NaNoWriMo '05

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It's that time of the year again. Well, technically, it's October, but October is when the plotting begins, when the people begin to panic, when new bloods sign up! Yay!

The site seems to be a bit kooky currently, but here it is anyway for people who do not know about it: http://www.nanowrimo.org

And for those who do know about it...right! Let there be griping and complaining about plot bunnies and basic common sense!

Anyways. Who's doing it this year?

 

I am. So far my idea is magical realism in civil war Spain. I fear that my characters are mostly going to die - but as I plan to have a very good deal of them, it doesn't matter so much.

Still need to decide what time period to end at - going through the entire war would take too long. Hmm, will need to go through the timelines again.

 

I have had about a gaxzillion ideas, invcluding but not limited to a swequel to last year's tripe, a romance based on the Pirates games, a romance involving a heiress and a circus performer, and other immensely weird crap.

I have settled to a fantasy romance set in pseudo-Roman and pseudo-Reneissance Spain sort of places; low-ish fantasy, grand on cultuire, much Things Rather Unsuitable For Talking About In A Family Friendly Board.

Incidentally, this is the same world I spent most of last year's October building, and then ditched in favor of popstar romance

 

So just to confirm again: You don't actually win anything for doing this do you?

 

Only the satisfaction of a job well done (and a nifty plague in .PDF format hat you can print out)

[ October 03, 2005, 02:13: Message edited by: Arabwel ]

 

I would like to point out it's a plaque, not a plague.

And yeah, Harbourboy, you don't win anything, but you feel good afterwards.

And maybe I can put it on my future CVs...

 

So you're going to bust your gut to write some stuff by a certain date, and nobody is going to read it, and you get nothing for it? Why not just do that all the time then instead of waiting for a particular time of the year to do it?

 

Because, Harbourboy, you try doing it. It's much better when lots of people are doing it together, and it's very hard to get inspired normally. The constant stress of writing 1666.33 words per day is a hard one to overcome.

 

But you only care if people you know are doing it, like Arabwel and Aikanaro. So you could organise your own nanobot writing marathon whenever you wanted to. Plus, how does anyone know if you've met your quota anyway? If the stress gets too much, you could just claim you'd done it and nobody would be any wiser. If it's your own honesty and self discipline that keeps you from cheating, then that same self discipline should apply at any other time of the year too.

 

The Nanowrimo FAQ

Call it mass hysteria if you will *shurug*

A shared burden is a lighter one, after all

 

/me pokes DM

Trust you to set off a wave of excitement through the boards... albeit only Aik and Ara!

I'll be in it this year, though the damn sites not letting me join yet, still! Grrr! I need a plot, but there is still a month...

 

Oh, memememememe! Mine is going to be a treatise on the Religious and Political Implications of Restoring Magic to Early 21st Century Philadelphia.

And what do you mean, "start" planning? I already have an outline of what should happen in each chapter, a cast of characters, about half of whom have names, and three pages of notes on characterizations, incidents, and questions to be addressed. I've even started the research into..well, you'll see.

 

*giggle*

I did majority of my planning last year - then I didn't use it. Now I just have to expands on the "characters" and the setting...

But knowing nano, nothing goes like it should.

 

Why not start writing now, so you can get a bit of a head start?

 

Because taht would be cheating!

 

Harbourboy, don't be silly, that would be dishounorable and would defeat the whole point completely. I've tried doing something with Aikanaro, but it doesn't work. It feels much better when you know some several thousand people in the world are struggling with you.

Lantus: it was between me or Aikanaro, and we "flipped a Mystarian coin" - namely, went into #sp_mm and asked Mystra to roll a 1d2.

 

Are the stories you wrote last year any good, or has the quality suffered somewhat from being spewed out at such an express pace.

Does nanobot have a grammar checker? If not, I'd hate to have to proof-read anything that Arabwel had typed at a faster than normal speed....

 

I would say that my last year's Nano, Flavor of the Month, is the best thing I have written to date. Of course it has been though a lot of editing and is far from ready - about 1/3 done at 125K words - but i would say that the quality was not worsened by the quantity.

I'd offer proof in form of letting you read it but I doubt you would find it very interesting

 

What I wrote last year was crap. But there was much goodness in it. And it was the first time I've written something that long, so it wasn't too bad considering...I blame a total lack of structure and thought beforehand, as I literally got the idea on November 1st.

 

I haven't even read my NaNo from last year - but even if it is total utter crap, well, so what? I wrote 50000 words in November and had plenty of fun while doing it - which is enough for me