NaNoWriMo 2012

I won NaNo thrice from 2008-2010, skipped over last year cause senior year is difficult, and I'm not sure if I'll do it this year. I've got a Warriors fanfic I'd have to juggle with NaNo and this is my first year of university, so I don't really want to risk anything that would lower my grades... I have an idea for an original fiction (inspired by a dream I had last night) but eh. I'm just not sure if I'm up for it. Writing isn't my main passion anymore; music is. (NaMu(sic)Co(mposition)Mo?) So I don't really think it'd be as fun for me as previous years were. :/

I think I'm going to try it but ... I haven't really solidified a plot or anything, just some very basic thematic ideas

so do you people go into NaNo knowing exactly what you want to come out, or what?

LOL I procrastinate even my standard novel, let alone a NaNo!

I had a kickass idea for a story a week ago, but I don't know if it'd make 50,000 words.

sovram said:

I think I'm going to try it but ... I haven't really solidified a plot or anything, just some very basic thematic ideas

so do you people go into NaNo knowing exactly what you want to come out, or what?

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Varies from year to year for me... at the very least I always have several story ideas I've been meaning to get to, so I have /a story/ along with whatever notes I may have come up with beforehand; I'm actually pretty terrible at coming up with complete plots, though, haha, so my NaNos do tend to dissolve into aimless waffle part of the way through (or else I end up skipping the middle entirely and writing a bunch of scenes in the beginning and end).

That's why this year I'm probably going to be doing a bunch of related one-shots instead. (bluh bluh bluh Golden Sun fanfic why can't I ever have any original ideas in time for November frowny face whine etc.) A whole lot of smaller, more self-contained things might be easier for me to manage, and I'm also more likely to have something that's closer to postable by 50K if it's just short stories as opposed to a novel-length thing with no middle!

I have no particular story ideas and not a lot of time in November - on the other hand, I do have a concept for a children's picture book. I might go the NaNo rebel route and see if I can write/illustrate that instead! (Because who doesn't want to sort-of complete NaNo with a 50-word story at some point during the month anyway)

Maybe! I feel bad about potentially using an idea I've thought about for like a year, I'd rather spend more time and effort on it. :( But at the same time, I think I really, really need NaNo right now as something to focus on. I might trail off early like last year, but that would be okay.

(my story would be about british ace magical girls of colour. it needs to be written!!!)

Kratos Aurion said:

there's always National Novel Editing Month

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Lol, NaNoEMo

Instead of trying to wrangle the working idea for a novel that I never got started on last year, I'm thinking about writing the script for a video game I'm working on. I'm not sure it would add up to 50 k words even if I finished, but it just might because there are different dialogue arcs depending on who you have in your party, and there's always weapon/ attack descriptions. One thing about it is that at least one of my characters will be speaking in dactylic hexameter (it's an adaptation of Dante's Divine Comedy), so I'm not sure if that's the best thing for speed writing. What do you guys think I should do? Write prose dialogue and then edit the structure in later, or go for it, stresses and all? Or maybe WriMo isn't really the right way to go about writing for this?

Pft, I had a character last year that spoke only in couplets. You'll do fine as long as you can type quickly enough.

My friend pestered/inspired me to try this out, and now I kinda have a feeling I'm gonna give this thing a go. Never participated before, so I have no idea whether I'll survive or not. I'm going to sacrifice some of my art funtimes for this and see if I have the guts to conjure up those 50,00 words.
(oh who am I kidding I just sit around browsing the net most of the day anyway so why not use the time for something more creative)


Probably gonna do this in Finnish because my English isn't nearly good enough for writing novels. I've decided to do some modern fantasy bullshit with dragons who look like people when they're in the regular world (mmm so original~).

