I’m only about a half hour into National Novel Writing Month and I’m already running into a few problems.
Yikes.
First off, the second I opened that blank word document, I panicked. Even though I had a brief (and I mean brief) outline in front of me, I still couldn’t seem to get myself pumped.
Second, I think my story idea is a little too close to my real life. As I wrote my first 300 words, I found myself literally writing exactly what happened to me pretty much word for word. When I was writing my outline, I thought that writing a story that was similar to mine would be helpful, but now I’m sort of re-thinking that decision.
I find myself writing dialogue, but not giving description (probably because the description is already so vivid in my mind, since I was actually there).
As I was writing, I was thinking, “What am I getting myself into?”
I’m not sure what to do.
Maybe, I’ll sleep on it. I’d like to do NaNo still, but I’m just not sure if I can work with my current story idea if it’s already giving me major problems on page 1.
Does backing out of NaNo on November 1 make me a terrible writer?
Any advice for me? I’d really appreciate it.
of course it doesn't make you a terrible writer! it's hard to have to make your mind come up with something decent by a certain time and get it all written down within a month. at least you're up to 300, i've got 96 down and i'm stuck. i don't even have a proper storyline! just winging it over here, hah.
even if the writing's lacking in some way or not even close to perfect, the goal for NaNo is just to get as close to 50K as you can. we would all love for our stuff to be amazing and it can annoy us sometimes that it's not, but that's what December is for – the editing month! or just anytime after November when you feel like polishing it up.
i'd not worry too much about the quality of the content at this point and just write as it comes. a little planning along the way maybe, but it's a hard task itself and i'm sure you'll do fine.
hope i helped a bit! 🙂
Feel free to make any changes to your story that you want to, but no matter what, it's not going to be easy and you probably won't be free of doubt. Remember that the point of NaNoWriMo is just to get going and get something written. You'll have plenty of time to change things and fix them later, but don't let that stop you from writing. You'll probably figure out a lot of your story as you go.
Stick with it! I'm sure after you sit down with it for a while, you'll start writing like crazy. And I don't think there's anything is wrong with writing about yourself. Write what you know right?
And, maybe this will help: I HAVE AN AWARD FOR YOU OVER ON MY BLOG 🙂
My advice would be to keep writing!!!
Definitely keep going — no matter what! Turn off that critical voice in your head that makes you doubt what you've accomplished and forge ahead. The goal is to create a novel — not create a flawless, incredible novel 😉 That will all come in time. Give yourself permission to be kind and just keep the fingers moving. I know you can do it!