NaNoWriMo*, v. 2015
Sounds like a couple people are taking part this year!
Previously: v. 2014
*National Novel Writing Month
Date: October 24, 2015
Categories: Random craziness
Friday, 26 April 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
Sounds like a couple people are taking part this year!
Previously: v. 2014
*National Novel Writing Month
Date: October 24, 2015
Categories: Random craziness
I’m not committing to a full 50,000 words this year. I can probably only write on weekends this November, now that I’m employed, so I’m not committing to anything.
However, I am making an unofficial goal to finish the novel I started last year, Dialetheia. I had about 23,000 words on it from 2014, and I’m at about 24,000 now and still in love with the characters and story, and I’ve been doing some fairly serious thought lately into plot for the second half – where I really gave up last year was when I ran out of plot to write about, when I wasn’t sure what would happen next.
I’m going to give it a ago again! No idea what I’m going to write this year, but I’m gonna try.
I figured out my plot during math when we were waiting for a “real” substitute teacher instead of the lab assistant, who was talking about how bad ISS (in school suspension) looks on you record. As much as I love long, boring, meaningless lectures, I was preoccupied with doodling a map for a fantasy world. While the rest of my classmates were taking “great interest” to a slide show about consequences, I was trying to figure a story line I could use that involved that fantasy world. Suddenly, I remembered my vague idea for a “new” mythology. That’s when my story idea clicked.
I had no plans this way, but I’ve been having an idea that I love so much that I don’t know if I can avoid it!
What is this? A NaNo thread open before November? Madness.
Anyway, I’m definitely taking part, but under heavy self-restrictions because I’m in college and I guess grades are probably more important than NaNo. Still hoping to get 50k, though.
I also really want to try for a 50k day one. I mean, I can write fast enough that if I can just keep going long enough I can make it in 24 hours. And I know it’s possible, people have done it. I don’t know if I can be one of them, this year, but hey, even if I fail I’ll have a nice chunk of words to work with.
I am so sorry that I missed the last two years that I think I’ll attempt it this year. One thing, however… how would I quickly count the words to make sure I have enough and am keeping steady pace?
i think most people do it on a word processor on their computer, so that will automatically count words for you.
Hey, I found a Wordcounter (dot) net. I dunno if you’ve all heard of it or use it, but it looks very useful!
On Google docs, Ctrl + Shift + C brings up a word count. Just don’t mistake it for your character total, which is listed next to it.
If you don’t have Microsoft Word (which displays the word count at the bottom of the page), the Nanowrimo official website has a word counter!
I have about 20k of a novel idea I wrote last spring, and might do a small nanowrimo (the remaining 30k) this year. Here’s hoping!
I totally trashed my idea. I guess I just didn’t have my “heart” in it. I didn’t like the characters. I was confused about the plot. I didn’t really think I would find myself running home from school saying “Oh Boy! I can’t wait to write my very complex novel!” I hope I’m not the only one who’s experienced this.
Now, my plan is to write down (part) of a story about 8th grade students. I’ve been “writing” stories about the characters in my head before I fall asleep. It’s a tradition. (It hasn’t always been these characters. It changes every so often). I’ve never written down one of these stories, so this will be odd. Wish me luck!
I may do picowrimo (aka the version where I’m a grad student and have no time to actually do real nano. er. not that I’ve ever written 50K words ever. I’m rather bad at getting high word counts/finishing short stories but I’m getting better at that.)
In any case my goal is to get a start on the novel idea I had set in a world me and my best friend (long ago called “Green” on here — she wasn’t an MBer, that was just my nickname for anonymity preservation) and I invented in, uh, 2007 or so. But it is my favorite world /still/.
Woo NaNo countdown I can’t wait.
I’m afraid I’m in the absolute worst spot of having planned just enough to mess me up, but whatever. Writing commences soon.
At least I have names for all my main characters now.
