Alkorri's NaNoWriMo Motivator Machine!

[Alkorri]

whitesphere, you're fine. You're somewhat ahead of schedule anyway Get well soon!

 

[whitesphere]

It seems to be just a cold, so I got a lot of writing done.  Currently passed the 25K mark.

 

[Alkorri]

Congratulations, whitesphere! (Forgot to say that earlier) I hope you can share how you get into the writing habit, if you get a moment

How is everyone else doing? I know some of you are sick, so don't stress it!

 

[Harmill]

Congrats, whitesphere, passing the half way mark is such a nice feeling, isn't it?

Well, my weekend was not as productive as I had planned, so I've been sacrificing sleep to maintain my momentum. Staying up to midnight, making the absolute most out of the free time I have after work. Got 3.3k words written today, putting me at 28,818. Seriously, Novembers are the most fun month of my entire year. I have no desire whatsoever to do anything else, and it feels wonderful. And with that said, my commitment to my story will plummet once December starts... but oh well. While I have no doubt that my story is already plagued with issues, I'm excited to see it through to it's next stages.

I just started reading Dune today, and the first two chapters are almost all dialogue, which makes me feel a bit better about how my story currently flows.

 

[Alkorri]

Haha, I love Dune for the milieu. And good grief, the way you started, I thought you were falling behind, but close to 29k is seriously good work. You guys are an inspiration

 

[wallacethepig]

25K...28K...and I'm just sitting here with 13K. This is agonizing. You guys are too good at this. tell me your secrets

But seriously, I need to get my act together. I'm 9500 words behind where I need to be. My only hope now is that Friday will be relatively free...NaNoWriMo is kicking my pants. I ain't quittin' though. I'm gonna get my act together and write this.

-Wallace

 

[Alkorri]

It's great that you're sticking with it, Wallace. Most would have just given up. That's what NaNoWriMo actually, a sort of gauntlet to see if you can stick with it.

Like I said, my own strategy is to not stop to edit, read the previous day's chapter once, and just plow ahead Some people can manage 9,500 words in two days when inspiration hits. Edit: What I meant to say was, So you can still make it!

 

[whitesphere]

wallacethepig, it took me 3 years to win my first NaNo.  My first year, I wrote 20,000 words or so.  I wrote myself into a corner and had no plan whatsoever, so I had no idea what to do.

How do I get into the writing habit?  Well, in the morning when I finish my breakfast, I'm already at the computer, so I open up Scrivener.  I also have a free app on my phone called Writeometer.  This app tracks word count per day and has a goal.  It's great for NaNoWriMo but works any time of the year.  When I open it up, it has a timed writing challenge --- take 25 minutes and write as much as I can.  That's an ideal breeding ground for NaNoWriMo. 

When I have slow time at work (I work in software), I open up Scrivener and bang out a few words.  After all, it's not costing the company anything if I'm waiting for things to do.

Basically, when I have spare time and am at the computer, I'm either working through plot stuff, reading other books (I can't do NaNoWriMo with all of my free time) or writing the novel.

I also love the thrill of NaNoWriMo --- it's an epic but doable challenge and feels like such a thrill when I win it. :-D

 

[captainproton]

My typed file has passed the 12000 word mark, but I have been writing in a composition notebook during my breaks at work or after my late-night shifts when I don't want to drag out my laptop. If I had to guess, i'd say I'm at about 13500, counting the handwritten words I haven't transcribed.

I'm kind of surprised. Usually, i'd have gotten stuck, but this time around, I've done almost no prewriting, doing it all on the spot. I know there are things I'll want to fix later, but it seems to be working pretty well for me.

 

[Paladin-Cleric of Awesome]

Lol. I'm sitting at 3042 words in total. I never seem to be able to find time to write. if it's not one thing it's another. I'm watching some paranormal witness to get me back in the mood. (I'm one of those people who need music or tv as an extra when I write. but not people... how werid is that!)

