NaNoWriMo progress thread

[AllegroDiRossi]

Feels so depressed.
I haven't NaNo'd since the 2nd!
DX

School has kicked into overdrive,
but thankfully, the weekend is here (I don't have classes on Friday),
so I am hoping to get caught up with it the next few days.

Maybe I should get a little ahead to give myself a bit of a buffer?
Although those all-too-familiar feelings of just wanting to give up are already upon me!

Perhaps reading the new pep talk in my email today will help me through it?

[JinzouTamashii]

You should do it! I made the thread hoping others would join in on the fun and be motivated but it's only me and one other person posting...

I wrote almost 5,000 words today! The floodgates were thrown open and after that the dam broke under the deluge, with the sweet siren song of my muse praising the flow of the river...

[JinzouTamashii]

Wow, I completed one of the penultimate climaxes of all the arcs, and I'm really mentally exhausted right now. I wrote two more path endings. I can't even imagine how the next twenty-one days will live up to that... I'll actually be working in reverse to fill in the slower gaps that I skipped while still in the grip of inspiration.

They're not uninteresting, but I only wanted to work to things directly tied to the main chain of events while I still remembered everything from that one brilliant moment out of the blue. Sometimes, if I get tied up in subplots, I'll remember all those lovely little details but forget the important things...

I may have to switch to another scenario because I have a feeling I'll exhaust most of this one's potential and the four branching paths that recombine after about 3 more days or so if I stay at this pace.

On the bright side, I'm at 20% completion and that's great. That's 10,000 words and the entire movement for a route.

[JinzouTamashii]

I missed writing on Saturday because I was busy so I need to catch up today...

[qq]

I also joined Nanowrimo. My word count is 4002. I'm using an old idea I had for a VN.

[JinzouTamashii]

Good luck, qq!

[JinzouTamashii]

Today I'm up to 17,000 words. I've fallen a bit behind because I didn't update between Saturday and Sunday due to burn-out, but I'm going to make it up before midnight. I'm writing lots of little scenarios that fill in the gaps I glossed over before. Tomorrow, I'll have to switch to something new or go back and try a different kind of climax.

I'm also really low on my daily quotas recently, but it's better than quitting entirely...

[Tsundere Lightning]

Good luck, Jinzo. Keep us posted; I would love to read it when you're done.

[AllegroDiRossi]

I am not quitting.
I promised that to myself, XD

I know I'm not gonna be able to win (again) this year...
But I'm not just gonna give up this year like I used to. =P

My wordcount right now is just 4,670.
But I'm glad that I'm even that far.
It's so hard to write between all my responsibilities,
but I'm proud I've been doing it even as much as I have.

I'm also going to keep writing even after november.
If I just write even once a week, I'll get there eventually.

Jinzou,
it seems you like to write by jumping around to all the big stuff
and then coming back to the little stuff afterwards.
Do you ever get tired of writing the in-between stuff and lose interest in your project?

I'm the kind of writer who plods through the plot from beginning to end,
so I have to admit that the doldrums in the middle are a big reason I never finish things.

Also, do you have any tricks you use to write?
I have found that if I time myself, I can get about 400 words in ten minutes.
So, if I do it for an hour, that's 1200 words.
If I'd only go for ninety minutes, I could probably finish nano as a winner this year,
but I don't write every day,
so there's not much chance of that.

[JinzouTamashii]

Jinzou,
it seems you like to write by jumping around to all the big stuff
and then coming back to the little stuff afterwards. Do you ever get tired of writing the in-between stuff and lose interest in your project?

Allegro: the only time I've dropped a project was when my writing abilities or artistic abilities had progressed too far and I would have to redo the whole thing. I don't get tired of the in-between stuff. I'll tell you why in a just a moment. But remember thing: third-person viewpoints, jumping ahead in time, summarizing the day's events down, all these things are your friend.

I'm the kind of writer who plods through the plot from beginning to end, so I have to admit that the doldrums in the middle are a big reason I never finish things.

I don't think linearly, so why would I write linearly? Why would you restrict yourself that way? That's just plain weird.

