Have any of you ever participated in National Novel Writing Month? It's an annual writing event every November. The goal is to bang out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days (no editing allowed--just writing as fast as you can). You have the option of posting your daily word count, wearing Nanowrite t-shirts for inspiration, sending your completed novel at the end of the month and more. Sign up and/or find out more at http://www.nanowrimo.org/
I've never tried it but am tempted, even though I'm still in editing mode. It would be fun to work on an entirely different novel for one month. If you're interested, read the guidelines and Q&A on their site. You can't begin before November 1 but you may outline and decide on your cast of characters. That's about it.
I wish it were held a different month--like January or February. November is very busy with Thanksgiving, guests, traveling, and that old thing called Christmas shopping. If no member of Sleuths is going to try this, maybe we should hold our own writing month this winter.
What do you think? Are you going for it?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
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9 comments:
I have the same problem: November is always too busy! I'm thinking of doing my own writing month in January or February.
I found Alexandra Sokoloff's blog with a ton of articles on plotting etc. (link: http://thedarksalon.blogspot.com/ ) as preparation for NaNoWriMo.
Best of luck to those attempting this!
Sounds fun and scary. Big accomplishment.writing lots of words,every day. Might be a good way to get me,moving forward. Writing and not trying to stop and make it just right.
Have I convinced myself to try it?
I used to host a Book In A Week writing marathon. It always started out great, but by the end of the week, no one ever posted. I got tired of fighting the battle and gave up.
But I DO think it would be fun for Sleuths' members to come up with something like that for a whole month. If you're planning a write-in in February, that might be a great month to start!
I'm game.
I'm game, too. If we have a write-in the month of Feb, we'll have to start Feb. 1 with our novels. Then, maybe we can share our progress at the Sleuths' meeting. That would add a little pressure.
Of course, Feb. is a short month, so our word count would have to be higher each day (1,786) to reach 50,000 words by the end of Feb. I think we should structure it like Nanowrite month and post our weekly progress. Maybe we can give a prize to everyone who finishes a novel.
OR...we could kick off the new year in January with this. That gives us three extra days (word count would be 1613 daily). What does everyone think?
I may do the Nanowrite also. We'll see. (I really should finish my darn editing and submit to agents.) Jan, have you decided if you're going to go for it?
Sounds good to me, Beth. January is the PERFECT month for the start of something new! Plus, it will help us get through the COLD DREARY winter!
Let's do it. Sounds like a plan.
January sounds good, for ours at Sleuth's Ink. I have my plot for the Nov 2009, but have a quetion. When writing it do we have to set it up like the regular pages for a book? I get stuck by putting up the Title and Page 3 and then when I change words it throws that off and I spend a lot of computer time making the Page and Title corrections. Could I just throw up a larger than usual number at page change and then if it changed it would not matter because when we come back to do rewrite it would all be made right again???
I heard you all laughing and saying," noice!" I am laughing too. My computer skills and typing are slow, but I want to try this just to see if I can do it. If not I will try again with the one for Sleuth's.
Another Question- the instructions say you can use T to TTT cancel out all words so they get their count. (If You used the other option of making T stand for G and Y stand for M,etc., I think it could be decoded easier, if someone were trying to do it.)How do I save it so I have words when I want to come back and try to make it into a book?
We will have to compare word count at the Nov Sleuth's Ink Meeting.
"Novice" was the word I thought I was writing. See spelling is off too.
Sorry, Jan. I don't have any idea what you're talking about! :)
Get your word count by going to "tools." You can check it throughout the day.
Shirley, we should probably announce this in November so Sleuths can be thinking about their novels to begin in Jan.
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