NaNoWriMo, anyone?

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The season approacheth for unreasonable deadlines and unreadable drafts -- yes, it's time for NaNoWriMo! You can get more info here on the National Novel Writing Month, but basically, it's an absurdly artificial deadline (adopted by about 100,000 people) to write a 50,000 novel in the month of November. The catch is, you can't have written anything on your novel beforehand (though outlines are OK). Gotta start from scratch.

Those of us who aren't as prose-prolific as T2Bruno probably pale at the prospect of pounding out around 1,700 words each day for a month straight. I'm particularly bad when it comes to the self-discipline of writing, as my scarce short stories attest. But this year I'm taking on the NaNoWriMo challenge, and I figure, even if I fail, I'll be in good company -- last year 85% failed to make the mark.

Naturally my novel-to-be will be set in Bujumbura. (Write what y'know, they say...and a look at Amazon.com shows the number of Bujumbura-based murder mysteries is approximately zero.) Is anyone else on this board doing this too?

 

It think that was Hemingway, GM.

 

Come on... I was only at 1,700 words every other day. Although the last two chapters may have fallen into the NaNoWriMo creed....

 

Ah - I was going to start the topic myself. Normally Aik does it...

I may or may not do it, depending on what I feel like after exams.

 

Count me in, I guess. It's insane, very likely to fail, and just might be fun. Irresistible.

I have a feeling I'll be regretting this move sooner or later, though.

All that's left to decide is if I'll attempt this insanity in Serbian (for the sake of vocabulary) or English (for the sake of improving my spelling/grammar)...

 

Hmm... starts tomorrow. I might give it a try. Wish I thought of it before hand, so had some time to put together a bit of a plan. Got far to much free time these days. Only problem is I donçt have regular computer access, so time to get out the pen and paper! Means it wont be quite proper (they have to be on the computer, by memory), but will still be a challenge.

 

Rotku! Haven't seen you for a while!

You can write by hand, they just won't be able to verify it. Eze (remember Eze?) did this a while back. I think you can still get a victor's halo or something, though.

New Zealand is always the lucky one because we get a headstart on NaNo due to timezones. But I'm not doing it, so oh well.

 

Heh, the head start doesn't help me. I haven't been in NZ for the last half year, and won't be again until well after NaNoWriMo ends

The biggest problem with doing it by hand (other than trying to read my writting afterwards) is going to be keeping track of the words. But hey, nothing wrong with a bit of a challenge.

So what's your excuse for not doing it then? You're a student, you're meant to have an overwhelming amount of free time.

 

Exams, Rotty.

When are you coming back to NZ anyways? And how have you been doing?

And have you started writing yet?

On the topic of NaNo: I've done it in 2005 when I was but a young lad. Haven't completed it since then. That particular story involved three or four completely unrelated storylines that I was going to interwine at the end (but of course, I never ended it). It was exactly 50,000 words.

For those of you considering: NaNo is great, great, great, oh so great fun. Give it a try.

 

Bah! Exams! Nano should be the perfect excuse not to study.

But yeah, I´ve writen about two sentences so far, but then it´s only like 2pm on the first day, so that´s not bad. I´ve even managed to borrow a laptop for a few weeks, so will be able to at least write a quarter of it on computer! Decided to take an old plot line I´d drawn up for a NWN module and use that, so have some base to go on.



Arriving back in NZ on Christmas morning (7am, I think).

 

I wrote some 1800 words today - only about 10000 words behind!
You can moniter my progress on my LiveJournal: http://dee-emm.livejournal.com/

Had exams earlier so only started about two hours ago. Not bad considering.

I know Lore's well on schedule with 13K currently, but how's everyone else holding up?

 

15K of gibberish, actually

 

I'm around 4k... yes, way behind. But I'm going to get in done! Maybe not in time, but I will get it done before the end of the year! I'm going to use exams as an excuse as well - all my spare time this week has been spent marking them (or watching the US elections...)

 

Up to 5.5K now. Aik has started alongside me, recently rebooted his 2K or so onto another story...

I'm way, way behind, but the story is shaping out to be okay, so I'm not that annoyed.

 

Seeing that I poked my head in here, I guess I'll report on my progress.

Currently sitting at 9845, having started yesterday. Didn't get as far as I wanted to tonight (though haven't quite finished yet either). However, overall things are going okay, if slowing down a little as we go. Tomorrow will probably breath fresh life into it, as things are actually happening in the plot, so it's not like it's going around in circles with boring pointless exposition type slowing down.

I'm quite unsure where my plot is going to go. I had an idea, but that might generally turn out not to be useful as events aren't really swinging that way. Plus getting to that point will probably take quite a few more words than I wanted to spend at this point of the plot. I'd originally intended to write a short children's novel, but that died in horrible, horrible, horrible style.

 

Wish I'd done this now! Ah well, looks like you can only write fiction...not my strong point

 

Now that my internet connection is back online...I'm sorry to reveal that I've only managed 2,500 words so far. Waaaaay behind schedule! But cheers to those of you who are keeping up the pace!

 

I'm thinking of giving this a shot, but with only 318 words, I have a long way to go. So far, I have the introduction and the ending. Tell me what you think.

Intro:


It was a dark and stormy night. Or at least it might have been, somewhere on the other side of the planet. Here, however, it was one o’clock in the afternoon, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was quiet – a little TOO quiet. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. Suddenly a shot rang out, which wasn’t entirely unexpected here at the rifle range. I glanced over at the man responsible for the noise. “Don’t you dare die on me!” he said, to no one in particular. He was wearing swimming flippers, a diaper, halter top, and Viking helmet, and yet there was something odd about his appearance that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“Take me to your leader”, a familiar voice said behind me. I turned around and came face-to-snout with what could best be described as a very large talking squirrel. Not surprisingly, it was carrying a Louis Vuitton handbag. Behind the creature was a spacecraft which bore a striking resemblance to a huge peanut. “We come in peace” the alien continued. “At least, that’s what I was told to say.”

I reflected back on the events of the day so far – the penguin in my passenger seat, the incident with the nun and the velociraptor, the slightly burnt toast, and now this. But still, I couldn't shake the feeling that, lurking just below this facade of normalcy, lay something unusual, something disturbing, something SINISTER. Later, I would wonder whether there was anything I could have done differently, such as using white bread instead of multi-grain for my toast. But for now, I began to suspect that this was not going to be a normal Tuesday; of course, that much was obvious, given that it was Thursday.


Ending:


"My hero!" she exclaimed. "How can I ever thank you?"

"No thanks are necessary, ma'am. It's all in a day's work for...OATMEAL MAN!!"


Only 49,700 words to go!

 

Splunge, that post is AMAZING. All right, not "Fallout 3-level amazing", but pret' darn close!

 

It's Monty Splunge's Flying Circus!!!