Flundering and Faltering

This has got to be one of my worst Novembers in a good long while. Really, the only good thing that's happened this month is the election, and I'm thinking that that won't really change for the next twenty-four days or so.

I've decided to start over on NaNoWriMo because Urban Decay just wasn't working out. I don't know. I just didn't have any ideas for it. The problem with starting over is that I don't have any other ideas.

I've come to the inherently depressing conclusion that I can't really write stories that end. Having roleplayed for so long has probably been a horrible influence -- in roleplay, I don't have to write endings, I only have to write deaths. Writing fanfiction obviously doesn't help either, especially since a vast majority of that dribble I've written, especially recently, is a single, canonical moment in time, which I'll describe in tedious, introspective detail. There isn't really any story to be written -- just emotions to expand upon. And thus, all that writting of "story" and I've really not written any kind of story at all.

It's kind of an epiphany really -- I've always wondered why I was just so bad at coming up with endings. Ideas I come up with just write themselves in circles until I get bored. There is a lot of slice-of-life crap kind of half-written stories on my computer. They don't end. Nothing ever ends. No wonder I can't finish writing a novel.

Currently, I've got 900-odd words on a fresh NaNo start. I was inspired by some miscellaneous strip of A Softer World, but I don't know where I can take those 900-some words. And I'm still thousands upon thousands of words behind. I'm supposed to have 10,000 words by tomorrow today. I don't even have one-tenth that. It feels like it's been an awfully long time since I've seriously entertained the idea of giving up on NaNoWriMo for the year, but I think I'm getting to that point. I've not been feeling very inspired or motivated in general for some reason.

It's not been a good month so far.

Mission: Failed

Windows Vista,

Please die in a fire.

No love,

Kiri

A Bad Start

Crap. Why is there only an hour left until midnight?

Last night, I went to the Metro Coffeehouse around 11:30 pm. There was supposed to be an informal write-in there, but no one ended up coming. This was disappointing because it basically meant everyone I had counted on to be there and who had told me they'd be there weren't there. Roomie was with me, but she had decided that she was too tired for a midnight sprint. In the end, it didn't really matter anyway because the Metro decided to have the Sweeney Todd soundtrack playing, which was highly, highly distracting. That was followed up by some weird techno music that was utterly unsuiting for a coffeehouse environment. We both got really ADD and couldn't get anything done and ended up leaving before one. Very disappointing.

The only really interesting thing that happened while we were there was that a guy dressed as a poodle walked right by our table's window and did a little dance. Mind you, he was wearing nothing but cotton balls. That was all though; I didn't even see much in the way of other notable costumes.

I got all of 71 words written at the Metro, but I did figure one of the plaguing mysteries of my novel... I figured out the protagonist's dog's name. (It's Nina.) Yup. Big accomplishment. The dog's name and gender had been a mystery since March.

I ended up staying up until about 7:30am this morning (what did I tell you about me not sleeping at night anymore?) during which time I got up to -- dramatic pause -- 251 words. Very pathetic indeed. And then all today, I've done nothing. I dragged myself out of bed around 2:30 pm. Did nothing. Lay back down on my bed around... I wanna say seven or eight. Slept until about twenty minutes ago. Haven't written a damn thing. I'm not feeling very motivated all of a sudden. I think last night's disappointments are weighing down disproportionately hard. We'll see how the rest of tonight goes, since I obviously won't be sleeping for a while. My dysfunctional sleeping schedule kind of makes this blog-a-day thing difficult, but it's still easier than grappling with this novel of mine.