Daily: 1539
Total: 32997
Last Sentence: "But what about your girlfriend?"
This may be the end, my friends - at least of my chances of winning NaNo. This is my word count from yesterday, the 22nd. After writing that last, uninspiring sentence I had a major melt-down which led to crying which led to a horrible sinus headache that I still have as I write this, 30+ hours later. I wrote nothing today and I doubt that I will write anything tomorrow because of Thanksgiving.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my husband who is always willing to take time out from work to talk me down from my melt-downs and who has encouraged me to at least write the end of my story, since at this point that's the only part of my story that I know. Apparently the "Middle" is what kills me - I can plot beginnings and endings but whenever I try to do middles, it always ends up feeling like it's all fluffy filler and completely pointless. Middles are obviously something I need to work on.
My new goal is to write my ending before NaNo ends. I most likely will update only on days when I write.
To everyone else who is still doing NaNo, good luck to you! I hope you'll be able to reach your goals, whatever they may be.
Don't give up. You might not be able to finish your NaNoWriMo goal, but the book isn't dead by an stretch. Give yourself a couple of days to brainstorm out stuff to fix your middle.
ReplyDeleteWhat if someone new comes along who represents major conflict with one of your main characters? How can things get worse? What is your villain up to? Can you set up some sort of dramatic tension by having the reader know things that your main character does? Is there a set piece you could work toward in the middle that represents a major confrontation of some kind? Is one of your characters hiding a secret that suddenly comes to light? Is there someone we thought was a bad guy who now turns out to be good or vice versa?
Just a few things to perhaps jog loose some ideas. Good luck.
-Michael Wallace
Thanks for the ideas and the encouragement. Having taken a few days off, I am already feeling better about it - not as "end of the world" about as I was feeling last week.
ReplyDeleteI'm the kind of person who wants to do things once and then be done with it, but I don't think that is possible with writing. It's never going to be perfect the first time and I'm going to have to get used to that. The other thing I'm going to have to accept is that writing a book isn't the sort of project that can be finished in a month. It's going to take as long as it takes.
I'll keep working on it and hopefully eventually I'll get somewhere!