NaNoWriMo '13 - It's here!!!

[wild rose]

I hope you'll be able to catch up Summersnow If you could tell me what time you are usually online, I'll calculate the time difference and see if I can catch you (this time difference thing can be rather complicated )

I've reached 27K and I hope to make 30K today. My novel is going by really well, I'm working on building my love triangle, which is a key point in my story. Even though I passed the half-way mark, my novel is nowhere near half-way finished, I'm thinking it will be closer to 100k

Arwenel, I'm glad your plot is coming along, I know what it's like when no matter what you write, somehow nothing seems to be happening.

[Queen Susan]

Well, due to a fall vacation and general busyness, I completely let November sneak up on me.
Nov. 1 - 3 I was gone from home. Then decided to change my plot.
Nov. 4 - Planned.
Nov. 5 - Joined site, planned, wrote 450 words.
And yesterday, the 6th I officially entered the swing of things.

Write or Die is my best friend right now.

Anyway, hoping to catch more of this thread later. I am loving the coffee and my bro's laptop. Peanut butter M&M's are my favorite snack. I have been eating more since starting this...

[stardf29]

After attending a local write-in (anyone else go to one of those?) and participating in a handful of word wars, I am now past 20K! I also got to meet a lot of fellow writers, which was cool. A surprising number of them are also writing fantasy, and I even got to talk a bit of Narnia with some of them.

As for the story itself, it's turning out to be a lot of fun. Especially since I get to have these other-worldly characters come across things like swimming pools and baseball and they get to describe it on their terms… My characters are also getting along rather well (and by getting along, I mean squabbling with each other over nothing in particular).

[shastastwin]

I am currently way behind. I just passed 5k last night. Being sick threw me for a loop. I am recovered, however, so here's hoping I can buckle down and do some serious writing in the next week or so.

I'm really struggling with this book so far. It seems like my opening chapters are floundering around with no aim, despite all my outlining. I keep skipping ahead to later sections that I know I can write. I get the feeling this draft will be very hodgepodge when I finish it.

[Arwenel]

On the one hand, i'm a bit disappointed. While Portal Rim is at the word count it should be (after a game of catch-up, and beat the clock), if i were just doing it on my own i would be several thousand words behind.

On the other hand, i am very pleased with both how the story is progressing thus far, and how much i am still liking it. I wonder if all the plotting beforehand made a difference. I've got a couple ideas for more plotting stuff to do next year to make the first days a little smoother, but so far this year is actually pretty good.

[SummerSnow]

Wild Rose : I'm usually on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Ten to twelve in the mornings, then anytime after two-ish in the afternoon, is a good time. I'm pretty flexible, if there any specific times/days that work well for you.
Shastastwin , aren't most NaNo's that way? Have you caught up or gotten closer?

[shastastwin]

Well, SummerSnow, the one year I wrote a full NaNo novel, it was actually very linear. However, I was writing it based purely on the day's inspiration, so I wasn't really trying to fit it to an outline.

I'm slowly catching up. I'm at 6700+ words. I'm hoping to work steadily this week and at least not get too much further behind, so that Saturday I can just write like crazy.

[DamselJillPole]

So happy you are feeling better shastatwin

And Queen Susan I may have to use your write or die strategy because I have not been making any progress through these few several days.

I got very caught up in this audition for a feature film that I put my entire heart and energy into that and didn't write at all. Now that it's over I'm going to try and get back into the swing of things with NaNo, I tried last night but the anticipation of my audition kept swarming my mind that I couldn't write. Tonight I'm going to work with putting that out of my head and concentrate on the story.

Keep up the great work guys!

[stargazer]

Glad you're feeling better, shastastwin.

I confess I'm frequently guilty of skipping over sections to get to those I can write. I excuse it by saying I'm simply following my muse. The problem is I end up with "placeholders" for those skipped sections that I have to fill in later - and sometimes the inspiration for those never really comes and I just have to slog through them.

