User Name
Password
AppleNova Forums » Creative Endeavors »

NaNoWriMo 2008 anyone?


Register Members List Calendar Search FAQ Posting Guidelines
NaNoWriMo 2008 anyone?
Thread Tools
Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2008-11-06, 00:06

Not me, but my wife is going for her second year. Last year she finished over the minimum length and with time to spare. She's been typing furiously in the past few evenings, refusing to allow me to see any of her work until it's finished and proofed and polished a hundred times over.

What is NaNoWriMo?
Quote:
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

[...]

In 2007, we had over 100,000 participants. More than 15,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.

Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.
Anyone here giving it a shot or ever have a passing interest in cranking out a whole novel?

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
  quote
turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2008-11-06, 00:14

I've wondered what those initials meant. Thanks for posting this. Maybe someday I'll try it out. I've never been much of a writer though. Maybe my wife....

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
  quote
scratt
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: M-F: Thailand Weekends : F1 2010 - Various Tracks!
Send a message via Skype™ to scratt 
2008-11-06, 00:23

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post
Anyone here giving it a shot or ever have a passing interest in cranking out a whole novel?
Sounds like fun.. And yes I would love to... Right now I am trying to crank out an entire game though... Perhaps in 3 years.....

Good luck to your significant other half though.

btw It's called 'National', but also has many many languages on the web site.. Is it open to any country, or a US only thing?

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
  quote
Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2008-11-06, 00:36

It's open to any country - in fact, there should be local "chapters" in many countries. It's called NaNoWriMo because when it started ten years ago, it was only a few people. It's grown since then but they never changed the name.

I'm doing it this year. I'm not trying to have a complete work by the end of this month, just the first 50,000 words of a larger work (to be finished by the end of this year, hopefully).

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
  quote
Wyatt
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
 
2008-11-06, 08:30

Where are you right now, Robo? I'm just under 7k. I was sick on Tuesday and had a shitty day yesterday that really knocked me off track. I'm hoping to be over 15k by the end of the weekend.

Twitter: bwyatt | Xbox: @playsbadly | Instagram: @bw317
  quote
Xaqtly
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2008-11-06, 11:19

This is something I'd love to do some day. My story blocking and pre-writing skills are horrible though, but I love writing. A couple days ago I ripped out a 3k word short story on the fly, in a couple hours. When it hits you, it hits you, you know?

But If I could actually have the patience and foresight to block out a real novel length story beforehand, this is something I'd love to do.
  quote
Capella
Dark Cat of the Sith
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Rochester, NY
Send a message via AIM to Capella  
2008-11-06, 11:41

Unfortunately, I have a paper for a graduate class due at the very beginning of next month, and thus I cannot do a whole NaNoWriMo. However, two of my good friends are doing it, so I've set myself a "mini-NaNo" challenge. I want to submit a story to the Writers of the Future contest and the next deadline is the end of December, so I'm going to aim for a 15,000 word short story this month in addition to the paper.

Since I can't do the full novel writing this month, and I know I'm not alone in having too many RL requirements, a few friends and I are contemplating setting up HoliWriMo, using the winter break range (say the 26th of December to the 26th of January, which corresponds roughly to our winter breaks if not precisely) as a timeline. But, since we won't have school, we might up the word count to 75,000. Because we're crazy.

"A blind, deaf, comatose, lobotomy patient could feel my anger!" - Darth Baras
twitter ; amateur photographer ; fanfiction writer ; roleplayer and worldbuilder
  quote
Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2008-11-07, 04:51

Quote:
Originally Posted by Capella View Post
Unfortunately, I have a paper for a graduate class due at the very beginning of next month, and thus I cannot do a whole NaNoWriMo. However, two of my good friends are doing it, so I've set myself a "mini-NaNo" challenge. I want to submit a story to the Writers of the Future contest and the next deadline is the end of December, so I'm going to aim for a 15,000 word short story this month in addition to the paper.

Since I can't do the full novel writing this month, and I know I'm not alone in having too many RL requirements, a few friends and I are contemplating setting up HoliWriMo, using the winter break range (say the 26th of December to the 26th of January, which corresponds roughly to our winter breaks if not precisely) as a timeline. But, since we won't have school, we might up the word count to 75,000. Because we're crazy.
"JanNoWriMo," as January's unofficial contest is called, actually has quite a following (for the reasons you describe - there's just so much going on in November) and there's a special board for it too.

I normally shoot for 60,000 words in November, just to get the novel a bit closer to a "real" novel length (50,000 words is arguably a novella). That also makes it an even 2,000 words a day, which is nice.

This year I'm probably not going to be able to get back to my writing in earnest until I finish moving out, which should be around the 15th (I hope). So I think I'm going to do a 45-day "finish my 'real' novel" challenge, just for myself.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
  quote
Wyatt
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Near Indianapolis
 
2008-11-14, 19:27

FYI for everybody doing this (just me and Robo?): You have to try Write or Die. Major motivational tool. I just cranked out 400 words in 9 minutes. I'm shooting for 1,500 in the next 90.

Twitter: bwyatt | Xbox: @playsbadly | Instagram: @bw317
  quote
scratt
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: M-F: Thailand Weekends : F1 2010 - Various Tracks!
Send a message via Skype™ to scratt 
2008-11-15, 23:48

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wyatt View Post
FYI for everybody doing this (just me and Robo?): You have to try Write or Die. Major motivational tool. I just cranked out 400 words in 9 minutes. I'm shooting for 1,500 in the next 90.
This would be a great plugin for XCode!!!
  quote
Posting Rules Navigation
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Post Reply

Forum Jump
Thread Tools
Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
What is this spam? WordPress SQL in the comments. turtle Programmer's Nook 17 2008-06-19 19:53
Can't connect to VPN; works from Windows chucker Genius Bar 7 2008-01-13 07:00
Your *possible* 2008 Presidential Vote Windswept AppleOutsider 140 2007-12-06 14:13
Respect my ho: Office 2008 for Mac Fahrenheit Third-Party Products 53 2007-10-16 13:33
Office 2008 delayed until 2008 kieran General Discussion 31 2007-08-03 13:57


« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 08:59.


Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004 - 2024, AppleNova