National Novel Writing Month 2006

[littlemissattitude]

I am going to do this some year. Would have this year, but I knew that I was planning on going to LosCon and wouldn't have any chance at all to work for four days. So, I'll probably do it in a year when I don't go to LosCon, or when Thanksgiving weekend is closer to the end of the month so that I can have a good chance of being finished before the Con.

LosCon was great, by the way.

 

[Lith]

Actually if you up your daily word count (provided you have one) to just over 2k you can take an entire week off and have the same word count at the end. (Sometimes the way I go ends up being only a half a month of more intensive writing.)

Counting this month, I've done this 8 times, never officially or even in November most of the time (as I heard of it first in January and thought it was a really cool idea and couldn't wait 10 months). In fact I wasn't going to do it this month, but for the chance to talk to others about it for once.

quidscribis- don't you love it when sequel possibilities show up? My last one, the plot almost magically not only came together but took over another series of shorts I was planning to make, and turned into one monstrous list of sequel possibilities. I wish it was always like that (but can't expect it- you don't learn that way).

 

[The Ace]

Looks like I'll have to wait until next year.

 

[Patrick Mahon]

I'm well behind now - just passed 30k last night, so I'm aiming for 35-40k by the end of the month. I'm still hoping the whole novel will be around 80k, so there's going to be plenty still to do in the run up to Christmas...

Good to hear that others are making decent progress - but 100k this month, quidscribis?! Wow!

 

[quidscribis]

Lith, nearly all my stories end up with sequel possibilities. I have one - the first novel I ever wrote (and haven't edited because it needs such severe editing) - with at least 14 in the list of sequel possibilities. Quite a few others have six or more. It happens with me all the time, and without a whole lot of effort. They just... Show up.

Patrick - I'm not going for 100k this month. It's too much for this month, although I have done that in the past. I'll be hitting just over 50k by the end of the day.

Because I'm nowhere near the end of the story itself, I'm continuing writing in December, January, and beyond, provided the hubby isn't too impatient for me to finish that other story that he wants to get moving on editing. Hmmm. Yeah, I'll probably have to take a break and work on that one instead, and then come back to this after. He needs a writing project, too.

 

[quidscribis]

Well, I'm finally done, and the NaNo word counter added a few extra hundred, so my official amount is 50,481, although my Word word count is 50,081. And it's only 4:24pm. Lots of time left!

And tomorrow, I write... what?

 

[Talysia]

Congratulations to those who took part! My sister took part this year, and she enjoyed it so much that I think I'm going to enter one of these days.

 

[HoopyFrood]

*Quickly hurries to the finish line and does a quick but entertaining dance*

Well done, everyone who took part! I admire you, I really do. *Hands out more water bottle and oranges slices*

 

[Patrick Mahon]

Thanks to all who supported us - especially Hoopy, whose half-time oranges were very welcome!

I ended up making it to 35k, so didn't win. But I'm going to keep working on this one - for once, I haven't got bored with one of my ideas halfway through...

But well done to quidscribis, who hit 50k and won - great stuff!

To all those who didn't take part this year - put October 2008 in your diary, so you've got a month to start thinking about ideas for a story - it's great fun, even if a bit loopy!

 

[Mary Hoffman]

I'm full of admiration for all of you who made it through NanoWriMo! Do any of you have jobs? When I am working flat out on the writing phase of a commissioned novel, as opposed to the research and planning stage which I'm at with the current one, I write 6,000 to 8,000 words a week, though this increases to up to 5,000 a day when in the home straight, especially if I'm going to be late with a deadline or find I have to write an extra four chapters, as happened with the last one.

So I'd only just make 50,000 in an average writing month. And that IS my job; I'm a prefessional writer. So how the heck do you teachers and so forth manage it?

Pat yourselves on the back.

Mary

 

[Lith]

*takes some of the mightily well-preserved oranges*

I'm not quite full time at my (rather less than interesting) job. I made it to 50,506 (including titles) on Thursday night, but haven't had time to post since (busy fun weekend followed by hellacious storm, etc.).

Mary, the whole point of NaNo is that quality doesn't matter zilch. As long as it's there, and long, that's perfectly alright. Which means cumbersome circumlocutions and redundancy are almost encouraged. As well as long asides, musings on things only tangibly related to the main plot. There kind of gets to be an art about it. At this point last year I wrote 1k words an hour, now it's more like 1500-2000 words an hour, so the time involved isn't that terrible, about an hour a night.

Of course, this only gets you as far as a large, meandering first draft. I'm still learning the basics of revision, which is a new problem for me (and more time consuming). It's a method that doesn't work for everyone (but has for me, as it's helped me bust through road blocks in my mind, and forced me (through need of more words) to explore metaphor rather than racing through the plot without any asides).

 

[quidscribis]

I ended up making it to 35k, so didn't win. But I'm going to keep working on this one - for once, I haven't got bored with one of my ideas halfway through...

But well done to quidscribis, who hit 50k and won - great stuff!

I'm of the opinion that, whether you got the 50k or not, if you wrote more than you would have otherwise or if you learned something about yourself as a writer and what works for you, then you won. 50k is an arbitrary number.


Mary, I'm not employed, strictly speaking, although I am assistant editor for a local geek gadget mag (the time it takes isn't that much - averages to perhaps 10 hours a week). But I also deal with chronic illness that wipes me out a fair bit, so that counts for something, right? But honestly, I also don't know how anyone who works full-time or has kidlets at home can manage this.

 

[Patrick Mahon]

I'm full of admiration for all of you who made it through NanoWriMo! Do any of you have jobs?

...

Pat yourselves on the back.

Mary

Mary,

Many thanks for your kind words - much appreciated. And as you might guess from the delay in my reply, I've had to do some catching up with real life following NaNo, so haven't been on Chronicles for a while!

I do have a full-time job, 2 hours commuting a day and a wife and two kids, so I'm quite busy! But most of my writing happens late at night, and I normally manage on about 6 hours sleep a night, so that frees up a bit of time after everyone else has gone to bed when I can write!

Cheers,
Patrick.