I can't hear "I'm So Excited" without thinking of the 80's song by that title
I can't think of the 80's song without thinking of Jesse Spano.
If you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about.
If you don't...I wouldn't worry about it.
On to my NoMo Tuesday Tip
So you are pumping out the next great American novel.
You are so excited!
You are so awesome!
You are a wordsmith extraordinaire!
You are stuck.
You are frustrated.
You have writers block...in the middle of your story.
You are muddling.
You went from
to
Wanna tip to avoid this spiral into inactivity?
Keep writing.
Lame tip?
Perhaps.
But let me elaborate on what I mean.
If you're like me, you get to a new character and you ponder, and think, and research, and dwell upon, what you should call this new character. By the time you come up with a name that you feel luke warm about, you have lost momentum to keep writing that day.
Then there is that chapter that explains how the characters got from LemonLand to OrangeOrchard. You don't want to write it. You have nothing to say and you don't know how to make that chapter exciting. You stare at the chapter heading. You write the first sentence four times, each sentence becoming duller than the last. You quit for the day. Maybe the muse will strike later.
You've painted your characters into a corner! Perfect! Noone will be able to figure out how you are going to get them out of this one!!! Even you... :( You know that a couple of things have to happen in there but how the whole thing will play out is a mystery. You have seriously stared at a blank screen, googled awesome fight scenes, watched bits of your favorite movie on YouTube, and gone back to the kitchen for a cookie three times. But there is still nothing on your page. Might as well dwell on this tomorrow.
What can be done?
Skipping.
Hate it? Skip it.
Can't figure something out? Skip it.
This part is dull? Skip it.
Not forever. Just for now.
Move with the momentum of excitement.
What is it that you REALLY want to write?
Write that.
Put the other stuff in (parenthesis) or highlight or CAP LOCK.
You can't ignore it forever, but you can ignore it now.
You can't lose days in NaNoWriMo coming up with the perfect character name.
You just have to write.
You just have to get your story on paper.
Along the way you might even feel inspired to fix those parts that you left behind.
Before you know it you'll be writing like this!
And loving it!
Keep on NaNo-ing everyone!!!
(numbers? anyone?)
Great tips Chad. I needed them :)
ReplyDeleteWait...maybe Shelly wrote this? My NaNo brain can't tell :)
ReplyDelete... asks the girl who passed 50k last night. Wahoo, Shelly! I'm just a hair ahead of the line, but moving steadily.
ReplyDeleteSometimes when I have NO IDEA what happens next, that's when I get the most words during #1kin1hr (you're gonna keep playing, right?). I just plug forward. It'll all have to be rewritten later, of course, but hey, I'd never get an actual outline written in a month! ;)
Thanks, I totally needed to hear this today. I've been struggling since I got to the point in the story where I don't really know what's going on. So yeah, I should just skip to the good parts. Haha. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteMy numbers are abysmal.
I'm really good at skipping around and getting up to a pretty good word count.
ReplyDeleteWhere I get stuck on EVERY SINGLE PROJECT is connecting the first 2/3 to the final 1/5.
For non-math people that's a ton of writing at the beginning is done, a wee bit at the end, and I have to go through that climax, that final roller coaster of emotional/physical/both turmoil for the happy ending.
SO hard for me to motivate to do that.
Oh, as always, great advice. I'm the kind of girl who takes an hour to write one sentence. At least my backspace key gets a lot of exercise.
ReplyDeleteContinued success with NaNo!