by Cindy D
We are at Day 4 and I can hear the groans. Actually, I heard them yesterday already, LOL.
You are facing a blank wall; you are exhausted; your ideas are dried up and your fingers sit on the keys but won’t move, and every minute ticks by reminding you that your word count goal of 1600+ words a day is culminating.
Walk away from the computer. Put it all aside and take a break. Creativity and inspiration cannot be controlled and captured. They come to you when you relax and are not looking for them. Living and engaging in life is a vacation from your writing. It is when we truly live and participate in life we find inspiration in everyday events. Happiness, Joy, Regret, Sadness, Pain, Anger — Life is a like a bank account or should I say a Writing Account – where we can deposit our life experiences and then withdraw them for our pages. When inspiration comes we have no doubt that we can meet our word count goal for that day and maybe exceed it! And by living and engaging in life I don’t mean going for a walk or exercising; I mean work, do chores, visit friends and family; it is the active involvement and forgetting about your writing that empties the mind and allows inspiration to fill that space.
If you don’t want to leave the computer and insist on pushing forward then try writing the end of your story first. I learned this from a course I took with Writer’s Digest University (Advanced Novel Writing Workshop). Likewise, the synopsis, like the ending of the story, gives you a map of where you would like to finish.
If you are having trouble writing a linear story-line try moving to a future point in the story and write that scene(s). When we write backwards we often discover ways of making the story work that we never would have thought of. By doing this you may discover the missing pieces you needed in the present scene. Play with your story and move around in the past, present, and future. Give up the rigid idea that you must begin at page one.
Remember too, that this is only a first draft. This is not your finished novel.
And now I have to go and get back to my first draft too 
Happy NaNoWriMo!!
Related articles
- Oh dear……. #NaNoWriMo (zaraawritingstory.wordpress.com)
- NaNoWriMo – A Review of the First Day (asilisis.wordpress.com)
- NaNoWriMo Time Management Tip #3: Outlining (writingishardwork.com)
- The Pros and Cons of NaNoWriMo (onewaytowonder.wordpress.com)
- Things That Made Me Not Quit NaNoWriMo Before I’d Even Really Started (cheilt.wordpress.com)
- NaNoWriMo (lastchancewriting.wordpress.com)
- Participating in NaNoWriMo? (ctwesting.com)
I hear you! Now I have to get offline and turn on my Alphasmart. I said that twenty minutes ago. Rolls eyes.
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