D.V. Sheppard

The web-log of a duck-herding author.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

At Least I Have Wombat Going for Me (IWSG)


Alex J. Cavanaugh's Blog Hop

Another NaNoWriMo has passed - and I should be feeling like this:

Portrait Of Disappointment
And to be honest, Saturday morning I did... You see it's been a crazy month. Wombat and I celebrated our anniversary. We had some family pictures taken. I had two long dental appointments that knocked me down pretty good. I got sick. Wombat got sick. Our Thanksgiving plans kept falling through, which meant multiple planning sessions. Wombat and I got into a glorious fight. Wombat and I made up after our glorious fight. Then, the crowning experience of the month, was a phone call that landed a major piece of family news that left me bug eyed and my mind spinning for a whole week. 

However.... that isn't why I didn't write more than 4100 words. No, all of that was crazy, and definitely kept my mind far from writing, but there were plenty of evenings or morning that I could have - or even DID sit down to write. 

No, it was Saturday morning- with one November day to go- that I lay in bed postponing my grocery trip with a furrowed brow trying to deduce the reason of my dismal progress. As with anything that I can't figure out - I turned to Wombat and told him, "I keep sitting down to write, but I can't stand the scene I am working on. It's so boring. I'm bored writing it! That's a bad sign!" 

He suggested that I skip ahead to the other character's thread. 

I sighed. "Yeah, but his will be boring too! I mean..." And then my mind began to percolate. "I guess it's boring to me, because there are no relationships. It's all plot, and that's boring to write. Curiel already has his passel of friends. Emerick is kind of interesting because at least you are getting to know Cicero...."

To which the Wombat made me feel jointly dumb as a door knob and chipperishly hopeful, by suggesting: "Well maybe you should make Curiel's friends not his friends yet. You could show him making friends with them."

I thought it over critically. Could I do that? Will that screw up the timing? How would that coincide with what I've written already? All 4100 measly words. Ooo! I know!

And the Wombat came to the rescue. It's always a little disheartening to have to scrap your work before it's really even begun, but if you have to, I guess there is no better reason than to do so to make writing your book more enjoyable.

So, while my NaNoWriMo attempt doesn't even deserve an honorable mention - I press on. Maybe December will be my month.



9 comments:

I only made 28k this NaNo. I hope that everything goes well with your changes and the excitement comes back to your work!
 
I made 12000 words at NaNo, and, worse, I have to rewrite what I wrote because I found that my story was dull in bits and thought it would be improved by giving my main character a more intense set of problems--- she is now being chased by guys who want to capture her and send her to a labor camp because of her parents' 'crime' in escaping their home planet. Which makes her stake in the rest of the plot more dramatic.

I think the point of NaNo is not to create something perfect, but to create something you can, with work, use. So you don't have to 'win' to win.

Nissa

PS, I'm following your blog now.
 
You did well. I didn't even participate.
 
Sounds like you did great to me, especially since you had an epiphany about your work. That's winning.
 
Just remember, plot should be interspersed into the story not lumped all together in one place. Relationships, good. Dialogue, good. They're a lot more interesting than plain paragraphs full of back-story or plot.
Keep writing. Keep talking to Wombat.
Best of luck.
Heather
 
Awe, this post hit me hard. I have many moments of "I'm bored with my characters." I'm glad you had Wombat to discuss it with and found a solution...and before you'd written too much more. December is your month...I can feel it:)
ps. thanks for the blog visit and the follow!
 
Thank you for the advice about getting to know my characters.

It sounds like you are going to be changing one of your MCs up a bit. I suspect that by not having his friends set in stone, you will enjoy his story much more. I do believe that December will be a MUCH better month.

Happy writing!
 
Every word and thought you got down, plus figuring out the new direction are all little accomplishments. I don't really think the idea behind NaNo is really to win, but just to get us writing.
 
its always better to erase and change if its not working than force something that doesn't feel right!
 

Post a Comment