Board 8 > Is anyone here planning to participate in Nanowrimo this year?

(+) Yeah! (+)

aka National Novel Writing Month, where the goal is to write 50,000 words in November. Obviously that doesn't start until Monday, but I figured the weekend would be prime planning time if anyone was interested!

I'm not sure if we had a topic for this the last few years. I know we did many years ago because I tried to participate only to fail immediately. But I saw at least a few people in the topics KP made about publishing his book saying they felt inspired to get creative again, and this might be a good opportunity for us all to jump back in. I'm sure there are other forums out there dedicated solely to writing, but B8 is a close-knit community where we could easily help each other with encouragement and answering the occasional question, assuming anyone other than me is interested.

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I'm in too much of a funk to be able to pound out a halfway coherent book. The point of NaNoWriMo is to build the skeleton of your novel so you don't have to throw half of it out in revisions, and anything I write is gonna probably be thrown out.
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I know how hard it is to write through a funk, so no shame in not participating. Regarding quality, though, I don't think I'll manage anything good either! I'm very much a slow writer, if I try to push too far without liking what I already have it just steadily gets worse and worse. But, I've been working on a book for almost three years now and all that mentality has only gotten me is roughly 10k words. I'm tired of being a perfectionist who never actually gets anywhere. I'm finally going to spend the month and see what happens if I keep pushing forward. At least I'll have a bunch of junk to puzzle over once I'm done.

Now I just need to decide between a few ideas...

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I write every day, so count me in. I'm about 1/3 through a sequel to my debut novel, so I'll make it a goal to finish this new one by the end of November.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

I'm in too much of a funk to be able to pound out a halfway coherent book. The point of NaNoWriMo is to build the skeleton of your novel so you don't have to throw half of it out in revisions, and anything I write is gonna probably be thrown out.

Keep an open mind and give it a shot. I don't know anybody who ever wrote a book with a negative attitude like that.

Some days I'm really feeling it. Others, I'm in no mood. But most days I at least get something worth salvaging. You don't need a full skeleton, just a few bones to help build the next draft.

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Mobilezoid posted...

I'm tired of being a perfectionist who never actually gets anywhere. I'm finally going to spend the month and see what happens if I keep pushing forward. At least I'll have a bunch of junk to puzzle over once I'm done.

Setting a daily word count is the best antidote to this. Aim to hit a daily minimum and you'll stop overthinking things.

Btw in order to complete NaNoWriMo, you'll need 1,667 a day.

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plasmabeam posted...

I don't know anybody who ever wrote a book with a negative attitude like that.

Nor do I. I may try it some other year when I'm not feeling in the dumps. I can't just flip a switch and have a positive attitude when bad shit keeps happening to me. It's just one of those low points in my life.

Mobilezoid posted...

Regarding quality, though, I don't think I'll manage anything good either!

Most NaNoWriMo books are garbage and idiots often try to get them published right away instead of revising. My point was that the skeleton itself needs to be good enough that you don't want to have to, say, redo the entirety of chapters 6 through 10, and because of that, change a lot of things thereafter, including the ending - it would basically be restarting. The actual dialogue is prone to be weak and thus in need of touch-ups.

plasmabeam posted...

Btw in order to complete NaNoWriMo, you'll need 1,667 a day.

I suggest to do one chapter of about this length a day. Two on Black Friday if you, say, are spending the entire day at your parents' for Thanksgiving.
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plasmabeam posted...

I write every day, so count me in. I'm about 1/3 through a sequel to my debut novel, so I'll make it a goal to finish this new one by the end of November.

I'm glad I won't be the only one potentially breaking the spirit of Nanowrimo by having stuff already written. One of the three ideas I've narrowed down to is continuing the book I've been writing, just getting past the point I'm stuck on with some junk and going from there. I have this idea planned backwards and forwards, it would be the least likely to have a bad skeleton, as BCT puts it. If I choose that one, I suppose my goal would be 60k total counting the 10k I already have.

This idea brings literal years of baggage, though, so I'm still debating if it would be better to start fresh. Hopefully this indecision doesn't last until Monday!

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This would be a cool thing to attempt but we'll see.

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BlueCrystalTear posted...

Nor do I. I may try it some other year when I'm not feeling in the dumps. I can't just flip a switch and have a positive attitude when bad shit keeps happening to me. It's just one of those low points in my life.

