NaNoBraSto 2011
Brainstorming for National Novel-Writing Month (also known as November).
Go to NaNoWriMo 2011 for the main event.
Date: October 7, 2011
Categories: Fiction, poetry, and fanfiction, The Universe, Things We like
Sunday, 28 April 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
Brainstorming for National Novel-Writing Month (also known as November).
Go to NaNoWriMo 2011 for the main event.
Date: October 7, 2011
Categories: Fiction, poetry, and fanfiction, The Universe, Things We like
Whee! So I have a bunch of ideas, and I’ve decided to write all of them. I mean it. I’m going to try and write down every single plot bunny and scene that comes to my mind. And there are a lot. Because focusing on one story and plot worked out so well for me last year. /sarcasm. I ended up starting another story, or skipping to another scene, or just not writing anything because of really bad writer’s block. So I am just going to write short drabbles, or scenes, or descriptions for whatever, and then see if I can connect them together. And if I can’t, no biggie. I barely write anything anyhow. NaNoWriMo is supposed to change that. But I have lots of ideas, and if I can just get them outside of my head, I can work on them as I see fit.
My first NaNo! My plot will probavly be insanely cliched, but if I finish it that will be enough for me.
I accidentilly signed up fr both NaNo and YWP, and am having some difficty deciding which to do.
So I had an idea on the Writer’s Notebook a few months back, but now I see my plot is dangerously flawed. *sigh*
All my plots are dangerously flawed. You get used to it, but I know how you feel.
Oh my, when I saw this, my heart skipped a beat. I can’t believe it’s almost November already! I don’t think I’m going to be doing NaNo this year on account of how I want to try writing a novel like a normal person for once. I still am happy with winning last year though; it still feels very good.
I’ve been holding my breath for this since August.
This year I have a perfect method of continuing my story indefinitely: STORYCEPTION
Bored of the middle ages tale? Make them find ancient ruins with and juxtapose a high tech past! Bored of the legend of King Excalibur and his Sword Arthur? A young boy tells him a parable?
Step 1: PERFECT PLOT DEVICE
Step 2: Write
Step 3: ???
Step 4 PROFIT!!!
It very much reminds me of 1001 Nights, with the stories within stories. This is also kind of what I’m planning to do myself. IT WILL WORK.
I’ve been brainstorming for NaNo on paper, just writing down stuff that pops into my head. It helps me focus much better than if I’m just staring into space thinking- I already have eight and a half pages of notes  and three seriously-considered novel concepts, and I began on the fourth.
 I’m also working on a writing schedule. (Yep, clearly you care about it.) I’ve decided on doing 1,400 words on weekdays and 1,934 on weekends, vacations, and any sick days. I wasn’t sure about the last one, but I decided that it would help give my novel interesting variations, especially if I ever developed a high fever. Then, I’m scheduling what times of day I should write, assuming a rather arbitrary pace of six words per minute. The current version gives me seven and a half hours of sleep on weekdays, which was more than I expected. Of course I’ll probably need to throw the schedule out the window once I find out what pace I write at.  Â
I’m thinking I might attempt it this year, though maybe a short story, I’m not the best at writing under pressure… I remember reading all the posts from last year…
I am currently working on one story idea, but for NaNo this year, I think I might go with the sort of idea involving throwing a certain number of characters together somewhere and seeing what they do to each other.
(I tried something like that in 2009; it was a complicated plotline with a hoard of people, most of whom ended up murdering each other. It was fun to write, at least… )
I’ve been tossing about around five different plot ideas. Most of them aren’t any farther along than a basic concept, but a couple have actually been partly written before. I’d have to toss that previous writing out, but that’s not much sacrifice.
First idea: Magical conspiracy, with secrets and betrayal and sneaking around. Actually, the idea isn’t as dark as it sounds. More golden colored.
Second idea: A story about a bookworm who gets pulled into an alternate reality with her less bookwormish friend/cousin, and goes about rescuing the land. A theme something along the lines of ‘You are what you choose to be.’
Third idea: Nebulous idea involving superheroes running amok defeating slightly humorous villains.
Fourth idea: Equally nebulous idea involving something about the Four Walls of Stories, Protectors of the Walls, and maybe flight. I have no idea where this one came from.
Anyway, I think I’ll start brainstorming even more seriously once the new site goes up. I’m sort of holding off the excitement until then.
Is it just me, or did you mention five different plot ideas and list four for us?
I estimated five, discovered that I had four, and couldn’t be bothered to go back and fix it.
