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CampNanowrimo, idea, Stories, tips, typing, Writerproblems, writers, Writing
I’ve never been a planner with my writing and mostly I just write when I get the urge; I fool myself into thinking that this is because I need to be in the zone.
It’s not really true though is it?
As any writer knows, the main goal is just to actually write, whether you are in the mood for it or not. In fact this is exactly why CampNaNoWriMo exists: just to aid and encourage people to write something every day. It challenges you to pick up a pen, or attack that keyboard: but either way it pushes you to write something every single day for a month.
And I can do this, I know I can, with some self discipline (I’ll admit some days this is a challenge for me) then I know I am able to write something every day, for a month. I know, because I have done it before and I do start to get into a happy habit of it. 
Yet for some reason I just can’t seem to stick to one story. My writing goal is on target, yet only half of it is the story I want to be telling: the other is just inane chatter about other ideas.
I really can’t stay with one piece of writing or one character in the same part of the story line. Instead I either end up wandering off into another random idea, or moving my character to another part of his or her life. So yes, it’s nice to be able to write every day but at the same time, I’d really like to be able to say I have finished a story: or at least one chapter without distraction.
I so admire the focus and dedication of a lot of my peers for this, as I watch them produce coherent pieces of writing with a start, middle and end. Then I look to my own Middle, near end, middle, start, middle.
If anyone has any focusing tips I’ll gladly hear them.
Gwendlyn D 
I see no harm in writing more than one thing at the time – The important thing is to write something every day, isnt it? 🙂
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I love that funny cat photo! lol Yes, I’ve had stories like that were i write and every other idea gets put there, too! But yes, whatever you write can always be edited 😀 Just keep on writin’ 😀 Stick with it!
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I have the same problem, which means I have about 12 books that are only 30% complete.
I’ve decided to concentrate on finishing a short story over the next couple of months; maybe that will give me some focus.
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I’ll try to give a focusing tip since you asked.
I believe that an artist must have “something to say” and uses their art form to express that something. When you don’t have something to say, you find yourself working on technique and craftsmanship.
Let me try an example. When John Steinbeck wrote the Grapes of Wrath his “something to say” was about the fate of Americans after the Dust Bowl and more. He wanted to express the despair and hunger but also the hope in impossible situations. To be able to “say that something” he told the story that we read so that he could offer hope; which is incredible. But he summed it up with our hero saying, “where ever there is injustice, I will be there; where ever there is hunger, I will be there” and so on.
To get us there, he had to write all of that other stuff.
Picasso’s greatest painting, Guernica, was his abstract expression of the Spanish Civil War — he had something to say!
It is totally fine and good to work on craft and technique, But (I feel) that to tell a story that one must have a place that the author wants the reader to arrive at and that keeps the writer’s focus throughout all of the description and talking parts and time frames.
Never give up, never surrender.
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Thank you for the words of wisdom and encouragement 🙂
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