I'm doing my post a little different today, one because usually by now I've finished a book and have a review up and well with NaNoWriMo and college, reading has taken a back seat. But I promise I'm still reading just at a slower pace. But I thought in honor of November being for all those writers out there I'd post some of my experience this year on the subject. I attempted last year to write those dreaded 50,000 words, I mean 50,000 is a threatning number on its own, now put in the equation that you have to write that many words in one month and boom, you have an anxiety attack. Last year I only got to over 24,000 words before I threw in the towel and now that I look back I can see how easily I gave in, how much I could have accomplished if I just would have pushed through it. So this year I went in with a different idea and mindset and here's what I found helped me accomplish how much I've gotten so far:
1. Be sure to write the required word count for the day, don't skip a day, trust me, once you do it once it's like a domino effect and soon you'll be doing it often until you realize 'what's the point?'
2. Push past those dull moments in your writing, to get to the action one must have rest. Let your character take a breather, try focusing on the setting, let the description take bloom in these parts of your story. Soon enough you'll realize how amazing and valuable those slow moments can be.
3. When you run into a road block or just out of ideas, try this website; in the middle is a dare button, click on it and it'll dare you to do something with your character or story and if you don't like the one it first gives you keep clicking until you do find one that you do like: www.ywp.nanowrimo.org
4. If you're having problems with your characters and don't feel so connected with them, try doing some warm ups with them. Take them out of your story; perhaps out of their world and just explore with them, you might discover some new traits or characteristics about them, you hadn't noticed before. And if that doesn't work perhaps trying re-creating them; give them a different look, add in a conflict to piss them off, do anything you need to take your frustration out on them.
5. Don't ever think once about what people will think of your writing, actually one of the best piece of advice I can give you is don't let anyone read your story until you're done. Trust me on this, even if you don't realize it the fact that someone is reading even a tiny piece of your story is sucking some of its life away. You lose some of that spark and in a way you feel pressured to write a certain way or to keep writing. Just keep writing and keep it to yourself, don't ever think that your writing isn't good enough.
and finally....
6. Just have fun, don't let anything snag you along the way, if its a busy life getting in the way, set an hour or two each day just for your writing, let everyone around you know how important this is to you. I'm willing to bet they'd give you time if you'd just tell them.
So, there's my advice for now and trust me I've taken into count all six of those steps and as you will see at the right side of my blog the word count I'm at, I'll be keeping you guys informed. And I do hope if you're participating that you reach the ultimate goal and you accomplish all you set out to do. And even if your not doing this still take in the advice it applies to all times of writing.
And here's some quotes I picked out of the story I'm writing:
“Love makes us stronger, it fills us with strength till it overflows and the only thing left to show its presence is the path it leaves behind. Without love we would all be weak and we’d never know what strength really is.” (pg. 39)
“A name is such a simple thing really. It’s just another word in the universe of scrambled up letters.” (pg. 50)
“They say the pain of loss never fades, that it takes over you until it consumes every part of your body, do you think this is true Sophie?” (pg. 17)
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