Hang in there. Once things clear up, you're going to have a lot of material to work with. Try writing 100 words a day. Get into the habit, see if you can build some momentum.

Mobilezoid posted...

I'm glad I won't be the only one potentially breaking the spirit of Nanowrimo by having stuff already written. One of the three ideas I've narrowed down to is continuing the book I've been writing, just getting past the point I'm stuck on with some junk and going from there. I have this idea planned backwards and forwards, it would be the least likely to have a bad skeleton, as BCT puts it. If I choose that one, I suppose my goal would be 60k total counting the 10k I already have.

This idea brings literal years of baggage, though, so I'm still debating if it would be better to start fresh. Hopefully this indecision doesn't last until Monday!

Write the story you want to write. One of the biggest mistakes I've made through the years is writing stories that I thought I was supposed to write.

Snake5555555555 posted...

This would be a cool thing to attempt but we'll see.

Your breakdowns in the Rate the VG Story topics are routinely top-notch, so you definitely have a solid understanding of how stories work and what makes them good. Do it. Would love to see what you come up with.

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I think I've settled on the new idea. I'll try to come back to the other one after with some better skills and habits. Time to try and get my head around chapter one before midnight hits and I can start writing!

I suppose we can just keep using this topic for word count updates and stuff, no need to make a new one.
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I've done it twice in the past but haven't really been in a writing mood the last few years. I might try it again this year and see if I can break out of the funk.

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I always try to tell myself I'll participate and then never do

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Early day one progress: 594 words. Technically my word document is at 1022 but the rest of that is chapter one planning stuff I've typed up. I'm not sure that counts.

Despite all my planning, I've been dreading actually sitting down and confronting my slow-writing demons. With that pessimistic prediction in mind, this is going surprisingly well! My story is set in what I'll describe here as a simulated world for simplicity's sake, and chapter one opens with a bit of a doozy in terms of introducting that setting and my main character. I have a few good paragraphs that I think started to tackle that difficult beginning. Then, like it always does, my writing started devolving into garbage. That was when I stopped for the night. I'll ponder it at work tomorrow and hopefully come back home with a better way forward. A lot of my first chapter will be a conversation between two characters, too, and things should hopefully flow smoother once I get to it.

Still, not bad for a few hours after midnight on the first day. This is the most progress I've made in anything creative all year.

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I like writing a lot and I've thought about trying this a few times, but never actually started. I might be able to do alright if my motivation stuck around, but that doesn't happen

I mostly do small bits of writing at a time to keep it manageable, large goals are harder.

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I've done it like 3 times in the past but that was like 13-15 years ago.

My wife was trying to convince me to do it this year but it's incredibly difficult unless you have a ton of time on your hands. I could probably do 20k in a month nowadays but not 50.

I am once again deciding I want to do it next year. There's a game design one too that I have tried a couple times but I am just not in the right place the last few Novembers.

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I did this a couple years ago, got to 10-11k words and just dropped off. Pretty sure this was because I didn't write regularly outside of November, so it was steep and unsustainable for me. It was cool to have written that much.
Mobilezoid posted...

I'm tired of being a perfectionist who never actually gets anywhere. I'm finally going to spend the month and see what happens if I keep pushing forward.

This is such a mood. I encourage you to do it! Tell your perfectionistic tendencies to shut up and watch closely.

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I'm planning to start the second novel in my series this month - I don't really follow the NaNoWriMo model but I have been needing to kick myself into gear and this seems like a good time.

Also need to do one last edit of the first novel now that I've had half a year away from it and can look at it with relatively fresh eyes again and also finalize the query letter, but starting a new draft of a new story feels more accessible at the current moment (and I feel like November-February is a bad time for submissions anyway).

(and I'm writing these two novels to be standalone in case I can't sell the first)

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My day one total was 708. Falling behind isn't necessarily a disaster, not this early and on weekdays. The bigger problem is that my whole opening kind of fell apart. I swore I'd try not to edit too much while writing, but it's important for my overall theme to introduce my main character correctly. And it's proving surprisingly difficult! Hopefully I can fix this tonight and then start catching up to the pace Nanowrimo demands.

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BlueCrystalTear posted...