Here's hoping I can get some more writing done today. I am very behind. lol

 

[whitesphere]

Lol. I'm sitting at 3042 words in total. I never seem to be able to find time to write. if it's not one thing it's another. I'm watching some paranormal witness to get me back in the mood. (I'm one of those people who need music or tv as an extra when I write. but not people... how werid is that!)

Here's hoping I can get some more writing done today. I am very behind. lol

Actually, from the NaNoWriMo forums, it's not odd at all.  A lot of people posted what music is most helpful for them to write.

And not everyone is an extrovert like me, obviously.  Introverts have very rich inner lives but their brains are VERY sensitive to outside stimulus --- brain scans show a cascade of activity from the smallest sensory input.  Extroverts are the opposite, their brain more-or-less goes idle without external sensory input.

 

[Harmill]

I've found that I can get into the writing mood easier if I've already written a lot that day. Looking at your daily word count on the NaNoWriMo website, and seeing you're only at 300 words for the day makes it difficult for me to focus when I write...I tend to write maybe a few hundred words, and then look up something on youtube or wherever. After 10 minutes of that, I refocus for another few hundred words...rinse repeat.

But if it's 9pm, and I already sit at 2k words, it's so much easier for me to just sit down and crank out another 1,000 words in just an hour. I guess it's a psychological thing for me. I like to aim for 3000 words a day if I have the time for it, but if it's 9pm and I'm still sitting at less than 1k, it's just hard to write efficiently for me. An hour will pass and I might only get 500 - 700 words.

Then there's the time constraint. If I have all day to write (such as a Saturday), I might get distracted easily during the first 1000 words. If I have a limited time, I feel a sense of pressure that I need to get as much written during that time as I can. I've learned to manipulate this so that it counters my previous problem. Lunch hour at work is consistently one of my most productive writing sessions because I know I only have 1 hour to write and then I have to stop. Most lunch hours, I will get 1000+ words written. So then if I don't get home from work until 9pm, I'm starting my "real" writing session (that's what I call any extended 2+ hour writing block) with 1k words written already, and then I feel like each 100 words of progress count double....yeah it's weird. When you're sitting at 3,000 words for the day, an extra 100 words feels like a lot while adding 100 words to 500 just feels so insignificant to me.

So I guess the point of that ramble/weird explanation is that I've payed attention to my writing habits, and patterns that develop and I try to manipulate them as much as I can. See, if I want to get 3k words per day when I work 14 hours a day, I HAVE to make each hour of my free time as efficient as possible. And obviously, my decision to write this post has cut into my precious writing time so I will end this here and get back to it. 

 

[Harmill]

*Knock knock*. Where is everyone? I just wanted to express my pleasure that I literally just reached 50,000 words like two minutes ago! My NaNoWriMo bar is green! Now for me, NaNo is more than just writing 50k, and my story is really only just past the "Intro" sequence, so there's still LOTS of story left for me to tell. So this is just the beginning, and as long as its November, I'm going to keep hammering out words and see how much I can get by the end of the month. I'm really proud of myself - I beat my pace from last year, where I reached 50k on November 22nd. You can see my Day-to-Day progress here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/harmill/novels/the-whosits-and-the-whatsist-against-the-whensists-united-furniture-warehouse-bam-bam/stats (sorry for long link, I was a monkey and gave my novel a long crazy name)

How's everyone else doing? Does anyone need some motivation? What can I do to help out anyone who's still aiming for 50k but is struggling? Any concerns they want to share or anyone looking for feedback? I'd be happy and willing to help! It's been too quiet in here this past week!

 

[Alkorri]

Yay! CONGRATULATIONS, Harmill! You're an inspiration

There was one thing I wished I remembered to tell new participants of NaNoWriMo, and that is Week Two and Week Three are generally seen to be the toughest period of the challenge. When the initial excitement of starting has worn off, and writers face the slog ahead of them, so it seems. Did you have any distractions that took away writing time, and how did you deal with them?

