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NaNoWriMo

pskelding

Troubadour
I noticed that Nanowrimo is just over 60 days away and was wondering how many folks here are planning to have a go this year? I will be participating and thought it might be a good idea to start a thread here and give each other support and encouragement during the month.

I'm doing all the development work on the novel I will write for Nanowrimo. I am intentionally not writing at all for this novel. I am only working on character profiles, synopsis, and I'm working on my scene list right now with POV. I will go back and then do a few more character profiles because my POVs changed a bit. Then I'll be doing the research on archery.

Any takers for Nanowrimo?
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
Yes. A thousand times, yes. I've done NaNoWriMo three times in a row from 2008-2010. Each time I've wrote utter crap, but had a blast. And the utter crap is salvageable so I can ultimately use them in the future. I think it would be great to extend some of our NaNoWriMo discussion to this forum. The fantasy forum is always JAMMED over there and good threads get bumped and ignored a lot. We have a good community here, so I'd love to see others give it a try.

For perfectionists, NaNoWriMo is a nightmare though. You really have to just let yourself write or you will fail. There's a lot of division about NaNoWriMo because some people say, "Why just write a sloppy mess?" Well, why not? People waste just as much time writing three perfect sentences that no one will ever read.

Sorry, off the soapbox now.

I love NaNoWriMo!
 

Ophiucha

Auror
Good fun, NaNo. Never read a good first draft in my life (and I've read many books by authors who only do one draft, all of which only solidified my viewpoint), so I say "why not get it out and over with in a month?" One of the more active writing communities you're going to find - even in the "off season" - and I do love a bit of competition, it's something that really motivates me when nothing else will. I'll be on someone's profile, "Ortensia has 4,592" words, and I'll set out to write 4,600+ words. Helps keep me from falling behind, though these days I don't really have that problem any more - I think this will be my fifth year, this November.

Not sure which of my ideas I'm going to go with, though. I have a couple. One is slice-of-life, lackadaisical, bit more like a collection of connected vignettes than a real novel. The other is a bit more straightforward, but admittedly not one I have as interest in. I love 'em both, sure, but the first one is entirely about food, so it's a tough pick.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
I think I'm going to write a wrestling story this year. I have a background in it (4 years independent) so I could probably do a good job. And I've done fantasy the past three years, so I'd like to try something a bit more realistic . But if you know anything about wrestling, it's more like fantasy than reality anyhow!

I may start outlining in late September. It's the only time of year I do outlining. I don't know why because I actually like outlining...
 

Motley

Minstrel
This will be my sixth NaNo, and I already have the basic idea for my story and the main character's already hanging out in the back of my mind. That's all I usually start with. I don't outline or make character sketches or anything. I love NaNo. It gives me too many first drafts to play around with though. :)
 

Argentum

Troubadour
I only did Nano once last year and didn't make it the full 50k. But for several years I did something like it during July or June instead and once managed 101k in a month. I may use my current work in progress or start afresh, but I do intent to fully take advantage of Nanowrimo and write as much as I possibly can, if not complete the whole book (whatever the word count ends up being). I've been doing a lot of preparation though. I've written so many notes I can almost fill whole notebooks with them. And I am pretty darn excited. I've planned on buying a netbook before Nano so I can better get to other meet ups at cafes because my laptop is a bit heavy and harder to lug around.

Blue Lotus, I'll send you the link!
 

Angharad

Troubadour
NaNo is a lot of fun. I've only done it once, in 2009, and I succeeded in spite of the fact that I'm a perfectionist. It was the first time I was able just let myself pound out vast quantities of utter crap (as Phil accurately called it) but there were definitely a few usable specks of gold in all that raw ore. I hadn't planned on doing it this year, but maybe I should. My perfectionism is again preventing me from making much progress on my current novel. According to the official rules you are supposed to only write something you haven't actually started yet, but I know a lot of people who use NaNo to give a nudge to their existing work, write short stories, etc. It's just a good way to inspire you to get the words on the paper (or screen as the case may be.)
 

Amanita

Maester
I may give it another try but I'm not really sure.
The stuff I've done last year was no good at all and I didn't even make it to the beginning of the real story after 50 000 words. Therefore, I can't really use any of this for anything, but it helped me on the way of getting bored with the story in question. I still haven't managed to get much done about it by now.
I also got really annoyed by those many, many pleas for donations and the fuss made about them. (The reasons why I've posted in another thread.) At least to me, that felt as if someone who doesn't donate isn't welcome and this will probably make me stay off this time.
If we did a discussion here, this might encourage me to give it a try though.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
We should totally do a discussion here! I'm all for that. Like I said before, it's a good idea to try to write in a genre you haven't written in before because it gives you a fresh outlook on your writing. I don't mind the pandering for donations because I think it's a good program. I never got the feeling I wasn't welcome even though I didn't donate.

I think it's worth it even if you bail out halfway through. Like another person said, first drafts all suck. So buckle up and give it a try. Sometimes something you think sucks, other people may actually like. But you would never know unless you finish it.
 

UnionJane

Scribe
The book...

I've picked up NaNoWriMo book from the library in preparation for November. I had read it once years ago but didn't take much away from it. Now that I'm trying to write more seriously, the encouragement and stories are pretty encouraging, and well written, especially for somebody who isn't make a living from writing.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
I read a sample of the book on my Kindle. It's called No Plot, No Problem. What I read of it I really liked. It's not really sage wisdom, but it's good to encourage you to just buckle down and write. Which I would say about 97 percent of new writers (and even old ones) have trouble doing. That inner critic does things like this:

"This sucks. Why even bother? Let's go play XBOX."

