Chapter Twenty-Five: Write or Die

Word Count: 43,076/50,000

I am exhausted, Reader. I was so blocked today that I resorted to a few Write or Die sessions.

Write or Die, if you aren't aware, is this website that allows you to enter a word count goal that you will reach in a certain amount of time. My usual one is five hundred words in fifteen minutes. You can choose different levels of "tolerance" by the system, which determines how quickly it will begin to reprimand you about not typing fast enough. It starts by turning the screen around the text red, and if you fail badly enough, an alarm of sorts goes off. It is terrifiying.


I didn't want to have to resort to it after my first experience because to be honest, I was not a huge fan of what I had written. Sure, I got five hundred words in less than fifteen minutes, but they weren't good words. And I know that's not really the point of NaNo- you are welcome to write crap. And I've written a lot of crap, but I feel like Write or Die was encouraging that even more.


Though I didn't want to do it, in the end, I did use it about five more times today. I knew there was no way I was going to make the limit for today if I didn't. I'm still about two hundred words shy, but I'm tired and that is easily made up. I was just not inspired today, and it was extremely frustating. The problem, I believe, is that I have huge chunks of the beginning, the middle, and the end- the most exciting parts, if truth be told- and now I have to go fill in the parts between them. The good thing is that I have most of that planned, but the bad part is that they're not planned intricately. Another trouble is that writing out of order means that you have to remember stuff that comes later so you can either mention it or just remember a detail. for example, when the kids are stuck in the basement of the creepy couple's house, there is only one dim loghtbulb in the biggest room. The makeshift bedrooms do not have ceiling lights or lamps of any kind, only a flashlight per room. But before I had decided this detail, I had written about there being a ceiling light in each room. It was much creepier for them only to be allowed a flashlight, so I had to go back and fix that.


Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, but I think I should be able to do some writing at night, as I believe my relatives will be leaving early-ish. For any Americans reading, Happy Thanksgiving!