NaNoWriMo 2018 Write-All

polypusher wrote:

Congrats!! What is yours about?

It's a fantasy pirate story loosely based on the "Skull and Shackles" setting for Pathfinder, and I've been working on it for three years. This year, since I couldn't figure out some key plot elements for the first novel, I moved on to start the second. Then I had a revelation (choirs of angels and everything!) that sorted out what those missing plot elements of the first novel were, so I stopped and went back to work on that.
So the 50k words are a combination of the two novels, but they were all written in November!

Cool Its fun to watch a writer work. My wife would be telling me about her story (she's going to cross the finish line today) and say something like "but I dont know what to do about this guy over here when OH WAIT I KNOW I HAVE TO WRITE GO AWAY NOW"

At 47,151.

I hope my novel appreciates the re:Invent parties I skipped last night...

Congrats to everyone who made it! That’s a whole lotta words!

I’m sitting at 11,500 words, because I can only must about a half hour of writing a day even though I severely cut back on my gaming during November. On the bright side, I’ve been writing almost every day, which is more disciplined than I’ve been about it for a long time. Also, I’ve unearthed an ancient laptop that I can use to write on when I’m not in my office, so I should be able to pick up the pace.

Well, this was my first NaNoWriMo and while I'm a bit disappointed (barely passed the 18k mark), I'm still glad it got back in the habit of writing. I need to forgive myself for not writing as much as I'd like. With the hours I work, and small children to mind, I only have so much free time.

Congrats to all who got a chunk of writing done and to Taharka, who made it all the way! Awesome stuff!

I have failed my first NaNo. Lots of excuses, but ultimately I lost steam and spent more time thinking about where/how the story should go and almost no time pinning any of it down with words. Disappointed with myself and I have some ideas for personal pennance once the biological excuses ease up a bit.

Thanks to an airport wait and a 4 hour flight, I finished at 51,887.

Now I'm pretty sure my last few days of output are barely coherent gibberish, but at least the ideas are there in something resembling the correct order, so I have something. What is that saying? "A blank page is not a first draft"?

Anyway, congrats to everyone who took part!

Congrats, Tanstaafl!

Well done Tanstaafl!!!!

Congrats to everyone who won! I didn’t but then again I knew my November would be busy so I just planned to outline my novel which I successfully did. Hit about 10k words total. I also attended an awesome novel writing workshop where I learned a bunch about keeping motivated and organized.

For those who didn’t make it, don’t feel too bad. If you did some writing and came up with a good idea you didn’t actually fail.

jdzappa wrote:

For those who didn’t make it, don’t feel too bad. If you did some writing and came up with a good idea you didn’t actually fail.

I really don’t want to be that guy.

Well, I guess I do, because as a writer I believe that words have to mean things otherwise nargle blargle proot.

Those of us who set out to write 50k words on November but fell only wrote 11k absolutely did fail.. That’s the definition of failure.

I made the commitment to write 50,000 words and I failed to make the necessary sacrifices to do it. Period. I can talk about what sacrifices I was unwilling to make, and how the things I would have been sacrificing (family time, sleep, etc) were more important to me that actually finishing 50,000 words in a month, but the bottom line is I made a commitment and didn’t follow through. If this were my job, I’d be looking for another one.

The question is not “did I fail?” That’s a given because math is still a thing. The question is what did I learn from my failure?

I learned my family and my day job are more important than an self-imposed deadline.

I learned that I can still put in time every day and get 12000 words done in a month. I learned that, in my life as I want it, one month is not enough time to write a first draft. I learned that I have the desire and the drive to write a novel, and I can implement a plan on my terms. I learned what my limits currently are, and what I think I can make them with some effort.

I failed. That doesn’t make me a failure. That is an important distinction.

Well, I finished the first draft of my novel right before the end of 2018. Took me three months to get 50k words down. I'm fine with that.

I took a break for a couple of weeks. Started reading The Anatomy of Story which I'm finding to be fantastic and highly recommend if, like me, you struggle with structure. Actually, I recommend it for anybody writing anything – it has made me change the way I think of writing a story.

Now, taking a cue from JK Rowling, I've created a spreadsheet in Excel. I've used it to outline the plot, the subplots, the character arcs, dates, and the functions of each chapter. I'm currently in the process of restructuring / rethinking key elements of the story and character arcs. (Like figuring out how better to integrate the character I introduced 1/3 of the way through the book on a whim who, it turned out, became a key player in the story.) I already can see that I'm improving the book, and my understanding of the story as a whole, by doing this.

Once I've finished the new outline, it's time to dive back in to a second draft. Hopefully it won't take three months? But whatever. I've got my process in place and will keep working on it until it's done.

And... I've gotten a new idea for another book. I'm excited to take my time with this new one and do some serious thinking / outlining while writing the second draft of the first book to be better prepared when I start it.

Never would have thought I'd be here four months ago. Having a great time learning.

Congratulations! It's always a good feeling to get something done. Keep up the good work!

Taharka wrote:

Camp NaNoWriMo!

Oh, nice! Summer is always better for me than November, so heck yeah!

I’m doing a project called 4x4 where I will be writing a short story every week throughout April. I’m hoping the boost in productivity helps me finally tackle my book idea.

We've got a cabin set up for Camp NaNo; come join us.

How does one join a cabin?

I have a GWJ one going, but apparently I have to invite everyone.
Let me know your NaNo username and I'll send you the invite.

Pretty sure I've set myself up as Antichulius there as well.

Invite sent!

Camp NaNoWriMo is up for the month of July and I've set up a cabin for us. As soon as you've created your project, I'll be able to send you an invite.

My project is up and ready for an invite.

So is it still carved up by calendar months then?

I had so much fun writing a text adventure game this spring that I'm thinking to give NaNoWriMo a try, but I was thinking to try this over July and August due to a few weeks this summer when I know I won't be able to write

Go for it!
NaNoWriMo proper is in November, but they've been doing these one month "Camps" during the summer.
You basically set a word count goal for each month. We're about to hit the July camp, so sign on up at Camp NaNoWriMo

So can you carry over a project to the next month? I can’t start till mid-July.

Sure! I've been working on the same project for years.

Taharka wrote:

Sure! I've been working on the same project for years.

Excellent, thanks. I'll make a decision this weekend, but I expect to have some time in July and August where I could start each day writing for an hour or more. I got about 1/4 way through a (bad) fantasy novel a few years ago. I might pick that up again or just start from scratch. I'm not expecting to write a good book, just a book.

I just want to look over other plans for the summer before deciding. I'm trying to finish more things I start, so that means not starting as many things.