You’re at your computer feeling heavy writer’s block. Suddenly words start appearing on the screen.
REEDSY
Note: we do not relate this to anyone, anything that happened, or anything from my past/present/future.
Take note, the short planning step is shown below, then my thoughts about it.
Drew slouches back on his chair, he knows there is more to the story. He brushes his dark brown fringe out his eyes, he figures perhaps he can have a quick shower to get ready for the day. On the last day for this years NaNoWriMo he needs 1,000 more words. This feels like it will be the worst experience with writers block he’d ever experienced.
Story 3
There must be an element in the plot which isn’t here. He’d gone over the entire story over the last few hours. It might not be great for him how he’s been awake since 3am to attempt to finish his novel. The story is complete, the main character Sidd who’d been inspired by a D&D campaign he played in didn’t need to do more.
Well, didn’t want to do more. He looked at a slow glance through the whole story with a fine tooth comb. He even went chapter by chapter and plotted out a diagram show him whatever happened, to make sure all he wanted would be in the story.
He glances at the time, in an instant he sighs, “I can’t even write too much more… Can I add any item at all…?”
He gets off his seat with a small grudge, “Coffee… I need more coffee…”
He walks to the kitchen, plops his glass back onto the machine. He might have had too much coffee today so far. It’s 9am, this, the seventh cup. It takes a few short moments, the coffee is ready.
With a brisk walk back to his computer he gets a simple idea. Perhaps he could watch a few videos on YouTube it would spark an idea. Perhaps about writers block? Perhaps not to do with his novel idea? Perhaps whatever’s on ‘trending’ today?
He slumps onto his chair, in a quick motion is about to minimize Word. He clicked, he holds the mouse button in so the action isn’t complete. He pays attention to the last paragraph he added, he’d written it yesterday. There seems to be a sentence he didn’t complete there.
“Sidd had seen that”… Seen what? As Drew considers if he hadn’t finished a sentence, the next word appears.
“Sidd had seen that he”.
He uses a slow motion, he moves the mouse away so it won’t minimize. What’s on here? It would appear the book says it isn’t complete now. No clue how or why, its own words seem to appear.
Could… Have… Been… King… Full stop.
It dawns on him he’s mouth lets out a drip of his saliva, this could be since he had too much coffee, now he panics, he almost dropped his mug. He swipes the drool away, finishes his coffee so he can put the mug down to watch.
“Sidd had seen that he could have been king. The princess, Leena, had the most adorable crush on him. He figured it out, perhaps his high-school crush would accept him, he’d asked for her to marry him.”
This would be why last year Drew pointed out he was confused by his novels climax. Sure, he’d gotten the 1,000 words he needed, they weren’t written by him. Now he needs to work out a plot for the potential second book. You could tell from his older novels he despises cliff hangers at the end of this series.
Plan a Small Plot
This is the plan I thought up, then used:
- It is the end of the grind, 30 november
- Only need 1k words
- What do I write?
- The story is complete
- The plot works
- I can’t find any spot that would work
- Drawing a few diagrams, I have the entire story
- I just cant
- Go grab coffee
- Come back to sit at my desk
- I figure perhaps watch a few YouTube videos, perhaps spark my interest in something
- I move the mouse to minimize the window and as Im clicking a word appears.
- I carefully move the mouse away so that I can look, I see a few words
- Suddenly another word appears, then as I wait another
- The book seems to be writing itself
- The plot twist here is even intriguing
- How could this happen?
You will note, above, there were spelling and grammar errors. That isn’t a problem, the importance was knowing a plot idea.
My Thoughts
I only wrote for roughly 35 minutes for this story. I couldn’t write more. Not that it is an issue when you don’t feel you can write more – don’t. Write whatever, whenever, works for you!
In the measly 35 minutes, we got 508 words. After editing, we have 558 words.
Some days we have less time we spend writing, it can happen. This time it felt like the edit being slow from story 2. Both of them brought it to my attention at least:
Soon I will revamp the mapping for the editing in NaNoE for everyone. It is something I can see it needs for myself, it can also help others.
