Max Riffner
The Parlor
My weblog work journal. »Archives »Links
30,000 Words
Oh, oh my. The tips of my fingers hurt. I was at 23,000 words for NaNoWriMo yesterday, when I needed to be at 30,000 words by the end of yesterday. After a whirlwind writing session, I was able to hash out 7000 words. I’m finally all caught up (except for today, in which case I need to be at 31,776 by the end of today). Wednesday night, I was talking with Fredd on iChat about just giving up. This 50,000 words in 30 days stuff is tough business; you don’t really want to get behind more than a day at the most, and if you have a daily goal of 1776 words, you will slowly but surely cross the finish line with no problems on the 30th. Having missed out on about 4 days close together, I thought maybe that 23,000 words were better than no words at all.
Thankfully, NaNoWriMo has a great forum online; there is a thread about how to come back from behind on your word count if you were thinking of quitting. Most of the people in that conversation were in the 5000 to 15,000 word range. With my count sitting respectably at 23k, I thought all I needed was one big push, and I could do it. Depression turned to elation late after midnight last night. Quincy and the Chief were not happy about me coming to bed so late, but they understood.
I’m back in the game.
Here are some things I’ve learned for a big push of writing:
- Write about things you love in excruciating detail. I wrote about the FedEx logo, as an example, for a good 700 words.
- Take the dog for a walk when you’re stuck.
- Describe, describe, describe. Don’t gloss over anything too quickly.
- When in doubt, write about sex. The trick is to not make it sound like a letter to Penthouse Forum. The easy way to do that is to not use any euphemism for genitalia at all.
- Take a break when you are on a roll. That way, when you come back, you are still ready to finish whatever roll you are on.
For those interested for more information on NaNoWriMo, they are going to be featured on NPR this Tuesday.
Good going, Max – I stalled at a little over 6,000 words almost two weeks ago, but I’ll check out that thread to see if it helps (although it’s going to need a hell of a lot of inspiration to make up almost 45,000 words over the next week or so!)
Great site, btw.
In undergrad, I had the weirdest writing assignment. I had to describe (in 5 or more pages) an event that took five seconds or less. It drove me insane!
I bet it would have been easier were you doing something like this, Bronson. That word count is a monkey, and you’ll gladly write tons of detail just to up the word count. Thanks for the congrats, too! Hopefully one day you can do this, too!
Good going, Max – I stalled at a little over 6,000 words almost two weeks ago, but I’ll check out that thread to see if it helps (although it’s going to need a hell of a lot of inspiration to make up almost 45,000 words over the next week or so!)
Matthew, that is 6,000 words that you wouldn’t have ordinarily have written, so good for you! I hope you catch up, but if not, who cares? You’re not out anything at all. Life has a habit of getting in the way of these things.
Great site, btw.
Thanks!
You can also browse through the Parlor archives.
Recent Articles
- April 27, 2010
- This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day
- January 11, 2010
- #CinematicShowdown
- December 4, 2009
- Guest Strip: The Loneliest Astronauts
- November 12, 2009
- Circling Back
- October 30, 2009
- I'm Still Here
Search
Get the Emails
Keep up to date with my email newsletter. Newsletters are sent at least quarterly.
Grab My Site Feed
Stay up to date with my Feed in your favorite newsreader!
See Who's Linking Here
Check out who is linking to me with my Technorati Profile.
Nov 19, 06:50 AM
Max, I said it before and I’m going to say it again, it’s awesome that you’re committing yourself to this. Maybe you can share the completed work with a select few? I’d love to read it, even if it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. I’m betting, however, that since you’re penning the thing it’ll be an interesting read.
Alright, back to Half-Life 2. I need to start writing on my site again but this game is just too good for words almost.