Tearing Towards Midway

Hello Kiwi Writer,

We've got a solid group of participants now with 94 signed up for SoCNoC and 32 signed up for HalfNoC. We're coming to the close of week two where some of you may have begun experiencing the writing getting slower, the plot getting in a tangle and characters rebelling. This is where the challenge coming into all the fun and combine to make the whole experience much more rewarding. A great way to motivate yourself is to find someone in the list of participants who has a word count close to yours and try to beat them. Update your word count and then send them a thank you message via KiwiMail for encouraging you. It might be the beginning of a race to the finish line with someone who is writing at a similar pace to you.

There has been some great advice and encouragement on the blog this week. KarenJM talks about Losing Your Way in the story and suggests you can move onto the next scene, keep writing even if it's nonsense but above all, don't edit. Blacksheep talks about How To Accomplish Things after experiencing the notorious Week Two slump and has this to say about getting unstuck, "If you're stuck, write around it. You're not supposed to be writing The Best Novel Ever in just 30 days! You can do whatever you like, including jumping ahead, going back, or killing off your Main Character to make room for a new (and more obedient) one. Free yourself from the expectation of perfection and get stuck in, because there's no way we're stopping now. So there." Jayztar talks about What To Do In Week Two after she experienced the slump on Day Three and has now got herself back on track by winning the 6K In A Day challenge. She reminds us of all the good tools to have during SoCNoC: set yourself a mini-challenge, reward yourself, find a friend, turn off the internet, take a break and, of course, write!

The 6K In A Day challenge or any other mini-challenge is a great way to bump up your word count. The 6K challenge gives you a whole 24 hours to write the words but you might set yourself 6 hours or any combination of time and words where you have some dedicated time to set yourself up with your favourite writing nibbles, drinks and implements in which to help you immerse yourself in your story. If you decide to do your own mini-challenge make sure to post it on the SoCNoC forum and you might find some other participants joining in.

We've heard about some problems with the SoCNoC chatroom where it is running slow and eating words. We're looking into what we can do to make it run a bit smoother and in the meantime we hope you'll bear with it and still get some good encouragement and extra writing done because of it.

Keep writing!

Kerryn Angell