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Nanowrimo 2003

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12:59 / 06.10.03

Nanowrimo starts in less than a month. There are so many words just waiting to be written, mmm.

For more information about Nanowrimo, see earlier discussions, or see the Nanowrimo website .

Last year I managed to write the 50,000 words and had fun doing so. I only actually got around to editing about two chapters last year, and haven't let anyone read more than about 10 pages of the novel. I have still signed up to do it again though.

Similar to last year:
- I am not going to plan it.
- I might meet up with other people doing Nanowrimo - I found it quite inspiring to do so last year.
- I am going to write at least 50,000 words!

Unlike last year:
- I'm not going to stand at bus-stops writing with scented pens on pretty notebooks, I'm going to buy a PDA and write on that instead. It might not smell as good though.
- I'm not going to eat so many Boost Guarana bars.
- I'm going to think up better answers when people ask me why I'm doing it.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

03:37 / 07.10.03

I'm doing it again this year, since I had so much fun with last year's. Met fun people, wrote a zombie novel and showed I coudl still write fast when I have to.

This year's is an urban fantasy set in 1927 Chicago. I like mixing genres when I'm going for word count.

Tryphena Absent

08:17 / 07.10.03

Ooh, I'm playing. It's all about a Japanese man and his maybe-girlfriend-maybe-not who don't get married. And he has blue hair.

Of course I'm not going to have much time to do this so the likelihood of hitting the limit is about zero. I'm sure I could manage to fit some time in at work... lunchtime and the like.

12:18 / 07.10.03

Me and 2+2=5 are both giving it a go this year. Hopefully we'll be able to whinge, harass and shame each other into not giving up half-way through. I've got a few ideas floating around and they're beginning to coalesce into a story about some cultists.

Have any former participants got any white-hot tips they'd like share?

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:44 / 07.10.03

My advice? Don't emulate my behaviour over the past two years. I spent them drumming up people to enter... and then died in the arse myself.

I may get into it this year - but that's reliant on deadlines at work not being too bad. And they may be...

13:30 / 07.10.03

My advice would be to meet up with other people that are doing Nanowrimo, since they can help motivate you and you'll feel less like it's all pointless. Also, if you have a competitive nature, find someone you can compete with who is also doing Nanowrimo, since that can spur you on to write.

Writing whenever you get the chance is the best way to not let it interfere too much with your normal life - write in the bath, write on the way to work (or use a dictaphone or something similar if you drive or walk), write instead of e-mailing, write while eating lunch. I didn't let myself read much (books, webpages, etc) last year, and instead spent the time that I might be reading, writing.

Realize what you write is unlikely to be very good - it will probably need a lot of editing afterwards (or ignoring forever).

Ex

15:23 / 20.10.03

I've signed up - I'm aiming to produce a light frothy comedy of manners with goths.
I can do this. I have many literary strengths: I use at least five fingers when I type, and I've just learnt the difference between "effect" and "affect". Eat my dust, Umberto.

06:03 / 21.10.03

I just hope I'll have the means to work on this when I traveling. Maybe I'll get a cheap labtop and start carrying it around.

19:42 / 26.10.03

This'll be my third time doing it. Sucker for punishment, I guess. I keep writing 50k which turns out to be about half a book and never quite getting back to finishing them.

I'm re-tackling the basic idea I had last year though with different characters. Well, I'm killing last year's lead character in the second chapter. It's that whole out with the old, in with the new bit.

-m

Nietzsch E. Coyote

21:55 / 26.10.03

I will probably try this time around. I think I will try to find an electronic solution so I don't have to write and then data entry.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

13:55 / 27.10.03

So...is everyone set?

How many 'lithers are doing it this year? I have a plot, a schedule and the like, but the one thing I got out of it last year was that I made a lot of local friends. The NaNo meetups were fun because we all had something in common...we were about to do something a bit nuts.

And I understand about the half a novel bit. My novel last year felt more like a pilot for a series than an actual novel.

14:11 / 27.10.03

I'm still swithering. Maybe, maybe... I enjoyed doing it in 2001 but I'm really busy this year and probably don't have the time.

.