My point was that the skeleton itself needs to be good enough that you don't want to have to, say, redo the entirety of chapters 6 through 10, and because of that, change a lot of things thereafter, including the ending - it would basically be restarting. The actual dialogue is prone to be weak and thus in need of touch-ups.

Ive seen multiple professional authors say the opposite of this, tbh. Even if 6 of your 10 chapters get thrown out, you at least flexed your writing muscle and now you at least know what you dont want to write.


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Day 1: 3465
Day 2: 3030

Today was shaping up to be a bad writing day, but I fought through it and found a cool new path to take my novel in its 2nd half.

I'll say this: sequels are a bitch to write. I feel pressured to match/exceed the quality of the 1st book, but I'm limited because I already used most of my best material in Book 1.

Mobilezoid posted...

I swore I'd try not to edit too much while writing, but it's important for my overall theme to introduce my main character correctly. And it's proving surprisingly difficult! Hopefully I can fix this tonight and then start catching up to the pace Nanowrimo demands.

How you write is up to you, but full rewrites often lead to better books than the edit-as-you-go method.

CasanovaZelos posted...

Also need to do one last edit of the first novel now that I've had half a year away from it and can look at it with relatively fresh eyes again and also finalize the query letter, but starting a new draft of a new story feels more accessible at the current moment (and I feel like November-February is a bad time for submissions anyway).

(and I'm writing these two novels to be standalone in case I can't sell the first)

Query tip that saved my life... Find a a book with a similar plot to yours, and use its summary as a template for your own.

And avoid querying around Christmas. Or on any weekend. Wednesday is the best day to query because the slush readers are swamped on Monday/Tues with the submissions from over the weekend.

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plasmabeam posted...

How you write is up to you, but full rewrites often lead to better books than the edit-as-you-go method.

You're almost certainly right, but it's hard to silence the part of my brain that argues, if I can't write a perfect sentence or paragraph or chapter right now, how can I ever write a good book?

I don't have an exact word count today, but, uh, it decreased from yesterday. On the one hand that's good, cutting sentences I didn't really need is never a bad thing. Now, though, I feel like I've started stalling. I'm counting how many sentences have commas vs no commas because I use a lot of commas if I don't make an effort not to. I enjoy doing this kind of close editing more than actual writing if I'm being honest, and it does eventually result in better writing. I just need to get it in my head that maybe I don't need to do it on a first draft.

So I'm behind, but it's still early in the month and I'm not counting myself out yet!

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is that the thing where you don't jerk off

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I hope not

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The secret is to write and jerk off at the same time

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Current total: 846 words. An increase! Not only that, I think I'm finally past the hurdle that'd tripped me up! Basically I realized my opening scene really didn't work with the theme I was trying to convey. It took a lot of tinkering to make everything click together, at least for a first draft placeholder. This opening will have ripples throughout the whole plot, so I'm glad I didn't push forward with a completely unworkable version of it.

I'm over four days behind, but I'm poised to make some real progress now that I have a solid starting point. I'm going to dedicate Saturday to catching up no matter what.

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Mobilezoid posted...

I'm over four days behind, but I'm poised to make some real progress now that I have a solid starting point. I'm going to dedicate Saturday to catching up no matter what.

Go go go, I believe in you.

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Steiner posted...

is that the thing where you don't jerk off

no

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I managed to reach a little over 2000 words. It wasn't enough to come anywhere near the 10k needed to be on pace for 50k. If I do reach that goal, I guess that's going to happen by slowly catching up over the rest of the month. As the likelihood of my failure increases, I'm not sure if I'll keep posting word count updates here (for however few people are even checking in). I appreciated the push of having others aware of what I was attempting, but I don't want to let you all down!

I'm happy with what I've accomplished so far, though. These aren't 2000 nonsense words, I've been semi-editing as I go and I'm sorta happy with them. For me, that's pretty good! I mean my last project took two years to reach 10k and here I am getting 2000 in a week. There's a lot left to fix in those parts, but I'm happy enough with them to at least forge ahead.
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I wrote 6000 words for a guide yesterday. Though it's not fiction, that probably brings me to roughly 10k of writing on the month.

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NFUN posted...

no

so it's like writing while you jerk off?

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Steiner posted...

so it's like writing while you jerk off?

yes

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wait are you guys shaving though
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Bump

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