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My name is Pike and I have a thing for NaNoWriMo. This year's NaNo is going to be the ninth straight NaNo I've participated in and writing gods willing it'll be the ninth that I win. Because I don't want to do it alone, I'm here to drag as many people into this dreadful abyss with me as I can. ---  --- What is it? NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is a self-challenge to write 50,000 words of fiction in the month of November. That averages out to about ~1667 words a day. Yes, it's a lot. Yes, what you write will probably suck. But that's the point. Here's the official site: https://nanowrimo.org/ --- Why should I do this? Everything I write is going to be terrible anyway!  Different people do it for different reasons. For myself, it's a valuable exercise in writing Draft Zero, which for me personally was always one of my bigger obstacles. I had a tendency to stare at the blank screen for days on end and not write poo poo. NaNoWriMo beat that out of me and taught me how to write a lot in a very small amount of time. It's a really tough skill to learn and I have NaNo to thank for it. A lot of people also use it as a motivational tool. When you're staring at a graph of your progress every day and comparing it to your friends' graphs, well... a lot of us (myself included) find that to be a big kick in the pants to actually get some writing done. Besides, you can always dig the diamonds out of the poo poo later and use them for nobler purposes! Oh, and people have also published things they've written for NaNo, so that's not unheard of either. --- Am I only allowed to write fiction? What about working on something I've already started? According to the official rules, it should be fiction of any genre (this includes fanfiction or sets of short stories) which has not been started or worked on prior to November 1... but really, who's being the NaNo police? Lots of people bend the rules and just use it as an excuse to get a lot of writing done, and that's great too. Any writing is good writing, after all. There's also a "NaNo Rebels" forum on the site. Outlining, plotting, etc. before November is allowed and encouraged, just no actual lines of prose. UPDATE: Apparently working on a project you've already started is now okay in the Official Rules, so long as you only count words you write in November towards your word count. Working on nonfiction, poetry, a screenplay/script, etc. still makes you a "rebel". --- Are there any tools/fun things I can use to help me? Scrivener, which is my all time favorite writing software, is doing a NaNoWriMo free trial and usually offers coupons after the event itself if you want to buy the full version. There's also a lot of other writing software out there to scope out, including: FocusWriter ZenWriter (costs money) WriteMonkey yWriter ilys, for the truly hardcore - only shows you one letter at a time as you write (costs money) Novlr (costs money - is doing a free NaNo trial) And of course, there are old standbys such as Google Docs or LibreOffice. Last year we had fun with Pokemon that evolve alongside your word count, you can pick one up here! http://thousandroads.net/fanfic/nanowrimon/ --- I still have questions! Check out the official FAQ: https://nanowrimo.org/faq or feel free to ask me or others in the thread. Pikestaff fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Oct 29, 2017 |
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Oct 10, 2017 16:13
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Hey all, when you reply don't forget to include your username on the NaNo site. You can add people as writing buddies and they'll show up on your profile along with their current wordcount. Offering congratulations to the guy who hits 50k by November 5th and having others motivate you to finish the last 100 words you need to catch up is all part of the NaNo experience. https://nanowrimo.org/participants/thearchimage Going for my seventh straight win and I have no idea what I'm doing this year but I'm sure it's going to loving suck! Huzzah!
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Oct 14, 2017 13:37
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https://nanowrimo.org/participants/miriable My buddy list is 99% goons. If you've been in these threads in previous years, you may find to your surprise that I'm already on your list. This'll be my tenth year/ninth try. My idea this year is fairly dumb, but interesting enough that I probably won't crap out while writing it.
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Oct 15, 2017 03:39
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https://nanowrimo.org/participants/pikestaff I'm looking forward to writing a bunch of poo poo with the rest of you!
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Oct 15, 2017 13:24
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https://nanowrimo.org/participants/not-that-christopher-lee Going in for my third year, and hopefully my second win.
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Oct 15, 2017 17:53
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Can I just say that to me you nanowrimo people are something like gods?
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Oct 15, 2017 18:04
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strangeconcoction posted:Can I just say that to me you nanowrimo people are something like gods? Yes. You can. (You know there's no reason not to try, right?)
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Oct 15, 2017 20:58
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strangeconcoction posted:Can I just say that to me you nanowrimo people are something like gods? Be your own apotheosis.
