NaNoWriMo 2018

[Parallax Panda]

I made a thread last year and I said I would make another one this year so... here it is.

NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month) is a challenge were participants try and write a novel during November. The common goal is 50.000 words but since there’s no price to win, the rules are flexible so you can do 20.000, 35.000 or 75.000 words if you want. Whatever floats your boat.

For anyone interested you can read more here: https://nanowrimo.org/

It’s also possible to register and add others as writing buddies if you want to compare your word counts and inspire each other. I failed miserably last year by the way, starting over twice and ended up with less than 2000 words! ...the shame.

Oh well, last year I found out about the challenge just a few days before it started so I had no time to prepare and went in blind. Not a good strategy mind you. Hence why I’m starting this thread a month early this year, to give anyone interested a chance to connect with fellow writers and prepare before the challenge starts.

Personally I’m not 100% sure that I’ll participate this year (I’ve not decided yet). I recently suffered a stroke as well as started a new job and I’m dealing with quite a bit of anxiety at the moment. Still, if I come up with an idea for a story I’m passionate enough about, I might still give this a spin.

Feel free to add me as a writing buddy on the official website too: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/leomyra/

 

[Marquise*]

Oh dear. best a month in advance reminder. I got to try ^^

 

[Parallax Panda]

@Marquise*
That’s the spirit. Now what will you write about? If I can only figure that out for myself, I hope to participate too.

 

[ZephyrAM]

I've tried this a few times, succeeded once - it's rough, but exhilarating if you can really get into the swing of it!

Going to pass this year though in order to focus on more coding stuff. But good luck to all participants! (If you can get a hold of it, the book 'No Plot, No Problem' helped me over a few hurdles that year I succeeded!)

 

[Parallax Panda]

@ZephyrAM
Last year when I failed I was unemployed even, still failed. Now I work 40-50h/weeks... so yeah, I honestly dunno how what my chances would be. But the more I think about it the more so want to give it a try.
Though, I was about to start a new RPG maker project but I might postpone that until December and see if I can roll with this instead.

Also ‘No plot, No problem’ sounds interesting. Would you be so kind as to summarize the gist of the book in a sentence or two because I’d not be able to buy the book and read it before November 1st anyway.
Does the author recommend you have no plot or what? Gimme sum advice!

 

[megumi014]

I failed miserably last year by the way, starting over twice and ended up with less than 2000 words! ...the shame.

Hey at least you wrote something! The first time I tried it I only wrote the provisional title lmao. I just logged in my account and I have an amazing "Wordiest Day" of 0 words. I always start motivated on October but when November comes around I am very busy, so this year I'm already starting with the planning I found a program called Novel Factory, which has a free trial month for Windows (perhaps it can help you find some ideas to write? I find the roadmap quite useful as a guideline), to plan the story and be ready for November this year! (I'm currently unemployed so that helps xD)

I'm not the most constant person and I have not set a word goal for NaNoWriMo, but I can add you as a writing buddy I didn't know this feature existed.

 

[Parallax Panda]

@megumi014
Cool, do add me. I have a few other writing buddies already on my list since last year but you can never have to many!

I’ll check out ’Novel Factory’ as soon as I get home. I’m having trouble even picking a genre this year. But there’s a whole month left so I guess as long as I’m slowly progressing with pre-planning, I should at the very least be better off than last year.

...I’ve very little experience in how to successfully plan out a novel though (I’m kinda bad at everything involving writing a book!).

Btw, if you’re not aware there’s a great writing tool called Scrivener. You can get it for Windows, Mac or iOS even. They have a free trial each year during NaNoWriMo too and if you ”win” you’ll get a coupon code for the full version. Pretty good deal I’d say.

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/download

 

[megumi014]

Btw, if you’re not aware there’s a great writing tool called Scrivener. You can get it for Windows, Mac or iOS even. They have a free trial each year during NaNoWriMo too and if you ”win” you’ll get a coupon code for the full version. Pretty good deal I’d say.

Yes I know about it! but since the trial runs out whenever you use the program instead of a specific period of time I'm always scared of use it and running out of days lol so for me it's very unproductive xD I've been saving it up for a power writing sesion like NaNoWriMo without knowing they gave a free trial for that month :'D (winning a full version code sounds amazing, I will have to check it out again, thanks for the info!)

 

[Parallax Panda]

@megumi014
You can’t win a full version but you can win a ”50% off the full version” coupon. All you need to do is finish your NaNoWriMo novel and some time after validating your Word count they”re supposed to send you a code you can use.

I own Scrivener for iOS but I’ve not bought it for Windows yet. Probably will though as soon as NaNoWriMo is over. With or without the coupon

 

[ZephyrAM]

@Parallax Panda
'No Plot, No Problem' is something you can easily read alongside your writing throughout the month (it's like 200 pages, if that), but let me see if I can summarize the basics of it.

- You know your internal Editor? That nagging voice who's always there to point out inconsistencies, weird dialogue, and pretty much anything not perfect?
Gag them, chain them up, shove them in a box, and push that box down a hole.

NaNo isn't about perfection. It isn't about creating something that at the end of the month you can start calling agents or publishers about. NaNo is about getting your inner words onto paper (digital or otherwise). It's about releasing ideas just to see where they can go.

Not sure what to do with a situation you've written yourself into? Throw in a stampede of pandas. (Admittedly that's more extreme then I've gone, but I've also only succeeded about once out of four tries, so take that as you will)

~ Zephyr

 

[Parallax Panda]

@ZephyrAM
I wish I had more time but I'm currently working ~60h/weeks (12h shifts) and I've over two hours of commute time each day to work as well. I'm also recovering from post-stroke fatigue (I can suddenly feel really tired and get headache, fortunately it's not much more than that). I'm afraid that if I'm going to do NaNoWriMo2018 that's about the only thing I'll be doing besides my job. There'll be no time for reading books, watching movies, playing games and so on. But I'm fine with that.

