• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Want to track your weekly progress with me?

dollyt8

dollyt8

Sage
pmmg said:
About 1100 today, so that should put me at 2700.

I"m gonna question though, is it really valuable to pile out the words like we are in a sprint for the month of November. There is an aspect to Nano that feel a bit like crash dieting to me. If I want to be a writer, I do it everyday, regardless. To ramp up and cram it all in at once is kind of not the same as building a good habit. Do you not feel some aspect to it that is less than helpful?
Click to expand...
I can't answer for everyone, but I think that really depends on what you hope to get out of it. I'm not actually trying to build up a writing habit. Writing is my day job, so I regularly churn out 2,000-3,000 words per day or more. Granted, those are mostly tech articles and blog posts. I don't have difficulties getting words on paper, but rather making those words a coherent and finished story. So my goal for NaNo was to write a complete first draft of a novel based on a predetermined outline and hopefully finish that within one month. The time crunch in this case is to make sure I don't get distracted by other stories and concepts.

The truth is, it may not work for me. I'm already feeling a lot of missed opportunities in terms of storytelling because of an inability to explore certain aspects of the world and characters as I try to keep to my outline. I can try to add to it after the first draft, but I'm not sure if that is the way I want to do it regularly. Still, I figure it can't hurt to try something new. Hope that makes sense!
 
tenebrae

tenebrae

Dreamer
pmmg said:
About 1100 today, so that should put me at 2700.

I"m gonna question though, is it really valuable to pile out the words like we are in a sprint for the month of November. There is an aspect to Nano that feel a bit like crash dieting to me. If I want to be a writer, I do it everyday, regardless. To ramp up and cram it all in at once is kind of not the same as building a good habit. Do you not feel some aspect to it that is less than helpful?
Click to expand...
Speaking for myself (but I feel it is true for many others), I write everyday regardless of the month. However, in November I always pick a project to dote on. I give it my full attention. Throughout the year, I ping pong between many different projects. I think of it more as "bulking" if we're making diet references, lol. It's the month I rev up my calories to build up muscle mass... but in a story. ;P
 
Avery Moore

Avery Moore

Sage
SpecterOcelot said:
Ran a (nearly) 3 hr session overnight and mustered up 1010 words. Up to 2310 total!
Click to expand...
Great work! (y)

SpecterOcelot said:
Also, general question for the group. If I have previous writing (mostly passages concerning world lore) I'd like to 'import', but plan to revise thoroughly, would that be unfair or against the spirit of the event?
Click to expand...
I wouldn't say so. I have a couple of songs I wrote previously that I imported into the story and I kept them as part of my word count. I mean, you still wrote them, right? 😁

Diana Silver said:
I hit a major stumbling block today... While writing a scene I found out there's a serious piece of background missing that the story needs to be build on. So I spent all the writing time I had today building pieces of character history, and still have to think where to weave it in to plot & dialogue. My word count on the actual text remains zero. But there's still ~three waking hours in my day and it did bring lots of inspiration, so I'll see where I end up...
Click to expand...
Well that's still important work that needs to be done, so I'd say you made major progress even if the word count stands still. Great job! (y)

pmmg said:
About 1100 today, so that should put me at 2700.
Click to expand...
That's awesome! 😁
pmmg said:
I"m gonna question though, is it really valuable to pile out the words like we are in a sprint for the month of November. There is an aspect to Nano that feel a bit like crash dieting to me. If I want to be a writer, I do it everyday, regardless. To ramp up and cram it all in at once is kind of not the same as building a good habit. Do you not feel some aspect to it that is less than helpful?
Click to expand...
Probably. I have gone through a long period of no writing. If there's one benefit to doing Nano I think it's that writing on a daily basis has made me want to keep up the habit. Don't think I can keep up with a 1667 word par on a daily basis but I think if I aim for a minimum of 500 words a day, I should be able to keep up with that.
 
Prince of Spires

Prince of Spires

Istar
pmmg said:
I"m gonna question though, is it really valuable to pile out the words like we are in a sprint for the month of November. There is an aspect to Nano that feel a bit like crash dieting to me. If I want to be a writer, I do it everyday, regardless. To ramp up and cram it all in at once is kind of not the same as building a good habit. Do you not feel some aspect to it that is less than helpful?
Click to expand...
I think it very much depends on where in your writing journey you are, what your current writing process is, and what you want to get out of it.

If you are at the start of your writing journey, then it shows you the amount of work it takes to write a novel. It gets you a lot of words on paper and gives you a decent basis to continue writing your novel. If you get to 25k words in a month, you might be more likely to finish it than if you get a few hundred words in here and there. For those people, I think it helps somewhat with developing a writing routine.

If you already write every day, then this is a less important aspect. For those people, I think it's either just the fun of taking part in a challenge. Or it's pushing yourself to see how much you can write, and in the process either increasing your daily wordcount or finding ways to improve your productivity.

Both are valid reasons. And both are a bit like running a marathon. Some people already run a lot and just enjoy participating in a marathon. They might even dress up in a strange outfit just for the fun of it. And some people want to push themselves to see how fast they can run and if they can improve their personal best.

As for the crash dieting part. I've done NaNo twice, and I have to say, both times did leave me exhausted. I wrote about 30k words both times, and the month after had trouble sitting down to write. So if you do push yourself, you might indeed have a slower month in december. Still, both times, my speed picked up in the long run. And both times taught me things about my writing process.
 
