Find your diamond
Find your jewelry
shape
carat
color
clarity

NaNoWriMo anyone?

Haven

Haven

Super_Ideal_Rock
Joined
Feb 15, 2007
Messages
13,166
November is National Novel Writing Month! Anyone interested in writing a novel? I'm already signed up; join me!

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Sara Gruen wrote her first draft of Water for Elephants as a part of NaNoWriMo--pretty cool! Also, if you complete your novel and submit it to the NaNoWriMo site, a publishing house will print a proof copy for you. Snazzy!
 
Hmmm - I might try this......
 
I'm signed up! I don't have TV in my new apartment in part so that I could focus on reading and writing more, so the timing of this is perfect for me! I'm nervous because I have no idea what I'll write about, but who knows what can happen. We'll see where it goes. 50,000 words seems intimidating, but I think I can do it.
 
That's really cool - I'm going to sign up! I've been jotting down ideas here and there but never really sat down to flesh them out. Though I can tell you - I have some KILLER material for a totally trashy high-drama life in a tiny Korean community in a tiny town novel. "Confessions of a Twinkie"? ;)
 
LOL! BEG, that sounds like some fun side action - like Grandma Mazur in the Stephanie Plum novels.

I've got this one scene that keeps playing out in my head, and the prediction of a woman I met in an optomotrist's office telling me to go the traditional love story route (without being a romance novel), so we'll see what happens. There's so much going on in my life right now, it may all be navel-gazing nonsense.
 
So cool! I'm definitely signing up and am going to have DD sign up for the young writers section!
 
princesss said:
LOL! BEG, that sounds like some fun side action - like Grandma Mazur in the Stephanie Plum novels.

I've got this one scene that keeps playing out in my head, and the prediction of a woman I met in an optomotrist's office telling me to go the traditional love story route (without being a romance novel), so we'll see what happens. There's so much going on in my life right now, it may all be navel-gazing nonsense.
Click to expand...

We'll motivate each other! My serious ideas for novels are actually in the science fiction and fantasy genres, but especially sci-fi. I feel daunted at thinking of sitting down and WRITING all my ideas out and fleshing them out and creating characters, etc., but I feel like that may be my niche (I sure read enough of sci-fi anyway). The hardest part, I think, is not letting any one or two authors and their works overly influence my own story and style of writing.

I love the idea of a love story - I'll read your book!
 
My friend did this last year and she became absolutely obsessed. I think it would be good for me, for one month, to force my hand at penning all of the crap in my head. I'm going to think about this!

Starts Nov1 right?
 
Wow, we have some brave and creative souls here! (And no, I'm not among them -- though I might someday try my hand at writing sleep aids :snore: !)

Good luck, ladies!
 
Haven-
My sister does this. She is a poet with an MA in creative writing and she said it was one of the most fun challenges she has ever embarked upon!
 
I signed up. I hope I can spit out that many words.
 
I'm going to do it too... hopefully we can have a support thread for this!
 
B.E.G. said:
princesss said:
LOL! BEG, that sounds like some fun side action - like Grandma Mazur in the Stephanie Plum novels.

I've got this one scene that keeps playing out in my head, and the prediction of a woman I met in an optomotrist's office telling me to go the traditional love story route (without being a romance novel), so we'll see what happens. There's so much going on in my life right now, it may all be navel-gazing nonsense.
Click to expand...

We'll motivate each other! My serious ideas for novels are actually in the science fiction and fantasy genres, but especially sci-fi. I feel daunted at thinking of sitting down and WRITING all my ideas out and fleshing them out and creating characters, etc., but I feel like that may be my niche (I sure read enough of sci-fi anyway). The hardest part, I think, is not letting any one or two authors and their works overly influence my own story and style of writing.

I love the idea of a love story - I'll read your book!
Click to expand...

B.E.G. - Which Sci-fi authors/books do you read?
 
Cehra, I'm up for a support thread. Though I have some really great real-life crazy story material floating around right now and I kind of feel like I should start putting it down on paper :P

MC, I read all sorts, but I have to say, my current favorite series is Lois Bujold's Vorkosigan saga. I'm in love with the whole series and I've reread all those books 3 times in the last few months!

I also love the classics (Heinlein, Asimov and Orson Scott Card particularly). I like Dan Simmon's work (Ilium/Olympos, Hyperion), and I love John Scalzi's writing. Scalzi's books all have the kind of light-hearted sense of humor I really appreciate in Bujold's books. I've also started reading some Jack McDevitt and I've really liked what I read so far. I need to get some more of his books. Gosh, my brain is freezing up - I need to go look at my bookshelf!