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Oct 16, 2017 00:45
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quote:Yes. You can. quote:Be your own apotheosis. Definitely one day! <3
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Oct 16, 2017 16:53
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I'll be in a Laotian jungle for half of November and I'm still doing it. No reason not to try! Edit: I'm in as Grandola Plastic E Depois do Adeus fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Oct 21, 2017 |
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Oct 18, 2017 07:32
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I'm in again. Last year I barely scraped by with a 51K collection of words that proved it's possible to over-plan a story. This year I'm going to pants that poo poo with about 5 important parts to it. I'm in as Amelia Longstoneworthbottom.
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Oct 19, 2017 18:36
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https://nanowrimo.org/participants/sparkthatbled I've decided to throw my own hat in the ring one more time. I won in 2010 with some kind of space opera garbage I wrote on the seat of my pants. I tried again in 2011 with the same genre, but ended up falling flat on my face with just under 4300 words. Now I'm trying again, with a humorous mystery novel, of all things. And hopefully I can win one more time.
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Oct 19, 2017 22:23
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https://nanowrimo.org/participants/summerhouse I’m doing this in honor of my father, who recently passed away but left behind decades of stories and poetry. Reading through his work provided a lifeline while mourning. I did NaNoWriMo once before, and almost won. It was a horror/detective story in the vein of True Detective. This year I’m doing a bunch of prep work before hand, to make the actual month of writing easier.
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Oct 22, 2017 17:45
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I'm gonna give this another another shot. I always give up but maybe this year I'll get further. I'm in a better headspace now. This NaNoWriMo allows me to experiment with ideas that I can use for a future project. I'm not the fiction writing type, that's not my preferred medium, not even close. But this could be fun.
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Oct 23, 2017 08:58
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I was wondering where this year's NaNo thread was! https://nanowrimo.org/participants/urbanspaceman23 I barely crawled over the finish line last year, and I'm pretty sure that novel was 75% typo. Hoping this year's wording goes a bit more coherent!
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Oct 24, 2017 04:37
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I managed to pull out a win a few days before the deadline last year with a pantser. This year I'm in with a plan, trying to rewrite a previous novel and get a decent second draft. https://nanowrimo.org/participants/torny-zang
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Oct 24, 2017 05:31
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https://nanowrimo.org/participants/nethilia I was gonna say I'm a rebel because I'm going to spend the month working on multiple projects (trying to finish last year's novel/trying to finish the 2014 one/add to my 2012 one/maybe start some light children's historical fic/any other project that hits my fancy) like I did in 2008. But apparently Nano doesn't care anymore about folk starting from scratch, so I guess I'm not. I have a streak of 12 years winning and I don't intend to break it this year. I doubt I'll break my personal best for an early win, though.
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Oct 24, 2017 09:57
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Do not attempt to keep pace with Nethilia's word count. That way lies madness and carpal tunnel. Also I decided for this year I'll be writing fanfiction. So if anyone has been holding out on participating because they're afraid they'll end up as the biggest loser writing the worst garbage, have no fear. The position is taken.
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Oct 25, 2017 14:51
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^ I'm trying to decide if I should go back to an mpreg I was writing anonymously or run a text-based Metroid-themed forum game. So you're right; the position is taken.
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Oct 25, 2017 15:05
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Hey now, can I join the loser garbage club too? I was going to write something original, because I usually do for NaNo, but now that they've eased up on the rules and allow you to work on something you've already started, I've changed my mind and I'm going to be completing this ongoing fanfic saga based on a loving video game. It'll be at least 150k words by the time it's done seeing as it's already at 100k. 150k words of one lameass video game fanfiction. This is what I'm doing with my life. So yeah, everyone on the fence about participating because you think what you're writing is going to be lame, just jump in. edit: also I completely spaced NaNo and volunteered to work a bunch of extra shifts the first week in November  this'll be fun.
Pikestaff fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Oct 25, 2017 |
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Oct 25, 2017 20:43
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They relaxed the rules? THIS IS HOW YOU GET ANTS.
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Oct 25, 2017 20:49
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https://nanowrimo.org/participants/DoubleCakes At first I wasn't sure about this, but I got a real good idea here. I'm going to write a mock autobiographical tell-all about an internet critic's career. It might be completely devoid of substance, but I'm aiming to touch on to some real themes about internet fame, politics on the internet, etc. We'll see how it goes.