"Hmmm...my wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend/kids/dog/gerbil/dust mite is really distracting me. I'm never going to get done. Who cares?"

"Who wants to read this story about a time-traveling dog anyway? Pftt...I give up."

"Must. Sleep. Now."

You know those sort of things. I'm so happy because my new apartment has two rooms. One room will be our bedroom, one will be my office/dungeon of mystery/Xbox room. My wife is so awesome! So I'll have plenty of privacy for those times when nature calls. And by that I mean writing.
 

JCFarnham

Auror
This November will be my first time, but I've been hanging around the Nano forums pretty much since it fiished LAST year. I do really like some of the discussions there, especially the scifi forum for research help [some SERIOUSLY knowledgable people hang out there haha] and the reference forum [if thats what they call it]... even if its not currently Nano its a resource I couldn't do without! haha. It does feel slightly impersonal some times... so a thread for us Nano-ers on here would actually be the shove and good number of us will need to get going and succeed [I'm specifically thinking about the week two blues here guys lol]

I won't be writing Fantasy this year mind you. Instead it'll be my other passion, soft science fiction.]
 

Chilari

Staff
Moderator
I've done NaNoWriMo four times and been an ML three times. I know what you mean about donations, Amanita. I get it twice as much as everyone else in all the ML-only emails. They ask us to encourage our region to donate, but I feel bad about asking my friends to donate too much. I understand why they need it - servers, domain, making the stickers and stuff (which are sent out for free). It's just difficult some times.

But I do enjoy NaNo. There's an atmosphere, a drive, that is impossible to recreate. Last year I did badly. I was busy with a lot of other things. This year is a different picture. I've got a story I'm working on, and no urgent responsibilities to worry about (well, none that will demand all of my time). And since I'm moving back to my parents' place, I probably won't be ML this year.

I don't expect to write something amazing as a first draft. That's what rewriting and editing are for. I just want to get something down, get myself started.
 

Kaellpae

Inkling
I heard about this here and on a couple of other forums. What is the goal word count?

I'm not sure if I would be doing it this year, as I don't have my own laptop and I sold my desktop. Maybe if I get a laptop I'll do my own personal NaNo or just wait till next year.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
It's 50,000 words starting on November 1st and ending at midnight on November 30th. So I would say it comes out to about 120 pages? Maybe.

In 2009 I wrote the majority of my NaNoWriMo on train rides to work on notebook paper then would transcribe it later in the night. I understand most people really hate writing long-hand, but it's entirely possible. The main goal is write 1,667 words a day, which isn't really that much when you think about it. As long as you sit down and hammer it out.
 

JCFarnham

Auror
It's 50,000 words starting on November 1st and ending at midnight on November 30th. So I would say it comes out to about 120 pages? Maybe.

I heard somewhere on the Nano website that its more like 175 pages, in "normal" font, in "normal-sized" paperback. Maybe I'm thinking more along the lines of pages in a word processor... haha who knows. All I know is that I'm going to damn well try my hardest to stick to that daily goal.

We'll see how that turns out in a few months :p
 

Kelise

Maester
I've done and won NaNo since 2004, and been ML since 2005. I really quite love it.

The fuss over donating is a real pain, but lately NaNo have been running in the black. As it grows bigger, it costs more money to run, yet I think they got less money last year than they did the year before.

I've also done and won Script Frenzy (the sister project, writing a script in April) since it began in 2007, but have utterly failed at Camp NaNo. It just doesn't seem the same at all.

Having a place here to chat about it once November starts will be nice - the forums on the NaNo site are amazing, but oh so busy.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
@starconstant: You are responsible for a great deal of the early members here at Mythic Scribes. Including me! And all because of NaNoWriMo. So thanks again for that if I haven't thanked you already.

I much rather discuss NaNoWriMo here than on the other forums. I'll still go over there of course, but probably not as much as I did the last couple of years. Like you said they are super swamped and threads get buried easily. But it's definitely a great forum as well.

I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo, but like you said, it feels off. Like having Christmas in July or store bought ice cream instead of from the ice cream truck. Just not the same.
 

pskelding

Troubadour
Wow seems like I struck a nerve in a good way! Maybe we can get the all powerful overlord moderators to make this a sticky during NaNoWriMo. I think if we support each other here in this forum we might be able to help more of us get over the 30,000 hump and hit the 50,000. I also think we have a smaller more tight knit group that seems seriously interested in being positive. I can't really ask anyone to donate, that concept is utterly alien in China and with the recent Red Cross corruption there's no way. But I will donate a small bit instead of buying myself a birthday present that month.

I'm still working on planning for what I will write. Scene list is done and now I'm revising some character profiles and have 2 new ones to create.

Those who are worried that the writing will be crap I say this - Any writer who thinks their first draft is perfect are fooling themselves. All first drafts have problems and usually the problems are quite serious. It's not uncommon for a published writer's first draft of "An Award Winning Novel" to be utter crap and then through successive 2nd and 3rd drafts vastly improve. A first draft should improve over it's course, that is to say the end should be better than the beginning as the writer works with the characters, plot lines, motivations, and disasters etc. If this is your first draft then congratulations! Now go back and fix the beginning and middle up through drafts 2 and 3. Then you should have a "good draft" suitable for showing to an agent or editor.

This will be my first "official" NaNoWriMo, I've done a few self challenges up to about 30,000 in one month but never gone for the 50,000 until now.
 
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