I've been reading a lot of fantasy as well. I love George RR Martin (Song of Ice and Fire), David Eddings (Belgariad), S.M. Stirling (Dies the Fire), Terry Pratchett's Discworld (does his stuff fit in fantasy or sci-fi or something else??), and Brandon Sanderson's books (finished Mistborn, currently beginning Warbreaker). I'm not too big into those HUGE 10+ book cycles (Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan, etc.).

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I got into sci-fi from an early age (4th-5th grade) because I saw Star Wars for the first time in our hotel room when we moved to Hawaii (while waiting for housing), went down to the giftshop, found a Star Wars book, and bam, hooked on sci-fi :lol: I have some favorite authors from the Star Wars book universe, so I'm branching out into their independent, non-SW works as well (i.e. Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston, etc.).

What about you? And any suggestions? :D

Sorry Haven for the threadjack!
 
I spent some time today getting some details out... I'd typed up about 1/4 page once but it is on my broken (I refuse to allow it to be lost yet) hard drive so I had to try to come up with them again. It's very rough but it's a story I've been kicking around for... gosh, 15 years or so. It's kind of historical fiction though and that's not even a genre I like to read haha.

I have another story - it was a dream I had, but a very complete dream with twists and a full plot and conclusion... that's also on my other harddrive but again it was just a rough outline and I still have that in my head. I'm a bit torn on the two... the second one is a ghost story and the first more of a love story (but NOT "she found a soft spot in the hay and he lay beside her, stroking her hair and letting his other hand wander down her..." hahaha) I guess the first one could be considered more of a romantic comedy with some dramatic twists - I have no idea how the story will wander next month, I'm looking forward to it. I think I'm going to do that one, the other one is darker and I'm not sure I want to spend the month delving into my dark side. I think I'd rather explore wit and charm ;)
 
We have so many writers here!

I'm about 50% finished with a YA spec. fiction novel so it's going to be really difficult for me to put that one on hold while I work on a new NaNoWriMo piece, but I'm going to do it! The fact that November is coming very soon actually has me writing more on my YA novel so it's already a good motivator.

I haven't decided which story I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo, but I've had about four other novels ping ponging around my head for years, so I'll pick one.

B.E.G.--I love sci fi, too, but I'm not as widely read in it as you are. And, I probably shouldn't admit this, but I CANNOT get into Dune. Not one bit. My friend at the local used bookstore gave me one of his own copies when he learned I hadn't read it, and I feel this obligation to love it, but I can't!

Cehra--I have a horror story that I've wanted to develop for ages, but like you I'm a bit uncomfortable with actually living in that story for a month!

I love the idea of a support thread! If I don't remember to start one on November 1st, please, anyone--do it!
 
Ooohh! Maybe this will drive me to finish the novel I've been working on for months, veeeeery slowly. Yay! A print proof would be amazing!
 
I am so wounded...someone already has the name MonkeyPie in there :angryfire:
 
I'm so excited, omg - I've been doing research. I am going to have a hard time writing some of this... I don't know how to write jokes and humor and pun and entendre, but I am just going to try to speak from the heart I guess because I tend to be very ironic and intentionally and comically ambiguous. I love to play on words, but I may need to elicit some help from friends lol

the main story is going to be fun to see how it unfolds...

And Haven, I have a 3rd book that is a murder mystery and it's actually maybe the best of the three but I *really* don't want to live in that... heck, every time I write anything in there I have to walk away for a long time, I can't imagine focusing on that for a month. The ghost story is actually warm in ways so it would be easier but it isn't calling me the way this one is.

I want to start now though, damnit!!!
 
monkey_pie is still available!
 
Okay I've set my personal goals. I have quite a bit of free time during the school days as I don't work, and all of my social things can be put off pretty much, but to be realistic I will need some days off, like thanksgiving. If I figure I write for 20/30 days then my word count needs to be 2.5k/day which is about 5 pages of 12 font old bookman. That's a lot. I'm a little intimidated! If I just did it every day it only needs to be 3 pages at that font. I'm padding up a little, better safe than sorry.

I really don't want to flake out.
 
Guys, I want your thoughts... or maybe just sounding it out I'll come up with my answer.

I'm *really* getting excited. I remember when I first came up with the story line for this idea. My daughter was a baby and my husband was overseas and I had this typewriter and I kinda typed some rough things out and then lost it... I had no time for that stuff then. But the story remained. Some of it is quite unique and some of it is pretty ordinary story type stuff. But I feel like I'm in over my head!! I haven't started writing, but I've been researching and coming up with some little things that take up time but produce little results. Anyway - I have never embarked on something like this and the more I read the more I can add to the story and it's already changing focus a little bit in a wonderful way and I tell myself that I have a whole month to write it all out and I'm not sure it's enough time. I'm afraid I'm going to get stuck on research points and be unable to further the plot without more study. Ugh!! But at the same time I'm totally passionate about this and really excited to finally get it out of my head, I would love to share it! I just don't really know much about the historical time this is set in and I'm wondering if I can or should give it some modern tweaks.

