I loved that book the first couple of times I read it. I tried again a few weeks ago and it drove me insane how every "said" tag included an adverb. After three days of nano, I have about 5300 words. But they are 5300 words on the second half of a story that's just over 50K at this point.
Ha! I've had a lot of books ruined since I started working as a writing tutor (it's hard to break the red-pen-in-hand mindset...), but didn't notice that one. Then again, it was only my second time reading it and the first was when it came out which was aaages ago! Given that, I might just have been distracted by relearning the plot which, I suppose, is the point (writing so that no one notices the words, just the story).
I was working on a film set for the first week of November, so I've gotten a little behind on my NaNoWriMo. I'm 7,000 words in right now and I'm supposed to be at 16,000. Whoops. Oh well. I do a lot of binge writing where I'll chew up a 4,000 word chapter in a day sometimes. I think can still catch up and hit the 50,000 word mark.
I don't know if you started already or not, but NaNoWriMo is a great place to start as a beginning novelist. My first Novel I completed at the end of November thanks to the writing month. If you need something to help give you a push and get you in the habit of regularly writing, it is a great tool.
So, I thought that after finishing NaNoWriMo I'd have gotten so used to writing a lot every day that writing say 1k every day would be no big deal. In reality I'm finding it really hard to write. Worse yet is that I never actually finished my NaNoWriMo novel, and I'm feeling no motivation to finish it. Advice?
I'd say give yourself a break. If you were pushing yourself to churn out 1000 words per day, even if you didn't have a lot to say, or weren't feeling inspired, or didn't actually know what your goal was (besides churning out 1000 words per day) you're going to feel a little bit mentally exhausted. This is one of the things that puts me off NaNoWriMo. The emphasis is on churning out 50,000 words, not on anything else. This is posited on the idea that most people who aren't churning out words every day are just procrastinating and need a boot up the backside, which this exercise provides. That's fine as it is, but thinking and daydreaming and planning and drawing conclusions and having 'eureka' moments, and doing research and changing your mind ...these are all parts of writing as well. I know from my own experience that pushing myself to write when I wasn't ready NEVER produced anything worthwhile. In fact, it produced a lot of crap which then needed to be excised from my story later on. I can waffle on with the best of them, but if the waffle isn't serving a purpose other than filling a screen with waffle, it's kind of a waste of time. I suspect you've burned out and need to recharge your batteries. Take time away from writing and go back to daydreaming. You'll know when you're ready to start again.
Yeah, maybe you're right. I should probably take a break and look at what I have so far before deciding what to go next. Although, I actually find that I write well under a time limit. Whenever I spend too much time to think about writing something I either never end up writing it or it comes out too... stiff.
My arbitrary suggestion would be that you maintain the habit of putting a little time into writing every day, even if it's a much smaller little bit. So if you were writing for two hours a day, sit down for twenty minutes a day. If it was a thousand words a day, write 200 words a day. You've been sprinting; settle down into a nice gentle jog or even a restful walk, rather than stopping entirely.
I had this same problem when I participated in Camp Nanowrite in July. I had a very good month and reached my goal, but August was a complete bust for me. I would look at my computer and just get sick in the stomach. Thank god it only took one month, September I was back in business. I think, for my case, I was not prepared enough to participate. I made my goal with no problems, but there were hours and hours trying to figure out what to do next. If I out lined the month better, I would have had less down time and maybe I would not have been so burned out. If I do it again, and I probably will, I need to prepare better.
I've done NaNoWriMo a ton and this time definitely felt like more of a chore for me. At first, I couldn't understand why. Then I realized I didn't use word sprints. Most of the previous times, in both official NaNo and camps, I followed the word sprint twitter page and followed that. And I tried doing a little of that in my non-NaNowriting. Instead of deciding how much I'm going to write, I go for how long. Most of the time, it's not that much. But if that 15 minutes I allotted for myself turns into two hours of straight writing, then bully for me! But if I'm already feeling iffy about continuing at the 15 minute mark, then that usually means that, for whatever reason, the creative spark isn't there that day. I'd be better off doing something else with my time than forcing out a story when it's not coming.