Diana Silver

Diana Silver

Sage
pmmg said:
About 1100 today, so that should put me at 2700.

I"m gonna question though, is it really valuable to pile out the words like we are in a sprint for the month of November. There is an aspect to Nano that feel a bit like crash dieting to me. If I want to be a writer, I do it everyday, regardless. To ramp up and cram it all in at once is kind of not the same as building a good habit. Do you not feel some aspect to it that is less than helpful?
Click to expand...

Personally I fully agree - and I'm still joining here. It's exactly why I like the vibe of this topic. In all honesty my writing habits this month are no different than any other day of the year, my pacing is barely higher. I didn't 'prepare' this month, and in fact I came across quite a bit of plotting I have to do, which I'm now diligently doing, not forcing a word count out.

I just like sharing and rooting for each other here for a month (I also wouldn't want to be sharing my progress all year round). For me this is the perfect amount of getting together. I hope everyone takes what they will from it. Because you're entirely right, cramming out tons of words isn't what writing is, not always. Do what helps your project, and share with us how you feel :)
 
SpecterOcelot

SpecterOcelot

Dreamer
pmmg said:
About 1100 today, so that should put me at 2700.

I"m gonna question though, is it really valuable to pile out the words like we are in a sprint for the month of November. There is an aspect to Nano that feel a bit like crash dieting to me. If I want to be a writer, I do it everyday, regardless. To ramp up and cram it all in at once is kind of not the same as building a good habit. Do you not feel some aspect to it that is less than helpful?
Click to expand...
For me, I'm very much trying to lay out the tracks in front of me as quickly and voluminously as possible. My major issue in my writing is that I spend so much time editing myself as I write that I never really end up anywhere. I get frustrated because I don't know where to go next, or if any of the changes I made really helped at all, and then I usually just drop trying altogether for a few weeks or months... Or years... Before I try and start back up again. So learning to just go with the flow and worry about changes and improvements later is my main goal. (Gotta let myself be imperfect. 😂)

At the same time though, I really haven't put more than 20k or so on paper in total in the last decade. So, while I would very much like to surpass that, I'm also not setting a definite hard target of 50k or anything. Just as much as I can get and hopefully have a fairly coherent structure to work off of at the end.

So I'd say let it be what it needs to be to help you in your own writing growth. Rooting for ya no matter what!
 
Daan Doornbos

Daan Doornbos

Minstrel
Agree with the last posts on Nano, progress, having personal goals and rooting for each other.

Personally, I've not yet reached the writing-stage. Over the past few days I've done some serious outlining/character study though:smug:. All works in progress.

Further improved the outline on main characters 1-3. They seem nearly done. Will now take a break from them again for a few days or a week, then come back to structure the remaining scenes and do some final tweaking🤞.

And today I continued work on main character 4's outline. 'The Student'. Got over half of the questions done, so I'm happy enough. Calling it a day👍.
 
Avery Moore

Avery Moore

Sage
Question for everybody! In tomorrow's video, I'm doing an encouragement section where I go through all of my buddies who are keeping track of their word count this month and congratulate them all on their progress so far. Would any of you guys like to be in the video? 😁
 
pmmg

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Heheh...Id be more proud if my word count was 12,169.

I am currently at 5500, I think.

But I dont mind if anyone wants to mention me.
 
dollyt8

dollyt8

Sage
Avery Moore said:
Day 8: Congratulations to all of my Writing Buddies!

TLDW:
Daily Word Count: 4,319 words
Total Word Count: 16,959 words

So proud of myself today! I think that is probably the most words I have ever written in a day.

Pmmg, your congratulations is at 6:24

And also a massive congratulations to everybody else! If anyone would like to be part of the next Writing Buddies update video, just let me know. 😁
Click to expand...
Oh wow, major congratulations! I would be happy to get a mention. I'm hoping to get to the halfway mark tonight! Fingers crossed.
 
pmmg

pmmg

Myth Weaver
7200 words now ;)

I find if I am writing a battle, the words tend to expand into a large count....but I actually dont like writing the battles. I like all the character stuff leading up to them. Those usually flow at 7-1K in a sitting.

Since its the 7th, and I am 7K in, its been about 1K a day. But...I like these characters and know their stories better.
 
Diana Silver

Diana Silver

Sage
pmmg said:
7200 words now ;)

I find if I am writing a battle, the words tend to expand into a large count....but I actually dont like writing the battles. I like all the character stuff leading up to them. Those usually flow at 7-1K in a sitting.

Since its the 7th, and I am 7K in, its been about 1K a day. But...I like these characters and know their stories better.
Click to expand...
Thanks sounds amazing, I love that you're making progress not just on sheet amount of words, but on character development :D

I'm at 6400 words total. 4050 of those are in the actual text, 2350 are summary descriptions on what's happening out of sight but will become important later on, I'm counting those parts too ^.^
 
Last edited:
Daan Doornbos

Daan Doornbos

Minstrel
Yesterday and today lots of family obligations. Will hopefully get some work done this evening or otherwise this weekend.:penguin:

@Avery Sorry, responding a bit late. Is it a Youtube-channel?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Philip Overby
NaNo Progress
5 6 7
Replies
131
Views
18K
MAndreas
MAndreas
Top