This year, I've tried a non-linear story but kept getting stuck. I'm considering writing it in chronological order and then mixing it up, to see if that works.

Still way behind (about 11k) but hope to get some writing in this weekend as well.

[DamselJillPole]

This morning I decided to drop out of NaNo. I just couldn't find the time to concentrate on the story anymore and there's no way I could reach even close 50,000 words feeling anxious about things that have been going on. I'll try next year and maybe even camp NaNo.

Good Luck everyone! I'm still supporting yall!

[shastastwin]

Sorry to hear you're dropping out, DJP. Don't give up on your story, even if it's not something you finish in November. Sometimes you just need a break from a project to refocus and restrategize.

I broke 12k this morning! I'm so pleased with the progress I've made so far. I'm hoping I can carry this habit of writing for a couple of hours a day into the rest of the year. It just feels so good to be creating on a regular basis again.

I'm somewhere in the middle of chapter 4, but I've written some of the inter-chapter pieces already and there are 2 chapters that have scenes still to be written. My Prologue is fairly brief, so I may return to it at some point and expand it. The scene I'm about to enter is one I've worked out already, so I'm excited to finally write it into the narrative.

[SummerSnow]

Congrats, Shastastwin! I don't believe you caught up yet, but certainly getting closer.
DamselJillPole, I hope you find time to work on it outside of November and NaNo.

I was trying not to, but I finally decided to skip a section in my story . I've always written my stories without skipping, so it's been quite interesting. However, it seems to be working for the moment, for which I am rather happy.

[wild rose]

Summersnow, that's great, that's a pretty comfortable time for me too (unless my internet is out at home, which has been pretty common these past few days ) I hope to catch you

awww, I'm so sorry you dropped out Damsel, I hope other NaNos will work for you.

Well, I reached 50k on the 15th and then I did a very daring thing. I was unhappy with the way the story was going, it was just all headed in the wrong direction and I was loosing all insperation and I couldn't write. So, I went ahead and got rid of everything I didn't like (roughly 10k) and rewrote parts of the story, so now I'm at 50k again and pushing for 70k by the end of this week

[shastastwin]

I passed 28k this morning. Still not quite caught up. I think I need about 7k more today to do that, and that's a bit of a stretch for me, even with a quiet work day. I'm going to keep pushing ahead, though and see where I can get. I feel that I'm farther into the story than I planned for so few words. I may have to add more once I finish the draft.

Congrats on passing 50k twice, wild rose!

Keep up the writing, everybody!

Edit: I passed 30k. I'm still about 5k short of caught up, but I'm confident I'll reach 50k by the end of the month. I'm slowly catching up, and if I have another few days like this, I'll be golden. I don't know how much past 50k this draft will go, but I can tell I'll need more on future drafts. There are nuances I hadn't anticipated.

[SummerSnow]

Our internet has been working weird, as well, but hopefully we can catch each other online.
I've been tempted to do that, but I kind of just led stuff back to the right path, instead of deleting stuff. (I doubt I'd be able to catch up). I hope you're able to get 70K!
I hope everyone is doing well, or if you aren't, I hope you catch up!

[stargazer]

Big congrats to wild rose (for winning more than once) and to shastastwin for being on track to pass 50k. Good luck to the rest of our Wrimos as we go into the final few days of the month.

For various reasons I didn't get far this year (about 16k). My heart just wasn't in it, and while I know part of NaNo is sitting down and writing anyway, real life circumstances helped me to decide to sit this one out. I'm not giving up on the story and hope to continue it early next year.

That's not to say I'm not writing. I woke up Saturday morning after having a weird dream and promptly sat down to write a totally new story inspired by it. Dragons, wizards, and townspeople, oh my - okay, only one dragon and one wizard. (Cliché stuff, I know, but different than my usual fare - especially since much of the tale is told from the dragon's perspective). It's up to about 8k and has been fun to write. Who knows, it may get up to 50k, just not in time to win NaNo.