If you're having word problems, I feel bad for you, son...

[mylittleredgirl]

Portland has a lot of hardcore nano-ers who hit 50k by day 10 and then complain they're behind THEIR goal for the month, which is 3 novels or 180,000 words or something equally impressive. Then I'm like "Not only am I 10,000 words behind, but the words I have totally suck!" It makes me want to go back to fanfic where just using the right OTP gets you halfway there! Bumming me out, I tell you.

What's really bumming me out - and harshing my word count - is this head/chest/full-body cold that's been grinding me down since Friday. When I get sick, it tends to get worse each day instead of better (I mean, eventually it gets better, but the worst is days 5-7 or so instead of day 1). I need to remember that in the future so I can stock up on soup and cereal and THINGS I NEED TO LIVE! Also, you'd think that being wrapped in blankets forced to hide away from other humans would result in writing, but so far it has only resulted in sleeping and whining.

Hey, nano veterans, what do you do when you realize your novel needs a major stylistic change? Mine is way too dry and serious, and it needs more fun and snark and sex... but that means personality-shifting characters and changing a lot of basic stuff. Do you just make a little line break, write "okay, just pretend a bunch of other stuff happened in the last 10,000 words" and then continue the plot? Normally I'd delete about 80% of what's here and rewrite, but that's not really a November-friendly option.

I can't help thinking that soup would make all of this better, but the store is like BLOCKS away.

ETA: Starvation averted. Punnily named Thai place located a smaller number of blocks away from me. Take-out, then words, then sleeping. Huzzah!

Comments

[anr]

I agree with medie. Just pretend you've already fixed it in the beginning and keep writing with how you want the characters to be now. If you think of scenes that could explain the shift in characterisations, you can always add them in later as you go (thus increasing your word count even further).

YOU CAN DO IT! *waves pompoms*

ALSO! Feel better! That sucks that you're unwell at the moment. *hugs*

[phrenitis.livejournal.com]

SACH. I am having nano FAILING issues. Work travel is for me as sickness is for you. Ugh. I hope you feel better soon, too. <3 I think this is our nano kryptonite?

I have grand plans of finding tens of thousands of words coming to me over Thanksgiving week, and maybe we do an online tea write-in on Sunday if you're feeling up to it?

Also, I'm on board with your plan. CAPSLOCK PAGE BREAK and keep going!

[georgierae.livejournal.com]

Don't just say "fuck it!"- write that too. It's all towards the word count!

But yes, I'm with medie and the others on this.

In fact, I already have a paragraph or so of notes to myself, telling me to ignore half of what I've already written and get on with the good bits!