NaNoWriMo Anyone?

[AlyssC01]

National Novel Writing Month in November,

I'm wondering if anybody participates?

(NaNoWriMo is an international attempt for writers and wanna-be writers all over the world to attempt to write a Novel of 50000 words in 30 days. Participation is free and anybody can do it.)

[Suvana]

I did last year, and managed to do the 50k. Trying to decide whether to do so again! It was pretty good discipline.

[INTJV]

I did it in 2003 and managed the 50k, but never touched the story I was working on after that. In fact, my interest for writing stories stopped after that. I do plan to revisit my work from that era, but not yet.

As for this year, I've got too much going on with my other creative realm (music) in November. Maybe in a year or two - I do feel a shift back towards writing coming on.

[AlyssC01]

To Suvana,

Go for it! :) This will be my third year doing it. I'm an ML as well, so if you need support just ask. I did 140k last year (though this year I suspect it's going to just, lol, be 50K)

[Dolores]

I'm an official NaNoWriMo participant. Third year doing it. Won twice.

[Feral]

Doing my first year. The perfectionist in me is screaming and screaming in anticipatory torture... I told it to shut up, I'ma write some junk!

My hubby says he's going to do it, too, so that will be fun.

[Allie]

At one point, I finally got a paragraph. The rest of the time was spent deleting or re-arranging those few precious sentences...and looking around at the website.

Here is to the second paragraph and beyond.

[KorbenDallas]

Isn't the underlying concept behind Nanowrimo against an INTJs preference? I would think nearly every INTJ author is a "plotter", not a "pantser".

Of course experienced novelists wouldn't have much trouble with the word count, but for the majority of people participating, they are novices. Nano seems to be giving inexperienced authors false positive reinforcement by achieving a daily word count.

Yes, I tried it. What I've written was absolute crap and will be flushed. No editing could save it.

[Feral]

10k today!
10,000+ words of utter, unforgivably boring high fantasy drivel. Oh yeah!

[timeineternity]

I was always under the impression that this thing was purely for erratic ENFJs to pour out their capricious emotional passion and let it plop on the heads of unsuspecting passers-by on facebook. ...or something. It appears I was not entirely correct.

[deconspire]

I've wanted to do it for 3 years and keep punking out on it. I can't sacrifice for it yet...I will eventually. Coward i am.

Fucking do that shit, people. Burn it down. Congrats to all that try.

[Feral]

Did it. What a bitch! Barely got to 50k by 10:30 on the last night.
... problem is that now I'm only really about a third of the way or so through the story.

[timeineternity]

Did it. What a bitch! Barely got to 50k by 10:30 on the last night.
... problem is that now I'm only really about a third of the way or so through the story.

Still, not bad. Do you think your story is any good?

[Feral]

I'm not sure, really. It's high fantasy, which isn't even really my cup o tea, but I find it easy to write since I can just let go of reality and pound keys and worry about details later.

I found that I do like that part. Details details details! Shit doesn't make sense, so I have to invent the details later to support why it does in some cases, which is fun. I really really hated it for the first week or so. My characters bored the shit out of me, and the story seemed blase. I still don't really know where it's going exactly, but I'm more interested in writing it now. The characters are starting to actually be characters instead of props. I'm discovering more about them to add into the rewrite when that comes around to flesh them out better.

I did edit. I edited a lot. One of the things they tell you to absolutely not do when writing for Nano is to edit as you write... but I have to. One, because I'm a perfectionist, and if I have even a sentence winding through my head that needs to be added or fixed, I can't write further until I get that rectified. If I write myself into a corner, I'll delete that entire corner and take it a different direction, away from the nasty writers block. That may have cost me a lot of words, but I'd never make them back up if I was trying to continue down shitty paths I had created for myself. I also didn't add pointless word filler just to have pointless words. Some of my scenes will of course be cut, I'm sure, but I wasn't just throwing in random crap just to get my count up.

Most of the high fantasy I read is utter crap. Why? Because I'm a cheapskate, and I have a Kindle :P I get free books. A lot of people will tell you to read good stuff if you want to be a good writer. I've already read good stuff. Now I read bad stuff to see a.)even if it's crap, someone's going to read it, which makes me feel better about my own crap, and b.)as much as I can identify what is good, I can identify what made me want to close a book forever, and not repeat those mistakes.