You know, I said earlier that I wanted to get all 50k in one day. And I still think it would be cool. But… I’m kind of accepting, two hours in, that it’s not going to be happening. Which is okay. I never thought I’d get it, even if I didn’t think I’d give up this soon.
But I’m barely staying ahead of the 2k an hour necessary to do this after just two hours. I can’t keep that up for twenty five hours.
And I’m just not enthusiastic enough about it to put more effort in, I think. Or something. I mean, maybe I’m just chickening out and I could do it if I wanted to, and if I go to sleep now I’ll never know. But… I’m tired. A smaller goal is perfectly respectable. And it’ll be much better for my overall health.
So I’ll just get myself to 5k and go on to bed.
(Not sure whether my story is part of the problem or not. It sounded great in concept, but I’m not loving any of the characters or plots now that I’m writing them. I don’t know whether I’d feel that way about any story or if this one is just not right.)
Well it’s officially November where I am but I have a lot of stuff going on because we just won!! grand champions!! And it’s 1:47 where I am but it’s Okay I just got back from Waffle House oh god it’s November I’m not sure I’ve mentally prepared myself for this
7k, now. The thing I most want to write about is not the main cast that I carefully designed, but the guardian of the main character, who kidnapped her as a newborn.
Maybe I’ll just write about her adventures with trying to stop the adventures of the main cast. Hmm. Bears consideration.
My all-time record of most words in one day is 10k. I want to get past that, by lunchtime if possible.
Go Errata!!!! Maybe in a few years I’ll try for one day. I could have a large chunk of my novel done, but…. Let’s say I’m halfway through Studio C season 1, and have about 200 words done.
Maybe in 2020, next time it’s on a weekend, we’ll be prepared. Someday I’ll do it, but I don’t have the stamina or enthusiasm this year.
I did reach 11k, though, which is officially a new daily record. I’m going for 15k minimum, which I should get soon-ish, if I work.
3046, dudes!
1070, and my head already hurts.
Hit my 1884 for the day, and could keep going, but need to take some time to work on other writing projects (and also, to pack for another week in the field… this tech work camping job thing is going to make things difficult, but at least i’ll have intermittent internet to update my word count this week at least).
I sort of threw together a concept on tuesday, and then didn’t plan for real at all. I went to a Halloween party last night so didn’t start until this afternoon, but it turns out I’m writing about faeries (not unexpected) and rocks (perhaps, predictable) and the desert (might as well while I’m here). We’ll see where it goes??? I have literally nothing planned yet except “punk faeries crash a desert rave; shenanigans ensue; also instead of being plants/animals they are minerals.” We’ll see where it goes I guess!
Have you read any Bordertown? That’s what I think when I think punk faeries + desert.
1,241 words in the prologue…. Now let me reunite with my bed.
as per ush I have neither the time nor the dedication needed to write a novel in a month, but this year I have so many essays and writing projects for school that I’m going to try to write at least 1-2k words/day anyway. NaHo(mework)WriMo.
Do you know what would happen in the occurrence of a writer reaching over 50,000 words before the end of the month, but also before the story is done? Would they have to hurry up and finish the story before the month ends, or just be happy they got over 50,000?
I’m just asking because I can either only write microstories or a story the length of two bibles, there is no in-between.
You can still “win” NaNoWriMo if your story isn’t finished. As long as you met your goal, you can be as far along as you need. According to the official FAQ page: “Your word-count goal is a threshold, not a limit. Keep going! Set a new, more-challenging goal and continue your story.”
Ugh, I’ve written myself into a corner. Most of my characters are traveling in one way or another, and I have no idea for what to do with them on their journeys, one of the characters is supposed to be following the other two but she has no idea where they’re going and no skill at tracking people and no money to hire a tracker, the last is just… I don’t know what to do with her.
I guess it’s time to skip forward and fill in the gaps in revisions.
Oh, and I never posted about it, but I reached 15k on the first day! I’m really happy with that. Didn’t do much yesterday, on purpose so I could keep up with school work, but hopefully I’ll get a fair amount done today.
