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Thanks for the thread HIJK! Here’s me: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/seafoamfungus I do not know how to plan a creative project to save my life, so we’ll see how this goes! 
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Oct 13, 2021 05:54
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I am 100% in the pantser camp too apparently. It’s the opposite of what I expected since I usually over-plan everything else in my life, but hey. Where I’m sitting right now is that I have a rough draft of ~85k words for a YA fantasy novel I wrote during April and May, which I’ve since been revising with the help of my wonderful writing group. It needs some plot restructuring and the worldbuilding is weak, it needs to be expanded a lot to support the characters’ decisions but I’m having trouble making myself do it. My NaNo plan is to write a couple of reader magnets that are essentially short prequels, to force my hand to figure some of these things out so I’m ready to tackle the next draft of the book. Despite needing rework, I did successfully write a start-to-finish draft of the thing. My method was similar I guess to a reverse outline, where I had a few key scenes I really wanted to include and then worked backwards from there to figure out what the setup for them needed to be. I started writing at the mid-point of the story, with like six bullet points for scenes and a bunch of misc notes. Then as I discovery wrote my way between the scenes, I worked out an outline for the chapters that needed to open the book to get to that mid-point. Someone can probably implement a more refined version of this - key scenes, work backwards - to get a rough outline to work from before hitting the prose. I knew my first attempt at long form fiction was probably going to be trash no matter what so I just planned to stomach a rewrite from the outset.
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Oct 17, 2021 01:11
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Kramdar posted:When they ask you on the site what kind of privacy do you want, what are they displaying? Your excerpts attached to your username? Or is it just your profile info and stats. I think I'm too timid to go public. Feel free to scope my page (posted earlier in thread) if you want to see what my public project shows you. 
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Oct 21, 2021 23:10
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:I got the buddy requests of everyone who sent one, but any time I try to look at someone's profile, I get a 404. Is there something I'm missing? I'm completely new to the site.  I made sure my profile is public and checked that I could view others… and I also see that we’re buddies! Is it possible you were logged out when trying to check? It’s the only thing I can think of.
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Oct 24, 2021 03:50
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Well my story is about Hell’s pantler (the person in charge of the pantry) getting roped into babysitting an irresponsible demon prince who sets out to solve a commoner’s mystery ills - possibly just in a bid to shirk his royal duties. Basically RIP to me as I contend with five million fantasy names and non-human descriptions in my first 1k words. Why did I do this.
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Nov 2, 2021 05:19
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I love reading the updates in this thread, everyone’s stories sound so intriguing! Hit 3k total today, I’m behind but that’s all right. My opening was particularly rough to bash out, I had a lot of decisions to make that were actively detrimental if I left them as placeholders. Onto more familiar territory tomorrow, describing busy city streets while characters argue about where they’re going!
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Nov 4, 2021 05:41
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The discovery writer’s plan: In order to regroup and unpack the mystery, our demon cast returns to the pantry so we have an excuse to talk about what a pantler does. The prince character explains his theory about the magic so far, ending with a hook into some magical tests and/or research they can perform. The discovery writer’s journey: Okay, so we have a skeleton (previously for sale) with us now. Also spectacles. The prince puts the spectacles on the skeleton. Also he’s hungry, so we eat. Wait, how is the skeleton wearing spectacles? I guess it has ears. Wait, do demons know that human skeletons don’t have ears? Is the witness lying to them about where he got this skeleton? The witness has now stormed off, no actual theories have been presented, and we’ve skipped right to dangerous magical experiments in the pantry. Perfect. Let’s see if we can end this chapter without serious bodily injury this time!
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Nov 8, 2021 09:03
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Glad to see everyone’s updates in this thread.  Yesterday was really hard for some reason but joining some sprints others were running on YT/Discord got me through it. I’m almost caught up to the NaNo daily goal, sitting just shy of 14k right now. About to tackle a chase scene in the rain!
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Nov 10, 2021 09:06
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That’s the joy of discovery writing lol. I was going to put a romance in mine, then I just wasn’t feeling it so nope! Cutting room floor in real time. (This is not a “reel” time pun but in the spirit of NaNo I’m not changing it, no editing allowed.) I’m still a bit behind, but I have 22.4K words and one completed reader magnet prequel! It’s real rough lol, my revision guide is a good five pages of notes of things that need to be fixed, cut, or expanded on, but still it’s done!Now onto the next one… Cephas posted:Just the act of finding joy in writing again is really liberating.  HIJK posted:13,720 words total. bros...I'm not gonna make it...
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Nov 17, 2021 08:35
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Amazing, congrats to those who are finishing already! I’m right down to the wire. I just hit 43k tonight, so I’d better overshoot tomorrow or I’m really going to be racing to the end! I’ve had a single day where I’ve broken 3k so… fingers crossed. I’m also a little worried I might actually wrap this story up inside another 7k. If that happens I guess I’ll just write a goofy “demons don’t know what birthdays are” scene and find a home for it later. (Is this what writing filler episodes for TV feels like???)
