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NaNoWriMo 2006

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Squirmelia

17:48 / 06.10.06

Who's doing NaNoWriMo this year?

Stoatie's power level is >9000

18:41 / 06.10.06

Every year I say I'm going to, and every year I forget. Cheers for the heads-up- I've just registered, and have three weeks off work in November too!

MattShepherd: LARGELY ABSENT!

20:10 / 06.10.06

I yam, but perhaps not "publicly." I'll PM people with my fresh-as-a-baaaaaby username for NaNo.

Mistoffelees

11:26 / 07.10.06

I´ve joined, too! I´ll be writing in english: with words like a and I, it´ll be much easier to write the 50.000 words on time.

So has anyone of you finished their novel in the last years? Did you find someone, who read it? Did they like it?

petunia

12:44 / 07.10.06

Yeah. I've enlisted. I'm a little scared.

autran

19:05 / 07.10.06

My nonymous persona has done it three times and will do it again this year, probably.

redtara

00:52 / 08.10.06

OMG

I'd never heard of this three quarters of an hour ago. And now I've got a novel to write. I'm really excited. Might start trying to get a plan together or is that against the spirit of the thing? Am I setting myself up to fail? Is it true that it's a quantity over quality kanda thang? Can you have a virtual panic attack?

Sekhmet

01:02 / 08.10.06

I signed up last year and failed rather miserably, but I'm up for another go.

Redtara, nobody judges anything except the length; it's all for the fun and the challenge. It's worthwhile if for no other reason than to get yourself started writing, and to find out how much you're capable of.

Stoatie's power level is >9000

17:13 / 08.10.06

Possibly cancelling my WoW subscription for November may be an idea...

Mistoffelees

18:12 / 08.10.06

Yes, do it! I cancelled my WOW a month ago and I don´t have any withdrawal. Hm, now I´ve got an idea. A Wow themed novel, based on my rogue gnome adventures:

"And just as my health had dropped to 1%, I leveled up. My vigour instantaneously restored, I dealt yonder murloc clan chief the deathly blow with my poisoned blade. Gnomeregan, once again, thou hast been avenged."

Sailor Warrior of Love&Justice
(prev. Damn, it's Pacific State again)

20:44 / 08.10.06

Having a second stab at it this year. I failed miserably in 2004, but I've managed to convince my partner into being my writing buddy this year, so I have a chance of breaking the 2000 word mark this time around.

Liger Null

01:08 / 09.10.06

So it's that time of year again, is it?

*shudders*

andrewdrilon

20:13 / 09.10.06

Eeee! Been joining for the past two years--my first time, I only got to 17,000 words. My second, 25,000. Hopefully I can come up with a story that reaches 50,000 this time, not one that fizzles out and ends way before.

Mistoffelees

21:35 / 15.10.06

Is anyone already busy schemeing up their novels? So far, I´ve had one serious novel idea, and one very funtasy one I came up with in the last two hours while watching Malick´s Badlands.

As I understand it, we can plan and layout in a very detailed manner, and right now I feel like that cursed guy from the Sandman comic, who had so many ideas rushing in, he wrote them on a wall with his bloody stump of an index finger.

I´ve still not decided in which language I´ll write. German would make it much easier for me to finish. Example: Harry Potter V english (non-adult) version is 768 pages, german version 1.021 pages.

petunia

22:16 / 15.10.06

Does German tend to use more words to express things, or does it just have bigger words?

I'm specifically avoiding doing any planning or even thinking about my nano entry. I'm taking the whole thing as one big leap into the deep end with lead weights on. It's more fun that way.

Mistoffelees

22:34 / 15.10.06

Does German tend to use more words to express things, or does it just have bigger words?

Both! Because words are longer, I thought about writing in english. But because you use up more words for the same story (see example), it´d be easier to get to 50.000 while writing in German. Also, my word program has this feature, where I type n, and it turns into nichts, etc. And I don´t have that feature yet for English.

And I can´t help but think about this project. I have no idea, if it´s easy, difficult or insane to do this. I read some of the threads from 2001-, and most people seemed to have good reasons for quitting. Hm.

I also thought about reading some Van Vogt novels for inspiration. That man was just like a geysir of ideas! His novels are very short, but packed tightly with so much happening so fast, I hope it can inspire some of the same spirit within me!

sleazenation

23:39 / 15.10.06

I did better last year than I did before, got over the 10,000 mark before my laptop had to go to the mac hospital to be fixed.

Signs do not look good for this year but I do have some ideas for a plot... Not enough in the way of research, but, you know, it is all about the word count.

charrellz

00:12 / 16.10.06

I've just signed up and decided to make this year my first go at it. Should be interesting, as I tend to never actually finish my personal writing projects and have never been pleased with anything I've had to write for my academic life. I think having this exterior deadline will help me finally see this through to the end.

