National Novel Writing Month

So NaNoWriMo started yesterday, this is my second year participating, and I intend to finish this time after my shameful performance last year. I'm at 3559 words out of 50,000. As everyone who takes part knows a big part of Nanowrimo is telling everybody you know that you're taking part in it so that you'll feel too embarrassed or ashamed to quit, so here's me telling the infinite masses of the internet. Are any of you duders taking the challenge as well, and if so what are your stories? Give us your username so we can add you as a writing buddy, and feel free to update us on your progress throughout the month.

I'm tempted but I dunno.

More important than embarassement you should work on your novel to perfect your will. Know the ins and outs of your own desires and will to accomplish them, and work with it. That in itself is a much greater victory than avoiding embarassment. 
 
Also good luck with your endevour!

Not sure if I'm doing NaNoWriMo proper, but I'm using it as a reason to continue working on my novel that I've been working on for the past 6 months or so. If anyone is curious, I post my progress here: https://theshard.squarespace.com/

50,000 words in a month? But don't I already achieve that in a single blog?

@Animasta: Dooo it. It's way easier than it sounds. Like 30-60 minutes a day maybe.

@Jeust said:

More important than embarassement you should work on your novel to perfect your will. Know the ins and outs of your own desires and will to accomplish them, and work with it. That in itself is a much greater victory than avoiding embarassment. Also good luck with your endevour!

That would be better, but really it's just easier to manipulate myself into being motivated, through the use of things like chocolate, or fear of looking stupid.

You expect me to grow a manly man beard AND write a book in the same month? Asking too much.

Wow, never heard of this before. Sounds really cool actually. Shame I won't get around to it since I have exams all through the month. Always next year I guess. Good luck on finishing your novel! Will it be available for public consumption so that we can see the product of your embarrassment and shame?

@ImHungry said:

Wow, never heard of this before. Sounds really cool actually. Shame I won't get around to it since I have exams all through the month. Always next year I guess. Good luck on finishing your novel! Will it be available for public consumption so that we can see the product of your embarrassment and shame?

Yeah I was thinking about throwing up a google doc or something, the only problem is I feel like then I'd be more inclined to edit it which is against the rules. Maybe in a week or two when I have more to post.

I'm doing it, but I'm so "behind." 50,000 words is daunting. So I'm basically going to let my imagination take a dump, and then write that.

Yup I'm doing it. I'm at around 1300 so far. With Halo 4 out soon actually completing this is gonna be rough.

The Cudgel of Xanthor

Only 50,000 words?

It's a great way to discover that you aren't nearly as good of a writer as you think you are.

November is literally the worst month for anybody on this site to try doing this! Clearly Chris Baty is not a big gamer.

As for me, I got to about 20,000 words one year, before I started trying to plan ahead too much and lost all forward momentum and crashed and burned horribly.

So don't do that.

As someone who has a deadline for professionally writing a book, I can safely say November is the worst month for this. There are so many games I need to get.

I stopped writing books and started with poems recently as I have no free time with college, work and social life. Maybe I can write 50,000 words worth of poems? That's a lot of motherfucking poems.

I accomplished the 50,000 last year (my first year), and November is exam month. I almost exclusively write at night. By the end of the month, I was falling asleep at my desk and waking up moments later with random sentences about Halo or Uncharted that weren't there before.

I will only ever do NaNo again during my university years if I have a really easy semester. Like really easy. I might use this year as an excuse to go finish some of my other work/edit last year's NaNo in hopes of finishing it.

Well, this might not be the best month for me, but what else is going to get me to write this cowboy/zombie mashup that's been brewing in my brain?

Also, I've really surprised myself with the characters I've created. Every single one is holistic and mature.

I'm such an incredibly slow writer that attempting this would just stress me out and in turn, lower the quality of the stuff I actually manage to peck out. It would be great to have some accountability but yeah...not for me.

From what I gather, this isn't about writing a good book. If you manage to cram out something great, then hooray for you. But it's much, much more likely that what you write in those 50,000 words will be borderline shit. The good news is that you will absolutely be a better writer because of it no matter what, and it's a FIRST DRAFT, so of course it's terrible. In the following months, if you really like the story, you take that first draft and you chop it and maul it and completely rewire huge chunks of it and voila, you have a book.

