NaNoWriMo 2018 Write-All

It's mid-October, which means it is time to start planning for NaNoWriMo!

What is NaNoWriMo you may ask? Well, I'm here to tell you.

NaNoWriMo is "National Novel Writing Month". Every November, a few tens of thousands of people decide that they are going to write a novel. 50,000 words. In 30 days.

Insane, right?

Here's what is going on, from my perspective anyway. All of us have an innate desire to create something. To express ourselves. But... for whatever reason we don't.

Actually, there are reasons. We tell ourselves "I'm not any good at this." Or, "No one wants to see what I write." Or even just that "I can't do this." We'll call that your inner critic (and the critic's friend, your inner editor). And they don't want you to be creative. You let them decide that you can't do this.

50,000 words. 30 days. That's 1,667 words per day. That's... a lot. And that's deliberate.

If you're going to get 1,667 words down in one day, you have to write. You can't think about what you're writing. You can't go "Is this good?". You can't think "Does anyone even want to look at this?"

I'll give you a hint. At that writing speed, it won't be good. It's going to be an unedited mess. And it doesn't matter.

Because you don't have time to listen to that Critic or that Editor either. Ignore them. It's just you and the keyboard. Or the pen. Or a sharpened reed and a clay tablet. We don't judge either.

You need to get what is inside of you, out. Your story. Your idea. Your passion. It doesn't matter what it is. You just need to get it down onto paper. Or a folder in DropBox. You know what I mean.

Nothing between you and your idea. Words on a screen. Or a clay tablet. It's there. You did it. You let your idea out.

You created something.

And the next time, it will be easier. And the next easier than that. And soon, what was once pretty bad will start becoming kinda good. And you'll learn that maybe you don't need that pesky inner Critic or Editor anymore.

NaNoWriMo exists to help get rid of those two. Go to the website and sign up. There are other people there who will cheer you on, give you advice and support, and keep telling you that you can do this. Because you can.

And don't think that just because it's in the name that you have to write a "Novel". Write a collection of short stories. Erotic poetry. Amusing Amazon reviews. Anything. We'll call you a Rebel but hey, some people like that title.

You don't even have to show anyone what you wrote. There's an automated widget that will do the official word count, but it doesn't keep what you wrote. It just gives you a number.

It doesn't cost anything. You don't win anything either. Unless knowing that you wrote a novel counts as a win. Because, you know, not everyone can do that.

50,000 words. 30 days. Join us.

Here's me on NaNo. Feel free to hit me up as a writing buddy. I have no idea what I'm going to write yet, but I've got about 3 weeks to decide. Plenty of time, right? But I'm a Pantser anyway.

Oh yeah, Planners vs Pantsers. Some people like to outline their stories and have an idea as to what they are doing before they even start. The rest of us just wing it by the seat of our pants as we go along. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn't. I'll see where I wind up on November 1.

I’m hoping to do something substantial this year. I feel like I have a sound idea.

I'm not sure if I am in this year or not. November is a busy month for me.

Nice! I was looking for "what next" after Inktober and I stumbled onto NaNoWriMo last night. And then, boom, there is a thread here today!

I'm ... thinking about it. It's a commitment. But it's tempting.

I was glad to see this thread! Was thinking about NaNoWriMo over the weekend and wondering if anyone from GWJ was participating ... and here we are. I've been interested in creative writing but never have done much, and I feel like my brain will spin up fun fantasy worlds that would make for a good concept, but I just never quite find the interest to really sit down and write. Maybe NaNoWriMo will change that.

I created an account just now -- same username as my handle here.

I'm tempted to give this a try, and at least have created an account. I wrote a lot as a kid, then fell off it, but have always kind of wanted to pick it back up. I'm not really sure what I would write or how to go about it, but i'll try to mull it over before the 1st. Of course, that'll be right after RDR2 comes out, so it'll be hard to tear myself away from that. But maybe I can treat that as a reward for getting my word count in for the day.

Speaking of which, for anyone who's done this before, about how long each day did it take you to get those 1667 words written?

beanman101283 wrote:

Speaking of which, for anyone who's done this before, about how long each day did it take you to get those 1667 words written?

I was wondering the same thing. I'm sure it varies a lot by how much time you spend crafting as opposed to just writing. I'd guess that it'd take me on average 30 minutes to do 500 words if I'm just writing at a decent clip, so 1 to 2 hours each day?

If I'm on a good clip, I can get though my 1667 words in about an hour (or the length of one of my various cirque du soliel playlists).
I have absolutely 0 ideas what I'm going to write this year. I want to keep working on the story I've spent the last two nanos working on, but I'm not sure it's got another 50,000 words in it.
That's probably what I will work on, though.

Huh, was trying to find a thread for this a week ago. Why were you so slow, tanstaaf? :p

I'm seriously considering participating this year. Been a while since I've written anything. I feel like I've finally gotten my head cleared up enough that I can focus on writing. This is as good an excuse as any to start.

My profile name over there is the same as here, if anyone wants any novel buddies.

tanstaafl wrote:

Here's me on NaNo.

You have an impressive number of completed novels! Is there any way we could read them? I aim to write one in English this year, which will be a great challenge for me since it's not my first/primary language. And I'm not a writer. Not even close!

I’ve been trying to get serious about my writing career this year but stalled out due to getting rejection after rejection. Still trying to decide if I do this but will add you guys if I do.

PS - has anyone tried to publish what they’ve written?

Potato wrote:
tanstaafl wrote:

Here's me on NaNo.