Now I just need to pick a plot.

Alex's Grandma

00:49 / 16.10.06

I think I'm going to write down, just as it happens, the absolute hell 'my' Sims are going to go through from November 1 onwards. It'll be like a diary, in novel form, set in a Sandals, or a Centrepark

Planned title: 'We Like It'

Chapter One ... Well I would expand, but I worry that somebody might steal my ideas.

Stoatie's power level is >9000

02:35 / 16.10.06

I've got a few decent ideas, but the thing that terrifies me is I'll get ten days into the thing and suddenyl realise I backed the wrong horse. Yeah, I know it's all about the word count, but "next day, I woke up and I was actually the ruler of Egypt, not actually a troubled astrophysicist as I'd previously assumed, though you can see how I could get confused" is a rubbish start to a chapter.

Or maybe it isn't. I'd probably buy a book with that line in, come to think of it.

Stoatie's power level is >9000

02:36 / 16.10.06

Unless, of course, they didn't use all the letters in "astrophysicist".

Mistoffelees

10:28 / 16.10.06

You can always pull the Bobby Ewing in the shower plot device as the novel saving parachute!

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

00:30 / 17.10.06

I will be trying NaNoWriMo this year after a failed attempt last year (I picked a topic that required far more research then I had anticipated)

This year I will be writing a sci fi epic about timetravel as a means of empire building.

Liger Null

17:01 / 17.10.06

I will be trying NaNoWriMo this year after a failed attempt last year (I picked a topic that required far more research then I had anticipated)

That's what screwed me up last year. My main character was a globetrotting grandmother of two whose companions were a shape-shifting wolf-cat and a robotic centipede. Needless to say, she was also a member of a Secret Magickal Society!!!!11!!!

I was able to get my word count in, which made me technically a winner, but the book was completely unreadable. This year, I'm going to try to be less ambitious. It'll probably still be another Fantasy Novel (my main goal is to have fun, after all) but I plan to draw a little more from personal experience.

Mistoffelees

17:59 / 17.10.06

I already know of about eight characters in my novel. I need names! How do you go about coming up with some?

I thought about using names from movie credits, they are often quite unique. I saw the perfume recently, and there were some very extraordinary names in the credits.

Liger Null

18:27 / 17.10.06

You could get one of those "baby-naming" books, that has definitions and cultural origins of various first names. It probably wouldn't help with last names though.

Stoatie's power level is >9000

19:13 / 17.10.06

Set it in Iceland, choose two first names and add "-son" or "-dottir" as necessary.

...What?

Send me a pound.

20:07 / 17.10.06

May I suggest the name Eric? Just because I like it a lot.

Mistoffelees

21:43 / 17.10.06

Eric Björkdottir, meet Kirsten McSígurson.

Boboss

22:27 / 17.10.06

Mist, a bunch of 'lithers have completed their novels in previous years. Check out these old threads for details

2001
2002
2003
2004
2005

Tara, you can totally write an outline, it's only cheating if you start your novel before November the 1st.

Boboss

22:28 / 17.10.06

I won't be doing it this year. What with starting a new job and looking after my super lively baby I simply won't have the time or energy.

I'll be cheering you guys on, though.

gridley

23:40 / 17.10.06

Heh... I'm still in the early stages of the first draft of the novel I started for NaNoWriMo last year.

redtara

14:04 / 21.10.06

Arse! I've just realised I'm away for a week. Gonna be up a Spanish mountain in a yurt. No electricity, no lap top, no t'internet. Still gonna have a go, I will be chuffed if I break 10,000 words. Just a limber-up for next year maybe. Then again a bit of an adventure might provide me with 10,000 words right there?

Stoatie's power level is >9000

16:16 / 21.10.06

During a quiet period at work the other night, I managed to write an album review- it clocked in at 427 words and took about twenty minutes.

Provided I can think of the story, this is making me more optimistic about reaching the wordcount.

sleazenation

17:04 / 21.10.06

Hmmmm I have a genre, (international politics/spy story), a start (the recovery of a broken laptop of dubious origin) a few locations (mostly around London, which works as a very international city where *everyone* has a pied å terre, from international arms traders to political dissidents and deposed leaders of a variety of countries) and a few characters... but with a week and a bit still to go I'm not incredibly confident that I'll do better this year than last year, let alone finish the damn thing.

One thing that's worrying me is the character i have in mind is one I've worked on before and is a little more Sci fi than much of the rest of the story fragments I have.

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