So. For the next few weeks things may get a little quiet around here. Tumbleweeds may not precisely roll, but they could potentially meander. Come November 1st I’ll be a wary, self-depracating participant in National Novel Writing Month.
I know, I know. What the hell, and why?
NaNoWriMo is better explained by the organizers than by me. It’s essentially a kamikaze blast approach to writing, and as for why I’m doing it, well, I heard about it last year and remarked in passing that I’d give it a shot next time around. So here I am, foolishly holding myself to my own idle predictions.
I like the concept of this thing. I like charts and stats and little cute graphics of little cute graphs of heartache. I like deadlines and first drafts. I know my writing patterns very, very well, and can see just how a 50,000-crappy-word deadline might fit in perfectly.
If you’d like to follow my progress, you can do so on my user profile page. It may contain a significant amount of worry over the oatmeal-like consistency of my overworked brain. I’ll keep the angst away from here. Maybe I’ll even cross-post the sex scenes.
Fifty thousand words in a month works out to about seven pages a day. Once in a fit of enthusiasm I wrote a seventy-five-page paper in two days and half a caffeinated night. This should be interesting.
16 Comments
Hey, cute avatar, ‘n stuff.
I wrote my last novel in about seven months. I thought I was doing pretty well with that. When I was done, it needed a serious rewrite. I eliminated characters.
Good luck.
I doubt luck has much to do with it. But thanks. I’ll probably need it anyway.
Every year I vacillate over whether or not I’m going to do NaNo. If I decide to do it, I have an enormous work-writing assignment dropped on my head sometime in the first 5 days that kills off all my fun-writing ambitions. I’m hoping to continue the trend :)
Good focus! (more useful than luck, and what I require more of myself)
Aie! Good luck! I always think about doing it…but I never have a plot. Characters, yes. Plot, no.
Stupid plots.
Good focus . . . good idea.
A plot. Hmm. Yes. I should get one of those.
Okay, I admit I have an idea and an outline, but it’s vague ranging into indecipherable, so I don’t think that counts.
If you plan to write a novel, you must learn to employ sarcasm.
As I often do when using the word “luck.”
Ideas are good. I have an idea too. Vampire romance novel with main character who is a Vampire working in a funeral home. Entire subculture of ‘undead’ and mythical creatures living in america under ground. Really. Very funny, in my mind.
Just…the plot! I’ve been tempting my muse with everything it used to like, and its just not coming back. I even tried nutella.
Writing on the fly is my take on NaNo. I’ve wanted to try it but something usually comes up every freakin’ time it comes around, or my brain just goes blank and I can’t put a sentence down much less a paragraph.
Wendy… I love the idea of your vampire story, but then I love vampires. Hope you give it a go.
My fastest time in writing a story is 60K in just under two months. It was the second story I’d ever written. I had an idea, a few characters and just let it flow. I saved the editing for afterwards. Still think it’s my best story.
Good luck on your writing adventure.
Yay! Someone else who’s doing this! Someone who has a blog that I read who also does NaNo. Does life get any better than this? Good luck. I’ll share your suffering with you. *grins*
Of course, inevitably stuff has come up at my workplace and in my personal life, the very day before this is supposed to start. But that’s okay. I’ll live :).
Akalashi, hi! If you want to friend me over on the NaNo site, I won’t object.
Probably a bad idea, but I’m in. I’ll write a novel this month, along with the rest of you. I’ll have to be unofficial, but I’ll adhere to the time constraints; I can see right off the bitch isn’t going to be writing its going to be research. Did some this morning, going to be hard to stay ahead of my tearing through the exposition of the first fifty pages.
I’ll start this afternoon writing…try to keep at 2,000 words a day, it’ll give me a little time at the end for editing. Why did November have to be a short month.
I think I’ll call it the Garage. I’m wanting it to be funny. Good luck Eileen, Akalashi, Wendy and Elizabeth, if you decide to do it.
Hm. Didn’t mean “good luck” sarcastically, that time. Should I say “good speed”? Well, whatever gets you out of bed and writing in the morning.
Alexis, you can still sign up to use the website even though it’s past the starting time, if you’d care to be “official.” The emails they send are amusing, if nothing else.
I don’t expect you’ll have much trouble with the word count. It’s just a hunch.
Maybe the 50-page exposition thing is why I always have to read 50 pages into a book before I can really commit to it. Hmm.
Good luck to you as well. Good speed, take your pick. Sincerely.
*jaw drops*
I am NaNoing too! but their website is so slow right now, I could grown an entire penis *and* testicles in a petri dish in the time it takes for their pages to load.
Yay NaNo! I’ve done it three times - never finished, but had a blast each time. The last one (2005) I think even has the makings of a good novel, and it’s continued percolating in the back of my brain.
Good luck!
xx Dee
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