Still in a slump

Got 600 words today which I'm not excited about.  Procrastination has been a huge factor these last few days, I need to bust out of this malaise.  Very unhappy with myself right now.

Word Count: 13,875 (kind of depressed recently tbqh)

Edit: It snowed down here and I work outside.  I've been exhausted for the past couple days so I haven't been writing like I should... black Friday isn't going to help matters *sigh*.

Very blah.

I made a post yesterday but it didn't go through.  Anyway I was really tired today and didn't get much done.  400 words in two days, eww.  Procrastination is killing me.  Gah... disgusted with my performance... hope to make up some ground tomorrow.

Word Count: 13,464

Some Progress

I got about 1000 words out today.  Proud of that.  These are even words I'm proud of.  They're not perfect but they are a good framework.  New excerpt out.  Go read about Gorgax some more.

This is really what my novel is about.  Nobody is the villain of their own story.  It starts out as a typical save mankind type of story but its really more about the people who surround that quest.  Gorgax doesn't believe what he is doing is wrong.  Neither does Auralia.  Who of them is 'right'?  There's also a fourth character who I'm working on introducing later in that encounter right there.  He's a troll.  Each of these four characters is doing what is right in their own minds and so the point of my story is really that ambiguity as the reader tries to decide who he/she thinks is right.

Word count: 13,016

I do worry about tomorrow because I'm heading towards more ill defined territory but I'm hoping I can just fight through that.  We'll see.

I don't know what's wrong with me.

I think I'm a bit depressed about not writing as well as I would like.  It's making me not want to write.  I didn't write yesterday because I just fooled around and today I managed a mere 300 some words or so.  I really want to do better tomorrow.  I just need to apply myself and not care so much about the quality of the work.  That is my big stumbling block.  If I could just type... something.  I'd have more than I do.  Then I could go back and tear it apart and rework it and have something better.  This is a useful vent though.  I'm very disappointed in myself.  I am approaching a scene that is actually kind of interesting... it will be another excerpt.  I'm really hoping to finish it up and polish it tomorrow so I can post another excerpt (my current one has a bunch of problems with pronouns and just reading it I can see improvements I want to make... but I'll hold off).  I will make 25,000 words by the end of NaNoWriMo.  That is my new goal...  At this pace I won't make it but... if I really throw myself into it I can do it.

Word Count: 12,057

Read a bit and then surfed the net

Still having procrastination issues.  Did 600 some words again tonight.  Disappointment.  I don't know I've hit kind of a daze or a funk or something.  I need to get out of it.  I don't have an excerpt because nothing really makes sense because I didn't get far enough.  Here's hoping for tomorrow night.  I'm going to keep putting my nose to the grindstone until this gets easier.  The stuff I've written isn't great but it's something.  Need to get out of this writing funk.

Word Count: 11,719

Lots of procrastination tonight

But I still managed 600 some odd words, somehow.  They're not even all that great.  I'm kind of 'writing blind' as it were.  I have all these ideas for great scenes in my head and they really inspire me to make them good, like the Gorgax encounter.  But all the stuff in between, the traveling and the trials.  All that stuff I just am terrible at writing.  I procrastinated to a ridiculous extent tonight, I'm very disappointed in myself.  I'm capable of better, but when I contemplate writing those sections I really don't know how to write, the fear kind of sinks into me. I have words down and stuff happens but it's not writing I can be proud of.  I finished up the Gorgax encounter and that's about all I can really say.

I still haven't determined if I'm going to go a bit further and write until I get to a scene that isn't very far off.  A campfire scene that I have definite inspiration for or if I'm going to grind out those fever dreams.  I think I'm probably going to get to that campfire scene I see so clearly.  No excerpt today, because my stuff is terrible.  I'm not going to fix it right now because I don't care enough about it.  I really hope tomorrow I can buckle down and get some words out.  We'll see.

I also wanted to mention that I agree with you Josi (previous comment).  I will have more words than I had when I started.  Which is really the point of my NaNoWriMo right now.  It gave me a kick in the pants to get me started and now it's up to me to really keep writing the words, trying to make the best novel I can.  I plan to keep going on this writing blog for as long as it takes, and I just hope I keep that motivation all the way through. 

Word Count: 11,129

Nearly finished with this encounter

I'm done editing.  There's still work to be done but at least now there's a framework I can be proud of.  Before all it required was a total rewrite, now I feel like it still needs work but at least some of it is alright to stand on its own.  New Excerpt... I put it where the Synopsis thing is again but... uhh... well I'm not going to put it in the right place because I'm lazy.

I only got 1100 words, but that is a major improvement and I felt good about the writing.  So that definitely means something to me.  I'm not quite done with the whole encounter but the end is in sight.  Deciding whether to write fever dreams or what comes next will be a huge decision tomorrow.  I hope I'll do more words, tomorrow but honestly whichever path I choose leads to scenery and I'm not extremely great at scenery.  So I'm going to have a lot of false starts there I expect.  I hope for better word counts, but I don't expect it to be honest.  That's alright.



