Oh no. What kind of wall? Is this an "I'm mentally exhausted with all of the creative output?" or "I have no idea where my story is going after this point." kind of wall.
For the first, the ***do something different*** tactic works for me. Sometimes its a mindless thing, ie. take a shower, take a walk, do the dishes, chores, etc. Sometimes it is helpful for me to still be creative but in a whole new way. I like to draw or paint, or create some content for the Stop Writing Alone world. Also in this arena is the Writing Prompt parties where I allow myself to play with a completely different story idea for an hour.
When I am in the second camp of not knowing where to go next, I tend to pull out a notebook or a new, blank document to do a free write. These free writes usually begin with "I can not believe I have no idea where to go next in this story right now...: then I usually recap what I have done so far and then I play a sort of "what if" game in the sloppiest way possible. More often than not, that practice breaks me through.
Is it a different wall that I haven't thought of? I am curious. Know you are not alone, this is the time of November when walls come up for many NaNoWriMo participants!
I need to write some “interstitial” scenes to connect the major action and improve the pacing and they are boring to write so i don’t want to do it lol. and i’m at a point where i’m feeling like the story is kind of done, so i’m trying to feel out if it’s really a novella or if there are 25k more words to tell! but I did get 1000 last night so i’ll make it ❤️
Newbie alert....! I’m at 41531 as of 5 minutes ago. I THINK it’ll be first draft ready at around 42500. But I don’t know what the next step is after first draft?? Help?! 🙏
Hey Linnhe! Congratulations on taking this challenge on and being so close to your finish line!
For me finishing a first draft means:
step 1: CELEBRATE! It is time for you to come up with a way to mark this even t for yourself. The celebration does not have to be big by any means, but it must be meaningful. Some writing-self celebrations I have had for myself were taking myself over to a local famous ice shop to buy myself a tub of my favorite chocolate ice (I never ever bought more than a medium cup previous to this), another was ordering myself a bottle of Writer's Tears whiskey and then toasting to my success when it arrived, I have bought myself a long awaited book, or gifted myself a binge-watch of a show I had been anticipating. None of these may sound cool to you. You know what you like and makes you feel special -- do that.
step 2: WALK AWAY. I usually take time away from that work. For a novel-length piece I usually take 3-4 weeks of not looking at any of those words AT ALL. This can be difficult. One way I get through this is by taking the time to READ OTHER THINGS, in particular I like to take this time to seek out and read what might be comp titles for my writing. In other words, I look for books that are thematically the same as what I am hoping my book will be.
step 3: READ MY FIRST DRAFT. After the break time I then read whatever the heck I wrote in that first draft. To stop myself from slowing down to edit, I usually print it out (which can be ridiculous) and read with a pen in hand, with my novel notebook by my side. After reading other books that have done, or tried to do the thing I want to do, my eyes are attuned to what a polished work looks like and boy oh boy will I see massive gaps and flaws in my work (this may sound like a bad thing, but I am at the point in my writing life where this prospect actually excites me!). I mark the draft up like crazy. I write myself notes, laugh at myself and let the internal editor fly.
step 4: CREATE A REVISION SCHEDULE/PLAN With holidays, family and showing up for Stop Writing Alone, I get slowed down a lot on my personal projects, so I need a plan for when I am going to revise. I tend to hitch myself to the NaNoWriMo events. I like to use April or July's Camp NaNoWriMo to dedicate the month to showing up to revision on a daily basis the same way I showed up to draft. What's great is if I can use both April and July. In other words, do a first revision in April, then find a reader or two to look at it in May and June, then go back to revising in July.
...this may be the longest substack comment I have ever left. Lol.
I think I have given you a lot to think about in terms of next steps. Please tell me I did not completely overwhelm you!