13:49 / 29.10.03

I'm sick of my friends, bored of my job, and there's nothing good on TV... I'm in.

Seriously though, I've had a novel idea floating in my head now for years, and that jump from white canvas to sketch is always the hardest, so this is a great idea. I think there is certainly that fear to start writing- after all, the novel is perfect in one's head, and can only be rendered badly down on paper...

I'm writing a metaphysical whodunnit (as per the blurb on the back of Valis). I doubt I'll manage to hit the 50K mark (too good a slacker by far), but it's the process that counts, and that appeals to me.

14:55 / 29.10.03

I've started eating Boost Guarana bars again. Am now convinced that the only reason I want to do Nanowrimo again is because I got so hooked on them last year during it and therefore associate Nanowrimo with them.

Nietzsch E. Coyote

06:32 / 01.11.03

It has begun!

18:05 / 02.11.03

It has begun! Really enjoying myself so far. Satire is such fun.

The Little Virus That Could

'Memetic Mayhem Map. That's us. I'm War-Ez, oldest of the MMM crew at 15. The others are Katabase, Smash, and sometimes Liver. We started out as a typical occult breakaway group from the suburbs of the splinternet, but slowly evolved into the most ominous gang on the Roof. It's not that we had the most memepoints, or even that our networks were larger than the tiniest particles of the chaoweb. It had to do with our presence. Our tone. Our subversive clothing.'

Part 1 : "They promised us flying SARS and all we got were these napkins?"

'Eco-punk revival is an annoying trend that's been going on since 2030. Kids who weren't even born when the eco-punks destroyed the Earth wear gas masks to school and chant about blowing up societal hardware. Fractalized lemmings. The planet as a program that needs to be deleted, the virtual interface of disease, technology of mindless chatrooms, etc. etc. etc. It's amazing how they don't realize it was all said a hundred times better before Earth was destroyed. Before the human race became extinct: before we, the robosapeins, migrated to the Roof. Before the Fractal Age.'

Part 2 : Raising the Roof with our Meta-Angst

03:58 / 03.11.03

I've got 117 words so far:
http://beta.hometown.aol.com/aussieintn/myhomepage/writing.html

Last year I managed 536 words, the ideal length for a novel IMHO:
http://members.aol.com/aussieintn/novel.html

Who'd want to read more than 536 words?

08:17 / 03.11.03

I have about 4400 words, but they are not too great. Already my attempt has become rather similar to the novel I wrote last year. Oh dear.

18:47 / 04.11.03

My Giant Robot novel is GO!

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

19:07 / 04.11.03

I have 14K written so far, and will add another 2000 tonight.

Kung Fu Gangster Novel GO!

.

21:02 / 04.11.03

6500 terrible incoherent words.

.

13:03 / 10.11.03

Hooray, 12500 words.

12,500 terrible incoherent words...

Anyone-else still out there writing away? I'm totally losing faith in any words I put down, and the lack of any characters, plot or interesting prose is horribly apparent right now...

13:36 / 10.11.03

I'm on 16700 and still writing. Went to a few meets at the weekend which helped spur me on, and it was concluded that if we run out of things to write, then we should write about plumbers, since there isn't enough plumbing fiction out there. Before that my procrastination levels were rather high, and I even made a Nanowrimo sign with a pink fluffy "N" so that people could recognize me.

I have been writing much nonsense, and one of my main characters seems to be a postbox. I like to think that what I am writing is sort of like a modern day Oz book, but I doubt it really is.

.

15:24 / 10.11.03

I love the idea of the adventures of a postbox plumber in Oz, I'd buy that if I saw it in Waterstones...

Sadly that just makes my book feel even less inspired now. Still, I'm determined to hit the 50K mark, and hopefully there will be something salvageable for future projects. On the plus side, one of my RL friends is also torturing herself with this project, so at least we're spurring each other one. I guess it's time to hit the Boost bars... Or a Star Bar, which, ifa Boost was some sort of genetically enegineered smart drug would be cheap crack from a street corner in Brixton.

