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Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Oct 23, 2017 1:02:42 GMT
I tried to plan a bit extra this year so that I don't run at the wall repeatedly like I usually do. Lantern/Starfall has a lot farther to go before it's ready to be written, but I've run out of plotting steam. I'm trying to figure out the crucial events for my character arcs, but every time I try I just get a mental block. It's not a temporary thing. This is something I've never been able to do. If I do what I usually do, ignore it, and just start writing straight off, I know I'm going to write myself into a hole. I have a bad feeling that I'm going to fail again, and end up with a pile of words that I can't use. I'm starting to panic now.
Worse than that, there's the whole size issue. Every NaNo I've always worked on adding words to one of my epics. It's not exactly scope creep, because I know roughly the size I want it to be. It's just that as the outline fills up, and the story starts getting defined, I'm having an increasing desire to chuck it all, start something brand new (and shorter) that I can complete by the end of the month, and just fly by the seat of my pants.
Is anyone else freaking out about NaNo?
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Post by Siana Blackwood on Oct 23, 2017 4:27:05 GMT
Could you maybe choose a particular section of the outline to write for NaNo? Or several smaller sections that would add up to the 50k? It's sort of a slightly more organised form of chaos drafting: you'd fully detail one section and then use that section as a sort of 'canon' for adding further detail to other sections. But, rather than in random chunks of a few hundred words, look at doing it in chunks the size of a short story or novella.
I don't know if I should recommend a random seat-of-the-pants draft or not. I've done that more than a few times and they have a tendency to take on a life of their own. If you did do it, you'd have to be absolutely sure it couldn't be absorbed into your epic.
As far as NaNo Panic, I don't know. I feel like I should be panicking, but I just feel a sort of tired gloominess at the moment. Nothing I've done in recent times suggests to me that I'll be able to either revive this story successfully or write that many words every day. My preparation is basically non-existent and I know that's not good enough but I still just go blank every time I sit down to do anything. The only thing that's stopping me from deciding I'll start a new random story on November 1st is that the past three or four times I've tried that have all turned out to be the same story.
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Post by Missy on Oct 28, 2017 10:26:36 GMT
I'm not panicking, but I'm rather lacking in passion. Very much feeling like Siana rn.
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Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Oct 28, 2017 17:38:58 GMT
I figured out it was a combination of insurmountable plot hole and planning burnout.
In the end I decided not to worry about it, and to let November 1st surprise me. If I work on something new, I will have precisely nothing planned, and no more time. That's good. Exuberant imperfection! It's the perfect excuse to aim just for completion, and to allow myself to just write, with no expectations. If I do this, it will be a long short story or something, probably along 25k words. Knowing myself, I will definitely write twice that just trying to figure out what works for the story and what doesn't! XD It will also be a new experience. I've always either aimed for 5k-10k, or gone for an epic.
Hey, that's an idea - using NaNo to try new writing things that I am too scared to try otherwise.
I don't actually care that much if what I write gets sucked into my epic. Everything I write is set in the same 'verse anyway. Another standalone is no big deal at worst, at best it's more world definition. As for the likelihood of it getting incorporated into the main epic, ever since I figured out how to handle Beyonce (my plot hydra is named Beyonce), the occurrences of that have gone down drastically. Also, even if it still happens, I realized it's better just to go with it. It always makes the story better anyway. In any case, I haven't had any exponential growth, so that's...progress. If, on the other hand, I end up still writing Starfall, then I'll be as prepared as I can be.
I know that Starfall worldbuilding is getting to me when I spell prepared as 'prepaered.'
I'm the exact opposite. I haven't looked forward to NaNo this much in years. I lost the last two years. Maybe this year I'll win again!
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Post by Siana Blackwood on Oct 29, 2017 20:46:19 GMT
I've sort of decided I'm just going to write whatever jumps into my head on November 1st as well. Making a story-shaped space in my life and then sitting in front of some kind of writing implement with my old, familiar goal: try to hit the wordcount goal every day and let my muse figure out the rest. It might end up looking a lot like the story I was thinking of rewriting, but then again it might not: the word lists I've been doing as writing exercises the past few days suggest an entirely different sort of story.
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