Oh I LOVE step one! That is such a lovely statement and I promise you I will! Step Two - makes perfect sense. Step Three, I had planned to print it out too, as I feel looking at it away from the 'work station' of my laptop will increase the fresh eyes factor. Thank you so much! I don't feel quite so lost now... :)
As for what to do next? I would set it aside for a bit so you can return to it with fresh eyes. I usually won't look at a Nano project until AT LEAST January, and sometimes much later. Then your next step is to reread it to see where you need to revise (assuming you reached "the end"). Does it hang together? Is it compelling to you (I was super proud of one novel until I read it and realized it was boring as hell, and then had to figure out that I needed to do more character development and restructure it). In your case, what feels like it works and what feels lacking or missing? Often I discover that I need new chapters or scenes to transition from one story point to another. Maybe you need a subplot? More time spent on descriptions or actions? Did you "tell" (narration) rather than "show" (dialog/action) anywhere that you want to fix?
Depending on what you think you need to do, you can work on it methodically, fixing big problems one at a time, or you can go through it from start to finish adding things as you go. Everyone handles revision completely differently. I tend to do many passes through the whole novel, building upon what I had before, hammering out problems, skipping gnarly bits for a while, and eventually reaching a place where I'm happy with it. Others have a whole different process.
Or - and I don't recommend this but it happens - you can say, "wow that was a fun project," set it aside, and move on with life. :)
Right now I'm at 28784. I anticipate hitting 30K, maybe 31K, by the end of the day. Tomorrow will be a low count day so I want to make sure to keep the numbers up.
I hit 27k this morning, so I'm right on track with the daily word count for NaNo. I got stuck at 25k with not knowing how to set up a scene, so I jumped ahead to the next scene, then got stuck on that one too! So I decided to go back and just write whatever came to mind, making it the roughest, sloppiest scene in this novel yet. And that's okay! Just trying to keep up my daily momentum now, and leave editing for later!
17558. Last ten days have been spent in an emergency bathroom reno.
That's still a pretty impressive word count with massive house things going on! Kudos to you and best of luck on the reno!
Thanks! Almost done with it, so I can spend my mornings writing inside of putting painters tape on every geometry Euclid ever imagined.
just passed 25k and im hitting a wall....
Oh no. What kind of wall? Is this an "I'm mentally exhausted with all of the creative output?" or "I have no idea where my story is going after this point." kind of wall.
For the first, the ***do something different*** tactic works for me. Sometimes its a mindless thing, ie. take a shower, take a walk, do the dishes, chores, etc. Sometimes it is helpful for me to still be creative but in a whole new way. I like to draw or paint, or create some content for the Stop Writing Alone world. Also in this arena is the Writing Prompt parties where I allow myself to play with a completely different story idea for an hour.
When I am in the second camp of not knowing where to go next, I tend to pull out a notebook or a new, blank document to do a free write. These free writes usually begin with "I can not believe I have no idea where to go next in this story right now...: then I usually recap what I have done so far and then I play a sort of "what if" game in the sloppiest way possible. More often than not, that practice breaks me through.
Is it a different wall that I haven't thought of? I am curious. Know you are not alone, this is the time of November when walls come up for many NaNoWriMo participants!
I need to write some “interstitial” scenes to connect the major action and improve the pacing and they are boring to write so i don’t want to do it lol. and i’m at a point where i’m feeling like the story is kind of done, so i’m trying to feel out if it’s really a novella or if there are 25k more words to tell! but I did get 1000 last night so i’ll make it ❤️
Newbie alert....! I’m at 41531 as of 5 minutes ago. I THINK it’ll be first draft ready at around 42500. But I don’t know what the next step is after first draft?? Help?! 🙏
Hey Linnhe! Congratulations on taking this challenge on and being so close to your finish line!
