Plotting demise

Filed Under Writing 

For some reason, I’ve decided to subject myself to the torture that is NaNoWriMo again this year.

This year, I swore I’d be ready. So I’ve been reading books about how to write (does anyone else see the irony in that? I mean, what kind of loser reads books about how to write?) and thinking thinking thinking for the last 4 months of a good plot. Yeah. Um. I got nothing. Well, ok, that’s not entirely true, I have about 25 “scenes” in a plot that is going nowhere fast. It’s the “journey” of a nine-year-old girl in a post-apocalyptic world. Here’s the trouble. I have no idea where she is going. I need some sort of major conflict to lead up to — as if the apocalypse isn’t conflict enough. I’ve got virtually no subplots either.

I want to write something with a hint of the supernatural. I’ve read so many books with ghosts and magic and whatnot lately that it’s just nagging at me. But what? I keep considering just picking a setting and starting, but last year that’s what did me in I think. I need a little bit more of a road map than just where to start.

Oddly, I’m not the only one who views the thought of banging out 50,000 words in 30 days as torture. (Actually, it’s not the word count that seems so daunting to me, but more the complete lack of direction.) There are so many posts in the forums dedicated to how much NaNo sucks. There is a forum named “NaNoWriMo ate my soul” that contains threads with titles like “101 ways to epic fail october”, “Adopt a Pessimist”, and my personal favorite “IHMAWTD Lounge” (that’s “I Hate Myself And Want To Die”).

Anyway, I’ve been hanging out in the aforementioned forums and I keep waffling back and forth between “I can make this work”, and “I suck so bad it’s not even worth thinking about”. I know reading posts in IHMAWTD is not really constructive, so I keep trying to plant myself in the plot doctoring forum. Problem with that is, either the other people’s plots sound sooo much more interesting than mine, or they are about zombies and vampires (retch).

A friend suggests I find my audience. So here’s where I implore you, is there anyone out there that even cares? Throw me a bone if you do.

Comments

One Response to “Plotting demise”

  1. Rebecca on October 20th, 2009 4:40 am

    I’d be interested!

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