I'll probably have to try to write on the train while commuting to work somehow. Or, maybe wake up at 05:00, have breakfast and everything prepared and try to squeeze in a 30-40min writing session before I go to work maybe? There's also the possibility that I can write a little bit (or at least scribble down some ideas) during lunch since I usually have ~1h and 30min to work with. Although I've to find a quiet place where no one disturbs me, and that could be a challenge. I guess I could also ask for 1-3 days vacation during November to easy up my schedule a bit too. That could really help.

Today's the 1st of October so I (and everyone else) still has an entire month of prep time before it starts though. Right now I'm on square one. I'm leaning towards writing a script for a Visual Novel, but I've yet to decide genre or anything in particular. If I manage to make myself a clear road map then I think I might have a chance, and in that case I'll participate. It all depends on the October preparations for me since I know I can't do it if I go in blind.

Also thank you for summarizing the book. Your last advice is probably the best one. If stuck, just write something, anything. As long as you have a road map you can make sure to get back on track later - even if a scene or two becomes complete and utterly nonsense. I'm a perfectionist too, and I'll have to work to get rid of that habit in order do finish something. And I desperately want to finish SOMETHING, be it the NaNoWriMo challenge or an RPG maker game. I'm terrible at finishing, which means I need more practice (I believe it's a skill that needs to be learned).

Oh look, I wrote 400+ words, just in this post. Which proves that as long as you know what you're writing about it's not impossible to hit that 1667 words target each day.

 

[ZephyrAM]

@Parallax Panda
Having a basic outline in mind can definitely help keep you on track, but above all, just write - which is hard for many people (myself included!).

When I hit the finish line during NaNo on my story I had a mess of cliche's and plot I had no idea what to do with. I eventually (and by that I mean almost immediately) threw out the whole draft and started over.

But I knew a whole lot more about what 'not' to do.

It was a learning experience, and while I would've liked to come out of it with a more usable draft, I think it's pretty common for the first draft to not be. I'm still sitting on my full outline, tons of lore, details, and characters, and possibilities for side stories or a sequel for games... but will I get back to actually write the main story?

I hope to, but we'll see.

 

[Parallax Panda]

@ZephyrAM
If you pass this year, then maybe next?

Last year I tried to write a slice of life drama about some (somewhat) serious stuff. I think that made me even more of a perfectionist because when you try to write something "mature"... things that are completely silly and weird seems even more out of place.

Maybe it would be easier to try and write something lighthearted, cliche and comical right of the bat? I dunno. Just a though.

 

[ZephyrAM]

@Parallax Panda

While I do need to work on my ability to write the lighthearted or comical stuff (my writing tends to come out the same a lot), writing in general is up in the air at the moment. Working on a game, random plugins, and learning other programming languages takes up... not too much time, but too much focus. I don't jump tracks easily, it's all about what I've been doing.

I may dabble in fanfiction again, it's easier to write in small bits. Then again, I left a story hanging there too - partially posted - which I feel bad about XD.

So many things to choose from.

 

[Marquise*]

@Parallax Panda I will try to finish the one I challenged myself to do 2 years ago I think! That will practice me for future years! ^^

 

[Parallax Panda]

@Marquise*
That's cool. Will you have a word count and if so, how many words?

I actually downloaded Scrivener for Windows today and installed it. Doesn't seem to be a 2018 NaNoWriMo trial (yet)? ...which means that if I spend a lot of time in Scrivener now... The license will run out in the middle of November.. which wouldn't be... ideal.

Might try to write something like an outline in Google Docs instead then copy paste everything into Scrivener on November 1st.

 

[Marquise*]

I got LibreOffice; it can count words. Maybe I will send my main character into a stutterers convention.

 

[Parallax Panda]

@Marquise*
Nice, any word process can work I guess. And if it counts words that's really neat! I'd say for NaNoWriMo word counting is an almost necessary feature. Personally, I still prefer Scrivener though, and this year (after NaNoWriMo) I'm going to finally buy the windows version. Or so I've decided.

What I haven't decided though is what I'd like to write. I might want to write a script for a visual novel, or maybe not? Honestly, I can't even settle on what point of view to use. I'll probably have to choose between first person or third person (limited) but well, I dunno. Haven't written anything close to fiction in over 6 months now so I'm really out of wack. In fact I spent the day reading last years projects which I've not been able to open since December 2017 when my previous trial version of Scrivener expired, and man... the writing seems so alien to me.

Considering trying my hands on some short flash fiction during this October just to warm up because I doubt what I'd be writing if I sat down to do it right now would be any good (even for a first draft).

Hm, I really have to come to a conclusion on what to do this year soon though. It's so typically me to just procrastinate and run in circles until the opportunity has passed or I've lost interest in the project myself.

 

[Marsigne]

Hello everyone! I'm a consecutive NaNo winner, and I'm doing it again. This time with 200k words. I'm going to take the Planner route this time (last year was Pantser and first year was Plantser), so you'll see me hang out around here soon. I posted the novel info on the site: "World of Elements 3: Deep Journeys" I didn't add a synopsis since I haven't planned out much of the content yet, but unlike the other years, I made a book cover using Canva.

 

[Parallax Panda]

@Marsigne
Hey there, I remember you from last year! I was hoping some of last years contenders would be dropping by.
Welcome, it's great to see you found your way back and will be participating again!

You're going with the planer route this year, huh? Sounds good. I definitely need to plan some myself if I'm to do this, but like I said yesterday, there's still plenty of time so no stress (there'll be enough stress to be had during November). Especially if you're going for 200.000 words... Eek!