If it's boring for you, imagine how boring it is for your reader... I delete or skip any boring passage or shorten it or delete it entirely.

Learn to kill your darlings. Long exposition is fine, but it must be meaningful... or become meaningful later.

Also, repeatedly playing your own game or being forced to read your work several times will make it obvious which sections need to be in. Action, character, establishing setting, internal development. That's all you need.

The rest is trash. Tell just enough to get your point across. (Two hours later, the day passed by uneventfully, I slept easily). These are more than transitions in sentences, they are transitions between pieces.

Why do you think so many narratives begin with a character waking and end with him sleeping? They're natural "breaks" in a story.

Also, do you have any tricks you use to write?
I have found that if I time myself, I can get about 400 words in ten minutes.
So, if I do it for an hour, that's 1200 words.
If I'd only go for ninety minutes, I could probably finish nano as a winner this year,
but I don't write every day,
so there's not much chance of that.

I don't time myself. I just write and write and write. When I'm busy, I skip writing and come back to it tommorow. I carry around a notebook. I carry about a flash drive with hundreds of text files and ideas and notes and research and poems and quotes and inspiration and Wikipedia articles.

Also, even though my NaNoWriMo is from scratch, I've already established my setting and characters from the project, so it's not entirely a blank slate... I just didn't plan out what I would be writing about.

When I have writer's block, I read a book. Or draw. Or do something else but I don't put it off. Put it off for too long and you'll forget what you've done so far, where you've left off. A fresh eye is not a good thing when the whole work seems to have lost its flavor.

It's art. It's about drive and commitment and love of what you do.

Sometimes, I write 700. Sometimes, I write 7,000. My Nano writing is very rough and December break, I will spend polishing and rephrasing and culling what I've written so far.

There are no shortcuts. It's always work. And NaNoWriMo is freaking insane. It's like Hard mode or Nightmare difficulty.

[JinzouTamashii]

I think I may have been too brief. Without the slow parts, your high notes won't have any impact. It can't all be a crescendo.

She steps closer to the edge of the platform, feeling the rush of air as the train passes by, buffeting her a little, close. Real. She lets the crowd elbow around her to get into the coach, offering no resistance. Tears stream silently down her face.

But she doesn't get onto the train.

She wants to leave this place and never come back. Let go of everything. Take only the money in her purse.

But that won't be enough.

This same scene will keep playing itself out over and over in waves, won't it? Another love gained... lost... hopes raised... and dashed against the rocks of reality.

Eventually, she runs all out of tears. Sorry. That'll be two rupees and twenty years of your life.

She hears another subway train approaching. The sound increases exponentially. The lights burn down the tunnel, bathing her in yellow. The engine roars in her ears.

She moves just a little bit ahead of the crowd.

Close. Real close.

Closer.

And then—

close real close

"You're standing too close to me. We can't be together like this."

I finished 3,500 words or so yesterday, up to 20,000...hopefully I can meet my quota of 1500 today instead of slacking off.

I'm not working on the main events of my game yet, but I'm doing things that happen in the future. It'll be quite strange going back to regular, linear progress within the game since I'll have written a lot of things in the future, and eventually I'll have to make everything meet in the middle.

Well, I'm almost at the halfway point! It's a good feeling.

[JinzouTamashii]

I'm at 22,000 words overall. If I hit my usual 2,000 word make today, that will make it almost 50%!

I don't know what I'll write about next week...

[JinzouTamashii]

I slacked off over most of the weekend and my graph on CC went down, LOL. I have like 4,500 words to make up today, I hope I can crunch it. Hmm, hmm, hmm.

Tastes like stale crackers.

[JinzouTamashii]

I wonder if anyone else will finish on the 30th?

According to CC's overall chart of NaNoWriMo progress for that group, a lot of people are losing incentive, maybe because of the holidays.

I really had to force myself today to meet and exceed quota. I wanted to see a little spike in my personal chart.

[AllegroDiRossi]

I probably won't finish, but then I knew that weeks ago, haha.
I am definitely gonna tap out 20-30,000 words next week over the holidays tho!
It will be a welcome respite from all the term papers I've had to write this month!