Word Count: 10,505 (that's more like it!)

Doing a bit better

I'm still editing but I feel a lot better about this passage.  It still needs just a little bit of care for me to call it done but I'm hoping I can start finishing the encounter up (this battle isn't even all the way over, I was just really dissatisfied with how it was shaping up).  It's not perfect but at least there is a framework there I can be proud of that I can go back and touch up... not straight up rewrite.

Not a lot on the word count front, only 300 words or so.  I procrastinated a lot again which really contributed to this.  If I can finish the WHOLE encounter up tomorrow I will count it as a success.  I hope to have another excerpt up tomorrow, though it may be a bit rough.  I'm not going at the speed I need to finish 50,000 but this scene was valuable to me and I couldn't just leave it as it was.

Also, I would like to thank you, Josi and Lauren for reading my blog and leaving comments.  They really help motivate me.  Thank you for reading my blog.


Word Count: 9408

Second Weekitis

I didn't write yesterday because I read the Scott Pilgrim comics.  Bad me.  Then today I started to edit some of Gorgax's encounter to make it something I can be proud of but... it's more difficult than I had imagined.  I am bound and determined to edit this bit and make it something I can be proud of, though.  I think I've well and truly given up on 50,000 now but I'm going to continue doing my best.  I need to break through this block I have of hating my writing so much I stop.  I can't stop I must continue.  Only with practice will I get better.  There can be no other answer.

I made about 100 words today and I didn't even edit as much as I wanted.  I brought a character I thought had killed back to life because, frankly... Gorgax is too overwhelming an opponent.  Auralia and Solran need help. So one of my characters' deaths that I had previously written is undone and he is thusly plopped into this scene to aid my characters.

Word Count: 9,163 (PATHETIC!)

Meh

Real disappointing day here.  I procrastinated a LOT!  Then I had some seriously nasty writer's block that kept me down to a mere 400+ words.  Pathetic!  At this point I think its safe to acknowledge that I'm not going to make the 50,000 by the end of the month.  That's alright, I kind of figured that's the way this was going.  I'm going to continue writing every day but my goal now is 2000 words a day.  That is roughly what I need to finish on time but it's a high goal for me.  Caring as much about the work as I do, I can't just leave crap.  So 2000 a day is a worthy goal, if a bit unrealistic (I haven't reached 2k words once in one day).

The writing today had some redeeming qualities but not a lot.  Very disappointing day.  I'm glad I typed but I need to step up my game.  I'm ultimately hoping at some point I can just sit down every day and not procrastinate because words will just flow easier without the dreadful fear of staring at the screen, beating myself up for not thinking of anything worthy.  So yah... still fairly novice for a writer but if I keep going I'm hoping to 'break through my block' as it were.  I'm not really sure I'm making much sense any more, I'm pretty tired.  So I'll stop here.

Word Count: 9006

Well... not quite the continuation I was hoping for

I did a lot of procrastinating tonight and it really cost me.  I'll come to the page... not know just what to write... hate that feeling and then go haring off to something else.  I did get 900 or so words and I was hoping for a minimum of a 1000 but I just can't go on tonight.  On the plus side this was really good stuff.  We have a new excerpt and it is fucking epic.  Go meet Gorgax, he's a hell of a guy.

I know I said I'd do an excerpt a day or whatever but this one is so good I might leave it up for two or even three days.  At this point in my writing I'm thinking about writing down a few fever dreams one of my characters has.  It's not what is next but ... these fever dreams are plot points and I need to figure out how many there will be so I can intersperse them accordingly.  Also I have some army scenes I might knock out as well.

To better explain that to you, the viewer, I have what amounts to 4 characters in my novel and the novel is mainly about them.  But there is an over arching problem with armies so I require some army scenes too.  So yah... there ya go.  Really need to fix up a synopsis but I'm too lazy right now to do it.

Word Count 8,567

Disappointed in the word count front but much happier with the quality front.  Wonder if I'll ever be satisfied on both fronts.  =(

Edit: it occurs to me that my profile is hard to find because I haven't posted a lot.
Here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/701227

Very tired right now

I did 1600 words today which is a good start to the week.  Unfortunately I don't feel great about those 1600 words.  Today I ran into... kind of a block  My characters are traveling to a point of interest and I have a few events planned for them.  But... I need to establish some new characters and I'm... quite frankly I'm very terrible at dialogue and planning some sort of... bonding time I guess.  It's just bad.  So what I did is I skipped all the stuff that would introduce the characters and make them valuable (Some characters die fairly early in my story, so I need to make the reader care about them first, that is the issue I'm having problems with).  I rushed through a lot of the action events to try and get something down because if I waited until I worded everything just right I'd be sitting there staring at my screen forever.

