NaNoWriMo

Title says it all really. Thought if there's anyone else signed up we could support and encourgae each other.

I've signed up for the first time this year, got a regional meet up tomorrow for launch day. I've not written fiction since college, or anything longer than a quick letter since I graduated 10 years ago.

I've got a load of background notes, character profiles and a good idea where I'm going, just hope it doesn't all fizzle out by the 8th!

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Comments

  • ??????????????????????????????????

    What on earth are you on about?image

  • http://www.nanowrimo.org/

    thankfully I am on a mobile device so you have been spared the sarcasm of lmgtfy
  • BookyBooky ✭✭✭
    Me! I'm doing NaNoWriMo image
  • I image this idea!

    But I can't help feeling it could be a bit disastrous for my other work - the amount of time I spend on here is bad enough already!

  • Just got back in from my area launch meeting. Buzzing with ideas about how to keep going, and met some slightly mad people. Can't decide now whether to stay up till midnight and start or wait till tomorrow morning.

    Sarah, are you active on the NaNo forums? I'm Kwilter42 over there if you want to buddy me.

  • BookyBooky ✭✭✭
    anon wrote (see)

    If you're going to write a novel, take a year over it, not a month.

    A novel written in a month is likely to be garbage.


    Can I use this if I credit you for it?

    Kwilter with a K wrote (see)

    Just got back in from my area launch meeting. Buzzing with ideas about how to keep going, and met some slightly mad people. Can't decide now whether to stay up till midnight and start or wait till tomorrow morning.

    Sarah, are you active on the NaNo forums? I'm Kwilter42 over there if you want to buddy me.

    I've not used them yet, but I'm stbookworm image 

  • Once upon a time there woz lyk a small nitid monkey.

    The end.

  • anon wrote (see)

    If you're going to write a novel, take a year over it, not a month.

    A novel written in a month is likely to be garbage.

    And your point is?
  • Gosh, Anon, I didn't realise you were a published author as well as a running expert. Can I PM you for advice? Where can I buy your books from?

    How many people say "oh I'll write a novel someday". This is a kick in the right direction. If it offends your sensibilities, call it a first draft, and then spend the rest of your life editing it.

    As for me, I've not written a word of fiction since A levels in 1986, I'm loving every minute of NaNo. So far, I've killed one person, given another a miserable death of phthisis, sent a couple to the workhouse. My word count is a smidge over 10K.

  • BookyBooky ✭✭✭

    I've killed lots of people so far image

    It's fun, this writing lark image

  • Ian rankin recently talked about writing a novel in 40-50 days.  Other writers also get the words down in that time.  Some take many years.  There is no rule book.

    "The process of writing a novel isn't about speed, it's about getting the structure and content entirely right first of all, taking it in slow, planned stages with the entire story thought out in advance"

    Anon, that´s a pile of horseshite, you simply dont know what you are talking about.

  • You're making a lot of assumptions Anon. When did I say I'd not planned my writing? Who said the deaths and entries to workhouse were unplanned and inauthentic? I'm writing about the lives of people in my family history, lives which I've spent nearly 10 years researching.

    As I asked earlier, and you've chosen to ignore, where can I buy your published novels? Whose creative writiing classes have you taken? Quoting Hemingway doesn't make you a literary critic you know.

  • Sure, what's your email address?
  • Jack Kerouac wrote 'On the Road' in 72 benzedrine fuelled hours.- a classic of American literature.

    McKee's Story is more about the process of screenwriting - a very different discipline than novel writing
  • Corinthian wrote (see)
    Jack Kerouac wrote 'On the Road' in 72 benzedrine fuelled hours.- a classic of American literature.
    I'm using strong coffee and thyroxine as my drugs of choice.
  • Oddly enough I have read McKee.  Doesnt change my view.
  • That is not what happened anon.

    You attempted to define the novel in terms of your narrow view of what the process should be.  I´m guessing OCD.

    I applaud Kwilter and anyone who puts themselves out there.  Well done.

    You have some view that constructing a novel is like painting by numbers according to some plan of which you approve.  Hey, anon, guess what, you dont know what you are talking about.  Go home, sit down, and find something else to get bent out of shape about.

  • anon wrote (see)

    I define a process of, on your marks, get set, go, you have 30 days to complete a novel, as basically stupid.

    I don't expect that's a "narrow view". Go and ask 100 leading novelists if they think that's an intelligent agenda, and I expect most if not all of them will say, "No, it's daft. What the hell do such tightly constraining time limits have to do with getting through and completing a piece of work that requires careful drafting? Why go there?"

    If it was an intelligent time limit, fine. The best you came up with was someone who says, allegedly, 50 days, yet you congratulate people who aren't professional writers on subjecting themselves to a 30 day time limit. Get a brain.

    Iain Banks I think aims to complete a novel in 3 months and then give himself 9 months off. That's 3 months of solid work. By a professional writer who knows what he's doing. You think lesser mortals can achieve it in a month? You think they should try?

    I don't think constructing a novel is "like painting by numbers", but I regard it as a scientific as much as an artistic process. I do think they need to have planned the whole thing up front, especially the ending, to see if it holds together, before they get down to serious drafting of the constituent parts. Pantsers (I presume you're a pantzer?) act otherwise but end up with a hard drive full of half-completed pieces of work that never went anywhere and which they never finished, a lot of which never got past the first 25 pages. When they have collected enough of those, and wonder why they wasted so much time on a bare idea, eventually they become plotters because it finally dawns on them that if you don't plot the thing, you end up in a mess and can't finish what you started.

    I'm not "bent out of shape" about anything. Other people's work methods, and how they use their time, are entirely up to them. I'm keen to point out that NaNoWriMo is a rather stupid idea, and maybe people who want to write a novel should dump the time limit, but people can take that opinion or leave it and I couldn't care less. How they use their time, how they structure their work,  how they live, is their choice.

    I do know what I'm talking about. I don't need lessons. Or lectures.  Or a pretence that you know best.

    I don't have "some view that constructing a novel is like painting by numbers according to some plan of which I approve." People can write it any way they want.


    Some confused thinking there Anon.

    First of all you tell us it's a waste of our time to do something we enjoy in our free time, then you say we can write any way we want. You don't need lessons, yet haven't attempted to write anything. Other people's methods "are entirely up to them" and you "couldn't care less" yet have been the only person to post in such a negative way on this thread.

    NaNoWriMo bills itself as 30 days to write 50,000 words, no-one except you seemed to think this was without any previous planning or idea where it will end.

    And you've still not answered my question about where we can read your published works.

     I'm currently pushing 15K and we've just had twins. I already know they'll both be dead within 2 years, as will their younger brother who will be buried on the same day his next sister is christened. Their youngest brother, still not conceived for another 12 years, will live to be nearly 80 and witness the start of WWI. That enough planning for you?

  • dear anon,

    you do not have any right to speak on behalf of "leading novelists".  You do not know know what you are talking about.

  • Face it.  You dont understand literature.
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