Quote Originally Posted by Thanqol View Post
Okay, so I think I've messed up irrecoverably. All my ideas have collapsed and the words that I have barfed forth isn't anything even vaguely resembling a story at this point. I could keep shoving but I'm sensing the burnout cliff looming and I really don't need that at this exact moment. The writing itself is trending increasingly towards existentialism so I'm going to call it at 50% and go back to the drawing board.

That's not to say this process wasn't valuable! Not only did it teach me a bunch of simple, practical writing habits to get into, it really showed me exactly what sort of planning, specifically, I need to do before I can actually embark on a story like this. I need a whole lot more structure in what I write and, above all, I need to figure out exactly what the theme and message of the story is. I've been radically torn between so many different genres and I think my recent foray into sci-fi really messed me up in particular.

So yeah. I've had to look practicality in the face and, in the spirit of this thread, the only way to learn is to fail, fail magnificently, fail often. I am going to come back to this stronger and smarter and better prepared right now this year is over.
Aw, that's a shame. But hopefully you can use what you learned to good effect.

In my experience, the words you write for NaNoWriMo will always be a total, useless mess that you'll probably discard completely on December 1 and never look back on. But the hope is that you learn a ton about the story, and about writing, that you would never have learned by simply thinking about it, that you only learned because you sat down and wrote a ton of useless words. Last year I didn't even manage that; I just ended up with a lot of useless words and nothing really learned from it. This year I feel much more successful. The words are still crap, no two ways about it, but I have learned so much about the story that for the first time in the years I've spent thinking about it, I feel like I actually know what the story is.

You tend to hit a point, usually somewhere around half-way through, where you don't see much point in continuing. I'm at that same point, but for a different reason. I'm there because now I can't wait for November to end so I can get serious and write the real story, not this silly crap. For me, I suspect it's a trap. I'll certainly keep going all month, to 50k and maybe beyond, however far I make it, just to see how much more I can learn about the story before I get serious.