NaNoers Unite!

[Young Bard he/him]

"The time has come", the walrus said,

"to talk of many things:

Of shoes - and ships - and sealing wax -

Of cabbages and kings -

Of why the sea is boiling hot -

And whether pigs have wings."

 

Come one, come all, to discuss your NaNo novels here! Tell us about your successes, and your failures, of your trials and tribulations. Join in that grand adventure, to seek the elusive 50,000!

[Mistrunner]

NaNo! Aaah it starts today!

Hello, my fellow writers! Is everybody ready for a month of pain, weeping, wailing, excessive writer's block and many, many tears?

Bring. It. On.

I'm Mistrunner over there as well, if anyone was wondering.

[Kasimir he/him]

I'm RangerofAnor on NaNoWriMo.

 

Gotta say, I'm a tad annoyed because I had spent two weeks drawing out plans for what I was going to write about, and then got hit by a great new idea two days ago and now I'm running with the new idea and shelving the plans. Because, #YOLO, apparently.

 

Wild waters ahead, guys. Don't know if I'm gonna make it

[kaellok he/him]

I'm kaellok on the nano boards as well!

[Esaias he/him]

I'm going to be trying this for the first time. I'm very new to this writing thing, so I don't know if I'll actually finish. My name is the same on The Website, if someone was wanting to know.

[Gabriele she/her]

I'll try to get some words on book 2 of my Fantasy series: Kings and Rebels - The Shores of Exile. And I'm not going to allow that Nechtansmere plotbunny to create havoc of my plans.

 

Treason and the misuse of magic led to a cataclysm where the legendary realms of Levonais, Kêr Ys, Caer Gwaelod, and Vineta sank beneath the waves. But the magic stones that had shaped them were saved, and the descendants of the Sea Kings decided to keep the stones hidden, carrying on their line in secret.

But now changes in the currents have enhanced the magic of the stones again, and they can no longer be kept secret. Already one stone has fallen into the hands of the sorceress Kazimira of the Avodrite, and Illugi the Black has learned where another stone is kept; bound on claiming it as his own.

Roderic Sinclaire, the former Royal Marshal turned traitor, has fled Riata and lives at the court of the Seacsan Duke who is beset by enemies, among them the Avodrite led by the sorceress Kazimira. Kjartan Haraldsson,  heir of the king of Nortvegja, has to fight the allied rebel forces of Asbjörn and Illugi; Alastair O'Duibhne is a captive in Nortvegja thanks to the schemes of his brother; and the Cymruyn necromancer princess Iverys verc Tegvared has taken to the mountains where she leads a band of brigands against her half-brother and the King of Albinoria. Things can only get worse. :-)

[Gabriele she/her]

I'm RangerofAnor on NaNoWriMo.

 

Gotta say, I'm a tad annoyed because I had spent two weeks drawing out plans for what I was going to write about, and then got hit by a great new idea two days ago and now I'm running with the new idea and shelving the plans. Because, #YOLO, apparently.

 

Wild waters ahead, guys. Don't know if I'm gonna make it

Plotbunnies love doing that. The only way to deal with the critters is to lock them up in the basement. Or a nice castle dungeon, if you live in Europe. 

[Kasimir he/him]

Plotbunnies love doing that. The only way to deal with the critters is to lock them up in the basement. Or a nice castle dungeon, if you live in Europe.

Pfft, I'm trying to tame them and train up my own personal armies of Plotbunnies >> We're still training the infantry, but eventually, I'll have a navy and airforce and a bunch of ninja plotbunnies--

Wait, why is everyone backing away?

[Gabriele she/her]

Oh my, that sounds like I need to get my Roman army from a prior Nano and sic them at the lot. 

[Kasimir he/him]

Oh my, that sounds like I need to get my Roman army from a prior Nano and sic them at the lot.

What did harmless, fluffy rabbits ever do to you?

[Gabriele she/her]

Do you have an idea how difficult it is to write when your head is lying several steps away from the computer and the rest of your body? 

[kaellok he/him]

I'm going to be trying this for the first time. I'm very new to this writing thing, so I don't know if I'll actually finish. My name is the same on The Website, if someone was wanting to know.

Not sure what your region is like, but I absolutely recommend trying to find a write-in or 30 near you that you can attend.  Doing it by myself resulted in failure; it wasn't until I hit up the write-ins that I began winning.  Also made some awesome friends that I spend time with throughout the year and not just during November (altho, I also have a few of those, too!)

[Esaias he/him]

Not sure what your region is like, but I absolutely recommend trying to find a write-in or 30 near you that you can attend.  Doing it by myself resulted in failure; it wasn't until I hit up the write-ins that I began winning.  Also made some awesome friends that I spend time with throughout the year and not just during November (altho, I also have a few of those, too!)

Thanks for the advice! I'll be sure to check those out.

[Curious Anamaximder he/him]

What is NaNo?

[Curious Anamaximder he/him]

What do you do?

[Talanic he/him]

Write an average of 1,667 words per day, to total 50,000 by the end of the month.  It's a bit of a long haul, but worthwhile.

