So its November, right on time for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Really need a kick in my pants to start writing again so figure why not. Not that i'll be writing a novel but catch up on my missing chapter, sure let's give it a go.
Committed to writing 50,000 words in the 30 days of November? National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing.
On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel
Anyone else out there doing the NaNoWriMo) thing?
Comments
I was thinking about trying it
I just cannot find information about whether my story can be posted elsewhere when I am done.
Also, I could not discover if I had to write at least the 50,000 words or not. I really do not want to pad a novella out into a novel just to meet a word count. I mean, I'm not writing a high school English paper here.
Re: Thinking about trying
You as the author of whatever you write retain all rights to your work. The challenge has absolutely nothing to do with publishing a manuscript, nor even producing a polished one. Or even a vaguely edited one. Rather, NaNo is a challenge to increase your output, pure and simple. I've known people who filled their wordcount writing song lyrics or short stories, and more than a few who've never shown their product the light of day after December 1st. It's not for anyone but you. The only social aspect is mutual support in a similar challenge, and the only "judging" is via a wordcount tool on the NaNo website. If you don't make 50,000 words, well, you're in good company. Lots don't, and the only loss is bragging rights. I've never broken 10,000 words, despite trying most years (don't ask to see, it's... not pretty...) What's more, because you aren't meant to worry at polish, you can have all the fun you want cleaning up your project and either publishing it yourself or shopping it around to collect rejection slips. Or not. No pressure, except to write. :-) (Do it! You know you want to. The first one's free. As are all the rest, but one has to follow the forms...)
-Liz
Successor to the LToC
Formerly known as "momonoimoto"
1666 words a day
1600 words a day is manageable, though doing that every single day is not consistent with my Neurology. Angharad did 1200 words a day for years.
I've been doing a layoff for about 6 years, and getting ready to finish two stories that could amount to 400,000 words. For me the biggest discouragement has been to learn to deal with Microsoft's perverted and chaotic file management system. And, NO, now is not the time for me to learn some other way to do it. I've finally figured it out to MY satisfaction, and have started ordering my thoughts.
Someday.
Too Much for Me
I'm not up to writing a novel in a month, or 50,000 words in a month. My novels have taken literally years to write. On the other hand, a friend of mine tries almost every year.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
I'm semi-tempted to give it a try,
The big problem for me lately is that I've been dealing with nearly constant migraines for about six or seven weeks. That is why I haven't produced anything here for the last month, it's difficult to focus on writing when your head feels like it is in a big vise.
One of Cassy Bee's ideas she mentioned in a recent blog here could be turned into an episodic story that could run to novel length. As I said in my comment there, I can think of several possible situations that the transformed girl could have occur to or around her.
Update: I'm giving it a go, although I decided against using the idea that I mentioned here. I came up with another idea a few hours ago and I've already produced just over 2,000 words for it. If I maintain the pace, I'll hit the 50k mark right near the end of November.
I'm also working on the story based on the idea I mentioned that Cassy Bee posted here. It's been a productive night for me, just under 4700 words in about nine hours between the two stories and I have ideas for both churning in my crazy old noggin. LOL
Elsbeth dear....
I, and others I'm sure would love to see more of Season of Change and The Sacrificial Boy! (just saying...). ;) Loving Hugs Talia
Stories
Thank you, Talia :) I appreciate your support. Unfortunately, as I was wrapping up Seasons someone sent me some rather nasty hurtful comments on another site. Suffice to say my life was in the middle of full-blown 'suckage crisis' right then so it killed my desire to put anything creative on paper. Any who, I'm hoping this will give me a kick in the pants to start again.
Is fearr Gaeilge briste, ná Béarla clíste.
Broken Irish is better than clever English.
How About
Less of a kick in the pants, and more of a friendly hug of encouragement?
If you try it, best wishes.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
I know I shouldn't do this...
But, my pain has kept me up all night and I'm too tired to really care. Mike Stackpole wrote a brilliant little piece called 21 Days to a Novel several years ago. Gives you a set of exercises to do, so over a three week period you build a bare bones first draft. You can find it with a quick Google search. It's not a BLARG! YOU MUST WRITE 6000 WORDS A DAY! thing either. It's bit and piece work to help you get the creative flow going while helping you build characters, setting and plot. Is it foolproof? Nope. Is it guaranteed? Nope. But if you're considering NaNoWriMo and feel the task is too daunting, this can help you break it down into manageable and achievable goals.
