less than ten days and--

[bell]

~18,000 words and I’m never going to make it to 20,000 and I hate my story and the world sucks and why did I ever think this was anything remotely resembling a good idea?? (The worst of it is, uh, I do have a complete first draft, I'm just trying to stick it out to make it reach the minimum.)

How’s everyone else doing? Please tell me I'm not alone in my so-near-yet-so-far stage of panic. :D

Comments

[oldblue.livejournal.com]

18,000? OMG! You will totally make it to 20!

Me? I'm at 16,000 and I'm rapidly dropping scenes. Aarrrrggghh!!!! Need to finish!

[bell]

YOU WILL FINISH. There are always more scenes to include! (That's what's upping my wordcount: I can always explain/show better than I did.)

[pun.livejournal.com]

16,000 is good. Go, go, go!! You can do it!

[oldblue.livejournal.com]

Thanks you guys!

I'm working on the 'emotional climax' of my story right now and I just realized it doesn't have a lot of emotion. Or climax.

That's probably because I had to ditch some tension-building scenes that were nice, but didn't move the damn plot forward. The Plot, I tell you! Hmmm. Maybe they'll reappear in the final version stage ;)

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

Oh dear you're not alone. I'm having the same problem and I lost a big chunk of mine so I'm trying to reconstruct as I go. Don't give up you're almost there.

[bell]

Oh, no, lost chunk! If it makes you feel better, when this has happened to me, when I've rewritten the lost material, it comes out better the second time around. So it's a boon in disguise?

Solidarity!

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

I knew there had to be something good about it thanks. Best of luck.

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

I lost 15 pages of mine. I'd already finished the draft and had nearly finished the editing when my system crashed. For some reason, it couldn't find anything that had been saved in the past three weeks and would retrieve only one with 14,000 words, rather than 22,000. (Even the Mac store couldn't help.)

I've since rewritten and done the edit, but while the scenes play the same way, obviously it's impossible to completely capture the language again.

[bell]

Urk, just reading that hurts.

Glad you managed to rewrite it. And, sure, you may not have recaptured the original language, but different can be better.

[hihoplastic.livejournal.com]

I managed (finally; barely) to hit the 20k mark. But the story is still so far from being readable, it's pathetic. The plot isn't even finished yet. Oy vey.

Anyway, I feel your pain. *g* And - you have a complete draft! That's really awesome! Mucho congrats. Good luck finishing!

[bell]

If you finish the plot, you can still revise later. I know we're supposed to have as near a good draft as possible by feb. 15th, but that doesn't mean we can't still perfect what we have. Better good than unedited, right? :) Go, go, go~!

[hihoplastic.livejournal.com]

And thank goodness for that! I don't even want to imagine what this story would look like without the post-completion editing process. It's truly a frightening thought. *g*

[pun.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm in your camp. I'm well past 20,000 but the whole damn thing is still so far from even being beta-ready, and did I mention it switches tenses WITHIN PARAGRAPHS and I still haven't decided what the consistent tense will eventually be, and I've got no title, and I'm a terrible writer and no one will like my story, and the characterization is inconsistent, and I hate everybody!!

whew.

Well that felt good at least.

Guess I should get back to the train wreck.

[hihoplastic.livejournal.com]

Ranting is good for the soul, methinks. At this moment in time, the only thing I'm hating more than writer's block is Real Life which has chosen, naturally, the next two weeks to inundate me with CRAP when the only thing I really want to do is crawl into my computer and fix this stupid plot. Harumph.

...that being said - I'm sure your story is going to amazing; titles are lame and impossible to come up with; and grammar is completely overrated. (Also, usomitai reminded me that post-Feb 15th is the omgfixeverything!time period. In which we will all be scrambling to make our tenses match. ;)

[bell]

Heh, verb tenses are not that hard to change, provided you're armed with a beta with a sharp eye. Once you've decided on a tense, then it's just substitution? Better than realizing that, say, your climax comes too early. ^_~

I hate everybody!!

I'll drink to that! *raises glass*

[pun.livejournal.com]

My climax (heh) comes too late! I'm sitting here with the draft open, and I'm like, my god, the readers are going to feel like they had to wade through fifty pages of driving around in circles before anything fucking *happens*! And even then not that much exactly happens. (Well, it's not exactly my fault that Wilson's idea of standing up to House consists of yelling at him, psycho-analyzing him a little, and then rolling over and doing exactly what House wants again 5 minutes later.) That's assuming they bother to slog all the way through.

You know, I think I've lost all perspective here. I'm forgetting that as a reader I like nothing better than a really long story. But it's such Hell as a writer. I'm like, no one is going to want to read all this! It takes so much editing! But then how many 25,000 word fics have I read to the end of and gone, "What? That's it?" Many.

[bell]

I love a good, long story. Adore it. I can't get into anything that's less than thousand words. Length leads to depth? Which is why I'm so glad with this challenge! More long House fic, please! I want those fifty pages of build-up!

Wilson's idea of standing up to House consists of yelling at him, psycho-analyzing him a little, and then rolling over and doing exactly what House wants again 5 minutes later

/laughs/ Yes! That sounds about right. I say you're on the right track.

(In my case, I'm not sure what my climax is? The mystery gets solved and then has to be undone and-- when I look it over, I think, THIS IS SO SILLY, WHAT WAS I THINKING. And yet I'm glad, because I've had this idea for a while, and now it's out of me.)

It takes so much editing!

TO SAY THE LEAST. Crazy amounts of editing. And if you do your job right, no one will ever know how much work it was.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

I'm at 4000. And to get done by the deadline, I'm going to have to write not only faster than I've ever written before but also less well, and fix it up during the beta month.

Does that make you feel any better?

[bell]

Does that make you feel any better?

Not really? I'd rather you get the fic in!

I'm going to have to write not only faster than I've ever written before

Never underestimate the motivational power of a deadline. It's what gotten me this far.

[sabinetzin]

I'm just past 13000. I'd be freaking out about it, but instead, I just keep not looking at it.

Here's hoping I'll make it?

[hihoplastic.livejournal.com]

That was my tactic for a really long time. Once I actually forced myself to work on it, though, the experience was enjoyable. (The fic's still horrible, but - progressing in word count. ^^) Maybe the same will happen for you?

Good luck! I'm sure you'll make it!


ps. your icon just killed me a little bit. with the sex.

[bell]

Denial. It works. /nods/