My boss used to tell me "There is no right or wrong. Only write and rewrite."

@facepoppies said:

From what I gather, this isn't about writing a good book. If you manage to cram out something great, then hooray for you. But it's much, much more likely that what you write in those 50,000 words will be borderline shit. The good news is that you will absolutely be a better writer because of it no matter what, and it's a FIRST DRAFT, so of course it's terrible. In the following months, if you really like the story, you take that first draft and you chop it and maul it and completely rewire huge chunks of it and voila, you have a book.

My boss used to tell me "There is no right or wrong. Only write and rewrite."

Yup. It's not about quality it's about banging out the word count by the months end. Which is good cause that's what mine is gonna be if I finish. 50,000 words adding up to nonsense.

@Hunter5024 said:

@Animasta: Dooo it. It's way easier than it sounds. Like 30-60 minutes a day maybe.

Maybe for some people. Some can't write the roughly 1700 words a day needed to finish in 30 days in that short a period. It can be a bit tough, especially on those days you can't seem to get it to click.

@believer258 said:

Only 50,000 words?

50,000 words is a lot more than it sounds.

Would, maybe could, probably should at least try, but not motivated to. I'll do it tomorrah!

I'm trying it. I was going to do it last year, but broken bones prevented my forward progress. This year is the year, though!! Tally ho!

@believer258 said:

Only 50,000 words?

That's a lot of words dawg. Sure most published novels are double that, but authors usually spend a year or two writing and editing.

@Chop said:

I'm such an incredibly slow writer that attempting this would just stress me out and in turn, lower the quality of the stuff I actually manage to peck out. It would be great to have some accountability but yeah...not for me.

The quality in Nano isn't really supposed to matter so much, it's about ignoring your inner editor and just forcing yourself to create, then maybe what you came up with isn't so great, but at least you learn something from the experience. And you could learn to write faster.

@TheSouthernDandy: What's your novel about so far?

And yeah as all of you said November is a really shitty month to do it. Assassins Creed keeps staring at me as I write, and I know it's gonna conflict with homework at some point. Plus choosing a month that doesn't have 31 days is just cruel. I'm trying to do it properly this time so that I'll feel right about crossing it off my bucket list, but I think every year after this I'll be doing it in July.

@TheSouthernDandy: I'm doing a fantasy novel. The premise is basically that it starts off pretty standard it seems, a princess gets saved by a knight in shining armor, only as it goes on it turns out that she's not a princess, he's not a knight, and she's been more kidnapped then rescued. I didn't want to plan it out too much because I think that sort of goes against the spirit of the event, so I just made a beginning and decided to see where it goes from there.

@ssj4raditz: And yours?

I'm participating this year. I'm at the stage now where getting shorts published has gotten me a bit of interest from people saying "give me a manuscript" and my truthful reply of "I've been a lazy bastard and never written more than 10 chapters of an ACTUAL novel" hasn't really gone over all that well.

I'm using NaNoWriMo to hopefully change that by putting an idea down I've had for ages and really like, but one that I'm not so invested in that ill be heartbroken if it turns out to be hot garbage.

I'm Tim the Corsair on there as well if anyone wants to add me.

50,000 words in a month? But don't I already achieve that in a single blog?

Ugh. NaNoWriMo sounds like a living hell to me. I have never liked writing, and I don't think I'm any good at it either. I cannot imagine what it's like to be a person who can write. I totally respect those who can and do though. I actually read quite a lot. Good luck, everyone.

I was going to do this last year, but I realised I never have enough time to do the things I actually enjoy doing.

Yep, writing this year again. Going steady so far.

@Tim_the_Corsair: @TaliciaDragonsong: What are you guys writing about?

@Fallen189 said:

Writing a blog about 20 year old awful games and a piece of prose is not the same thing

They are when I'm writing it.

I'm taking part in it. I haven't gotten the chance to start yet, which is really just hurting myself, but, I've been a bit swamped by random odds and ends things around the house that have kept me from just sitting down and starting. This will be my first year doing it, but, it's just something I really feel like I'd be proud of myself for being able to say that I did it.

It's my second year as well. Looking for another "victory."