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Nov 28, 2021 08:44
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Had two great writing days back-to-back and crossed 50k tonight! My first NaNo. But I still need to write another chapter or so to finish this off, so I’m not actually done!
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Nov 30, 2021 08:30
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I’m deep in revision land, doing a major restructure. So I’m writing this month too!
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Mar 30, 2022 22:02
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So I’m not actually revising what I wrote for NaNo, instead I’m revising the prose novel I completed the first draft of last spring. Put it through my writing group, got the best feedback I could get (“it’s not working”), and had to let it marinate for a while to work through the parts I find challenging - better structure, deeper worldbuilding. It’s actually been a fun puzzle. Deleting scenes, combining scenes, adding scenes, rearranging. I cut a planned major character at the outline stage, and have since realized that I actually need them so that means a lot of my second act is going to be effectively new. Kind of worried I don’t have a thought-out plan for this, but it makes the discovery part of my brain excited so I think it’s a good thing for motivation. I’m sitting at ~55k words revised so far. I have another ~40k that haven’t been touched yet. My original goal was 75-90k for this book, so we’ll see if I blow past it after this round of edits!
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Apr 3, 2022 19:03
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Revised another 5k words yesterday. First feedback is “still not working.” Today is a rest and think day. I’m pretty bad at setting and measuring goals. There are suggestions here for Camp NaNo for non-word count goals: https://nanowrimo.org/what-is-camp-nanowrimo#nonwordgoals 1) “Editing” measured in the words on the pages you are about to edit 2) Amount of time spent 3) Number of pages you want to produce I’m trying to figure out how this will work for me. Of the 5k words I touched yesterday, only ~1k were edited in situ. Another ~1k were pulled from an entirely different part of my draft and revised to fit in the new scene. The remaining ~3k were new (my first draft had some parts severely underwritten). Time goals don’t reflect my desired outcome - a new draft of the manuscript. And I have no particular goal on the final length beyond a desire to stay under something, but I might need to blow past it then edit down. So… I guess it’s the first option and I think I’m going to measure it by counting down instead, tracking how many words of my old draft have yet to have something done with them (revise/delete). Which means I’ve only tackled 2k / 40k.
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Apr 5, 2022 01:28
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Day 5: maybe my book is two books? Time to break out the index cards…Coquito Ergo Sum posted:I like revising. It feels good to delete a paragraph or two and replace the with some better, more concise sentences. Nettle Soup posted:Actually went over the first 3 chapters, then got a good 1.7k words out properly. Decided that I didn't like what I was writing yesterday, so gently caress it, write something I do like instead. It went much better.
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Apr 6, 2022 01:10
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kaom posted:Day 5: maybe my book is two books? Time to break out the index cards… So I slept on it. And I index carded. And I broke out the post-its. I think I have one book, but it’s not a three act structure. It might be five acts. With this in mind, going to be doing some work in… what is now act 4, not 2, for a better character decision-based through line.
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Apr 8, 2022 07:53
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Created a new outline last night. I’m now targeting 24 chapters and a short epilogue. If I can keep my chapters averaging 4k or below, then I’ll still make it across the finish line under 100k total. I’ll be able to keep the first 10 chapters I’ve already revised, with structural changes from there. Most of my original draft can be salvaged to some extent. I think I’ll end up deleting just two scenes in their entirety, which sum up to about 5k so I’m counting them now. 7k/40k Still most of the month to go, let’s see how I do!
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Apr 10, 2022 22:35
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Amazing, way to go! Summary since last night: - Chapter 11 had its ending deleted, replaced with a subset of the ending from chapter 13 (about 1k words fell victim to deletion). - Chapter 12 has consequently had its location changed. In the middle of reviewing for tone, continuity. - The bulk of the old chapter 13 is about to get deleted/chopped up to move two chapters later. I don’t really know how to count this since it was already not really in the 40k I’m reworking? Whatever, it’s progress!
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Apr 12, 2022 01:57
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Work kicked my butt last week so my Camp NaNo goals are looking pretty unlikely overall, but I’m still forging ahead. - Ch 13 got drafted (recycled about 2k words) - Ch 14 got drafted (recycled about 2k words) So that puts me at 14/24 chapters, and about 11/40k words revised.
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Apr 20, 2022 21:41
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Thanks. Nettle Soup posted:Hit my 50k, I suppose! A good chunk of that is other little bits of writing and scrivener screwing up but pretty sure I'm going to hit the 55k writathon goal for my main project if I keep at it, so that's what matters. Way to go! I got through chapter 15 today. New stats 15/24 chapters, 14/40k words. I definitely won’t hit my goal for Camp, but I am moving forward still so it’s been good motivation anyway.
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Apr 25, 2022 04:33
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 04:41 |
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Kind of. I’m planning to go hard in the second half of the month (work’s not giving me the space right now). Rooting for you Leng!
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Jul 1, 2022 01:28
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