Life of Randy: Now With More Failure

I’m currently very far behind on my attempt for this years NaNoWriMo. Initially, I set out to just wing it, sit down day one and start, see where the story would bring me. Unfortunately, this plan was the absolute worst thing I could do. By going into this in such a way, my story refuses to come together beyond an initial premise:

A Man wakes up and sets out to destroy the world.

This premise coupled with one of the bleakest openings I’ve written (or read) has resulted in zero progress. The premise could result in an interesting tale if handled properly, but I don’t think I’m up to this story this time round. As it is now, I’m abandoning this story and tabling it for another day.

This does not mean I have given up on NaNoWriMo, this just means that this years attempt will not be completed before the deadline of 30 November 2011. I will going back to the drawing board, and over the next few days will be planning out another story from scratch. When Saturday afternoon/evening arrives, I plan to begin the writing process once more. For now, I will rest, and tomorrow I’ll look over some old story ideas to see if anything is promising.

This will be yet another one of my failures recently, but I’m hoping it is one that I will learn from.

I Am Scared

I’ve not written a single word toward my novel today. I am absolutely terrified. On the plus side, I started officially working. Its not much, but I’ll be working 28 hours a week. Definitely enough to get by on for now. Tomorrow night I’ll have to sit down and try to make up for the lack of writing. Part of it I think is that I just don’t know what I want to write, the other part is that maybe what I’m attempting to write isn’t any good to begin with. I’m almost tempted to just say screw it, scrap the 400 words I’ve written and plan over the next few days an actual story. I don’t think I’ll be able to just write without some sort of a plan or guideline. But I’m not quitting. I will attempt this endeavour, and I don’t care if I succeed or fail. The journey (CLICHE ALERT) is what matters in this.

Smells Like Failure

The first day isn’t even done, and I’m already regretting participating in this years NaNoWriMo. I am so unprepared for this undertaking and I don’t like where its taking me. I’ve written barely 400 words and oh lord is it bleak. My story begins with a man waking up, realising he’s miserable, and deciding to set off on a journey to end the world.

BLEAK.

I don’t know if I’m just being hateful, or what. My Protagonist just told a bunch of birds that he’s going to sing the song that ends the world. I don’t know where this story is going, or what. I already know I’m not going to finish it. It has to be a false start.

Once again, BLEAK.

I’m going to stick with it for now, but I’ll probably call this a wash before the month is through. Maybe it’ll help me work through things, or something. Ugh.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into

I really don’t know why I did this, and I know I’m going to fail. I will be participating in this year’s NaNoWriMo. For those not in the know, NaNoWriMo refers to National Novel Writing Month, which usually falls in November of each year. It is a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days or less. I’m going into this blind. I don’t have any particular story, no characters, nothing. I will fail this. I know it, but you know what? I don’t care. I’m writing this for me, nobody else. It’ll be bad, but if I can do it, I’ll have something to be proud of.

This is actually the third time I’ve attempt to write a novel in my short 27 years of life. My first attempt was in High School, when I had planned to write a short Fantasy novel as a present for my father, based on a shared love of JRR Tolkien. I never got past the planning stages and got bogged down in the backstory of my characters. My second attempt was a few years ago, it was to be a collaboration with my buddy JD. I had wanted to go into it blind, and just write a chapter, hand it over to him, and have him react to it and so on and so forth. That failed miserably, and I know it was me who held it back. Once again I got hung up on the back story of the characters. This time, I’m going in with nothing, just an opening line.

I’m hoping that this for once doesn’t end up in failure.

Just Write, Dammit

Time and time again I have seen it written that in order to become a good writer, you need to just write. I know I’m not a prolific writer, I know that everything that I write isn’t pure gold. Even though I know this, I am just unable to sit down and write for any length of time.

Today while going through my newsfeeds on Google Reader (Yes, I’m one of those people), I came across an article titled, “A Sure-Fire Approach to Improving Your Writing (and Getting Over Writer’s Block)”. Once again, it said the same thing I already know…just fucking write. The articles author, Seth Godin suggests the following:

If you know you have to write something every single day, even a paragraph, you will improve your writing. If you're concerned with quality, of course, then not writing is not a problem, because zero is perfect and without defects. Shipping nothing is safe.

And guess what? That’s what I need to do. So starting tomorrow, I’ll be writing something, anything, just so that I can work on my writing skills. And it won’t be good, I know that, but it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t have to be good.

So my plan for this month is to complete my video game challenge of the month starting with Eternal Darkness. On that note, there will be a slight delay to my initial impressions, due to a personal issue. I hurt my back and its uncomfortable to sit in front of a computer or play a game for long periods of time. My initial impressions of Eternal Darkness will be up by Tuesday barring any issues.

I’ll be posting something short tomorrow. TTFN!