Thought this could serve as a little support thread. I never got involved in the forums there, and although LitReactor is new, I feel comfy and cozy here. I thought maybe we could congratulate each other on our progress, support each other when it sucks, and generally bitch and whine when stupid stuff lands us a day or two behind.
So...how are you doing?
I'm currently 189 words over the reccomended daily word count. I'm rewarding myself with Mexican food and Belgian beer.
There's no way I could ever write that much in such a little time. I'm still new to writing though. I've only just begun to test the waters. Congratulations though! Keep up the good work!
Nice start, Renee.
I didn't think I'd do it this year, but some friends and the Mrs. convinced me to give it another try. I'm only 500 words in so far, but I'm liking what I got brewing.
I'm about 900 words in today, but I can't tackle more. I'm enjoying the process so far, though. I don't really know what I'm doing. It's kind of a ghost story, but it's kind of not about ghosts. I dunno.
I'm still having fun, though! I don't normally write in first person, so it's been interesting!
Despite falling behind, I'm sure I'll catch up tomorrow. I've got a bunch of meetings I need to attend at work but parts of those meetings don't really require my attention. Which means... writing time!
@nighty I've noticed this before but failed to mention... your avatar. The spooky face. Is it from the scary stories books? I know I have my copies somewhere...
Awesome job Renee. :)
In 7th grade my English teacher told me about NaNo and said I should give it a try. Being an enthusiastic little twelve year old, I did, and had a horrible experience -- because I was an enthusiastic little twelve year old. On the last day I went to my teacher, crying my eyes out and showing her my 5,000 word story and begging her not to hate me for not being able to finish. This was my introduction to writing.
technically i did some editing on a story today for my collection effort. if i count that, i have just over a thousand words, today
I'm currently 189 words over the reccomended daily word count.
What is their cap on the word count?
I wrote that thing in the Flash thread today. Think that's like 100 words. Not a bad day. I've been thinking about a novel though, ruminating.
I did it one year long ago. It was fun, but the book that I wrote is unpublishable (although I know some people who write the first drafts of novellas in 3 days). Marathoning just doesn't work for me. I'm a slow writer. I've found writing 1000 words a day until the book is done to work pretty well if I'm unemployed (and to write smaller amounts like 500 a day if I'm employed). I guess writing 1000 words a day is not much less than it would take to complete a Nanowrimo novel. You just have to write about 613 words more than 1000 a day. I enjoyed Nanowrimo because I gave myself the permission to write whatever I wanted regardless of whether or not it sucked. It was a nice vacation from editing as I write like I always do (although I currently don't do it as much as I used to do it back them).
Since I outline my books before I start them along with writing detailed profiles for the main characters, write slowly, and edit as I go along, my first draft isn't that much different than my final draft. There's still a lot of changes though (pretty much on every page). But there will only be a few major changes here and there. Overall, most of the changes are minor. Most of the major changes occur while I'm writing the outline before I start writing the actual book.
Nah, did it a couple times. felt too rushed and came out with nearly unsalvageable dreck. I work in a deliberate manner that just doesn't fit the whole 50,000 words in 30 days schema-- the whole thing just ended up spiking my anxiety levels.
Doing it mostly for the discipline. I barely hardly write much anymore, so this is like a shock of cold water, forcing out 50,000 words. I'm doing Backwards Nano, and it's helping thus far.
Backwards Nano is a way of hitting your word count for the month by writing a lot for the first two weeks, then barely any for the last two weeks. You start high, with like 3500 words on the first day, then a little less the next day, a little less the day after that, until you're so far above word count, by week three, you're only doing 1000 words one day, then 900, 700, all the way until you only have to write a single word on the very last day.
http://nicolehumphrey.net/backwards-nanowrimo-the-reward-system/
@Renee Congratulations so far! I am also participating and I find myself way more comfortable here than posting threads on the NaNo site. I love the site though and how easy it is to keep track with the stats section.
@Amazingrobots that's an awesome idea, I am going to try and keep ahead of the 1,667 word a day pace but right now it is working out well.
I am currently doing alright and right on pace.
@misskokamon: Yes. It is indeed from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Fond childhood memories trauma.
@Everyone: Post some NaNo usernames so we can keep up with each other. I'm Metagnostic Metaphors add me.
I'm XyZy there as well. Feel free to yell at me, cause I'm slacking already.
I just added a couple of you. My name is simply Frederick and it is the same picture as on here.
Also amazingrobots on there. Adding everyone!
My name is Koka on there, if ya'll want to add me. :3
It's raining today and my company has a happy hour planned at a bar, so I didn't bring my laptop with me for wroodling. But I'm doing pretty good so far... can't wait for the weekend! I'll write from breakfast to dinner, and sometime afterward.
Good luck, everyone!
You can find me on there as QuickerMcWild. I'll have to get around to adding everyone later.
I have some local friends that are doing it too, so I feel very fortunate to have a face-to-face team to get me through the challenge. But I've only jsut developed this group. That sense of community is one of the reasons I've joined LitReactor. I'm glad it's actually working for people too.
I just started mine today. So I'm already behind. I'm already discovering it's almost impossible with a two year old running around. I don't expect to get to 50k but I'm still going to work on it. I'm red v. over there.
