K.

]]> By: Bill http://writeabetternovel.net/bills-nanowrimo-diary-day-1/comment-page-1/#comment-127 Bill Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:05:37 +0000 http://truevoice-blog.com/?p=104#comment-127 <p>Interesting notion, Ryan. My "problem" is the lack of violence in my story. One character dies accidentally (he has to for there to be a story). The others spend the rest of the story trying to find the best way to live. There's no space for even hypothetically killing them off.</p> Interesting notion, Ryan. My “problem” is the lack of violence in my story. One character dies accidentally (he has to for there to be a story). The others spend the rest of the story trying to find the best way to live. There’s no space for even hypothetically killing them off.

]]> By: mohadoha http://writeabetternovel.net/bills-nanowrimo-diary-day-1/comment-page-1/#comment-128 mohadoha Fri, 02 Nov 2007 04:23:36 +0000 http://truevoice-blog.com/?p=104#comment-128 <p>I'm in too! But, unlike Ryan, I didn't make it to 8,000. I barely cracked 450. Not because it wasn't flowing, but because of, well, work. I had a school event to go to and so I squeezed in thirty minutes before racing out the door. The good news? The compressed time actually forced me to write faster and harder - not think twice about anything - and I'm exploring an idea about a novel set in Qatar that I didn't have enough time (read energy) to get into in my non NaNoWriMo life..... let's see what happens!</p> I’m in too! But, unlike Ryan, I didn’t make it to 8,000. I barely cracked 450. Not because it wasn’t flowing, but because of, well, work. I had a school event to go to and so I squeezed in thirty minutes before racing out the door. The good news? The compressed time actually forced me to write faster and harder – not think twice about anything – and I’m exploring an idea about a novel set in Qatar that I didn’t have enough time (read energy) to get into in my non NaNoWriMo life….. let’s see what happens!

]]> By: Ryan Edel http://writeabetternovel.net/bills-nanowrimo-diary-day-1/comment-page-1/#comment-129 Ryan Edel Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:43:09 +0000 http://truevoice-blog.com/?p=104#comment-129 <p>Actually, I feel a bit embarrassed admitting this, but I wrote 9,981 words today for my NaNoWriMo story...I mean, I know I won't have much time tomorrow or over the weekend (especially now that I've put off some of the other things I should have gotten done), but today I wrote as if I was on vacation - when I finally sat down, I just wrote whatever I wanted, wherever the story took me. But the first step was like you said, Bill - I had to just sit down and do it. I forced myself to turn off the internet (I physically had to hit the off switch and tell myself that it wasn't going back on until I hit the quota...and then 8,000 words later, I realized that five hours had passed and I was getting hungry again...)</p> <p>But my other thought for how to keep the writing going? Do everything you can to kill your characters. Try destroying them, whether literally or emotionally, and they will fight back. (because really, we love them too much to really let them die...we wouldn't be writing about them otherwise). But I think the struggle is what makes them exciting - that's part of what brought me back to the keyboard again and again all day.</p> Actually, I feel a bit embarrassed admitting this, but I wrote 9,981 words today for my NaNoWriMo story…I mean, I know I won’t have much time tomorrow or over the weekend (especially now that I’ve put off some of the other things I should have gotten done), but today I wrote as if I was on vacation – when I finally sat down, I just wrote whatever I wanted, wherever the story took me. But the first step was like you said, Bill – I had to just sit down and do it. I forced myself to turn off the internet (I physically had to hit the off switch and tell myself that it wasn’t going back on until I hit the quota…and then 8,000 words later, I realized that five hours had passed and I was getting hungry again…)

But my other thought for how to keep the writing going? Do everything you can to kill your characters. Try destroying them, whether literally or emotionally, and they will fight back. (because really, we love them too much to really let them die…we wouldn’t be writing about them otherwise). But I think the struggle is what makes them exciting – that’s part of what brought me back to the keyboard again and again all day.

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