That would explain it then.
…I came up with a story idea sometime around last December, and was like “OMCG this is going to be so much darker and awesomer and everything than my last NaNo!” even though I was setting it in the same world, and I’ve been trying to resist fleshing it out too much in the ten months between then and now… but now it’s looking pretty much shallow and cliché and stupid. Sigh.
But A. I don’t really have time to come up with and brainstorm about another idea before WriMo starts, and B. I’ve got to give myself the benefit of the doubt. I’m just going through fanfic withdrawal right now, and will perhaps be better once I get more into it all again.
Last night I went back and reread all the old NaNo threads. My excitement is building.
Also I started rereading last year’s NaNo. It’s surprisingly good. I mean, it needs a lot of editing, but the characters are slightly more interesting than last year’s, and I haven’t noticed any gaping plot holes yet. Really, I’m quite encouraged.
Twenty one days till NaNo!
I promised my friend that for her birthday, I would write her a perfect guy. That was back in July. I haven’t even started writing that. I was thinking I might write him for NaNoWriMo, edit through December, and give it to her for Christmas instead, but a) it would still probably be a fairly terrible story and b) I feel like it’s weird to give people novels you have written them for Christmas, unless you are Neil Gaiman, who has apparently done so on several occasions.
Ugh. My first NaNo, I was incredibly inspired by having seen Broadway’s American Idiot, and my second, I was incredibly inspired by the Giants having won the World Series. Something awesomely inspiring had better happen by the end of October, or I am afraid.
Right now, the idea I am considering most favorably is a fantasy parody. It centers on a main character who was kicked out of a Hogwarts-esque magical boarding school (possibly for getting revenge on a friend who was acting smug about being a Chosen One) and is sort of wandering about working for McDonald’s and suchlike, mostly pretending not to be a magic-user. Then she gets roped into an Adventure-Quest to defeat an Evil Villain who turns out not to be so very evil after all. I can’t decide if it’s way too cliche or not. What do you guys think?
Oh no, that sounds funny. I’d like to read it.
Sounds like fun to me!
I have no other ideas other than the one I’m working now, and all I seem to be able to do is crank out cakey short stories with lots of gore and stuff nowadays. *sigh* I need more plot ideas in case this one fails dramatically and miserably.
Okay, I just got most of my plot done. Every person has a doppelganger living underground, and the protagonist accidentily kills his. Chaos ensues.
As it always seems to.
Wonder when the new NaNo site will go up?
I’ve heard that it is already up for the Municipal Liaisons, but they are sworn to secrecy as to when the site will go public. Our local guy does say “helpfully” that it will be running tomorrow. Which at least is a clue that they’re not expecting significant delays. Remember, too, HQ is on the West Coast, so it’s still early in the day for the regular staff.
Ah.
Huh, I understood that it would be up for everyone today. Guess I was wrong.
No, you’re correct; it’s supposed to be up today. He was just saying tomorrow as a joke, because it will indeed be up tomorrow if it launches today on schedule. Assuming no technical problems or traffic beyond its ability to handle. But nobody said what time today.
Oh! Okay, cool.
Still not up.
Why am I being so impatient?
I think I have come up with my plot… -ish… I’m still working on it… I might try and break the book into thirty chapters, then I just write one chapter a day and go from there on word count. This is my first NaNo so I don’t think I’ll reach 50,000…
Steampunk. Have characters. Need plot. Hair gone.
The site went up late last night! It’s quite pretty. Smoother, somehow. I found that it was up and poked around a bit, but then it crashed on me which was great for my sleep totals but also quite annoying.
Anyway, I came up with a new idea!
Current title is Salmagundi Patrol. Salmagundi Patrol is a bunch of amazingly inept people who guard the border between our world and another dimension/alternate universe catching anything that leaks through. And the alternate universe is called the Salmagundi and it’s a giant amalgation of all of history and future. I’m quite excited about this now.
Side benefits of this story: I get to use smorgasbord, salmagundi, and amalgation, all of which are critically underused.
Muahahaha. Even if I don’t win, this is going to be wicked fun.
Okay, so in my alternate-dimension-thingy, mimes are people who can form solid walls and such out of air. I came up with this idea during science class, and I was so proud of it I decided to put it in my NaNo.
Okay. I have most of my plot. Breathe, Mika. I’ve been writing events of my plot on sticky index cards and laying them out. I got the idea from a friend. It works pretty well. I think…I’m going to have someone build clocks and gears and ridiculously complicated automatons.
