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[inEQUALITY]

3403 today, 19429 total! I'm not so much burning out - I'm still passionate about the act of writing itself - but I'm a bit mentally drained outside of the writing itself. Hopefully an evening of pen and paper RPGs (we're trying out Savage Worlds for the first time tonight!) with my RP group will refresh me a bit. It hopefully won't hurt, at least.

[Malt_Hitman]

^ Bah!  Your word count is too large compared to my measily ~12k.  But I still hope you have some fun with Savage Worlds and get some extra energy and possibly motivation. 

So here I go, wondering how I'm going to work the word "chouse" into this segment, or whether it would be better to just abandon the word of the day thing for today, since I have other ideas already...

You may have solved this already but I've found for dialogue you can have a character use a word as if someone had said it to them off screen as it were.  Like, "Grampy used a strange word yesterday.  I forgot about it since then but it popped into my head today and I asked him what it meant."  Then when you have them "know" it they can make an example up to show they understand it.  It works great with a younger character too as they are generally proud to show off that they learned something new and can use it right.  That's the easiest way I've found to work around something like that.

That, and busy embedding dwarf fortress and yu-gi-oh references into my story.

I actually used the phrase "It was inevitable." by one of the characters in my novel. Too meta? Nope.

I think I've used the term planitive gesture, talked about booze, and made reference to something throwing a tantrum or likely will add that now.  Whatever works for that motivation and word count! 

Because I've been feeling kind of depressed recently and missed a day and today sort of, I am either going to need to write quadruple tomorrow when I might be able or write double today when I'm feeling like shit.
This isn't going to be fun either way.

Sorry to hear stuff isn't going well but you may not want to jump into a full 4x.  Think about it like exercise.  If you do 1 mile a day and miss 3 do you really want to go for 4 miles in a single day?  It's your choice but you may want to try for a 1.5x or 1.8x thing where you'd write 2.5k or 3.5k or something in between unless you think 4x will really get you motivated.  If it works for you that's great and more power and all that but the flame that burns brightest and all that.

Spoiler: No real excerpt today but I noticed some stuff about my writing. (click to show/hide)

It seems whenever I end up getting myself stuck I seem to throw my characters in a staff meeting, throw out some stupid ideas, berate them, then think long and hard about the problem.  Then the idea that is either stupidly dangerous or very simple gets suggested after I try and give it some thought and then I can roll with that.  Why can I roll with that?  My characters say they have nothing else and trying something is better then doing nothing.  Also, self-depreciating meta humor seems to work it's way in more and more now that I can see motivation slipping.  Words for the word count and text for the text document.

My main character is having the cyber blues and can't use her body due to not "knowing how" in a sense.  So how can I fix that?  Explain how it works and just have it work?  Nope.  Extensive counsuling in a sensable manner?  Nope.  Knock her out and strap her into a combat simulator and put her through a horrific battle in midst of a Bug War that drove her to the current situation in an attempt to force a connection with fight or flight?  Yes!  Emotional trauma, ho!

[Sirus]

I broke 1k words! \o/

If I can beat 2,217 words it'll be a personal NaNoWriMo best.

[inEQUALITY]

^ Bah!  Your word count is too large compared to my measily ~12k.  But I still hope you have some fun with Savage Worlds and get some extra energy and possibly motivation. 

To be fair, if you're going for 50k then percentage-wise of our overall goals, you'd be further along than me. And that I did, thanks! Savage Worlds is a refreshing change from Pathfinder/DnD 3.5.

Still feeling a little drained this morning, but that's probably more because I've now been invited to an air show Saturday and - since I really can't and don't want to refuse - that means I'm going to have to catch up even more somehow, just as I was a few days away from making up for my slip Day One.

I could just say screw it and lower my 100k goal to something more reasonable, but I'm not sure I want to. Or I can start aiming for ~3.8k for ten days afterwards to get back on curve, which wouldn't be too terrible, so long as nothing else comes up. I guess we'll see.

On the bright side, something I've noted as I've written: I've been able to drag out my scenes a bit to respectable lengths. Not beating a dead horse by any means, but I'm giving lots of thought, action, and dialogue to really build the scene, hit the climax of it, and then fall back down - but not all the way - for the next one. It'll all need heavy revision, without a doubt, but at least I'm not resolving chapters in less than ten pages this year. My writing felt so rushed and forced last year, so I'm happy that I'm pacing things better this time.

