NaNoWriMo is coming up! If you don't know what that is, have a link. NaNoWriMo is what motivated me to start seriously writing. The first time I participated in it, I lost--however, it was an extreme triumph for me to get 27,000 words on a single project, for that was more than I had ever done! Subsequently, I won a few nanos, lost some more (I think I've won 3 or so out of 14 or 15 attempts. I started November, 2011. Since then, camp nanos, script frenzy, nano itself, etc.,).
Nano didn't fix everything for me, however. I still have not managed to finish a single story. The only stories, long or short, I can claim to have finished were for a school assignment, and I really didn't enjoy writing them. I'm not sure our snotty Teacher's Assistant enjoyed reading them either, but she was the one that forced us kids to write stuff we didn't want to, so whatever.
This is the part where my current novel comes in. As I mentioned, I've been working on High Eldress for little over a year now--the longest I have ever stayed focused on one story before. It sort of astounds me to think I've had it for so long. Not to mention, my word count is up to something like 75,000 words (it's split into two google docs (although I have it backed up somewhere), so it's painful to load and check).
I have great hopes for High Eldress getting finished. I hate that it's taken me so long to write it, but I keep reading in places that it takes years to write a novel. I hope that doesn't refer to the first draft of a novel, since I'd like to get it done this November.
A lot of people don't agree with Nano's philosophy of "quantity over quality." Frankly, I don't either. However, I think it's a great motivator. Without the insane drive of trying to write 2,000 (okay, 1,667) words per day, I would have never gotten anywhere in a novel. I initially wrote around 48,000 usable words on Eldress in Nano '13, so I've only written about 20k in eleven months. That's hardly 2k a month, considering it. How bothersome.
I do believe, however, that one can write for both quantity and quality, and that the latter shouldn't be thrown away in the face of the former. I'd like to be one of those people someday that can whip out a story in three days. Perhaps a crappy first draft, but I've been told that those are okay to have. Generally, what determines a book's quality is how many times it's rewritten.
Eldress is the only book I've never gotten distracted from. The only book I've never gone, "Hey, this is boring. I want to write something else," with. Yes, I've cheated on my novel a little bit by starting other novels here and there, but they ultimately come up with nothing. I think my current novel has the greatest amount of character development I've ever written and the most complex plot I've ever written (which could be saying just about nothing in both aspects, considering a lot of my writing is probably stereotypical, and a lot of published authors have way more characterization and plot intertwinement, but everyone's gotta start somewhere! (Or so I've been told)).
I'm excited to finish. This November is giving me a chance to do that.
We won't think about the rewriting and editing part, for now. But I think that will come much more easily than pounding away at the keys.
The thing I think is most important in writing a book? Determination.
Don't give up on yourself, or your writing.
Nano didn't fix everything for me, however. I still have not managed to finish a single story. The only stories, long or short, I can claim to have finished were for a school assignment, and I really didn't enjoy writing them. I'm not sure our snotty Teacher's Assistant enjoyed reading them either, but she was the one that forced us kids to write stuff we didn't want to, so whatever.
This is the part where my current novel comes in. As I mentioned, I've been working on High Eldress for little over a year now--the longest I have ever stayed focused on one story before. It sort of astounds me to think I've had it for so long. Not to mention, my word count is up to something like 75,000 words (it's split into two google docs (although I have it backed up somewhere), so it's painful to load and check).
I have great hopes for High Eldress getting finished. I hate that it's taken me so long to write it, but I keep reading in places that it takes years to write a novel. I hope that doesn't refer to the first draft of a novel, since I'd like to get it done this November.
A lot of people don't agree with Nano's philosophy of "quantity over quality." Frankly, I don't either. However, I think it's a great motivator. Without the insane drive of trying to write 2,000 (okay, 1,667) words per day, I would have never gotten anywhere in a novel. I initially wrote around 48,000 usable words on Eldress in Nano '13, so I've only written about 20k in eleven months. That's hardly 2k a month, considering it. How bothersome.
I do believe, however, that one can write for both quantity and quality, and that the latter shouldn't be thrown away in the face of the former. I'd like to be one of those people someday that can whip out a story in three days. Perhaps a crappy first draft, but I've been told that those are okay to have. Generally, what determines a book's quality is how many times it's rewritten.
Eldress is the only book I've never gotten distracted from. The only book I've never gone, "Hey, this is boring. I want to write something else," with. Yes, I've cheated on my novel a little bit by starting other novels here and there, but they ultimately come up with nothing. I think my current novel has the greatest amount of character development I've ever written and the most complex plot I've ever written (which could be saying just about nothing in both aspects, considering a lot of my writing is probably stereotypical, and a lot of published authors have way more characterization and plot intertwinement, but everyone's gotta start somewhere! (Or so I've been told)).
I'm excited to finish. This November is giving me a chance to do that.
We won't think about the rewriting and editing part, for now. But I think that will come much more easily than pounding away at the keys.
The thing I think is most important in writing a book? Determination.
Don't give up on yourself, or your writing.
Finally you're back! :)
ReplyDeleteO= I actually never went away. I stalk your blog posts from my email XD One of my friends started a blog, so I thought, "Hey, I have blog, I'll post a few things on it." XD Yay 9 posts!
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