Sunday, January 22, 2012

Check-In: Week 3, Part II

Round 1 Goals:
  1. Re-read what is written on Untitled NaNoWriMo 2011 Project
  2. Finish first (and only) draft of Untitled NaNoWriMo 2011 Project
    • 500 words per day except Fridays or
    • 3,000 words per week
Once again, there is nothing to report. Motivation to do this thing seemed to run out on me once I finished the re-read. I suppose it's possible that I remember the momentum and thinking what a shame it was to have to stop writing on November 30 (a mindset that is my own and not that of National Novel Writing Month or the Office of Letters and Light). In the meantime I had forgotten that the story was going nowhere and taking its sweet time to get there.

In order for this week not to be a total failure, I'm going to call this my "processing" week -- I've read the existing material and "needed time to process it" so I could "formulate a plan of attack." Or some such bull. I do have a couple of events in mind, but at the moment I don't know how to get there from here.

Why, yes... I am a pantser. How did you guess?

So that's the update this time out: No writing at all in Week 3, because I was "processing" the existing stuff. Yeah. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

How is everyone else sticking to it?
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3 comments:

  1. fakestephJanuary 22, 2012 at 8:27 AM

    Good luck figuring it out! There were a couple months last year, where I just could not commit to a project past the first act. My brain was all over the place. It was miserable.

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 22, 2012 at 8:47 AM

    Motivation is a tricky thing. When we have it, we can do anything. When we don't, nothing matters. That's where will power comes in. That supposed to get us through until we feel motivated again. The good news about being a pantser is that you're not following an outline. I know, I hear you saying "Duh, that's what a pantser is." But here's the thing. You can change course right away. You don't have to go back and edit the story line like you would if you were going by an outline. Come up with where you wanted the story to go and steer it back on track. Connect the dots later when you edit. Skip a few scenes. Start at the end and work your way back. Write the scenes that motivated you to begin with. You can get that fire back. Good luck!

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  3. yikiciJanuary 24, 2012 at 4:23 AM

    I've had a similar week and this realised how powerful our minds are; it has a way to override and impact our work positively or negatively; don't lose hope or your determination, there's always a good reason why this happens. Take the time to reflect, go over it in your head and then tackle another project; soon something will call out to you. Taking a step back from a project helps to view it objectively -rather than be totally imersed in it and not notice what is happening.

    Chin-up; this is all part of the writing process. :)

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