I’m sure Tolkien felt that way sometimes. Write on!
You sure know how to encourage your audience.
I ended up getting neither the homework I had for today nor much writing done, and doing the homework trumps any more writing for today. Here’s hoping tomorrow goes better…
Embarrassing realization for the day: of four named major female characters, I’ve given three names that start with the same letter (Alis, Annet, and Agatha). I really ought to change at least one, but, as I keep whimpering plaintively, those are their names.
8363.
I’ve done the same thing :0 It’s always awkward realizing you’ve name two characters Mics and Mina without having any good reason to do so.
I realize a few months ago that I have a LOT of characters whose names start with “A”, especially protagonists. (You may remember that my character in the latest version of the superhero RPG was Amy Crossfield, and the heroine of my COSMOS fan-fic was Alexa Day. I realized this when I noticed that the reporter and photographer at the center of my current “Twister” story are Andrea Wu and Alexander Dennison.)
I did that exact same thing on accident. I actually named all the characters in one story names that all start with the letter A, and two of those names even end with the same syllable. I got used to calling them that before it actually dawned on me, so I just accepted it and changed other character’s names to start with A also.
7011, yes! My goal is 25,000, but I’m trying to get an average of 1,000 words per day in, so I’m right on track (for the first week )! I’m think I’m done for today, though.
Wow, I have not been updating much. Kind of a shame, I use these entries as records of previous years, and I guess this’ll be a spotty year, alas.
General report of the last few days: I like my story, but I don’t love it, and I’m having trouble prioritizing it over other things. Which is a blessing and a curse, really, since it really probably isn’t higher priority than, say, grades.
For whatever reason it’s taking a lot of time to write, too. I just can’t get into the stage where I’m just writing and writing without pause, which is usually pretty easy for me during NaNo.
I’m also not convinced I really should be panicking about any of this. I’m still at 20k, almost 21k now. My first day did a lot for keeping me ahead without having to work much. Which isn’t in the spirit of NaNo, really.
Dunno. I’m getting a lot written, and I’m happy about that, it’s just… It’s not as emotionally intense as NaNo usually is, and I’m sad about that? I like caring deeply about it. But I guess it’s not a disaster if this year goes by sort of silently.
11669, thank goodness. Having a devil of a time keeping up.
Ack! 1,697! I’d better get on it.
11,000. Uuuuughhh and now my mom wants me to get a job and be a “contributing member of society” but. but novel-writing.
“The intellect of man is forced to choose
“Perfection of the life, or of the work.”
Writing can force you to do weird things. Today, I wrote a scene that took place at a middle school talent show. I had to come up with some weird acts. That was fun, since I got to imagine weird acts and remember back to the talents shows I’ve gone to. Here’s a list of the five acts featured and mentioned in the scene:
-Cecelia the Silly Seal: A sixth grade comedic act that features a handmade seal puppet that tells corny jokes. Very unsuccessful.
-An ode to Alil Zid: A seventh grade Diva sings the greatest hits of the fictional Pop Star Alil Zid. Successful until a teacher forces her back stage.
-Unicorns on Unicycles: 8th grade girls wearing Unicorn suits trying to ride unicycles. VERY UNSUCCESSFUL, since they kept falling down. Good thing they had the nice, pillowy unicorn suits.
-The Thunder Cloggers. Very annoying, good ol’ fashioned southern clogging. For some reason, the crowd loves it.
-Disney Haiku: 54 Haikus, one Haiku describes one Disney animated classic. I only wrote 10, and used only 4. This was the most fun act to write, even though some Disney movies get on my nerves.
Continuing to write a few hundred a day, barely ever more.
For some reason, I can’t flip into ‘NaNo’ mode, where I write two thousand words at a stretch without worrying. I don’t know what it is. I’m writing more like I do the rest of the year.