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Oct 26, 2017 19:40
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Haven't won once in five in years, but dammit, I keep coming back for more. https://nanowrimo.org/participants/hookshot
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Oct 27, 2017 03:35
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I've been full-time writing for like a year and a half now. I typically write between 50,000-75,000 words per month. Full disclosure I write ROMANCE which is very formulaic and easier than something that requires a lot of research or more complex plots. Either way, here is my advice on actually writing 50,000 words in a month. 1) You're not allowed to go back and mess with stuff you already wrote. Plan your major plot points out well enough (and try to keep the plot simple enough if this is your first time doing a novel) that you will be less likely to get hosed over by this in the first place. It's very easy to get 30,000 words in and realize an entire character is not working and you want to remove her from the book. Good luck having your final product be more than a super lovely draft if this happens. Try to get everything clear in your head before you write to a reasonable degree. Don't over-plan though to the point that it's stifling. For a lot of people doing too much pre-planning, for instance making a detailed character sheet for every single character, is going to feel more limiting than it does helpful. Once you start writing, you're not going to go back and mess with anything you already wrote more than a few paragraphs back. The most you want to do is type something in all caps like NOTE: YOU NEED TO GO BACK AND MAKE IT SO HIS MOTIVATION FOR BEING ANGRY IS MORE REALISTIC WHEN HE'S IN THE CAR or whatever. That is so that when you are doing your first editing pass you can just go fix it later in case you fail to notice whatever the issue is during your editing pass. I really don't like these all caps notes to be something that would take more than an hour or so to fix, whatever it is. I try to imagine what I am writing is a clay sculpture, and whatever I do is mostly set. I can mess with it a little bit before it dries, but after that it's going to break if I try to force a big change. I know this isn't the conventional wisdom for writing a novel (you're supposed to go through dozens of drafts supposedly), but for writing something that is actually readable and coherent on a first draft, it really helps to go in with this attitude. Don't tell yourself you'll fix everything later, write it so it's mostly good to go on the first pass. 2) Treat it like a job. You actually only need to write 1.6k words per day to finish 50k in a month. Instead of trying to write 1.6k words per day, I'd strongly recommend you set a routine and try to hit a minimum of 3,000 words on a "work day." Maybe you only work Monday-Thursday, or maybe you're going to do 6,500 words on each day of the weekend instead (much harder btw). Whatever it is, set a strict routine where you must write x amount of words on a given day. Work in some degree of leeway so that you don't just miss the mark if you miss a single session. If you miss a session, don't try to double up the next day. Just consider it lost time and words, and get back on track the next day. If you set a routine like this and you immediately fall off track and badly behind, you probably are not serious enough to do this, and it's better to just give up early than to force yourself from here. A real benefit of doing it like this is you see serious progress. You start on Monday, and on Friday you are already at 15,000 words. If you know you are consistently doing 3,000 words per day, then you can say "Wow, next Friday I'll be at 30,000!" As soon as you start slacking or not hitting your targets, this falls apart and you can find yourself thinking "poo poo, I'm never going to finish this!" 3) Don't be "precious" about it. Do you like to write with a fountain pen and get neat handwriting in a moleskine? Do you have to be in a certain mood? Does every sentence have to read just right? You'll never get this poo poo done if you do any of this. The quality of your prose is honestly going to be pretty much what it is. Maybe your prose will improve as you go, but you're not going to make your prose way better by writing extremely slowly, or by going back over every paragraph right after you finish it. If you go back over a paragraph and it reads clunky and lovely, that's probably just what your writing ability is right now. Even if it reads clunky and lovely, as long as you can tell what's happening, it's salvageable. Prose quality will be the easiest thing to fix on an editing pass, especially if your prose improves as you chip away and write every day. You'll easily be able to make the prose and writing quality better during an editing pass (this falls into "polishing the clay" rather than reshaping anything if you go back to my sculpting metaphor). 