I have no idea how the plot is going to unravel since I've only made up a simple premise for the story. It's actually kind of exciting! Almost like reading a book, except more painful. :D

I don't think I have enough free time to do NaNo this year. Oh, dear. I was quite looking forward to it. :(

Tonight's the night, then! Less than four hours until November in my timezone, and oooohhh god I am woefully underprepared D: I'm still not 100% sure that I want to stick with my current plan, but I don't feel confident at all about sustaining any meaningful momentum with the other ideas I would use instead—both of them require quite a lot of worldbuilding that I just haven't gotten to yet and wouldn't be comfortable writing without. Not to mention that I still have other stuff I said I wanted to finish before the day ended... aaaaaaa no time why is there no time :(

1.5hr writing and I have 889 words of a novel I haven't really got anything concrete planned for in the way of actual scenes or chapters. Or, even, names for the characters. UM

Ahahaha I should never check Tumblr when I'm supposed to be writing. This is a pitiful wordcount for forty five minutes in but I should just keep forging on. >:/

I have some semblance of a plan! I think.

...both of them require quite a lot of worldbuilding that I just haven't gotten to yet and wouldn't be comfortable writing without.

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Why not? If it's something like you don't want to write something and then have to go back and throw it out later because it contradicts something you decided on in terms of worldbuilding, then that's perfectly in the spirit of NaNo. If it's because you think you won't be able to think what to write... just write anything and get rid of it later if it's crap!

Geez, I've no clue what I'm writing this year.

Starting wc total in my fic folder is 147620, up from 106306 last year. (Last year I counted each let's play update as 2k words, so that's why my word total was higher than fic I've added since then. Not that anyone probably remembers.)

Negrek said:

Why not? If it's something like you don't want to write something and then have to go back and throw it out later because it contradicts something you decided on in terms of worldbuilding, then that's perfectly in the spirit of NaNo. If it's because you think you won't be able to think what to write... just write anything and get rid of it later if it's crap!

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I know that's in the spirit of NaNo, but considering the sort of luck I've had with cleaning up prior stories that didn't need as much worldbuilding and/or preparation, I'd feel better knowing at least a bit more about where I was going. Not everything has to be planned out, of course, but I really don't like writing without some sort of direction. That's why I have trouble making myself do things like stream-of-consciousness writing even though I know it would probably help me: it feels aimless and like I'm wasting my time when I could be writing something that's going somewhere. I'd rather write crap with a direction than maybe-it's-crap-maybe-it-isn't that doesn't contribute toward my end goal for something (in spite of the very real possibility that it could actually end up being useful somehow). I don't feel like I have enough of a direction to make whatever I'd write for those stories not-pointless.

tl;dr Kratos whines about his writing neuroses and complains about the fact that he's a talentless hack boo hoo sob whine cry.

There is still technically time for me to work things out and change my mind, of course, so we'll see if I can hammer out a tiny bit more in the event that I really can't sustain interest in the GS fic(s) for the time being.

For now, at least, I do have 800 words; could've kept going for the full 1667 but I stopped to get some other stuff out of the way and will finish later. After sleep. Help why is it 4 AM

I have managed to ignore the crippling need to worldbuild more and just write. Although my world is set in a post-post-apocalyptic world where technology is all mismashed and anachronistic and blah, I still wanted to know what sorts of things I could expect where.

Now I'm kind of making it up as I go along, so they have concrete houses but wooden sailing ships because the coal and ore deposits have all been mined to bits. Um. Um.

:D

I'm kind of cheating, insofar that I'm continuing an extant work (my overly-large Digimon fanfiction, because my life is nothing but mons series-- 50,000 words should be about ten chapters, and so should put me around 40 chapters, thus being only ten from the end!) instead of starting something new, but really, it's all about the writing, so I'm not torn up about it.
I really don't think I'm going to have too much trouble with it, but this IS me speaking before I really get to the sleep-deprived writing sprees. I've tried NaNo twice before but never won-- this will be the year.

I sacrificed some of my project work time to write at school (I'll get those graphics done in time anyway), and managed to get over 1000 words already. Good thing there are other people at school/in my class who are participating too so that I don't have to do this all alone P:

Now I just gotta draw a bit and then get back to writing. I've actually managed to conjure up some sort of a plot on these few pre-nano days. O:

I'm also cheating to get out a... novel-thing? I don't even know what it is but if I continue it with NaNo, chances are that I'll have a first draft much quicker than slogging on my own. I've got some ideas but it turns out my plan isn't that all encompassing in the end so... this will be fun.