It’s like… NaNo isn’t a priority this year. Writing isn’t a priority right now. And that’s kind of terrifying, but on the other hand… It means I’m even more excited about everything else around me. I’ll take that.
At 23.6k right now. Still got a decent buffer, but it’s lessening, and I’m headed into finals week. Which is concerning. I can probably catch up the last ten days of the month, but I’ll probably be catching up with family and whatnot…
I should start trying to at least get the bare minimum for every day, though. It’s just difficult.
On the plus side, my story’s going well. I just decided to throw a major wrench into all of my protagonist’s days, which’ll be fun.
Still at around 15k- couldn’t write yesterday because I had two months to procure a track for a collaborative album, which was due today, and at the last minute I decided my track was garbage and started over and did the entire project yesterday (recording from an iPhone, no less.)
Anyway, I feel like my plot this year is really well developed-I’ve had a long time to think about it, as I began the story this spring- but I feel like my characters and setting are less so. One of my supporting characters is the protagonist from my 2013 novel, the draft of which will stay untouched on my hard drive forever. So I have to juggle her backstory and it’s contrasting very badly with her counterpart supporting character, whose background is much more one-dimensional.
I’m jumping around a lot- as soon as I’ve finished writing a scene, instead of sticking around it and getting block, I’ll find another scene I know needs writing.
The story is told mostly by the narrator, but also by their mother and aunt, whose journals they read. Writing journal entries is interesting, but there are a lot of holes in the journals they have to fill.
Anyway! This is fun so far, and I really need to stop binge watching gravity falls because it’s being a serious detriment to my word count.
Hit 25k today, which is a lot more than I thought I’d get. Turns out dropping massive problems on your protagonists’ heads is really good for inspiration. And since I’m working rather more on excitement with the story than wordcount, that’s a good thing.
One of my main characters is about to allow herself to be arrested so that the others can escape, and will then be escorted off to a confrontation with the woman who was once her best friend, whom she was maybe a little in love with, and who gave birth to the child she’s been protecting for the last eighteen years. It won’t go well. Wish I could keep writing this now, but really, I’m headed into finals week and I need sleep. Alas.
Okay, so I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna be able to make it this year, so just in case I’m also including my character count. If I can get at least over 50,000 characters in I’ll be happy. I’ll qualify for at least a quarter of a chocolate cake, right?
I’m still on track!
gave up working on one individual story, am instead just trying to write 1667 per day on whatever i feel like working on. stops me from abandoning/stalling on my current projects, but still work on new things. Since I’m still pretty busy with full time job, also means i don’t waste as much time being stuck on a chapter, when I can skip to something else and get to bed at a (semi) reasonable hour.
Made it to about a day ahead of wordcount yesterday, but haven’t written for today yet. About to start!
Today is the first day I fell behind. I’m at 27k, have been for a couple of days. It’s finals, so I’m basically not allowing myself to write, though. Catching up will happen after I finish my eight page paper.
I hit 28k last night, which is the closest I’ve been to caught up in a while. Here’s hoping I can hit 50k before the story runs out of steam.
I’m over 100 words over my daily goal for the first time all month!
Uuugh I need to get back to work because I’m way behind, but I can’t motivate myself to get even the minimum. I’m still worn out from finals, but… I just don’t have that much enthusiasm for the concept of NaNo right now? This happened a couple years back, it was very sad, and I just finished off everything on the last couple days. I don’t want that to happen again.
But I’m still hanging out just above 28k. I’m getting practically nowhere.
Well, back to work.
500 words left. Before you say “Oh, wow, Yin! That’s great. Teach me your ways!” Let’s just say I used YWp and set a goal of 10000 because I have school stuff, and just wanted to see if I could do it. I’m going for 50000 next year, and using a concept my friend and I came up with in 4th grade, years ago. That should be fun. In the mean time, I’m trying to challenge myself to pernanowrimoalyelons (Personal NanoWriMos all year longs) just to prepare for my remake of my idea from fourth grade.