You have an impressive number of completed novels! Is there any way we could read them? I aim to write one in English this year, which will be a great challenge for me since it's not my first/primary language. And I'm not a writer. Not even close!

Here's what I have archived. My first few will (thankfully) never see the light of day. A few others are missing the last few chapters because I was rushing so much to finish that they are a mess and I keep telling myself I'll re-write them and post them. But here's the last few...

The Log of the Grayswandir - This was last years and I've been continuing with it since. It's far beyond what I did last November. There is a lot here, but read the "The Story so Far" link if you want to jump in.

Wrong Exit - The first novel I actually "finished", as opposed to just getting enough words down to qualify. This is the first part; the rest are behind the "NaNoWriMo" tab.

Portals - I liked the way I started with this one, but as a Pantser I kinda lost the plot and wound up way out in the weeds. I "finished", technically, but the last few chapters are a mess. This is the one I really want to finish someday. I may take another run at it in November.

The Miskatonic Pacific Expedition - This is likely the one I'm going to be working on in November. I started it and... it kinda failed. I do want to see where it goes though, so we'll see what happens.

14 k of g in a fpd - Most of my writing winds up here, in one form or another. Skip past the NaNo stuff and you'll see a bunch of shorts I've written. And I'll apologize in advance.

Nano nano nano nano

Me

I'm really interested in NaNoWriMo, and in multiple years have intended to start something but have never written more than, like, a paragraph. I like the idea of writing fiction, but just have no idea how to start. But maybe I'll coax myself into starting something this year? I'm at least marking this thread and am going to do some more reading about it.

After resetting my NaNoWriMo password, I found I had 271 unread messages in my account inbox, having created my account in 2011. A few more of those and I could just turn my inbox into a novel on its own!

Heh! There could be a fun story hook there. Our protagonist discovers a social media account in his or her name, with messages that have gone unanswered for years . . .

Maybe it's a mystery novel?

LastSurprise wrote:

Heh! There could be a fun story hook there. Our protagonist discovers a social media account in his or her name, with messages that have gone unanswered for years . . .

Maybe it's a mystery novel?

I'm imagining an update to House of Leaves.

I've decided I'm going to pass on this for the moment. I look forward to following along though and reading what you all create! Good luck, it's an ambitious journey!

I was excited about this a month ago, now I'm not sure I'll muster up any energy at all. Here's hoping!

I still have no idea what I'm going to do. But I've got plenty of time, right?

Tomorrow? Crud.

I've weaseled out the last few years. By God I'm doing it.

I just realized this starts tomorrow due to my Pintrest feed losing it's collective tiny mind in a deluge of writing prompts and tips. I don't know if I can do it. I mean, I know I'll be writing, but I don't know if I can commit to this.

Let me beat on my schedule for a minute and see what falls out.

momgamer wrote:

I just realized this starts tomorrow due to my Pintrest feed losing it's collective tiny mind in a deluge of writing prompts and tips. I don't know if I can do it. I mean, I know I'll be writing, but I don't know if I can commit to this.

Let me beat on my schedule for a minute and see what falls out.

Fwiw I’m signing up but have no intention of finishing. I’m using November as a chance to work on my first few chapters and write a short sci fi story for a collection.

1340 words so far.

I'm not registering with NanoWrimo's website, though. This is my third attempt to write a novel (I quit my first one after 84,600 words because it would be dismissed as derivative even though I started writing it before the thing it would allegedly be derivative of was published, and the second one I quit after 12,960 words because it felt too derivative and I decided to use it as the basis for an RPG maker project instead), and the first one that I feel like could be worth publishing as a real book, so I'm not risking the rights to it by using cloud-based anything. Heck, I'm not even telling anyone the premise of the book until I'm ready to talk to an editor.

I don't think I'll finish by the end of November, but I really do want to finish this one. I don't think I've ever read anything like what I'm trying to write, and I want to see how it works out.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

I'm not risking the rights to it by using cloud-based anything.

Just don't neglect your backups, please.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

...I'm not risking the rights to it by using cloud-based anything.

Is that a thing? Does just having a thing hosted on the cloud present potential rights issues?

Wembley wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

...I'm not risking the rights to it by using cloud-based anything.

Is that a thing? Does just having a thing hosted on the cloud present potential rights issues?

I seem to recall reading that using Google Docs means that’s google owns the rights to anything you upload, but I may be misremembering.

Regardless, Nanowrimo’s EULA says they don’t claim any copyright on your work, but it also says that they can change the EULA at any time without notifying you. My paranoia can envision a situation where someone writes a novel for Nanowrimo, it gets super popular (as in: Harry Potter popular) and Nanowrimo says “oh, hey, you posted that on our site, and now you’re a millionaire. Give us our cut.”

I’m probably just being paranoid (and delusional if I think anything I write is going to make me a millionaire), but I’ll still keep things close to the vest, since it doesn’t actually cost me anything to do that.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
Wembley wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

...I'm not risking the rights to it by using cloud-based anything.

Is that a thing? Does just having a thing hosted on the cloud present potential rights issues?

I seem to recall reading that using Google Docs means that’s google owns the rights to anything you upload, but I may be misremembering.

Just to clarify, this is incorrect. You own everything you put in Google Docs:

"We do not claim ownership in any of your content, including any text, data, information, and files that you upload, share, or store in your Drive account. What our Terms of Service do is enable us to give you the services you want — so if you decide to share a document with someone, or want to open it on a different device, we can provide that functionality."

Drive Terms of Service