NaNoWriMo 2014

[Smellincoffee]

November is a special month, and not just because it's a license for men to shop shaving. It's NANO time, for National Novel Writing Month. Presumably you've heard of it -- people challenge themselves to write 50,000 words in 30 days. What's produced is rubbish, of course, but it's fun and intended to drive home to people who want to write that yes, they can establish a writing habit. Everyone who makes it to the 50,000 is a winner. Is anyone trying for it this year? Has anyone done a Star Trek story?

 

[Random_Spock]

I'm trying out this year. Just working out some ideas. A random story, kind of a spooky one.

 

[RoJoHen]

*sigh*

I've been trying to do this for the last 10 years. I never succeed. Novemeber is easily the worst month of the year for me to do this; I always have too much going on!

I wish this happened in March. I got nothing going on in March.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I've already got my story in mind and all that. Going to do this like I have for the last few years.

 

[Mr Light]

I'm getting my first short story published at the start of 2015 and I've been working on the novel length follow up but got stalled in the past two months so I'm hoping to double down on November. I only write it at work and work has been a constant crisis for two months now but I'm hoping things will settle down any day now and I can get back to my real job

 

[OmahaStar]

I'm getting my first short story published at the start of 2015.

That is awesome! Congratulations!

 

[Mr Light]

thanks, but it's very very small press and will hardly have any physical copies made but I will be sure to let everyone know when it comes out

 

[Owain Taggart]

Won't be doing it this year, but good luck to anyone who does! It's quite a commitment to put forward and my time allotment has changed since the last time I've done it.

 

[Timewalker]

November is a special month, and not just because it's a license for men to shop shaving. It's NANO time, for National Novel Writing Month. Presumably you've heard of it -- people challenge themselves to write 50,000 words in 30 days. What's produced is rubbish, of course, but it's fun and intended to drive home to people who want to write that yes, they can establish a writing habit. Everyone who makes it to the 50,000 is a winner. Is anyone trying for it this year? Has anyone done a Star Trek story?

If my other laptop gets fixed in time (that's the one where my story notes are), I will be attempting a story that's a crossover between Star Trek: Voyager and Trading Spaces (old TLC interior design reality show).

*sigh*

I've been trying to do this for the last 10 years. I never succeed. Novemeber is easily the worst month of the year for me to do this; I always have too much going on!

I wish this happened in March. I got nothing going on in March.

There are smaller events at other times of the year. For Camp NaNoWriMo you can set your own goal for the month, starting at 10,000 words. I tried the April one and beat my goal by over 2000 words. There's another Camp event in July.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

There's a WriMo for every month of the year, if you hunt around. Most of them aren't endorsed by or affiliated with NaNoWriMo but that's no reason not to do them. I've done JulNoWriMo a couple times myself.

 

[Kirby]

I'm going to give it a shot. I've had a mystery story rattling around my brain cage for a long time, and it's time to let it out.

 

[OmahaStar]

I'm going to give it a shot. I've had a mystery story rattling around my brain cage for a long time, and it's time to let it out.

That's the spirit!

 

[eyeresist]

I have a project in the works which maybe I could write in November. Just have to finish the groundwork. I don't like working without a safety net, not for something as big as a novel.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I finished my "outline" for my book. Estimating 40 chapters. The outline itself was 8 pages. Yeah, there's no way this will all be done in November.

 

[eyeresist]

^ Very short chapters?

 

[Timewalker]

NaNoWriMo counts quantity, not the quality of whatever people submit. It's to the participants' credit that most of us care if we submit a good story, otherwise we could just throw together 50,000 random words and download our winners' goodies.

I managed over 22,000 words last year, which is my personal best. I've no idea how I'll do this year, but I expect to get some words, which would still be better than my personal worst, which was zero.

Just keep in mind that you can break it down into 1667 words/day. That's all it takes, and if you do two or three short stints of writing, it doesn't even seem like very long.

 

[Mr Light]

My personal goal is to write 1000-1500 words a day at work. Too bad work's been too hectic lately!

 

[eyeresist]

NaNoWriMo counts quantity, not the quality of whatever people submit. It's to the participants' credit that most of us care if we submit a good story, otherwise we could just throw together 50,000 random words and download our winners' goodies.

This is news to me! I had no idea participants submitted their writing or received any reward. Isn't the writing and mutual encouragement reward enough? What are the prizes?

 

[Timewalker]

NaNoWriMo counts quantity, not the quality of whatever people submit. It's to the participants' credit that most of us care if we submit a good story, otherwise we could just throw together 50,000 random words and download our winners' goodies.

This is news to me! I had no idea participants submitted their writing or received any reward. Isn't the writing and mutual encouragement reward enough? What are the prizes?

Nobody actually reads the submissions; you win if the site word-counting software comes up with a minimum of 50,000 words. So it's best to do more than 50,000 to be on the safe side. Last time, I wasn't credited with nearly 100 of the words I'd written, since my word-processing program (Open Office) uses a different system for counting the words.

The freebies for winners include a variety of badges you can download. As for the rest of it, winners get discounts on NaNoWriMo merchandise and writing/screenwriting software sold by their affiliates. Some of the discounts are quite generous. I didn't buy any of the merchandise, though, because of the prohibitive shipping charges to Canada. I did go for the downloadable writing programs, though.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

^ Very short chapters?

Nah, my chapters run about 2000-2500 words. I guess that's kind of short. I just end up continuing until the book is done, which normally takes me until January or February.