National Novel Writing Month

[Falconius]

Well hope those projects turn out well for you.

I'm at 37k and very frustrated that my map of the world was never finished, LOL, I could use that now.

37k is great! I think that the very fact that you started a map or even have it mind puts you miles ahead of others. I think it's one of those things that as long as you have a good idea of how the world is you can work out the details later. Most authors haven't the faintest clue, at all, of how their world is.

[rdanhenry]

I have a LOT of writing to do this Thanksgiving break to win. It'll be a nail-biter. It's been a very busy month.

[Tiana]

37k is great! I think that the very fact that you started a map or even have it mind puts you miles ahead of others. I think it's one of those things that as long as you have a good idea of how the world is you can work out the details later. Most authors haven't the faintest clue, at all, of how their world is.

Right, 37k IS great. You'd think that any map doodle would work, and normally, yes, but my story is literally about the characters figuring out the shape of their world and consequentially, how to escape it, by manipulation of a global system which has been reduced to myths, songs and lighthouses by current time. I'm dying a little for lack of details, and compensating by having the characters not go very far (yet) but we're only in act 2... 46k... I'll surely finish Nanowrimo (as I've done since 2005) but oh my goodness there's SO much more of this story to work out. Like there's a folk hero whose corpse is found in act one but I'd really like to know the entire scope of her journey since the main characters are about to begin mirroring it. If I don't know how my world 'is' this thing is going to fall apart, fortunately I know many details I just don't have a visual reference for them and what those points mean, or how to map them well (floating islands which revolve around the world's light source) so of course THAT entices me to want to figure it out... not just write about it... but 4k to go and then I can start drawing it and relax a little!

I have a LOT of writing to do this Thanksgiving break to win. It'll be a nail-biter. It's been a very busy month.

I wrote 16k on the last day once...

Good luck with that! It's only impossible once you stop trying, and everything you write is really the only prize you get, so if you love the bits you wrote and have a great inspirational start for 2020's novel, then good for you!

[Jaxilon]

Oh yeah...total failure on my part...is November over already? sheesh where does the time go?

[Tiana]

ROFL yeah it's almost over.

[KyGuy]

I took a run at NaNoWriMo once, but I hate pretty much everything I write. The pace is helpful for breaking through that, but I ended up with two half novels I hated every page of. That's what editing is for, but I felt pretty deflated by that point.

[rdanhenry]

It took writing over 23,000 words over the last two days, but I did it! Go me.

[Tiana]

It took writing over 23,000 words over the last two days, but I did it! Go me.

Now that's the spirit of Nano, well done! Go you!

I took a run at NaNoWriMo once, but I hate pretty much everything I write. The pace is helpful for breaking through that, but I ended up with two half novels I hated every page of. That's what editing is for, but I felt pretty deflated by that point.

I certainly know what that's like. 50k isn't really a novel, it's a novella. I've only finished, eh... three? Four of the novels in one month got a first draft from start to end. And one I did over two years. There's a couple I can't even bear to try look for in my files, and some of them that I know that if I tried to edit them, I'd have something. Like I read what I wrote last year and frustratingly, it is a half finished story but it was really good, I was into it and I was annoyed I didn't finish it because I'm the only one I can go chew on to finish it.

It's not for everyone, really the only part that applies to all writers is 'learn to get into a habit and write regardless of how you feel'.

[rdanhenry]

50,000 words is a quite short novel, but the world could use more of those. The 800+ page doorstops are kind of hard to get to when you have adult responsibilities. Still, you can create the framework of a novel in 50k and flesh it out to 80k or whatever suits afterward in the editing process.

I still have two of my NaNo projects to finish into a finished first draft form, then I start going through and trying to polish up to the point I can get someone else to read it. One thing I have learned is to not get too wrapped up in linearly writing the whole story. I'll write skeletal text to flesh out later, skip ahead to write the ending then go back to work my way there, or other shortcuts so I do actually have not only 50k of a novel at the end of November, but a completed (if in places thin) story. I still have a little writing to do on this one before it is at complete first draft stage, but it is filling in one chapter to add some setting background and get in one joke I really want to use, in spite of it being pretty weak, plus adding epilogue-type text to tell how the characters live out their lives after the big adventure. But we reached the story's climax and the resolution of the primary issue. I'll maybe write another couple thousand words before I set it aside to come back to with a fresh perspective in a few months (or quite a few month, depending on how distracted other projects make me).

I actually was initially not even going to write a novel this year. I was thinking of "rebelling" and writing an RPG I've had in mind for awhile, but it was the 20th NaNoWriMo, and I decided to go traditional for the anniversary. Maybe next year.

[Falconius]

Congrats you two on getting it done