 

[wallacethepig]

*Knock knock*. Where is everyone? I just wanted to express my pleasure that I literally just reached 50,000 words like two minutes ago! My NaNoWriMo bar is green! Now for me, NaNo is more than just writing 50k, and my story is really only just past the "Intro" sequence, so there's still LOTS of story left for me to tell. So this is just the beginning, and as long as its November, I'm going to keep hammering out words and see how much I can get by the end of the month. I'm really proud of myself - I beat my pace from last year, where I reached 50k on November 22nd. You can see my Day-to-Day progress here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/harmill/novels/the-whosits-and-the-whatsist-against-the-whensists-united-furniture-warehouse-bam-bam/stats (sorry for long link, I was a monkey and gave my novel a long crazy name)

How's everyone else doing? Does anyone need some motivation? What can I do to help out anyone who's still aiming for 50k but is struggling? Any concerns they want to share or anyone looking for feedback? I'd be happy and willing to help! It's been too quiet in here this past week!

*slow claps* Congrats, man! Wow, just...wow. I've got nothing to say to you. You reached the end at just past the halfway point. That's pretty impressive.

As for myself, I just passed the 25K/10 Chapter mark, yay! Not quite as impressive, but still. Oh, we're halfway there. WHOA-OH, LIVIN' ON A PRAYER!

(actually, that song is super-appropriate for NaNoWriMo. We've got to hold on to what we've got, and it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not. We've got each other, and that's a lot. For love - of writing - we'll give it a shot!)

I do have a few questions, though. When do I upload my novel? How do I create my novel (on the NNWM website)? When I create my novel, does the "excerpt" have to be the whole story, or is it less? Augh. This is why I've been avoiding the main site.

-Wallace

 

[Harmill]

 

There was one thing I wished I remembered to tell new participants of NaNoWriMo, and that is Week Two and Week Three are generally seen to be the toughest period of the challenge. When the initial excitement of starting has worn off, and writers face the slog ahead of them, so it seems. Did you have any distractions that took away writing time, and how did you deal with them?

Yes, Week Two and Week Three is when I start to get a small itch to do something else. For instance, I started watching Seinfeld during Week Two when I got in a slump, and I would just have to slog through a difficult scene in between Seinfeld episodes. My friends also have patterns where they start off strong but rapidly slow down in the following weeks. I had one friend this year who was almost keeping up pace with me up until half way through Week Two, where he suddenly found that the "spark" that made him interested in writing had gone, and new video game releases in November fought for his time.

The other major detractor for me is work. Overtime decided to begin at the start of November...right in time for NaNo, so I fought against 13-14 hour work days to find time to write. Now I realize this won't work for everyone: I have an almost non-existent social life, so when I'm not at work, I'm at home and available to write. So even with 13-14 hour work days, I was still able to find 2-3 hours (+1 hour during lunch) to write each day. This is staying up until midnight when I have to get up at 5:45am for work. Yes, this is extreme, and perhaps it reveals my obsessive behaviours when I get REALLY into a hobby. So far, throughout November, I've spent ONE evening playing Wakfu with a friend, and ONE one hour session playing the first three campaign missions of Starcraft. So video games had almost no role in serving as a distraction for me.

 

*slow claps* Congrats, man! Wow, just...wow. I've got nothing to say to you. You reached the end at just past the halfway point. That's pretty impressive.

As for myself, I just passed the 25K/10 Chapter mark, yay! Not quite as impressive, but still. Oh, we're halfway there. WHOA-OH, LIVIN' ON A PRAYER!
(actually, that song is super-appropriate for NaNoWriMo. We've got to hold on to what we've got, and it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not. We've got each other, and that's a lot. For love - of writing - we'll give it a shot!)

Can't say I'm familiar with the song but I will agree that for anyone who can't reach 50k in November, don't stop writing! ANYTHING you write during NaNoWriMo is still valuable practice for you, and remember that one of the core purposes of NaNoWriMo is to overcome writer's block or to just motivate you to WRITE. Reaching 50k is an arbitrary goal, and you are allowed to set yourself something that is more realistic to your schedule. Whether that's 30k, 20k, or even 5k, everything counts!

And 25k is still good, wallace! You may be a bit behind, but it's not too late for you to catch up if you have the desire to! If you can write ~2083 words per day moving forward, you'll be on track to meet 50k! 

