Sunday, October 10, 2010

NaNoWriMo Nerves

Twenty-one days until NaNoWriMo, yes? I have a vague idea of two characters and one scene in my mind. Not sure where this leads but I'm kind of excited, kind of losing hope. I need to sit down and do an outline. This is what I'm told, anyway. I'm kind of nervous though and this may be for a couple of reasons. Possibilities for nervousness:

  1. I did ridiculously well for word count last November. I was consistently ahead due to a large amount of writing I did in the beginning and I finished a day or two early, if I remember correctly. (Uh, Alex? This isn't exactly something to be nervous about. Yes, it is, self who talks in italics and refers to herself in third person, just wait for it.) This leads me to believe I have been lulled into a false sense of security from what could have simply been luck last year. This paired with number three down there is a problem.
  2. I don't have much of a plot. Or any plot at all. I feel kind of tapped creatively and everything I come up with is hugely clichéd which sucks. I don't know what to do. I'm worried and I'm not really the type to consult my muse. I don't have a muse. Sometimes I have ideas. Sometimes I don't.
  3. I don't want to write the same thing again. When I read through sections of my novel that are unchanged from 11 months ago, I feel like dropping my head down on my keyboard. It's that bad. And I know the point of NaNo is to get the story out, quantity over quality, but I'm not so sure I'm into that idea anymore. What's the point if I'm just going to scrap most of it anyway and have to rewrite? I want to do it right the first time, or at least write something that it doesn't kill my soul to read. This is probably going to slow me down, wanting to be poetic and literary and lyrical and not cliche. But I'm not going to sacrifice my literary soul so I can spend a month writing 50,000 words of lame dialogue, extreme character flaws and descriptive passages that make me want to stab myself. I just won't. If that means losing, I guess I'm okay with that.
  4. My characters, thus far, are stupid and flat. They're more of the same and probably unrealistic and I don't know how to make them original and unique. I wanted to say dazzling there but I couldn't. Thanks, Stephenie Meyer.
Am I being a downer? Whatever. You know what I want my novel to be like? This. Yes, I just referenced something I wrote today. Yes, maybe I won't be able to be that poetic for 1667 words every day for a month. But it's something, right?

What are you feeling about the quality versus quantity issue? Tell me in comments.

2 comments:

Vita said...

1) Excuse me whilst I go sulk in jealousy.
...But actually, I don't think you should be too worried about it, because a) it's impossible for writing to be easy all the time and b) if you've already done it once, you know that you're capable, ergo, you know that you can do it again. You're just psyching yourself out. STOPPIT

2) Go with something, even if it sucks, because you might be surprised at what you find. Like, maybe your plot is terrible, but a fabulous character might emerge that sparks a story of its own. I know that's not really helpful, but just do it!

3) BUT QUALITY IS NO FUN. Okay actually it is, so if you're really concerned, just use NaNoWriMo as a motivational thingthang and don't worry about the word count.

4) Dude, of course they're flat: you haven't created them yet. Get to know them and then let's see who's boring, AIGHT? (Don't really know where I as going with that...)

Renata said...

Ditto. This is all pretty much in your mind, you have-done-ergo-can-do it, and here's the fun part: Even if everything is awful, no one has to know. You may possibly feel like a failure to yourself, but that's not to be worried about in November. Quantity over quality FTW.