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NaNoWriMo 2015

Well, I'm a little bit ahead - not having much trouble to start with this year, but who knows how that will end.
 
I hit an epic block on pretty much the first day, and the text isn't coming. I wrote a whole 0 words yesterday, go me!

Now I'm just contemplating whether I should swap my novel thing for something completely random and spontaneous. Those pokemon widgets look so damn adorable I really feel I should at least try and not give up completely; thanks for that! :O


 
Thanks everyone for helping out with this! :D Superbird and Equinoxe, your widgets look fine and should function properly. I'm particularly hoping that Superbird's correctly evolves into a male meowstic when the time comes... pokémon that have different formes were the biggest pain to handle, and I bet they won't all work out correctly yet.

I was freaking out a lot last night because my particular widget wasn't changing, even though if I looked at the actual file on the server it showed the correct number of words. In fact, I even deleted the file completely but was still able to see it in a web browser--it just wouldn't die. Everything seems to be fine when I view them from a school connection, so I think there may be a weird proxy thing going on on my home network. Long story short, I think everything should be working properly for the majority of people. Hoping to get all the minor issues with these worked out this evening so I can finally get more than a page or two of my actual story done!

Sandstone-Shadow

Somehow you got the wrong image link. The one you have displays the widget correctly, but it's just a preview version--it doesn't automatically update when you update your word count. Did you go through both creation screens to get the final one (looks something like this), and that was the code that showed in the box, or did you manually copy and paste the image location off the preview image that comes up after you press "Create" the first time?

If it was the latter, I guess you didn't realize that you needed to push the button again to finalize your choice. Do you think it would be more clear if I made the first button something like "Begin" to suggest that there was going to be another step, and maybe change the button to "Submit" or "Confirm" or something? Or did you just not see the Create/Preview buttons, so it might help if I moved them to the top of the form instead of the bottom?

Nira

The NaNoWriMon widgets will update automatically when you change your word count on the NaNo site, but it can take up to an hour for the change to show up (because they refresh hourly). However, the one you have isn't actually a final widget--the word count gets passed in as an actual argument to the program, so it won't change unless you manually edit it. So, basically the same question for you as for Sandstone-Shadow above: where did you get the code for that image?
 
Oh, yeah, I missed the "preview" and assumed that was the final version, so I copied the image location of the preview and posted that! I didn't get to the final page with the code. Changing the first one to "begin" or moving the "create/preview" to the top might help. Or where it says "preview" under the preview image, it could say something like "click below to finalize?"

I changed it - hopefully this is right now! :D Thanks!
 
Yeah, it looks like i got it directly from the preview as well. The URL was super specific, so i was wondering, haha... Thanks for clearing it up!
 
Oh, yeah, I missed the "preview" and assumed that was the final version, so I copied the image location of the preview and posted that! I didn't get to the final page with the code. Changing the first one to "begin" or moving the "create/preview" to the top might help. Or where it says "preview" under the preview image, it could say something like "click below to finalize?"
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I spent a long time wrestling with the CSS and not getting it to work out the way I wanted (most of the form is generated server-side and it keeps spitting out malformed tags and it is some bullshit let me tell you), so I just did my best with a little note about needing to press "Confirm" and changing the labels on the buttons so they're more clear. Hopefully that'll help people out a bit.

Yeah, it looks like i got it directly from the preview as well. The URL was super specific, so i was wondering, haha... Thanks for clearing it up!
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And thank you for trying it! Yeah, the URL you used is the one that actually makes the images... all the main script really does is call that whenever your word count changes so you don't have to do it by hand.

Thanks to everyone who gave the widgets a shot! I believe they're working fine now, annnnd I'm really sick of messing with them, so I'm going to call them good for now one way or the other. Time to actually get some writing done! Even in the ~1000 words I've put together so far, I've already managed to refer to something as being "like a squirrel in a cage," so clearly I'm already in the spirit of truly awful prose that NaNo calls for!
 
So, I'm not participating this year (November is usually the worst possible month for me to delve into things like this), but, here's some useful advice for those of you who are in.

I am sharing this mostly in hopes that at least some of those who take it to heart will eventually share the most hilarious things that end up resulting from it. Or, to get straight to the point with this, I want to see some misplaced freaking elephants.
 
Metallica Fanboy said:
So, I'm not participating this year (November is usually the worst possible month for me to delve into things like this), but, here's some useful advice for those of you who are in.
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Ha, that is great!

So, it's day 5 and I'm a little behind. I didn't anticipate getting sick... while I would have had tons of extra time to write this week, I have no energy to do anything :| I'm going to try to use this to my advantage - I tend to get a little burned out after writing consistently for a few days, so I'll use this as a break and make sure I'm all excited to write again when I start feeling better (which I hope is soon...)
 
Negrek said:
(Are you familiar with the Dystopian YA Novel twitter?)
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This is pretty much my favorite thing. I especially like "Your blood is special." "Does that mean my parents are special too?" "No."

I'm about halfway on my words to where I'm supposed to be, but at least I've still gotten more written than I have in the last several months! I've been pantsing, and yet I have realized too late that I'm a planner. Whoops. So basically I'm babbling whatever nonsense comes to mind as I go, to the point that the narrator is breaking the fourth wall and commenting on all the plot holes.

I've had someone "snore whimsically," and someone has suddenly become Canadian (there is no Canada in this world). So the literary flailing is happening in earnest.