Or, I could just enjoy the month and start from scratch and have absolutely no idea what I'm going to write until I start writing and just whimsically see what happens. You know just start off with whatever is in my head, "Once a daisy sat upon a hill and the sky was blue. A girl walked by, her white dress blowing in the wind. She stopped and.." you get the idea. Just say whatever pops into my head and see what it turns into.

Now I'm torn. I hope you guys are fairing better! Are you? :D
 
Lol Cehra - I did this a couple months ago. I keep getting distracted by research and so I only have 5 pages written! Pretty sad. And it makes me think I should write about something I know better so I can just write freely, without spending so much time reading-to-write, you know? Do what makes the creative juices flow!
 
Cehra--I think NaNoWriMo is PERFECT for you because it's all about avoiding the trap of becoming mired in whatever it is that blocks you from writing. I would choose the project that is going to get you tip-tap-typing away, because the act of getting your ideas out on paper is the real value of this whole thing.

Will your research slow you down so much so that you can't focus on your writing if you choose your first idea? If so, I'd do something completely new.

On the other hand, will this deadline be what you need to start getting the actual skeleton of this story down first, thus giving you a framework for working with your research more efficiently? If that's the case, then do it!

I've already found that this impending start date has me more motivated to work on my existing writing as much as possible so I don't abandon it for whatever I choose to write for NaNoWriMo. I've been so engrossed in the book I'm already writing that the thought of focusing on anything else is scary, but exciting, and I'm going to do it. My current book is only 22,000 words completed as of right now, and that's because I keep going back to what I've already written and cutting out enormous chunks, then adding small bits here and there, etc. My goal is to complete the NaNoWriMo piece while maintaining my work on my current novel, as well. We'll see how it goes!

I'm excited that we're going to have a PS NaNoWriMo bunch!
 
Can I admit to being totally terrified of the whole process? I have no idea of any structure, or general plot points. I have a VERY general concept, and a scene. That's it. I need to sit down and brainstorm this week, but I'm just plain scared of doing this with basically no clue what I'm going to write.
 
Princesss - I'm terrified too!

Cehra - that's great that you're so excited about this! I understand what you mean about getting mired down in research. It sounds like you have a couple ideas floating around though - is there one that's less research-oriented than the other, that you can focus on for Nanowrimo?

Haven - no worries. I'm not a big fan of Dune either! I have read all the books (including the 2 sequels to the original 6 books), the three book prequel, and the three book pre-prequel, but I think that was mostly literary masochism. I did enjoy the three prequels though (House Atreides, House Harkonnen, and House Corrino). They were within a much shorter time frame, written by Frank Herbert's son, the characters were better fleshed out and there was far more action (versus like the thousands of years of a sandworm thinking).
 
I was looking around the site and apparently you can do "alternate" historical fiction and that means that I can do whatever the hell I want so haha - plus I can always go back and change things in december, right?

I am doing a lot of research now because I can't write yet and I'm dying to start... I can feel the characters developing and I can't do anything about it. Because of the research I've done the focus has gone from the interpersonal aspect to the work aspect of the main character but I'm sure when I start writing most of the story will be interpersonal again.

One of the problems I have is that I keep seeing this as a movie. It would make a GREAT movie. I also solved one of my problems... in my story the guy is really punny and I am not a humor writer! I've written a few things to test myself and they're okay so I have hope, but I've also decided that if things aren't flowing during the times he's being funny I'll just say, "and he said a few more funny things" and move on to what happens after lol
 
I'm definitely interested in this and now that I'm done with school I actually HAVE free time to write but I'm sort of at a loss as to what I should write about. I don't think that I am that creative and its an issue. Everything I think I want to write about has already been done 1000x over. Suggestions to get the juices flowing are very welcome.
 
Clairitek said:
I'm definitely interested in this and now that I'm done with school I actually HAVE free time to write but I'm sort of at a loss as to what I should write about. I don't think that I am that creative and its an issue. Everything I think I want to write about has already been done 1000x over. Suggestions to get the juices flowing are very welcome.
Click to expand...

Yeah, no kidding - I feel like for my interests, fantasy would be way easier than sci-fi, but it feels virtually impossible to do something fresh in the fantasy genre. Bah.

Clairitek - what do you like to read?
 
Everyone should look up local write-ins on the NaNoWriMo website. We have A TON of write-ins going on here in the Chicago area, a lot of bookstores and coffee shops host them. That's a GREAT place to go, especially on November 1st, to get the juices flowing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Jewelry Blog
PriceScope-Concierge-Ad
Find prime cuts.
Top