 

I'm going to do my writing in here this month.  I'm not sure I'll make the 50k, but my goal is to rewrite the novel I did last year.  If people are interested, I'll create a thread for it and post the chapters here as well.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Talanic

[Elbereth she/her]

Pfft, I'm trying to tame them and train up my own personal armies of Plotbunnies >> We're still training the infantry, but eventually, I'll have a navy and airforce and a bunch of ninja plotbunnies--

Wait, why is everyone backing away?

That sounds terrifying.

Not sure what your region is like, but I absolutely recommend trying to find a write-in or 30 near you that you can attend. Doing it by myself resulted in failure; it wasn't until I hit up the write-ins that I began winning. Also made some awesome friends that I spend time with throughout the year and not just during November (altho, I also have a few of those, too!)

I second the comment about write-ins. I had one last night, and I wrote 3000 words there. It was incredibly useful.

EDIT: My name's limelleth on the forums.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Elbereth (Limelleth)

[Young Bard he/him]

Not sure what your region is like, but I absolutely recommend trying to find a write-in or 30 near you that you can attend.  Doing it by myself resulted in failure; it wasn't until I hit up the write-ins that I began winning.  Also made some awesome friends that I spend time with throughout the year and not just during November (altho, I also have a few of those, too!)

 

I didn't attend those last year, and failed miserably, but I just attended my first one today. (it's the end of the 3rd for me, thanks to time zones, and I'm already 1000 words behind. Mind you, 1000 words, for NaNo, is a pretty good score to be behind, compared to last year...)

[Young Bard he/him]

What do you do?

There's more information about it here, if you like. You can theoretically join if you like, but it will be even trickier for you, starting late.

[Kasimir he/him]

There's more information about it here, if you like. You can theoretically join if you like, but it will be even trickier for you, starting late.

Not to say it's impossible though. I crunched through NaNo in five days, once. Five very intense days. Five very intense, sleep-deprived, "Did I write this or did I dream I wrote this?", "What is the real life anymore idek" days.

...Yeah, I'm not really a walking advertisement for why it's a great idea, right? But yeah, still doable, so if you want to, don't give up! Three days is really not much of a late start

[Haelbarde he/him]

Hmmm. Wonders if I can crunch something out if I start on the 14th... 3k words a day. Maybe.... But I'd need to work out what to write. World building isn't the problem. Finding a story to tell in said world is what I find hard. Though, there's an idea that I'd imagined as a comic strip that I could maybe turn into a 50k word SciFi novel...

 

...Okay, Let's try this. Once exams are over...

[Kasimir he/him]

Hmmm. Wonders if I can crunch something out if I start on the 14th... 3k words a day. Maybe.... But I'd need to work out what to write. World building isn't the problem. Finding a story to tell in said world is what I find hard. Though, there's an idea that I'd imagined as a comic strip that I could maybe turn into a 50k word SciFi novel...

 

...Okay, Let's try this. Once exams are over...

Dude, even if you don't make it, we'd still be supporting each other. This is NaNo, guys. We're all knee-deep in crem together

[Haelbarde he/him]

Dude, even if you don't make it, we'd still be supporting each other. This is NaNo, guys. We're all knee-deep in crem together

Awesome.

 

Well, novel created, and synopsis written. It won't be getting any words till the 14th, but anyway. I'll be interested to see if I can write 'funny'.

[kaellok he/him]

One week in!  How goes the writing?  I figured that maybe you all could use a bit of an inspirational hoo-ah post!  God knows I do, and things are actually going well for me (aside from finishing moving just in time for Nano to start and being sick since the 30th.)  And so this post is for me, really, because I'm an egomaniac and so everything important relates to me in an important way.  But I'm hoping that it'll help you guys, too.

 

I'm currently averaging ~2500 words per day.  ~2250 of them are awful terrible words.  The remaining ~250 words aren't especially great.  If they were all together, they would be, I'm sure.  Alas, I'll have a sentence here, a few words in a sentence there.  It's disheartening.  BUT!  A friend of mine is helping me to keep it all in perspective, with a trick of her own.

 

"I'm just thinking of it as a very detailed outline."  She's very wise.  Even in the scenes where things aren't working the way that they should, or when the language and words that I'm choosing to use are just atrocious, I'm able to put my head down and bullrush through them because I know that the true goal of Nano isn't genius.  It's to get a foundation done and built.  Something that can be improved upon later.  (There are some few souls who would argue with this, and manage to have good first drafts ready at the end of a Nano.  They are the exception.  And even with them, there is always much that must be changed afterwards.)

 

The King of Swamp castle once said: "When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England."

 

Nano is about building the first castle, not the fourth.  It will sink.  But you've gotta get all them stones on the bottom to fill in the pit of despair so that your final, strong novel is a work of art that can be passed down through the ages.  (Also, 10 e-cookies if you know the reference.  And a scoop of ice cream.)

Edited November 7, 2015 by kaellok

[Gabriele she/her]

My ratio of decent words is better. About 50% of what I write during Nano (and it's my 8th so I have some experience) is ok, and the rest is editable. I tend to overwrite so editing often means cutting needless stuff out.