Day 14 is not looking good.

[lizvogel]

2 hours. 180 words. At that rate, there are not actually enough hours in a day to make quota, unless one forgoes sleep, food, and possibly bathroom breaks.


I'd forgotten how isolating NaNo can be.

I'd like to go on the forums in search of inspiration or encouragement. But the inevitable torrential downpour of "turn off your internal editor!" would be the opposite of helpful.

And it's not that I don't have something to write. I'm in the middle of a scene, in fact; they're about to follow a junior bad guy to a bar and pump him for information, after which they'll get in a sword fight with some ninjas on the way back to set a warehouse on fire. Lord knows that should be enough to the juices flowing. But I just don't have any engagement with the story right now.

Despite what it'll do to my word count, I'm probably going to call it for tonight, and get the early bedtime I wanted yesterday. Maybe some more sleep will help.

Comments

[duskpeterson]

You wrote for two hours! Yay!

I've switched from thinking about wordage, and am instead thinking about hours spent writing. It seems to work better for me, because *my* problem is rushing out a bunch of words when I should be taking the time to get things right.

[lizvogel]

I was going to argue that what I mostly did for two hours was stare at the screen, play Minesweeeper, stare at the screen some more.... But actually, that cheer was really helpful. So thanks.

Time-on-task metrics never work for me, because I am entirely capable of staring at the screen for hours and not writing a word. But it sounds like it might be just the trick for you. Good luck!

[lizvogel]

Meant to add: It's nice to talk to someone else who thinks that getting the right words on the page matters, as opposed to any old words at all. (Yeah, I really don't fit in with the mainstream NaNo crowd.)

[duskpeterson]

I find NaNo helpful for the discipline of writing every day. I expect that everyone gets their own meaning out of it. :)

[lizvogel]

I suspect you're right. The last time I did NaNo, the overall vibe was very pushy about how you were Doing It Wrong if you weren't word-vomiting, doing sprints, etc.; I had to get quite stroppy with a few people about how I was right on track for my 50,000 and producing both quantity and quality I was happy with. This year, they seem much more open-minded and "you do you"; it's nice.

[duskpeterson]

Good to hear of the improved communication!