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| Picture by Marshall Astor |
Every day I try to stay caught up on my NaNo, yet every day something threatens to distract me. For the past four or five days I have fallen behind in my word count, to the point where I am almost six thousand words behind!
So today, I have been trying to catch up. And let me tell you, it's not an easy task trying to write thousands more words then normal on a given day. Let me back track a little. When I say I have fallen behind, I don't want you to think it's because I'm sitting around watching The Office or Parks and Rec (both shows I love dearly). The reason why I've fallen behind is because I am, alas, a college student.
As a Creative Writing major I am required to take English courses. I'm not sure if you know this, kind readers, but English college courses are chock full of papers. I'm trying to write these papers, stay caught up with reading, and still watch my beloved shows, while staying caught up with my word count.
I'm trying to do the whole, write in sprints of 20 minutes, that is recommended on the official NaNo website. (Here if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) This works for the most part. My 20 minute writing sprint has ended actually which is why I'm currently writing this blog post. After I'm done with this I'll probably attempt another 20 minute stint.
One other problem I'm facing now with my story is, I feel like I'm writing completely off track. I mean there's no problem with writing off track, sometimes it can be fun to not know where your stories are going. Let them run free! The only problem is, when you're trying to write a couple thousand extra words and you won't know where your stories are going you find yourself writing things like, "And then the wombat ate a chicken wing and swung a baseball bat at an aloe vera plant." (Not an actual excerpt from my story, thankfully.)
I guess what I'm trying to say here is... Sometimes writing is difficult, I know this and so do you. But when I finish, and when you finish that Nano/poem/short story/screen play you're working on, you know it will be worth it. The surge of happiness you get when your story is finally done (first draft of course because we'd never dream of submitting an unedited story) is like that of... I don't know... Eating chocolate? Yes, let's go with eating chocolate.
So, people of this blog. How is your NaNo? How have you caught up on your stories you're behind on? How do you catch up to a deadline that is daunting you when life keeps throwing obstacles at you? Tell me your secrets!
Yeah, I was all I MADE IT THROUGH THE MID-WAY SLUMP. IT'S STRAIGHT GOLD FROM HERE. And then life happened and I've spent most of the week trying to work out next semester, so I, too, am about 5000 behind and intend to spend the weekend doing some intense wording.
ReplyDeleteMy methods include: www.writeordie.com [problems with this: sometimes my annoying sound is Rick Astley, which only motivates me to dance], writing the second I wake up and have a cup of coffee [my writing is much better at this time of day], rewarding myself [with things such as Parks and Rec and sometimes with things like showering], reading over my planning notebook.
It's good that we can have this discourse on your blog. It makes me feel as though I'm helping someone that I've essentially stalked on the internet through NaNo. Wooo the internet.
I don't see it as stalking! (Unless I don't know the whole story?) I'm trying to burn the midnight oil and get some writing down, but it doesn't always work that way!
DeleteBtw, I'm just saying, Parks and Rec is pretty amazing.
No, I found your thread on NaNo. So I guess you perpetuated the stalking. I also just found this thread and it works like a charm. I've gotten 2k words so far from it: http://nanowrimo.org/en/forums/word-wars-prompts-sprints/threads/95372
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah. It is. Are you caught up? ;x