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Over 32k words into my 150k word goal for the month. I haven’t written story beats for the last couple days, so that’s made the writing more challenging. It’s slower-going because I’m not as focused as when I know exactly what I’m going to write.
It also makes the last bit of writing harder because when I go in with “an idea” of what I’m going to write, there are a lot of holes that I don’t catch until I’m writing. Whereas when I write out the story beats the night before, I catch those.
I’m feeling a bit tired of writing, but mainly because of my lack of story beats. I write out the first 4k easily enough, but then the last 2.5 is like pulling teeth – and we know that doesn’t make for an enjoyable reading experience, either. So, I’m going to have to work extra hard on those parts later, during the re-writes and edits.
Life’s a lot easier when I take my own advice.
Better go write tomorrow’s beats.
Oh, and how’s this for crazy? I’m seven days into a 70k word novel, and in another seven days, I should be finishing it up – depending on exactly how long it goes. I usually come pretty close to my word count goals, so we’ll see.
Do you have a favorite resource for studying up on using beats?
I could really use some method that would increase my day to day word count. There have been days when I can easily do 2-3K or more but more often I struggle to get over 1200 on a day when I have plenty of time to write.
Hi James,
I don’t have a particular resource for beats. I just sit down and write out 2-4 sentences for each scene or chapter. Sometimes more, if the story calls for it. It’s really just the process for thinking through the scenes ahead of time so I know what I’m going to write when I get there.
Also, learning to write more takes time. It’s like any other muscle. After I went full-time, it took a good month before I started writing more consistently because it took that time to build new habits. And that’s one thing I hope this month does for me. Habits are so important!
But if you’re looking for some good books on the topic of writing more, I listed three good ones in this post: https://stacyclaflin.com/2015/03/30/my-camp-nanowrimo-goal-150k-words-my150nano/