So now I have a framework down that I'll have to fix up a lot when I go through the rewrite.  Frankly I need to learn how to do a few things for the rewrite (as I am rapidly discovering).  My settings leave so much to be desired atm.  I have certain scenes and moments that just flow so well and read well too.  But everything in between just... hurts to read.  I'm glad I made 1600 words today and I hope to do 2000 tomorrow but... the week has just begun.  Sorry for excessive ellipse usage, I just do that in stream of consciousness mode.

Oh yah no new excerpt because my stuff today wasn't very good.  Maybe I'll polish it a little tomorrow, or maybe I won't.  We'll see.

Word Count: 7,698

Proud of myself today

I didn't hit what I need to hit wordcount wise by any means but today I was tired and I worked through that tiredness and created something with a few redeeming characteristics.  It's not my favorite stuff because frankly... I'm just not good at writing traveling (which is what I'm at right now) but there are a few places that I wrote some interesting stuff.

I just realized I replaced my synopsis with my excerpt... I'm going to need to fix that in the future but not right now.  New excerpt up with the pride of tonight's work.  Auralia is telling off somebody who doesn't believe her story.

Word Count: 6067

I watched a whole bunch of shows and in general... procrastinated

Shame on me.  I still managed to get some words down though (800 +) or so and at this point I'm satisfied to just keep on trucking at my current pace.  Even if I fail to make 50,000 words by end month I'll still have something.  I actually hope to keep on trucking past November since I want to be an author so eventually I'll hit the 50,000 mark.  I still haven't given up on that though.  I do know that this weekend will be ESPECIALLY challenging.  I open tomorrow (or actually today, haven't slept yet) so as a general rule I am going to be VERY tired and unable to keep up my late night activity.  I'll have to change when I write which I hope will be easy, but realistically... probably not for me.

This coming week will probably make or break me in terms of 50,000.  We'll see.  Oh yah I changed my excerpt to give you the basic history behind the Quest etc.  It's not great but it serves its purpose for now.

Word Count: 5,029

Bla bla bla Some procrastination happened

Still having troubles with procrastination but I did manage to put together an actual council for Auralia to address.  I put their descriptions in my excerpt because... it took me a long time to make.  That was one of those times where I sat staring at the screen trying to think how best to write a description.  I outlined their characters on paper but trying to describe them in a novel is just... difficult.  So... yah.

I did feel that actually fleshing out the council changed all the interactions thereafter.  With real motivations behind these people I was able to change my monologue into a conversation, which is great.  I'm still not totally done reworking things there but basically Auralia is telling the Council how she got into that situation with the trolls.  Instead of her just talking a lot I found the characters having some interesting things to say and argue about and the dialogue didn't feel so stilted.  It was much better.  I don't really have all my world fleshed out because I just kind of generated the story for NaNoWriMo so generating the nations and all that can be a challenge.  Still fairly cliche so far... Seriously by mid november I'm hoping to show an excerpt that demonstrates the idea behind my story.  I know... mysterious right but trust me it's all good.

Still having trouble with my word count obviously.  Doing a bit better but I really need to start digging out of this hole if I'm going to hit 50,000.

Word Count: 4,159

So I guess I have a writing blog now

Not sure how much I'm going to use it, but for now I'll just post stuff.  I would have preferred to do this on the forums but I guess this works.  I'm not sure I'll get any readers but the point is to place some sort of obligation on myself anyway

 Word Count: 3,255

I, uhh... really need to up that word count fast but at this point I'm not even worried about it.  At this pace I won't get to 50,000 but I'm hoping to sort of come into my own mid-November.  I haven't given up on 50,000 but it does seem very far away.  I'm disappointed in my word count and am still having procrastinating issues but I actually felt pretty good about my session today.  It was mainly editing the last excerpt I put on the forums but I really liked what that turned into.  It read a lot better.

I also wrote some more stuff in the monologue I'm working on (it's a big speech to the council).  I'm getting into legends and stuff.  One of the things I need to go back and do is make a proper introduction for the council because I just kind of leapt right in without introducing anyone because I honestly haven't figured out who all would be on the council.  It's just a plot point for exposition.  But I need to get something in there so I can make them characters and have more than just one person who talks.  I'll do that tomorrow.

While my story may seem fairly cliche and unoriginal from my synopsis I can assure you the idea behind it is actually very complex.  As I get into Mid-Late November I hope to be able to show you what I mean.  I'm going to take Trilli's advice and not post excerpts here (to help the book's publishibility) but I will update my excerpts on the site so you can read them there.  Speaking of which, I'm changing my excerpt to show the new and improved encounter.  It still needs a bit of work but it is much much better than the first.  I'm much happier with it.