(Click to enlarge)
Last night I passed 20,000 words on the re-write. If I look at the uncompleted drafts in my pile of works, I see a trend in the point where I stopped working on them.
Res – 24,595
SS – 23,142
Kin – 31,000
The 20k-30k place is where I stumble. It’s where my motivation and excitement of the potential of a new story wanes, and I realise it’s not as awesome as I wanted it to be. And I doubt many first drafts ever are.
Looking at the last three NaNoWriMos (see image above), I stumbled around 15-30k in 2011, made much steadier progress after 30k in 2012, and looking at 2013 (Kindling) I hit 25k on day 14 and then it took 10 days to reach 30k. I didn’t even complete the story– I had to add more to a different story to complete the wordcount in time.
Now I’ve hit 20k in my re-write, I’m feeling the loss of momentum in the story, and that space is filling in with fear of all the looming plots I need to pull together. This is where I need to re-read the story from the beginning; to do a quick line edit so I know where I am – to finish the scenes I’ve started and then I can check the course of my plot for future ones.
But the motivation is fading, and I’m itching at a new story. I’m catching images as I drive in my day-job and I have a few phases of a ‘sekrit project’ going on. Easter’s coming up and I have very little clean washing to wear…
But I have finished stories. I have pushed through this block before; in fact I’ve passed the 30k mark and gone on to complete at least 50k five times. More if I count the redrafts of those projects.
So that’s what I need to do — to re-group, to read what I have, to find joy in the potential again, and then write towards it.