writing about writing | part one

Every week this month, we're going to talk to you about writing. We're going to tell you how crazy and how tired we are, how much black coffee we drank last night, how we've completely (literally) lost the plot. We're going to talk about trying to write 50,000 words in a month and we're going to talk about trying to finish a terrible terrible chapter and we're (hopefully) going to talk about finishing it too.

Libby says...
I managed to write about 4000 words today, furious typing sessions tied around my dinner. I was behind, and I'm just about up to date now. I'm clinging on with all my might, and if I slow down my writing pace I'm going to lose, but for now I'm right where I need to be.
I thought I would be further by now. Yes, I have found that once you start writing, you can't stop. But I want to write other things; I want to write about stupid crushes and the way the fog settles in the morning and my plans for the future. I don't want to write about some stupid cafe, the epicentre of my project. I get tired of focusing solely on this one grand story, this complex document of interlocking stories and characters that are supposed to stand alone and yet meld together perfectly. It is hard, and all that writing gets me ready to write other stuff, but it's not always conducive to meeting my daily targets. I am already fretting about how I'll get to 50000 words and having to replot and restructure my loose concepts that I began with.
But I've wrote this one piece today, about four pages, which just flew off my fingers. It flowed and I cried as I wrote it. It's not a perfect piece of writing, but I was writing something that felt shockingly honest and sort of beautiful (almost). It was productive towards my project and it was a good set of pages.
These moments are few and far between, but when they come I am reminded of why I am doing this. It's cathartic and freeing and horribly emotional.
It's important.

Katie says...
This is so, so much harder than I thought it would be. I'm collaborating with my friend Jillian, so I'm only writing half as many words as everyone else, but still...this is hard, people.
It's hard because I don't want to write about the things I'm supposed to be writing. Just like Libby said, the sheer volume of the words are hard, but it's not just the writing. I write best when I feel like it. The past few days? I haven't been feeling it. Jillian and I are way over our word goal, so we're not worried about that. And honestly, the one of the only two reasons I've written at all these past few days is because of 750words.com. I don't want to end my streak, and it's helped me with that.
And the other reason? The writing is always worth it.

Kendall says...
If you want to know the truth, I wrote exactly 0 words yesterday. I got home around 7:30, ate dinner, showered, and scrolled through Tumblr several times before deciding that I just didn't have it in me. So, yeah, this isn't going to be very inspiring or full of tips to help you succeed. I could do that, because theoretically I know what I should be doing, but it'd just be hypocritical when I'm this far behind. I started out the month writing about something I thought would be easy to write about. I thought it would be easy because it was basically my story, wrapped in the guise of fiction. But I didn't like that too much. I discovered pretty quickly that I like writing about my life and I like writing fiction but I don't like it when the lines blur. It should've been easy, but it wasn't, so three days in, I started over. I left the words I'd written, because it's November and if I've written words, I want them to count, dangit, but I've made them white so I can't see them. I started over and I'm excited for this new story. My problem isn't so much inspiration anymore, but factoring in time to work. Giving up has never been an option. So right now, I'm off to write.