Squirmelia, I have the intuition that you are based in Lodnon and went to one of the Lnodon based meets, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Ex

15:36 / 10.11.03

I hit 18000 on Friday and then got a cold. Virus war on my wonderful novel!
I anticipate great strides over the next few days. I was wondering how to fit in a load of info about past events, before my chums reminded me that (being as it is a gothic novel, or at least a novel about goths) I can
a) have someone sit the protagonist down in a pub and explain it in a hundred-page digression (as happens in traditional Gothic novels a lot - see Melmoth the Sodding Wanderer for some interminable plot-juggling)
or
b) stick it all in a tacky italic flashback headed "PRAGUE. 1876" (which is the rule-of-thumb for bad vampire fiction).

Sorry, overexcited. Anyway, I shall be trying to make a London meet - will watch the boards for details. Good luck, earnest scriveners...

13:44 / 11.11.03

I'm from Southampton, not London, but did make it to some of the London meets last year, and might try to again, if I have enough time. The meets I arranged last weekend were in Bournemouth and Portsmouth. Arranging meets is definitely a good procrastination technique.

I'm now up to about 18,000 and my plot just gets sillier. The girl, the postbox and the leaf, have somehow just gone past Lassiters, and are going back to see the quaggas that have monkey flowers growing out of them.

16:01 / 11.11.03

I've only done about 5,300 and I'm already bored with all of my characters except, possibly, the one who's unconscious. I'm getting very bored with the narrator. Tedious bastard. Maybe this is why I haven't written that much. I should just kill them all.

The story itself is also turning rather tiresome and lazy, though I did manage to slip in a rant about the PFI and identity cards which got me moving for a little while.

Since nobody's ever going to read it and I have no overall plot or direction in mind I would feel quite okay about killing everyone.

I've discovered that big slices of rambling conversation boost the word count, particularly if the characters say "fuck" every other word. Swearing, gunfights and political rants. Works for me.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

00:54 / 12.11.03

28,000 and going strong:

O’Ryan fell silent. Nitti hadn’t lied to him, and while it was very confusing to think that Heenan would be involved in bootlegging, it seemed that all of the power in this brave new world he was in had to do with alcohol. Maybe there was a legitimate reason they called it “Devil’s Water.”

A literal reason.

“Either way,” Nitti continued, “When you get back, my people will have concrete information on Heenan. If he’s not involved down there, one of the G-Men I have on the take will have information on him. This will be your last job for me. You get your information and I…” Nitti paused and smiled, a dark smile that made O’Ryan feel uncomfortable, “I’ll have what I want as well. Every body wins.”

The whole thing is on my website:

www.solitairerose.com/nano2003/index.html

12:09 / 13.11.03

crap, i just started. . . 504 words

a story based around the word "crackers".

13:18 / 13.11.03

Is it about insane rednecks that bust into safes looking for something to put their cheese on?

14:58 / 13.11.03

No, that sounds more like my life. . . except for the redneck part.

Its more of a memetic thang.

16:07 / 21.11.03

so as an outside observer who only writes a chapter for his online novel after the first line has formed in his head (13 chapters in three years, I just know I'm not cut out for this competition) can I ask how's it all going?

12:03 / 24.11.03

I'm starting to panic.

Think I am up to about 37,000, but a lot of that is on paper and I haven't typed it all up (being away from a computer for a week was a bad idea). I need to finish on the 29th, since I have stupidly arranged a party for then, which I suppose means I need to write about 2167 a day.

My main characters (the girl, the postbox, the leaf) are in the final room of the volcano before they end up back outside again, which means they might end up doing the sit around in a pub thing for 10,000 words. Erk.

15:21 / 24.11.03

I've sputtered and stalled. I will continue writing this, but will probably not break 15,000 by the deadline.

17:13 / 25.11.03

I've got about 15,000 now but no way am I going to finish it. London is not nearly close enough to being on fire yet.

They shouldn't hold it in November. November is a bad month for me. Last year I moved into a new apartment in a new country and started a new job in November. This year I moved into a different apartment in a new town and had to give a load of training at said job.

Whine, whine, whine.

Anyway, they should officially move it to... October. What do people do in October? Nothing. Or September, that's even better. Summer's finished and you're bored. Just any month where I'm not moving, not buried at work and it's not my birthday, either.

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