4) "Pomodoro" is probably the most consistently useful thing. "Pomodoro" is basically just using an egg timer or the timer on your phone to create a forced writing session with built-in breaks. The main idea is that you have something like 20 minutes of writing, 5 minute break, 20 minutes of writing, rinse repeat until you hit your word goal. This does not work for everyone, but it works for most people. I have to force myself really hard to use this method rather than just leisurely writing in big chunks, taking long breaks, then writing again, etc. It's way more relaxing to not use Pomodoro, but you get way better results if you do use it. Even if you think it's not for you, it probably is for you, but it's just not a very "comfortable" way to write. In the "20 minutes of writing," you do not stop typing. You don't stop and wonder what should happen next, you do not stretch or get a new drink, you sit there and type type type until the timer goes off. Generally you shouldn't start a pom session unless you reasonably think you know what is happening in the story well enough to type out that much. This would be one exception to not start your "writing session" immediately. Say you take your break, then you are about to start writing but realize you don't know what is going to happen in the story. Don't start the pom yet, instead do rough bulletpoints for everything you're going to write out so you have some guidelines. This usually only takes a few minutes, but it will make the writing session way more productive. I personally prefer 30 minutes of writing with a 10 minute break, as I find a 5-minute break not long enough to relax at all. The risk of not doing Pomodoro is you can easily sit there "writing" for 3 hours and only get 800 words. It's very easy to pump out a few paragraphs, pat yourself on the back, and take too long of a break without even noticing you're doing it. Pomodoro helps keep you honest. 5)Try to create a final product you are actually happy with. The point of NaNoWriMo is that you force yourself to finish something. This is sort of repeating what I said about the clay thing, but you really want to set your plot up so that it's reasonable for 50,000 words. 50,000 words is VERY SHORT, especially if you're doing "genre" like fantasy or sci-fi. For fantasy or sci-fi, 50,000 words is going to feel almost like an extended short story. Don't try to cram too much in there. Try really hard to make it so that your finished draft is actually something you could send to a friend and have them read and AT LEAST know what is going on. Don't break continuity, don't have random scenes out of order, don't retcon stuff mid-story. A few years ago when some SA people and I did the "Write About Dragons" class, I think every single one of us wrote drafts that were seriously unreadable. We all retconned, jumped around to random scenes, and NONE OF US FINISHED. Even if one of us had finished, the draft would have been entirely unreadable because of the way we treated it as a "rough draft." It's a very strong motivational tool to keep your story tight and comprehensible as you go, even if that means "dumbing down" the complexity/world building/etc. for the sake of clarity. I think a lot of people who finish NaNoWriMo often have really messy drafts that aren't readable without like 5 editing passes, and that's fine if that's your goal, but you'll probably be happier and get more out of it if you can have a story that is readable when you finish.
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Oct 27, 2017 15:57
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My main advice: Never, ever go back. When you finish a passage, it's locked. If you want to change a word or two, or some punctuation, in that last sentence you wrote, don't. Even if it's the biggest wad of poo poo and you're embarrassed to look at it, DO NOT REVISE. At least, not right now. Your job right now is vomiting words. Editing is for the future. The only time I ever break this rule is if I see something in a previous passage that needs more explanation, because hey, more words. However, inserting words into a passage like this takes more thought than crapping out a bunch of text, so it's still not the best brainpower-to-word-generation ratio. I'll still do it, but at least I feel guilty about it.
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Oct 27, 2017 16:58
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AO's advice is all real good. I'd also suggest that if you aren't doing this purely for fun but are hoping to produce something that you could actually publish: A) Don't do any of the wacky "throw in ninjas!" poo poo. B) Don't pad to hit the word count. This and A is all wasted time and garbage you have to excise from the draft later. C) Seriously for the love of god plan at least a little. Know your characters and have an ending in mind. You will almost certainly think of a better ending and change it on the way but at least you have a goal. D) 50,000 words is not a novel length. Novels are 80-120K typically. Better to aim at the lower end for a debut book. Don't try to fit the story into 50. Novellas are a thing but nobody's going to publish a novella from an unknown writer unless I am really wrong about how the market works. Also don't try writing book one of a series, nobody's going to publish that. Write something that stands alone but has an open door to sequels should it get picked up and the publisher wants more.
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Oct 27, 2017 19:00
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Airport thrillers are only like 60k words. They just print them with big fonts and big margins.
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Oct 27, 2017 19:24
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That's why I said typically, not always.