It’s still an accomplishment. Enjoy it!
I’m now ten thousand words behind. It’s been ten days or more since I’ve written over a thousand in one day. I need to get started and just move, but… I don’t know if I can. I haven’t been able to flip into NaNo “just write” mode all month, not since the very first day.
But I need to now. Or I’ll actually fail for the first time in six years. I can’t break that streak.
Twenty thousand in six days. Can’t be that hard, right?
You can do it, Errata!
*Gasp* I made it *chokes for air and collapses* You can probably tell what I’m talking about, considering its late November, and had to write 500 words today.
I WAS on track for a good long while but then i missed one day and lost my lead, then another and fell behind, and whoops now i’m 3000 short (on top of today’s 1667 i haven’t gotten to yet).
Still working on a hodgepodge of different projects. Hopefully i can catch up a bit this weekend??? we will see x_x
You’re slightly ahead of me. I haven’t written today either. Fortunately, my local WriMos are gathering Saturday for our annual bash, so I’m hoping to finish then. I’m handwriting this year, which makes it something of a different experience.
Current problem: I need to get at least 3k, but… The plotline that is objectively the better choice here isn’t the one I want to write? I really should go for the dramatic stuff, but I’m not sure I like the direction I took it in?
Whatever I decide to do, I need to do it fast. I have twelve thousand to write, and we’re about to leave for somewhere I never get anything done.
Got to 43k! That puts be just 300 short of par, which is closer than I’ve been in days! Quite content with that, especially since I did it all in about the last hour and a half.
Current count, 3,028.
I think I’m basically screwed.
Catwings: Quantity isn’t everything!
45k and on track to win. Seeing as this November was dedicated to writing a continuation of 20k words I typed up earlier this year, it’ll total up close to 70,000 words. That’s my longest work yet!
And yet I’m still not sure how to end it! My two main characters just reunited. They’re trapped in the villain’s lair. They can’t leave til she comes back because she’s put a spell on them using a magic weapon that’s been the main source of conflict in the entire series.
So what next?
I’ve been going back and filling holes in the story for the past 10k words. It’s probably time to move forward in the story.
Somewhere around the 47,000-word mark, I finally figured out what I was writing.
I got to 50k today! Finally!
Is it legal to extend your deadline by a month if you deduct the current count?
There’s no way that I know of to extend your deadline if you’re going for official validation, but if you want to try for 50k in December, go ahead! It won’t technically be a NaNo, but it’s still just as impressive!
I can do an unofficial NaNo this year, and then try for an official one this year.
*Next year.
Sounds great! Keep trucking, and definitely don’t let one failed attempt throw you off.
Just finished! Wooo!
This year was kind of weird, in that I never had much lack of enthusiasm for my novel itself, but I did have all sorts of problems with motivating myself to write. And my enthusiasm for the entire event and satisfaction with winning is kinda down this year, so that’s disappointing.
I’m still really happy, especially with the way the novel came out. I actually finished it in 50k words, which is kinda unusual. It hasn’t happened since the first year, actually.
And I have a lot more ideas for how this story could continue, so that’s also nice!
3770 for the day (the 29th that is), and VERY CLOSE to bing caught up! Turning in for the night though now that it’s after midnight and work in the morning oops. But just 1950ish to go tomorrow, which is super do-able, even with all the prep I have to do for 7 days in the field (well–fieldwork but sleeping indoors, thankfully. we had our last camping excursion at the start of/mid november and HO BOY that was cold)
While I was finishing my mediocre story, a brilliant idea came to me. I just have to wait until next year….
You can write it now, while it is fresh! You don’t have to wait for nano to do it!
and you can set yourself wordcount challenges throughout December!
True, but I love the trill of NaNoWriMo. Plus, I’m still debating over whether it should take place in Pompeii, or Hawaii…..
Yaaaaaaaaay hey I wrote a book that’s cool.