This November NaNoWriMo

[Sigurd]

This year I'm going to try it.

November I'm entering the National Novel Writing Month - 50,000 words in a month for some sort of thing they call a novel.

Anyone here ever tried it? done it?

Anyone want to triy it with me?

http://www.nanowrimo.org

Its a while away so I'm going to perhaps string a bunch of maps together for inspiration and detail. I'm not promising to be Hemingway, I'd take Amway at this point.

Sigurd

[Steel General]

I have a friend who's entered several times in the past few years - she won awards in 2005 & 2007.

I've been told I'm a passable writer, but 50K words is probably beyond my abilities.

Good luck!

[Gandwarf]

It's a cool challenge. But 50.000 words in a month? That hurts.
Also 50.000 words would be nowhere near enough for me to tell my story. I write either very short stories or multiple books I have found out

[Karro]

Yeah, I've always been intrigued, but most of the ideas I have in my head would not be complete stories in 50,000 words...

That... and between a full-time the-economy-sucks-so-suck-it-up job and pursuing a Master's degree (MBA... I'm a sell-out), I don't think I'll have time this year to churn out 50K in a month.

[RobA]

Well... If you work on it for only 2 hours per day, that is only 14 words per minute

-Rob A>

[Karro]

Well... If you work on it for only 2 hours per day, that is only 14 words per minute

-Rob A>

I can't speak for other Non-nanowrimos... but for myself, that would assume that I have 2 hours per day to write. And while I can type at around 70 wpm, generating new content, as opposed to just copying something already written, does take longer.

Currently, I'm able to scrounge somewhere between 0 and 2 hours per week to work on my maps. When I finally finish a decent draft of my current map, most of that time will go toward writing. Looking forward to this, I concede that because of hardware limitations, making any progress on my map requires a minimum of about 45 minutes in continuous free time, whereas I can make progress in writing with shorter spurts of continuous free time (at least, I believe I can) so once I get past the mapping phase, I imagine I'll be more productive in writing.

But... even a generous estimate doesn't leave me enough time to actually complete 50K words in a month.

Someday... I'll have a job that doesn't require me to work extra-long hours, and I won't be going to school at the same time.... someday...

[Sirith]

NaNo 2008 was the reason I haven't been to this forum in a very long time . It was my first NaNo, I wrote over 80 000 words, and I loved it a great deal.

There are several factors that made it such a great experience for me. First, being creative for a set period of time, working towards a simple and verifiable goal with small (daily) goals in between. Because of this, you need to throw quality out the window, so you can just create and go with the creative juices. This was just a wonderful feeling.
Secondly, the NaNo forums and the whole support on other places of the internet gives you a great feeling of community. You're not the only one who participates, the only one who has to juggle work, kids, homework, whatever*. This is a huge help.
Finally, because of the daily goals and habit that's developing throughout the month, I felt a huge boost to my discipline. I have seen I can do it, I can put my mind to something and finish it. I have taken on this huge challenge and went far past the minimum word count. It's been a boost to my self confidence.

I would recommend it to anyone, even if you set a lower goal (say 30 000, that's 1000 words a day). Ideally, you allow yourself to be creative for a month, and focus on simply writing. Ignoring the typical 'inner editor' for a while, that often tells us our work isn't good enough and won't ever be good enough, can be very freeing**. If anything, you might discover writing isn't your cup of tea.

Hmm, this might have been a bit too 'omg, you should totally do eeeet', but it's just been such a great experience for me, that it's hard for me to be negative about it


* - not saying that those aren't legitimate reasons for not doing NaNo, obviously they are. I mean that if you choose to join, you have support from all those other people who have these things on their mind as well.

** - this 'inner editor' is very useful at other times, but it easily becomes a barrier, to the point where you are not doing anything, because it's never good enough.

[Rovingjack]

I'm a Nanoer (and script frenzy which is a 100 page script, including graphic novels radio or movie among other types) for the past few. Only when I did my first Nano I started a deeply powerful and symbolic story that was refusing to exceed 1000 words a day. so on thanksgiving I started a whole new story and in those last 9 days I finished the 50k on that story. I have yet to go back to the first one unfortunately.

Then when april came around I decided it would be fun to try and write five scripts in a month, I did a radio play, movie, stage play, graphic novel, and tv series pilot. with formatting 100 pages runs about 20000 words. so it was not as hard in some ways and yet I have trouble with scripting so it was harder in some ways.

This past nano I wrote 2 novels of 50k but neither was finished at the end of the month and they await my return.

There are loads of other options for those who want to get into the nano experiance. Right now in their forums is a section call the year of doing big fun scary challenges together. It's for all those other things we say we'll do someday (like so many who say they will write a book some day) but never do. You make a list and try to complete one of those things by years end.

There are also nano writing months that have smaller followings in nearly every month of the year. Ther are things like Nano Mango which is trying to create a graphic novel (images and all) in a certain time limit (I don't think it's a whole month but I might be wrong).

It's increadible how participating has cracked open my creativity and lead me into new levels of almost all my projects.

[bartmoss]

I have known about NaNoWriMo for a long time, but only entered last year for the first time. I wrote 56000 words in about 25 days or so, but I did not "complete" the novel. I found that NaNo is a very educating experience: It teaches you how much hard work writing actually is. I do think I should pass along a few things I learned:

1) Outline early, and outline your complete novel before November. You can still "win" NaNo without an outline (you only need to produce 50k words, doesn't matter how much sense they make) but you will have a MUCH easier time if you have a complete outline to follow.

2) Write the "average" 1667 words every day. No excuses, no pauses. When you can, write more than that - but never, ever write less. Once you fall behind, catching up will be harder and harder.

3) Don't edit. Don't think about what you write. Just write. Your mantra will become "Editing is what December is for". If you start to edit, you will get caught up in it, and it will make reaching 50k words harder.

4) Do not think of NaNoWriMo as an opportunity to write a publication-worthy novel; yes, some NaNo novels have been published but those are few and far between. Chances are, you wouldn't get any novel published anyway, so don't get hung up on quality. November is about quantity.

That said, I hope you enjoy NaNo. I thought it was a great experience and will most likely do it again this year.