 

I do have a few questions, though. When do I upload my novel? How do I create my novel (on the NNWM website)? When I create my novel, does the "excerpt" have to be the whole story, or is it less? Augh. This is why I've been avoiding the main site.

-Wallace

So the confusing part of the NaNoWriMo website is that you don't actually upload your novel anywhere on the site. There is a Word Count text entry form where you manually enter your word counts as frequently as you want. Because you're not uploading an actual file, yes, this means people can cheat by inputting fake values. I think starting on November 25, they will open up the Winner's Verification where you DO have to submit your word document, though it is NOT posted anywhere on the site. They use a scanner that ensures you're not writing the same word 50,000 times and if their scanner deems it a legitimate file (I don't know exactly how they tell), then you get your Winner stamp/badge for the site!

As for creating the novel, go to your profile page, and there should be five tabs: Author Info, My Novels, Writing Buddies, Buddy Of, and Stats. You create your novel in the My Novels tab, and you can put anything you want for your novel's name (even something ridiculous like mine's). Once your novel is created, then the site is able to track your word count progress. It creates super nifty bar graphs that, to me, are extremely motivating and satisfying to see. They are a HUGE driving factor for me, and it's one of the reasons my motivation dies out in December.

For the excerpt, you don't even have to include the excerpt if you don't want to. But if you choose to, I think it's just any snippet of a scene that you want to display. I'd guess that you'd want a snippet of a scene that gives a sense of what the tone of the story is or what it would be about. If you can catch someone's attention with just that excerpt, that's pretty impressive!

 

[whitesphere]

@Wallacethepig

You can upload as much or as little of your novel as you want for the Excerpt.  As for the Word Count, the default one available Nov 1 - 30 is the unofficial word count.  That just goes on the honor system.  You can use whatever word count you want --- I use Scrivener's word count for the Document.  Word users can use their Word Count.

Starting November 20, the Official Word Count is available.  I think this accepts Adobe PDFs, Word DOCs, TXT or a few other formats.  This is where you upload your entire novel and they give you an official word count.

For myself, I'm at 46.7K words now, and still some of the plot to go.  It's a fun challenge to do, and as the founders observe, several well known novels clock in at 50K words --- like 1984, and Fahrenheit 451 for example.

As for how I'm getting there?  I find planning out your novel's world, characters and rough plot outline helps immeasurably.  Now, as soon as I start typing the actual novel, on Nov 1, I'll gleefully add/remove/change anything.  My basic plot outline seems to be holding into the novel but there are a lot of twists and turns I didn't put in the plot outline (when the party runs into Sand Lords --- think Dune's Sand Worms --- too bad they have mainly Renaissance era tech).

Basically it gives my imagination a world to play in, but once I've established the boundaries, I let my imagination run from there.

 

[captainproton]

Okay, I kind of hate you guys. I'm only at 20k and hating it. I was ready to write last night and had no words. I don't know if it was mental/emotional exhaustion from work (you try running the toys/electronics/entertainment/seasonal departments of a department store during holiday shopping season and see how you feel). I just stared at the paper and got nothing. Blah. I'm doing better today, but I hate that I lost a whole day.

 

[Alkorri]

Captainproton, don't give up This is not a competition, you know (although sometimes a little competition helps with motivation). This is your personal challenge, and there's always tomorrow, and the day after that.

You can make it! What would help motivate you? Do you like competition? Perhaps you could have a writing buddy like wallacethepig, if he's up for it  

 

[wallacethepig]

Captainproton, don't give up This is not a competition, you know (although sometimes a little competition helps with motivation). This is your personal challenge, and there's always tomorrow, and the day after that.

You can make it! What would help motivate you? Do you like competition? Perhaps you could have a writing buddy like wallacethepig, if he's up for it

I'm down for this. PM me if you wanna do something like that - you tell my your story, I tell you mine, we get a little help and friendly motivation.

(Actually, I'll do this with anyone. But don't give me the entirety of your story if you're having trouble - just give me a summary and the part you're stuck on, and I'll try and help you out.)

-Wallace