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NanoWrimo is coming ...

Last year I worked a terrible schedule so I wasn't able to participate. But this year I'm doing much better so I'll be participating. I was wondering if anyone wanted to be a writing buddy with me?
 

Chessie2

Staff
Article Team
Last year I worked a terrible schedule so I wasn't able to participate. But this year I'm doing much better so I'll be participating. I was wondering if anyone wanted to be a writing buddy with me?
We all kind of pile in here and share how we're doing throughout the ordeal. :) So you'll have lots of writing buddies.
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
We all kind of pile in here and share how we're doing throughout the ordeal. :) So you'll have lots of writing buddies.

Absolutely! :D And please, feel free to add any of us as a buddy on the NaNo site. We (Team Lowan) are there as A. E. Lowan. And we are totally rebels at heart! Can't wait to see how everyone does this year.
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
Hi, I haven't done this before and I'm thinking about taking the plunge. Any advice?

Keep your butt in the chair. Snacks are your friends. Stay hydrated. And don't sweat the small stuff, books are made for revisions. You've already won by participating, everything else is bragging rights. Just have fun!
 
I believe I have you A.E.Lowan on the NaNo-site from a few years back. If anyone wishes to add me I go as "Lunaairis" on there as well.

I have sort of spent the day brainstorming an outline for next month. I wonder how many people here have an idea already for next month or are just pantsing it?
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Yes, I'll be doing NaNo.

Yes, it'll be a new project. This year - and next - are dominated by rewrites of prior NaNo novels. The NaNo months themselves are my chance to break new writing ground.

No, it won't be a full length novel. Instead, I'm shooting for a longer novelette or shorter novella - ideally around 15,000 words. But then again, that is what I thought during the April and July NaNo months. The April story, 'Reset,' shot past the 15,000 word mark to 20,000 words. Properly rewritten - should I ever bother to do so, as it is a depressing and bleak tale - it'll hit 25K. 'Disharmonious Spheres,' my July NaNo entry, also blew past the 15,000 word limit to 23,000, and has a section or two in dire need of expansion. So, this time around, while I'm going to claim a 15K goal, I expect the story to be almost double that.

This entry will be 'Strange Exit,' a venture into a near future earth (forty years from 'now') that had a close, semi-secret brush with a Lovecraftian apocalypse. In fact, the setting is 'post apocalypse lite' - quite a few places, mostly corporate dominated, retain law and order and stores and high tech toys. But, there are also immense stretches of countryside where wise civilized folk pass through quickly
and in groups, if at all, places dominated by militia gangs and local strongmen, or where secret projects linger. The story focus's one such lingering project, disguised as a dying radio station at the edge of the badlands. Down the stairs, beneath a basement of ancient audio equipment and a subbasement dominated by a laboratory abandoned in haste, is a dark, twisting shaft that drops to a massive hatch framed by strange equipment and arcane marks set in the floor of chamber that sets ones hair on end. That hatch opens into a nexus of shifting passageways with impossible geometry that lead....elsewhere. Bizarre creatures live or visit here, and powerful entities survey the labyrinth.Now, one person, acting on greed, has seized the station and seeks rare objects within the maze. With him is the stations traumatized female caretaker who (barely) survived two previous trips into the Nexus...and might have reason to risk a third. Entering from another portal is a third person, seeking earth.
 
Hi, I haven't done this before and I'm thinking about taking the plunge. Any advice?

The advice A. E. Lowan gave is great: Keep your butt in the chair.

I haven't participated in Nano before, and I have no practical advice from experience, but I'm going to follow that advice. :sneaky:

I'm also trying to have some things in order before November hits, the sorts of things that would usually trip me up or slow me down as I write. This may vary from author to author, but for me it's character and world names, aspects of culture and other worldbuilding, primary theme, premise, and throughline for the story I'll be doing. Basically, I'm wanting to limit the chances of hitting a wall that would make the butt-in-chair dynamic fall apart, heh.

Also, as another newbie to Nano, being clear on what it is might be encouraging: No one's really looking over your shoulder, no one need see your writing, the goodness or the badness of the prose is something you won't have to hear about from other participants. It's just a chance to push yourself on output; all you need to do once setting up an account is update your word count on the site regularly (daily is probably best, just to keep yourself moving.)

You can guesstimate the number of words you'll need to write each day to meet the goal for the month, but don't sweat too much not hitting that count on any given day. You can make up for it the day after. If you are in the U.S. and celebrate Thanksgiving with family, you might need to plan for that, write extra leading up to those days if you'll not have a chance to write during celebrations. (And if you are a Black Friday shopper....same advice.)
 
