2 years, 83,200 words later, I have finally finished the first draft of my very first novel. One day past my self-imposed deadline, I completed it. In the past 25 days or so, I’ve written something to the tune of 20k+ words, which I am sooo happy with. Several painful all nighters had to happen, but now that it’s done, now that I wrote the two beautiful words ‘The End’ it all feels worth it. I thought that I would be entirely burnt out after finishing the draft, but I am feeling more creatively energized than ever before! I can’t wait to enter the editing stage! After it looks ok I will move on to my next story, an idea that has been brewing in my head for a long time. September is looking to be an amazing month for writing!
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Hit 16k of Chapter 4, going to go on a forced mini-break this long weekend because I’m moving. There are seven little branches in this chapter, and I’ve finished 2/7 of them…It’s gonna be a big one.
Hope everyone’s September is going well so far!
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Well done @Chopper 
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I’ve been ill this week which is no fun at all, but something nice this morning is that Chapter 2 has been signed off and I’ve done a little bit of Chapter 3 coding, including a handy repeatable subroutine for relationship changes for {whoever you’re closest to currently}.
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I know I keep complaining about it, but I’m really amazed by my brains ability to procrastinate.
I’m trying to force it into writing mode, so all of a sudden my mind is very interested in the clothing designs I put off half a year ago.
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Keeping my consistency from month to month, I figure I’ll post my updates on each Saturday and month’s end.
I hope September is treating everyone well – sorry to hear about your illness @HarrisPS. It seems to have been productive, despite your health suffering.
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I actually surprised myself this week. I started out with 7,000ish words and I honestly felt like maybe I wrote 2,000 or so more. Bringing up my statistics in the project manager, I see I wrote 14,000ish words and I stun myself with this fact.
The intro I am working on is progressing and I’m happy with what I have written so far.
This morning I’ve solidified the opposite pair stats for this project. They are:
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- Arts/Writing – representing the Creative mechanic,
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- Discretion/Courage – representing the Tactics mechanic and
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- Confrontation/Conciliation – representing the Philosophy mechanic.
After seeing so many Wips and recently released stories being criticized for their unclear meanings, I hope these are both concise and clear to people.
Either way, my next task for this project will be to write the text bodies which lead to the reader’s choice bodies for these stats.
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I’ve done some coding today, so my Chapter 3 is now at 1600 words!
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I am at 3400 words I am going slowly as I am ill right now, but I strive for keeping going day to day.
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I only wrote around 3800 words this week. I was too distracted and just wanted to do other things that seemed more fun to me at the time. And today I just feel tired, even though I haven’t done much.
I feel a little guilty because I really wanted to get this chapter done soon, but I think it’ll take a little longer than I expected. Well, as long as by the end of the month the chapter is finished I’ll be happy.
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Let’s keep up the good work everybody! Just reached 2029 words in chapter 2.
By the way, my “Stats” would be:
MOJO 
vs Curse 
(if Curse reaches 100% GAME OVER!)
Damsel 
vs Pirate 
Charm 
vs Brawns 
Wit 
vs Dread 
And of course Money, Ships, and Special Items. Any suggestions? Opinions? Thank you in advance for your time!
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More effective than vodka is going for a long walk.
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i suppose that my goal for this month is just to write one or two scenes/chapters as i have to go back and devote my time to previous job (it is a layouting job and i despise it).
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I’m not much of a walker
Unhealthy habits however come to me rather naturally
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i hit my goal of 3k words for the first week of September and all i can say is that i’m proud of myself even if my writing could use some work. i didn’t think i spent that much time typing 
but 3k words in a week. by my standards that’s amazing.
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You know those quotes that say ‘if you don’t write every single day…’ or something along those lines? I’ve been trying to motivate myself to write a little bit every single day, but I just can’t muster up the will to.
I get stuck on something as simple as the name of a building/business and stay there for hours. I’m definitely procrastinating and I think it’s in part because I don’t have enough self confidence in myself… which is partially because I don’t have plot. It’s barely a skeleton.
So I’m anxious that if I start writing now without a plot that the story will become this disjointed mess that I’ll have no motivation to fix later because it didn’t have a direction it wanted to go.
Yikes.
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I absolutely relate to that. One thing I’ve been trying out is keeping supplemental note taking documents too keep track of story details. Like a glossary, a numbers sheet to keep track of min/max stat values, that sort of thing. It’s been doing wonders to help me just write without having to worry about if I’ll lose track of some detail or plot thread, and just generally made me feel more confident.
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Hello! Jumping into the writer’s support thread a bit late…oops. But I guess better late than never (otherwise I would have nothing on the page in the first place :’))!
I’ve peeked into the thread before and found it really inspiring to see everyone working to achieve their writing goals, whether big or small, so I figured making a post should boost my own motivation and help keep myself accountable.
I started writing mid-August, but it was a bit rough because I was plagued by self-doubt and ended up scrapping a lot of what I had written. Taking a short break got me motivated again though, and now the goal is to just write one page or option body every day, so I can slowly but surely get through my first chapter!
Also, I know I just hopped into this thread and am not really qualified to say anything, but I wanted to say @AChubbyBlackCat, I’ve definitely been in a place like yours before–heck, yesterday I almost didn’t write because I couldn’t come up with a name for a completely inconsequential character–and I’ve also quit an idea because I got so excited to write, but when I sat down and kept drawing blanks I realized I didn’t actually have a plot. I think what got me over the hurdle this time around was accepting that I didn’t have to write right away, and devoting time to fleshing out plot and characters has made writing a lot smoother.
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I think - key word there - I have a plot. Or well, no. Maybe that’s a stretch. I sort of have an idea where I want the story to end but I’m unsure of how to get there, sort of.
I’m not confident that the ‘plot’ I have will be, as silly as it sounds, long enough, so I’m convinced I must have more story beats than what I have plotted out so far to make it interesting. To be honest I feel like my plot is so simple and straightforward it’s not really a plot but that’s my anxiety talking.
Also I sort of the enjoy the setup crime shows have where each new episode is a new case and I’m wondering if I want to do something like that in mine.
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Welcome to the thread @Aerin.
Both you and @AChubbyBlackCat need to tell yourself it is o.k. to scrap what you write when working on a project. I have scrapped 5,000 words or so this month alone (so umm, nearly 1,000 words a day I guess. lol)
Everyone’s experiences are valuable, so I am glad you shared yours with us. Thank you.
That is a neat idea and it is one that allows you to make smaller plot-sketches. I think you should consider blocking out some time to try this idea out…
This should help you to ignore your inner demons too, because with this type of structure, smaller outlines will work better than huge unwieldy things.
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One thing you need to do is realize that procrastination does not make you some sort of bum. It is a human instinct found in billions. Work your way towards writing what you want to write, instead of forcing yourself to when you don’t really feel you’re ready.
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