[Sappho]

I don't know if I can write today. I'm so stressed about tomorrow that I can't even think straight. So much for being ahead of the game.

[Darkmere]

On the bright side, something I've noted as I've written: I've been able to drag out my scenes a bit to respectable lengths. Not beating a dead horse by any means, but I'm giving lots of thought, action, and dialogue to really build the scene, hit the climax of it, and then fall back down - but not all the way - for the next one. It'll all need heavy revision, without a doubt, but at least I'm not resolving chapters in less than ten pages this year. My writing felt so rushed and forced last year, so I'm happy that I'm pacing things better this time.

I did the exact same thing as last November went along. The first part of my book was terse and a little broken in places, but as I went along I got much more comfortable filling in little details like people moving around while talking or adding in body language to help in descriptions and mood. This year I started right off like that, and my first... 4? scenes are lasting me through the first week.

10,500 words and counting. Here's to hoping I hit a groove and retake some of that lead I lost two days ago.

I don't know if I can write today. I'm so stressed about tomorrow that I can't even think straight. So much for being ahead of the game.

What about a few 10-15 minute word sprints? I resorted to those last night to get my count back up, and two of them got me 800 words in 30 minutes. Better than nothing?

[inEQUALITY]

So yeah, burnout is a thing. I'm gonna take a rest, bump my goal down to 80k (and still get to be an overachiever!), and finish up the first draft in December. I'm taking two days off to recover a bit. I desperately need it, as hard as I've been pushing.

[Sappho]

I managed a few hundred words. Burnout is indeed a thing, though it doesn't necessarily have to stem from NaNo writing. I should feel a lot better after tomorrow is over. I'm just over par for today. My lead is gone, but at least I'm not falling behind. If, once tomorrow is done with, I can manage 2k a day from now on, which seems reasonable, then I'll still finish early / manage a higher word count.

I'm thinking that the weather also has a lot to do with it. It gets dark by 4 pm now, and it's been cloudy and rainy for the past week or two. It feels like nighttime all the time, and it's really getting to me.

[Digital Hellhound]

I'm technically still not doing NaNo, but 10980 words right now and no signs of slowing down. I've been writing for... very many hours and 4000 words now. Aaaaaagh.

EDIT: I decided to go ahead and add this to the site at 11229 words. Shame I won't get the graph from the start, it's so pretty. I'm still not stressing about winning, so much other stuff to do it might not happen. Honestly, I'm just having a ton of fun. Having a ton of fun recommended for anyone struggling. Feel free to add Cycle on the site!

[Darkmere]

Feel free to add Cycle on the site!

7898 results for "Cycle" in authors on the site...

[Digital Hellhound]

Huh. Well then. Try here.

[Malt_Hitman]

So, I swear that I had no burnout before I came and read this thread.  I swear it, really, I do.

I also worked through a few plot points in my mind and I realized the more characterization I end up adding the more I have to think about the key point that I don't want any of my characters to do something stupid without first trying to find a reason not to do so.  I don't feel I have high standards on what I write but I'd really like to avoid a situation where I have character that does something stupid for no reason.  I had to work through the next scene I want to write as I realized that I had two characters who had no real reason not to act intelligently.  It's a strange thing to want to mess up a character only to realize that another character you have wouldn't logically stand aside and let that happen because, quite literally, that would make them stupid for doing so.

I did get some writing done but it was strange.  The key point is below.

Spoiler: I wrote this and I can't figure out why.  It just doesn't make any sense but I wrote it. (click to show/hide)

“I am a nihilist!  I believe in nothing!”

“I believe in your face!”

What.  The nihilist’s brain broke.  That didn’t make any sense.  It couldn’t make sense.  He couldn’t believe it.  Then his face was punched.  All of it.  Everything that he could possibly identify as his face was being punched.  It hurt.  It burned.  It burned with the fire a thousand suns.  He suddenly believed in something.  He believed in his face and he believed it was being punched.

I don't really know what to do with it either.  It's in my story at the end.  Just there.  I could have my main character write it just because.  Yea...burnout and all that I guess.

[Darkmere]

Re: Facepunch:

That's glorious and you should keep it forever.

[Digital Hellhound]

I'm all for nihilists getting punched. Especially in such deliciously absurd ways.

[TD1]

Hehehe. Me likey.