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Chessie2

Staff
Article Team
Life loves getting in the way of writing. But the most important advice I can give to a newbie is to take NaNo seriously. Make it a priority to get words in (of course, there's work and family and emergencies...those things come first).

Also, focus on story not words. Writing books is about storytelling not perfection. Your word count will shoot up once you focus on emotions, character, story.
 

Jorunn

Dreamer
I'm diving in to NaNo for the fifth (?) time. I've only made real progress once, though, and had a great time doing it (I ended up with 50k of groundwork for a YA quest story). I've been planning all month and I feel like I can't plan anymore until I start actually writing.

I've decided to go dark on Facebook to help me stay focused. I have a writing timer on my phone and tablet to keep me on a schedule. I keep trying to make myself wake up earlier in the hopes of being able to fit in some words before work once November arrives, but my stubborn night owl genes are not making it easy!
 

artsyChica

Dreamer
I'd honestly like to do it but I'm in the middle of a WIP that's got a ways to go--meaning I won't be anywhere near done by the time November rolls around. I'll have to keep working on this book. So maybe I'll use it as my project even though you're technically supposed to start a new one.

Rebels are welcome at Nanowrimo. I've been one for the last few years, because I'm also writing fanfic [ABC's Scandal] along with my original fiction. So I just add the word counts together into one document as I go.

Escalating health issues had me unsure if I wanted to participate this year, I just decided two weeks ago that I'll give it a try. I'm doing a total rewrite last year's novel, so we'll see what happens...
 
I've actually been a little negligent and have not done all the preparation I'd planned, although I've done some of it.

I have a very roughly worded premise statement; the throughline in it is clearer, despite the prose of the statement.

Anxiously looking forward to tomorrow. Some aspects of the story have taken a more solid form in my mind. I also completed a mock-up of the book cover for the Nano project, and oddly enough that helped also.
 

Chessie2

Staff
Article Team
I've actually been a little negligent and have not done all the preparation I'd planned, although I've done some of it.

I have a very roughly worded premise statement; the throughline in it is clearer, despite the prose of the statement.

Anxiously looking forward to tomorrow. Some aspects of the story have taken a more solid form in my mind. I also completed a mock-up of the book cover for the Nano project, and oddly enough that helped also.
No worries, my friend. I'm still writing the other novel. UGH. I started getting my tropes together for my NaNoWriMo project. I'm honestly considering putting the other story on hold while I WriMo this one. We shall see.
 

Nimue

Auror
I’m not doing NaNo in any real sense, it’s more that I’m using November 1st as a starting line for the rewrite on my main project. I don’t have any goals other than “something, do it, come on.” Still around halfway done with my detailed outline, which is sitting at 12k on its own. I’ll have plenty to write before I catch up with the outline, so I hope to work on outline and rewrite concurrently. The beginning is solid, I’m just dealing with the soggy parts of late Act 2. Definitely making progress—what was incredibly nebulous is becoming solid and tangible, approachable.

Unfortunately I seem to be approaching November in a blue mood. The voice telling me “This plot is a heap of hot garbage and you’ll never make it this far anyway” is getting louder and louder... I’d like to kick it out of this collaboration and just get things done. Tonight I think I’ll let the outline rest—I need to let ideas ferment about a big change I made to one of the side characters & her subplot—and work on new character- and place-names, because some of the stuff I threw in there for the first draft is really bothering me. Stop it with the nonsense syllables, Nim.
 

Chessie2

Staff
Article Team
I'm sorry, Nimue. Reading all of that just made me tired. Plotting that heavily seems like a chore. To me. If it helps you, then it helps you. I just hope you're able to get some story out of November.
 
No worries, my friend. I'm still writing the other novel. UGH. I started getting my tropes together for my NaNoWriMo project. I'm honestly considering putting the other story on hold while I WriMo this one. We shall see.

I have some of the basics in mind, some plot points, the premise and throughline, but much of the plot I'll be pantsing.

This one is going to be somewhat character-driven also. Featuring that character prominently on the mock-up book cover, cloaked, his head down, and some of the other aspects like the placement and size of the title kinda made me realize that's what it's about. My mind had been going so many other directions also, but I'll save some of them for maybe a second and third book in the series--hah, optimistic, there.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
I'm nearly done with the second draft of my first story. It's going to be another few days rewriting the ending, and then I'm off to start the first draft of part three. I'm thinking that since it's NaNo and the pace is meant to be high I might try and do the first drafts of parts four and five too rather than go back and do second draft of part two.

Either way, good luck everyone.
 
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