 
So, I got sick, and that put a huge hamper on my college duties and on my writing. But today I wrote a little something again! Only a little bit. I'm way behind.

This doesn't really surprise me - this is what happened the last few years when I tried. I still want to keep going, though. I think I usually get to this point and go, "oh, I'm so far behind, I have to do HOW many words per day to finish?! I didn't have time to write ANY today, so there's no way that's going to happen." But maybe if I ignore that and just write when I have time, I'll get over that. I'll at least have something if I keep going!

And maybe if I keep going, I'll eventually catch up, or get to a point when I can just power through to catch up.

Keep going everyone!
 
Sandstone-Shadow said:
But maybe if I ignore that and just write when I have time, I'll get over that. I'll at least have something if I keep going!

And maybe if I keep going, I'll eventually catch up, or get to a point when I can just power through to catch up.
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That's the way to do it! You're really not all that far behind, and if you keep plugging away, you can totally catch up and reach 50k. At the very least, you'll have plenty of progress at the end of the month.

I've been slowly catching up to the expected word count, and I should pull ahead this weekend. Right now I'm in the middle of writing a big battle, which is always a pain, since writing a good battle always requires a lot of thought and careful choreography, not to mention a lot of words. It's been going pretty well, though; I'm pleased with how the first round turned out, and I think the plans I've got sketched out for the remainder should lead to some fun scenes. And I get to write a deliciously angsty scene once I finish it, so there's incentive to press ahead.

Here's an excerpt of what I wrote yesterday. I think on the sentence level it needs a bit of cleaning up, but I'm pleased with how it came out on a macro level.

Jason Muskowitz tosses a pokéball into the air at the same time the Great Nathaniel Morgan says, "Absol."

It seems like it takes a long, long time for the light from the pokéball to stream down to the field, long enough for the excitement racing through your body to chill to freezing slush.

A kabutops takes shape from the energy, stretching scythes high and rattling armor plates down her back as she sheds the last dazzles of light. The crowd murmurs like an outgoing tide, but you think there'd be more awe if people weren't waiting, as you are, tense and straining to see every corner of the arena at once, wondering. The spot across from Kabutops remains empty.

"Absol!" the Great Nathaniel Morgan says again, louder, and now there's silence, thirty thousand people waiting, watching.

She can't do this. She can't. The great Nathaniel Morgan already announced her as his choice for this round; it's too late for him to take it back. If she doesn't show up, she'll be out, and he'll be down one before the first attack.

He finally looks awake, gripping the railing so hard his arms are shaking--or maybe they're shaking so hard he needs to hang on for dear life. He leans ever farther out than you, bloodshot eyes scouring the arena, mouth half open like he can't decide whether he should call again, whether he should commit. Because if he calls again, and she doesn't arrive...

Best of luck to everybody still in the game! And if you've given up, there's still plenty of time to jump back in and give it another shot!
 
I always rope myself into this and give up halfway in through the month (or five pages in, whichever comes first.) This year I told myself I was not going to stress over Something Extra and not to do it.

and then I saw the nanowrimons and I could not not.

So I've started super late this year! my goal is actually to get past the first ten thousand words rather than the whole 50k, because that is still super unrealistic what with the actual time I have to do things in, but it is kinda exciting to be caught up in this again. :D
 
I wrote a little more today! Oye this is a busy November for me. I may not make it to 50K, but I'm going to keep writing and see how far I can get. I'm starting to lay some real groundwork for the middle of my story - I've always had the beginning and end, in various forms, but never really anything interesting for the middle. I know a lot of what I'm writing is too slow and will be cut later, but I'm using it as scaffolding. I'm getting somewhere!

Faorzia, that's motivating me too! My actual goal is to get my Larvitar to evolve to at least Pupitar! I picked a high-level evolutionary Pokémon, so I'll be writing more to meet that goal.

Negrek said:
Negrek's excerpt
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Haha, I like the character names! Also this is really suspenseful! I like how you've added tension to the choosing of a Pokémon - I'm curious to know what happens.

I haven't really written anything that I can use as a snippet... like I said before, most of what I'm writing is scaffolding. I need to just light some stuff on fire so I can actually have something cool to write about!
 
Initially, this month, I started halfway through a book I was already working on. I finished it a couple of days ago and moved on to its sequel. The sequel introduces a new, secondary, protagonist, who I differentiate by using second-person narration instead of first-person.

It's slightly disorienting. I --> You, and Me --> You. Also, We --> You, and Us --> You. Confusing, though it's good in that it's making me think a lot about clarity.

Also obligatory brag that I haven't fallen behind schedule even a single day this month. I'm doing even better than usual.
 
I'm still short of 10K and I really want to make it at least that far! I'm having difficulty moving forward, though. I'm at a point where all of my old drafts (I'm continuing an old story) can kind of apply, and now I'm stuck deciding what I want to happen. What will happen eventually is clear, but I don't know what order I want these things to happen with. My main character could make it to the secret camp with her friend, or she might get captured and he makes it alone.

...Now that I wrote that, it's clear that the latter is the proper option. Why am I worrying about this so much? I just need to pick something and go with it, I guess!
 
I'm not doing it simply because I can't do it; I'm the slowest writer in the history of man and on top of that I'll gladly spent a week editing a page until I'm satiated.
 
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