general chatting

[fatamy]

I love the excitement that comes with NaNo. I'm so ready to start writing! I am devoting this weekend to my character pages and plot. It helps me SO MUCH when I start writing. The first 5k are definitely the hardest for me. I have RSVP'd to two of the major NaNo events in my area, and to a weekly Saturday morning write-in. I want to be more involved this year. The people in my region seem pretty cool. A bit different than me (smarter? more creative? quirky?) cause I'm just a basic bitch, lol. 

I figured that all it should take is 50 hours of writing for me to win. When I do the write-ins or twitter nanowordsprints I can easily get 1k/hr, if they do a 1k in 30 challenge I'm usually in the 800-1000 word area. But sometimes I struggle. Or have writer's block, so I'm assuming I'll write half as fast. 

I'm really struggling to edit/completely re-write the second half of a story I did a few years ago. I know exactly how I want it to go but not having the "nano" excitement makes it harder for me to focus. I'm thinking maybe I'll just pound it out in January since I live in Michigan and the weather is garbage. 

How's everyone else feeling?? 

[smock]

I'm probably not officially competing this year, because I'm in edit mode with a NaNo novel I wrote back in 2009. But I've won 5 or 6 times, and since I'm a fast writer I can definitely hit 50k with 1-2 hours of writing a day. So it sounds like your 50 hour estimate is doable!

I also have to finish a NaNo novel that I didn't complete in Nov (hit 50k but the story wasn't done!), and it's hard to find the motivation.

My goal this November is to spend a minimum of 10 hours a week on writing/editing, which will be my personal "NaNo" challenge!

[Deleted]

Right now, I'm just kind of in denial that next week is November 1. It doesn't seem possible. Wasn't NaNo 2015 just two weeks ago?!

I'm kind of nervous about what I chose to write, because I'm basically going to have to make my characters' lives hell for half the novel. It's going to be a good exercise for me in dealing with the "tough stuff", though, because sometimes I have trouble writing those themes. There have been times when my critique partner has to keep poking me mentally to make the REALLY bad things happen to my characters. (For example, we had a multiple-week battle a couple years ago in which I was like "I don't want to kill [insert secondary character here]" and she was like, "No, you HAVE TO DO IT.")

Luckily, I should have plenty of writing time this year. Nothing is going on, for the most part. I plan to embrace it and enjoy it this year, because if things go okay, I'll at least be pregnant next year.

[EnchantedSoul]

I don't participate in NaNo but I want to be relevant!
Good luck to all of you who are gearing up.

I submitted a short story to a contest last week. I don't think I'll win but it was a good experience (formatting, submitting etc).
I just started what I think will be my first children's book. I was so excited and started working on it. Then I realized that I don't have a "problem" or whatever, so I stopped. I hope I can hammer out the details and get back at it. It's been rough 'round these parts the last few weeks.

[Pom]

Oct 27, 2016 13:23:20 GMT -5 @writererin said:

Right now, I'm just kind of in denial that next week is November 1. It doesn't seem possible. Wasn't NaNo 2015 just two weeks ago?!

 

YES.  

And also, things have kind of sucked since Nano ended last year.  I want to be excited and I haven't found it yet. I am not sure if I can get in the groove this year.

[midnightrae]

This is my first year doing Nano. I'm excited. I decided late though and don't have all of my ideas together yet.

[Gato]

I'm going to fly by the seat of my pants this year, but I do have a solid idea. I write fast and have 3 hours every weekday morning, so I should be able to do it. But the 20-30K mark is where I start burning out, so who knows how I'll feel by November 15.

[fatamy]

Good luck with your submission, EnchantedSoul

midnightrae, do you do lots of other writing? or is this your first foray into writing a novel?

Gato I do find that towards the middle, it's tough to keep cranking it out because you're likely building up to the climax and that takes so much effort.

@writererin good luck with your character torture I had to do quite a bit of that last year and it was tough. but people who read my book told me it made them cry so...win!

[midnightrae]

fatamy, I normally write poetry. I have written a novel before.

[Pom]

Gato, your siggy is magnificent. LOL

I hope my current anxiety drops a notch after election day.

[anastasia517]

I am so excited to start writing. NaNoWriMo is my favourite time of the year, which is odd since it is the start of a long winter where I live.

I am trying to write a summary for my novel now and it is rough. I can do a very short pitch but to trying to make an interesting blurb of it is way harder than I expected.

[fatamy]

Oct 28, 2016 18:04:05 GMT -5 anastasia517 said:

I am so excited to start writing. NaNoWriMo is my favourite time of the year, which is odd since it is the start of a long winter where I live.

That's how I feel, too! I'm in Michigan and we get tons of lake effect snow. The past two years we've had a major storm the weekend before Thanksgiving and I'm so not ready for that. But to be fair, shit weather makes it easier to get cozy and crank out the words!

[idahome]

Every year I tell myself I am going to participate in Nano. I've yet to make it past week one.

This year my goal is simply to write something an hour a day: an outline, in a journal, or the start of a story. I just want to get things down on paper. We will see how it goes.

Good luck to everyone!

[scoot]

I'm anxious to get started. Due to work and life being crazy, I haven't written at all since mid-September when I participated in a flash-fiction challenge.

For anyone who wants something a little different in the future, I really enjoyed the NYC midnight flash fiction challenges so far. They definitely pushed me into writing a few genre's I normally wouldn't touch.