Thread: I quit.

I got 600 words in, and realized:
maybe I'm not good enough to write a novel.
I can hardly finish a short story.

NaNoWriMo isn't about quality though, it's about quantity. The whole basis of this month is to coax more people to write and not let the quality of whatever they write stop them. Maybe you should just write whatever that comes to mind. You don't have to submit it at the end of the month.. but once you're done writing, go back and take a look at it - you might find that you've got little snippets in there that you never knew could be squeezed out of you.. It's always a nice surprise.

Don't give up!

see, the thing for me is that I'm not really that creative. I would feel bad just writing about nothing for a whole month, rather than trying to make an actual story. I just don't think it's for me.

Maybe I'm just discouraged.

I dunno, a lot of the time when I read a story about nothing, it's really entertaining. Damselfly is right, it's about quantity, not quality. I guareentee what I'm working on is a pretty big pile of shit.

I am struggling. Life has been getting in the way of writing recently. I think I am under 5000 words. But when I have time and inspiration, I write. I clean up some stuff I have already written or start a new chapter and write. I have about 10 "chapters", a few around around a thousand words, some only a few hundred. Just write when you write, but try.

As was already said, Nano isn't about putting publishable work on paper. It's about getting your butt in the seat and simply putting words on paper. It's a competition against yourself, against your hang up, your reservations, against writer's block. All the typical things that haunt an author. It doesn't matter if it's absolute rubbish or not. If you wrote it, if you put 50,000 words down then you've won. You'll be able to walk away at the beginning of December and say that you wrote a novel, you wrote 50,000 words in 30 days.

This is my first year doing it and I continually ask myself how I managed to go through life before this without doing it. It's been a blast. I'm half a day behind, because of life not cooperating with me yesterday, but I'm doing pretty damn well. I think the story is better than decent too.

Don't lose heart. Go to the site and find yourself a writing buddy...someone to coax you into writing more. There's a whole folder dedicated to giving us rookies help, tips on how to keep moving.

Jerry Seinfeld made a fortune and quite a name for himself by doing a show about nothing..... You never know how it will turn out until you do it. I'm writing every silly thought that comes in my head and most of it's rotten "writing", but when I'm done, I'll be there will be at least 10k of that 50 k that's gonna be halfway decent...and with some sweat, stress, a dictionary and a thesaurus, I might have a publishable short story or novelette.

*I'm on NaNo as "JollyMinstrel" if anyone would care to add another writing buddy. The more, the merrier, as they say.

You are not expecting your first piece of writing to make a best seller now are you ?

Take my favourite author for example (Darren Shan) he wrote an adult book which did not sell very well, he wrote a sequel to this book and even though it was a lot better it sold a lot worse than the first. Darren shan then moved on to childrens horror and he is really well known around the world now. Just keep at it, im sure an idea will pop up that others will enjoy, I cant talk though, i have never written anything yet, im more of a newbie than you

if you want to write about nothing, do what julio cortazar did in Blow-Up. There is a genre for that type of work, where bascically it's art in rambling. but its interesting because some can gain alittle bit of perspective.

-delilah

Originally Posted by dankreb

I got 600 words in, and realized:
maybe I'm not good enough to write a novel.
I can hardly finish a short story.

Hate to sound like Ma-ti from Captain Planet; but "do not lose heart".

This year before NaNoWriMo started I claimed that I would not, could not enter because I was sick of disappointing myself. Like you, when I'm not writing quality (even marginal quality) I prefer not to write. It's better to spit out ounces of gold than pounds of shit.

But NaNoWriMo did do something for me. It helped me start a novel, and get much farther into it than I would have otherwise. It forced me to plow through the story, adding to the plot as I went. When I got stuck with this years story, I stopped. I have six chapters, now. There's plenty of content to add into what I have already written, and plenty to add that has not yet been written. I've got a few subplots to add; but at the very least I currently have a foundation of the novel. I have something to work with.

So even if you're not finishing it now; even if you need to take a breather; use NaNo as a tool to help you rather than seeing it as an unreachable goal (which was my crutch). I haven't finished my story yet, and I came well short of the goal, but I have a good start on a book that I fully intend on working on more.

If nothing else, NaNoWriMo forces you to try writing even when 'the mood' doesn't strike you.

I'd offer you man-hugs; but I'm afraid you'd just get poop all over you.

I agree dont lose heart I have 6 chapters of a book I have been writing for the last 6 years! The problem is i know what i want im too lazy to do it!
I have the Beginning and the End! Whats in between is easy? Its just me im not motivated because of other things I have to worry about more?

quote:"My heart is in the right place its my head that wanders?"

Originally Posted by dankreb

I got 600 words in, and realized:
maybe I'm not good enough to write a novel.
I can hardly finish a short story.

"not good enough" is not a very nice thing to say about yourself.

Respect you.

You, after all, are what you need to put those words down..

Stop talking about what you can't do, and either write, or don't.

If people could somehow let go of living up to whatever it is that we live up to, there'd be more writing and less mental blocks. Singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen said when we arrive at that point of humbling realization that we're not capable of laying down a perfect line every time we write that we can move toward writing without inhibition, and that's the best writing of all.

Writing is a career. It takes dedication and discipline.