For me finishing a first draft means:
step 1: CELEBRATE! It is time for you to come up with a way to mark this even t for yourself. The celebration does not have to be big by any means, but it must be meaningful. Some writing-self celebrations I have had for myself were taking myself over to a local famous ice shop to buy myself a tub of my favorite chocolate ice (I never ever bought more than a medium cup previous to this), another was ordering myself a bottle of Writer's Tears whiskey and then toasting to my success when it arrived, I have bought myself a long awaited book, or gifted myself a binge-watch of a show I had been anticipating. None of these may sound cool to you. You know what you like and makes you feel special -- do that.
step 2: WALK AWAY. I usually take time away from that work. For a novel-length piece I usually take 3-4 weeks of not looking at any of those words AT ALL. This can be difficult. One way I get through this is by taking the time to READ OTHER THINGS, in particular I like to take this time to seek out and read what might be comp titles for my writing. In other words, I look for books that are thematically the same as what I am hoping my book will be.
step 3: READ MY FIRST DRAFT. After the break time I then read whatever the heck I wrote in that first draft. To stop myself from slowing down to edit, I usually print it out (which can be ridiculous) and read with a pen in hand, with my novel notebook by my side. After reading other books that have done, or tried to do the thing I want to do, my eyes are attuned to what a polished work looks like and boy oh boy will I see massive gaps and flaws in my work (this may sound like a bad thing, but I am at the point in my writing life where this prospect actually excites me!). I mark the draft up like crazy. I write myself notes, laugh at myself and let the internal editor fly.
step 4: CREATE A REVISION SCHEDULE/PLAN With holidays, family and showing up for Stop Writing Alone, I get slowed down a lot on my personal projects, so I need a plan for when I am going to revise. I tend to hitch myself to the NaNoWriMo events. I like to use April or July's Camp NaNoWriMo to dedicate the month to showing up to revision on a daily basis the same way I showed up to draft. What's great is if I can use both April and July. In other words, do a first revision in April, then find a reader or two to look at it in May and June, then go back to revising in July.
...this may be the longest substack comment I have ever left. Lol.
I think I have given you a lot to think about in terms of next steps. Please tell me I did not completely overwhelm you!
Oh I LOVE step one! That is such a lovely statement and I promise you I will! Step Two - makes perfect sense. Step Three, I had planned to print it out too, as I feel looking at it away from the 'work station' of my laptop will increase the fresh eyes factor. Thank you so much! I don't feel quite so lost now... :)
That's amazing! Way to go!
As for what to do next? I would set it aside for a bit so you can return to it with fresh eyes. I usually won't look at a Nano project until AT LEAST January, and sometimes much later. Then your next step is to reread it to see where you need to revise (assuming you reached "the end"). Does it hang together? Is it compelling to you (I was super proud of one novel until I read it and realized it was boring as hell, and then had to figure out that I needed to do more character development and restructure it). In your case, what feels like it works and what feels lacking or missing? Often I discover that I need new chapters or scenes to transition from one story point to another. Maybe you need a subplot? More time spent on descriptions or actions? Did you "tell" (narration) rather than "show" (dialog/action) anywhere that you want to fix?
Depending on what you think you need to do, you can work on it methodically, fixing big problems one at a time, or you can go through it from start to finish adding things as you go. Everyone handles revision completely differently. I tend to do many passes through the whole novel, building upon what I had before, hammering out problems, skipping gnarly bits for a while, and eventually reaching a place where I'm happy with it. Others have a whole different process.
Or - and I don't recommend this but it happens - you can say, "wow that was a fun project," set it aside, and move on with life. :)
Thank you Jackie - setting it aside I can see being both difficult and essential. Maybe easier with the distraction of Xmas to get in the way!
Right now I'm at 28784. I anticipate hitting 30K, maybe 31K, by the end of the day. Tomorrow will be a low count day so I want to make sure to keep the numbers up.
I love the front loading of word counts when a busy day is ahead. Hope you are having a blast at tonight's write-in!
30665 and still going!
Woo hoo! I wish I could include a dancing gif here!
(•.•)/
<) )
/ \
Dang it, it didn't quite work.
I hit 27k this morning, so I'm right on track with the daily word count for NaNo. I got stuck at 25k with not knowing how to set up a scene, so I jumped ahead to the next scene, then got stuck on that one too! So I decided to go back and just write whatever came to mind, making it the roughest, sloppiest scene in this novel yet. And that's okay! Just trying to keep up my daily momentum now, and leave editing for later!