SHE IS INCOMPLETE
WE ARE THE SAME
I have a plot, I think, taken from the wonderful adopt-a-plot forum. It’s essentially about a girl who falls asleep on a bus, and wakes up to find that not only is her stop far behind her – reality is as well.
The thread’s alive! I was worried for a moment there.
I’ve been fleshing out characters. So far I have four, all of them with their own unique quirks. I think my characters will be a bit more than cardboard cutouts this year.
Hm. How many members should an inter-reality border patrol have? I need a number small enough that I can characterize them all in a memorable fashion, but large enough to be reasonably logical.
Hrrm. I’d say three or so “main” characters, but then quite a few “supporting” characters (up to seven recognizable ones as well as a few names of co-border patrol guards that one can recognize).
Hm… That means I have to choose three ‘main’ characters. I don’t think this is going to be easy.
I need to flesh out backstories. I don’t have any, and I bet there are some interesting stories hidden there.
Oh, and names. I think it’ll be set ~100 years into the future, so I’ll probably just stick with somewhat uncommon names from today.
Seventeen days till NaNo!
Is it bad that I knew that without looking?
Why would it be a bad thing?
Also: I said three, but if you wanted I am sure you could bump it up to four if you really needed to. Four actually might be better if you already have four characters fleshed out.
I’m writing a story about either:
A person writing a biography and becoming good friends
A parody about people on a quest
A parody about people on a quest, eh?
Not like yours…
Soo..
How about that airplane food??
Airplane food?
Argh, I don’t think I can do NaNo this year. What with my crazy English teacher giving homework every night and five million projects, I just don’t think it would be wise. Maybe next year.
Aww, that’s too bad! *hugs and choklit* Oh well, next year…
Hmm! I’ve been filling out character questioneers and my main character is a lot more developed than last year’s. I hope I can show this in my novel. I don’t want to overplan my plot, so I’m going to figure out the ending and then let it be. I have a rough outline though. Also I think I’m going to do all my characters one by one. and I need to come up with a name for an organization and the members of it. So there’s that..
I wish the NaNo site would put up writing buddies.
Okay so it looks like I have a new and improved plot idea, much as I hate to change it so close to November. At least it’s a Musiversefic, so I don’t have to do much for character development etc. besides maybe go through some old Kokopelli & Companys. I feel more motivated for this, both because Musiversefic is dang awesome and I’d feel kind of obligated to share the completed work with you guys.
Plotline is officially constructed and main character has somewhat of a personality! Now for more characters… my big writing flaw is that when I first started writing, all the characters were Mary Sues of myself. Then, when I started making characters from scratch, they were about as fleshed out as stick figures. Now I am fleshing out my characters beforehand, and this is also my first ever male main charaxter.
Augh, sorry for the typos and the double post.
Okay so far I have:
A new plot/
AUGH!
I had a concept and it was exciting and then tonight I started rereading other ideas I’ve had in the past and they’re really good and I want to do them instead and NO!
And my wonderful idea is suddenly looking not quite so good because it doesn’t have a plot or bad guys or anything and it’s half stolen from Doctor Who anyway, and what am I going to do!?
Knew this wasn’t going to be as easy as it seemed to be.
Need to finish character outlines and work out a few plot kinks, maybe plan the plot a tad more. Like the ending. xD I can’t believe it’s almost time.
I’m doing NaNoWriMo with four people in real life this year. It’s weird… I’m not sure how committed half of them are, but I know that two are definitely going to do it. The others are people I met at my new school who are awesome and stuff so I have hopes, anyway even if they don’t do it it doesn’t really matter. Although one of them needs to validate VALIDATE RIN* argh.
I’m excited…I wonder if I can get away with wearing a top hat to school on Tuesday if I tell people it’s for literary purposes.
*Yay codenames!
I am actually planning this year instead of writing based on a character idea and a first sentence! So far I have 30 sticky notes stuck to my window for what I plan to write each day.
So recently I realized I won’t have enough time for NaNoWriMo what with school and stuff.
Then I decided that I would do this:
I can write an unedited 1,250 word essay in ~two hours.
I can write a 2 well edited minutes of music in ~two hours.
So: 50,000 words / 1,250 for two hours = 40 two hour writing blocks in the month of November = 80 minutes of music = (intentionally low estimate of 25 days to motivate myself) 3.2 minutes of music per day.
Can he write it? I have no idea.
Would the GAPAs allow me to send them .wav files of the best music?