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Oct 27, 2017 19:38
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https://nanowrimo.org/participants/wrageowrapper I'll throw my hat in again this year. I'm writing a mystery which is something I have never done before so this should be interesting/bad.
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Oct 28, 2017 05:43
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TheArchimage posted:Do not attempt to keep pace with Nethilia's word count. That way lies madness and carpal tunnel. This is either a compliment or an insult, and I'll take it either way. Also on the Pomodoro thing: if you have a phone that can app, get Writometer. It automatically defaults to a 25 minute timer for a writing session--I leave it there--and lets you document word counts once the sprint is over. It also stats your daily writing, you can set an alarm that says "hey, go write" and it will go off in your notifications if you haven't hit the daily suggested count by that, it will show you how many words you need to make goal, and you can watch that meter climb its way up like the mountaineer on The Price Is Right. And it's free. ETA: App through Google Play only, it looks. Sorry, Fruit Phones. Nethilia fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Oct 29, 2017 |
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Oct 29, 2017 13:42
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TheArchimage posted:Do not attempt to keep pace with Nethilia's word count. That way lies madness and carpal tunnel. Just checked out their stats. Pfff. Bring it on this year. I’m writing at least three books at 150,000 minimum
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Oct 30, 2017 10:05
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Wrageowrapper posted:https://nanowrimo.org/participants/wrageowrapper hey, i'm just cheering NaNo on from the sidelines, but I wanted to say apropos of nothing that I was always a fan of your short stories in Thunderdome back in the day. Okay sorry, carry on, thread.
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Oct 30, 2017 20:23
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I'm not so excited this year, I think it's because I've gotten a lot better at writing consistently. I started a novel last summer, wrote it through NaNo, did my edits and now I'm querying for it. Going to start a second in the same setting. I'm still participating and going to try but I'm not super concerned about hitting my 50k since I know I'll finish the book anyway (if it doesn't suck). Also if you ever feel bad and that your ideas are dumb, just read the ideas/synopses on the NaNo forums and you'll feel like loving Hemingway after a few minutes.
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Oct 31, 2017 02:38
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Mirage posted:My main advice: Never, ever go back. When you finish a passage, it's locked. If you want to change a word or two, or some punctuation, in that last sentence you wrote, don't. Even if it's the biggest wad of poo poo and you're embarrassed to look at it, DO NOT REVISE. At least, not right now. Your job right now is vomiting words. Editing is for the future. I've heard of people making their font a light gray, so it almost blends in with the background. That way can still sort of see how much you've written, but it's harder to read the actual text. No idea if it works. That poo poo would just give me a headache. But it's an option.
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Oct 31, 2017 03:38
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Sitting Here posted:hey, i'm just cheering NaNo on from the sidelines, but I wanted to say apropos of nothing that I was always a fan of your short stories in Thunderdome back in the day. Okay sorry, carry on, thread. Naww, cheers mate. Good times.
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Oct 31, 2017 09:06
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Grand Fromage posted:Also if you ever feel bad and that your ideas are dumb, just read the ideas/synopses on the NaNo forums and you'll feel like loving Hemingway after a few minutes. Totally forgot about this particular joy of Nanowrimo. So many terrible ideas. Speaking of terrible ideas, I'm doing this again. https://nanowrimo.org/participants/anais-nun
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Oct 31, 2017 23:55
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I've only recently started to try and write stuff but I've always seen this going on and followed it so to hell with it this year I'm gonna give it a shot. It'll be a good experience if nothing else.
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Nov 1, 2017 00:17
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I finally came up with a story idea and five minutes later... Oh wait that's Dexter.
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Nov 1, 2017 00:47
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4408. I think I had a good start to the day. I always try to write the most the first week or so to sort of get a buffer going because I work retail so the second half of November is always hell in a handbasket.
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Nov 1, 2017 15:51
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Forgot this is happening until I opened twitter this morning. Didn't plan to enter but I'm gonna Just Do It. I have no story, two characters, and no idea what I'm doing. It's freezing today and I can barely feel my fingers...so, perfect writing weather  e: I updated my nano username (didn't know you could do that) so it's actually https://nanowrimo.org/participants/melodicwaffle now melodicwaffle fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Nov 1, 2017 |
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Nov 1, 2017 16:46
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