Frederick at the NaNo site and @awhittle2clever on twitter. i'll probably keep that updated with where I'm at..
I did the Nano thing last two years but I'm not doing it this year. I achieved the word count both times, but to be honest I never went back to the stories I'd written, or felt it helped me much.
Having said that though, best of luck to everyone who's trying it this year.
I'm currently 10k in as of today. I want to squeeze out another 2k before I call it quits for the day.
I realized my main character is messed up. I mean, he was pretty messed up when I pieced him together, but I didn't expect him to be as crazy as he is.
NaNoWriMo, you're so full of surprises!
But yes. I'm thrilled to say that as tough as this first week was, I got it now. I'm addicted to writing daily again. I'm busting out about 1.5k a day and I'm loving every minute of it. That's exactly what I was going for with NaNo--making a habit of writing daily again. I plan on slowing my pace when I get back on my real project, but this experience was the real kick in the ass I needed.
I don't think I will ever share this story with serious intentions, though. Maybe for fun, but not for any other reason.
I started the month with the best of intentions, but a week in I've hit that point where I like the story too much to churn out crap just to hit the word count, if that makes sense. I need to spend some time noodling it out before I can get over that hump. With a little more planning (and a different story) next October, I think I'll crack this nut yet. Backwards NaNo sounds interesting--I'll have to try that next time.
It did get me back in the habit of writing regularly again, though. And to keep the momentum going, I signed up for a class.
I lost my first few days to travel but came out strong I guess. I hit 10k words yesterday and hope for more as we see this thing to its conclusion.
Most of the time I write clipped and jagged anyway so this forced me to reexamine what the reader was seeing in every scenario and describe it better. I have my wife read whatever vomit spills onto page and usually I get a thumbs up so I think Im doing alright. But I was never planning on this being anything more than a great exercise for my pen/
I'm doing NaNoRevMo instead. Overhauling my entire manuscript in 30 days. It's just as much work, honestly.
@Renee I'm in the same boat. A pet passed away unexpectedly this week so I haven't touched my story since Sunday. I'm not too behind though. On Sunday I clocked in at 13.5k words, so I was a couple days ahead. I need to start writing TODAY if I'm to stay on track, but I haven't outlined the next act so I'm stuck. And I have this huge deadline today at work, so I can't use my lunch break to figure out the next chapter. Drat!
@Misses I imagine it is the same amount of work, and with much mroe headache involved. Good luck!
http://www.writingexcuses.com/2011/11/09/nanowrimo-pep-talk-from-brandon/
I thought I'd share this little pep talk from Brandon Sanderson. It's about a minute long, but he's so enthusiastic! I love those guys at Writing Excuses. Such nice fellas.
@Renee my name on there is Koka. My account is old :( I didn't evolve into MissKokamon until this year.
I'll look for you when I log in to NaNoWriMo again. I need to buy that ceramic traveler's mug that says "WRITE FIRST!" on it.
Well, I started NaNo, and then I got a full-time job. That plus grad school plus the last few weeks at my part time job and I'm burned out.
So I had to give up, which is really disappointing. I was having fun with it.
I just finished my NaNoWriMo novel...53,014 words. I have written many short stories, and used this "contest" to push myself to actually start and complete a novel. It worked and I'm extremely happy that I took the challenge. Now, time to revise...
Renee, thank you. I busted my ass on the weekends and woke up at 4am during the week to write before going to work. Without those extra hours and constant drive, I wouldn't have been able to do it. I have a feeling that the editing and revising process will take me much longer than a month, though. Great experience overall.
Wow! Good job, Jamie! You did it with a weekor two to spare, too. Amazing!
I... I'm stuck at about 16k. But I haven't given up yet! I'm taking an extra day off this week and I'll be writing, writing, writing and cooking, cooking, cooking. I'm going to try my best to write the additional 34k needed in the next week.
It doesn't help that I have a game due in December and that's asking for a lot of extra hours for work, but I'm going to prove to myself that I can do this.
I'm 15k words behind as of today. I wrote 10k a day for two days and by the third night my brain went empty. It was the most curious sensation; 1AM in the morning I wrote a single line, stared at it for five minutes, mumbled something to myself about justice and fell asleep. The next day I watched two of the three episodes of Sherlock on Netflix, talked about the unfairness that is childhood with a guest leftover from Thanksgiving, wrote 50 words and spent the rest of the night watching How I Met Your Mother. It was a necessary slackoff: I needed to refill my head with creative juices.
But now I need to haul major ass if I'm going to win this thing!
Side Note: Justice. There is this line in a Sherlock Holmes YA where, after suffering a tragic loss, boy Sherlock sticks his head out the window and screams the word, "JUSTICE!" I know it wasn't the writer's intention, but it made me laugh. Now it's a personal meme of mine whenever frustration scratches at my brain.
I submitted last night at 54218. That 'manuscript' is still not even halfway done but this was exactly what I needed. To feel like I can fire myself up everyday.
I only have a few thousand left, but I don't know when I'll be able to do fulfill it. I need to work late today and my personal Dropbox won't sync on my work computer right now! Ugh!