Nice to see some other Duders are participating. If any of you want to add me as a writing buddy on the site, my username there is the same as it is here. :)

And, what the heck. Here's a continuously updating word count widget to follow my progress:

@Hunter5024

I'm working on a post-apocalyptic spy thriller set in a nuclear and biological weapon-ravaged Australia

@Hunter5024 said:

@ImHungry said:

Wow, never heard of this before. Sounds really cool actually. Shame I won't get around to it since I have exams all through the month. Always next year I guess. Good luck on finishing your novel! Will it be available for public consumption so that we can see the product of your embarrassment and shame?

Yeah I was thinking about throwing up a google doc or something, the only problem is I feel like then I'd be more inclined to edit it which is against the rules. Maybe in a week or two when I have more to post.

Where does it say you can't edit it? I'm reading the rules right now and don't see that mentioned anywhere.

@IzzyGraze said:

@Hunter5024 said:

@ImHungry said:

Wow, never heard of this before. Sounds really cool actually. Shame I won't get around to it since I have exams all through the month. Always next year I guess. Good luck on finishing your novel! Will it be available for public consumption so that we can see the product of your embarrassment and shame?

Yeah I was thinking about throwing up a google doc or something, the only problem is I feel like then I'd be more inclined to edit it which is against the rules. Maybe in a week or two when I have more to post.

Where does it say you can't edit it? I'm reading the rules right now and don't see that mentioned anywhere.

Well I haven't read the rules for a year, and I'm sure its not explicitly breaking them but it does kind of go against the point. Worrying about how good the actual prose is could discourage the flow of creativity when it's better just to press onward, which is why most first novels never get finished in the first place. Though still, I may put up something everyone can read once we're far enough into the month that critical comments won't make me want to give up.

@Hunter5024 said:

@IzzyGraze said:

@Hunter5024 said:

@ImHungry said:

Wow, never heard of this before. Sounds really cool actually. Shame I won't get around to it since I have exams all through the month. Always next year I guess. Good luck on finishing your novel! Will it be available for public consumption so that we can see the product of your embarrassment and shame?

Yeah I was thinking about throwing up a google doc or something, the only problem is I feel like then I'd be more inclined to edit it which is against the rules. Maybe in a week or two when I have more to post.

Where does it say you can't edit it? I'm reading the rules right now and don't see that mentioned anywhere.

Well I haven't read the rules for a year, and I'm sure its not explicitly breaking them but it does kind of go against the point. Worrying about how good the actual prose is could discourage the flow of creativity when it's better just to press onward, which is why most first novels never get finished in the first place. Though still, I may put up something everyone can read once we're far enough into the month that critical comments won't make me want to give up.

True. And I just signed up and it does mention in the welcome page that it's good not to edit but it's not against the rules. Hopefully it helps. I don't intend to reach the 50 000 but hopefully I'll write something.

Not sure on the story yet. Had an idea for a short story but I don't think I can stretch it into a novel. Well good luck and happy writing.

This is either my fourth or fifth year of NaNo, and I'm going to keep half-assing it like I did every other year. I write primarily for myself, so I can't really keep doing a story if I lose interest. I always lose interest. I like the community, though, so I keep coming back. It's like a support group for shitty writers.

EDIT: Oh, yeah. I'm doing a horror story about a group of kids that try to burn down an abandoned house, and weird shit starts happening. Kind of your standard haunted house plot, but I'm taking inspiration from a time that me and some friends broke into an abandoned house. Trying to make a horror story that keeps it grounded and legit.

As someone who does not read books i'd probably be a terrible writer.

Totally forgot this was happening. Really wanted to take part this year. I have a couple of cool idea's for stories that would be great to get written down, even if it is of terrible quality. But I'm really busy at work this month. Man.

I'm gonna do it because fuck it why not

should update the first post with writing buddies (Mine is the same)

I participated last year, but only got a few thousand words before getting lazy and quitting. I was thinking about trying again this year but I'm a lazy, lazy man!

I wish I had time. But the more I think about it, part of the reason I don't have time is that I've already got other creative projects going on.

But still, its kinda cool to participate in something like that. Maybe I'll try to work in some time

Nice, this is my first year participating, and I'm excited/nervous :D

Just signed up, and as soon as I started typing fatigue set in.

Still, this will be a really good way for me actually get off my ass (or get my ass in a chair, at least) and write - I like writing, but I always leave bits and pieces unfinished. This time, hopefully I'll be able to get something cool done.

Good luck, all.