What's ironic is this is the first year that I'm not even going to pretend to believe I can get past my anxiety and actually write again for Nano. The last few years, I've been telling myself that this year I'm going to do it. Get back in the saddle. Put a story on the page. >wry chuckle< Not this year. In fact, I just paused composing this to delete Scrivener from my compy. It's a serious writing tool and should be used responsibly, not left to sit there unopened.
For any of you trying, best of luck!
~And so it goes...
Numbers
Don't get too obsessive about a number, it's actually about writing and making a goal. Even if you only write 10k words in the month, it's 10k more words than you would have written. And that would be fine as well.
It really just a competition with ones-self whatever makes you happy. Trust me no one is going to show up with a red pen and mark your work :)
-Elsbeth
Is fearr Gaeilge briste, ná Béarla clíste.
Broken Irish is better than clever English.
Yup!
Pretty much exactly this! :-)
*stage whisper*[insert name here] x3 You're so amazing!*/stage whisper* //Moana Imitation
Go for it!
-Liz
Successor to the LToC
Formerly known as "momonoimoto"
Never heard of it...
Never heard of it until this year and I was intrigued.
Then again I know how I write and thought better of it.
I produce between 750 to 1500 words a weekday.
Always on my commute to or from work. I reserve weekends for editing and hunting for mistakes.
With those constraints, I wouldn't be able to reach those 50K.
But even worse would be limiting myself to one story. I like to hop around. Write here one day and write there the next.
I think it is a nice idea in general, but I already feel I am at my max. So therefore not for me.
Nope
For many reasons, bad and good.
Bad reason: National .... Neither a citizien of nor a resident in the United States of (northern) America.
Writing a novel? Me? That's a novel idea! Well, it's not my cup of tea.
50 000 words? That probably exceeds my total fiction output the last ten years. A few of my stories have a higher kudos count than word count and it's not because they are particularly good.
The Novel Month
Isn't a national holiday in the USA, so anyone is welcome to try at their web site. Nothing limits it to the USA.
More kudos than words? Come to think of it, the trilogy of Pink, Blue, that third color probably does for each story.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Pink, Blue & Why aren't you wearing your favorite skirt?
All VERY short stories. "Red" fails to qualify. "Serious trouble": close, but no cigar.
As to "National..." - I already admitted that that was a very bad reason ;)
A Challenge
For me, that is:
Too bad about "Red". But maybe an occasional kudo might come in, and eventually push it over the edge.
Any other ways to challenge yourself? How about setting a new Kudo/Word record? Perhaps as high as two?
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Failed Miserably
Part 1: Finish the first draft by last night. It's still not done. I spent a good part of today on a spreadsheet getting a random set of losers for each deal in a poker game.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
It's not the number
It's writing a single story. A couple of months ago when I made my 5000th blog post I offered a 5to1 caption offer. I got 32. I made 160 return caps in ten days.My caps average 200-250 words. So I wrote between 32k and 38k in those ten days and 160 different stories. The 50k number doesn't phase me, the novel idea does.
Commentator
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Why find the drive now?
I wrote 2,000 words a night for 3 months, then took some time off of that project because the novel was done. While I took a break I wrote 2,000 words a night on another novel. Now I'm editing the first novel at 2,000 words a night, and I'm almost done with the second draft. It's going slower since I have a new laptop and can work on the accompanying comic book. 1,000 might be closer once you average it.
If you want to really write it's an all of the time thing, not a some of the time thing. A novel in a month isn't a very realistic goal, 80,000 words at least is expected if you're looking to publish anything. 120,000 is the norm for a fantasy or sci-fi novel, and you have to do about 20% more for your first.
I just don't see the point of deciding to do it for a month, when my goal is just to keep writing until I keel over dead.
I could do it
The word count does not scare me. I just wrote 14,000 words in a 40 hour stretch doing Chapters 20 and 21 of A Second Chance. I normally write about 1000 words an hour (although during that stretch it might have been more, as I was really rolling).
What will probably keep me from participating is the thought of leaving my readers of that story for a month, to work on another. Even though I would have a finished book to publisher here at the end.
Dawn