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NaNoWriMo 2006

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17:31 / 21.10.06

When I won´t know what happens next or get some other kind of writer´s block, I plan on pulling a Philip K. Dick trick: When writing Man in the high castle, he used the I Ching oracle for inspiration. Maybe that´ll work even better with tarot cards!

21:58 / 21.10.06

If you use a Mac, there are a couple Dashboard widgets you might like -- an I Ching one, and an Oblique Strategies one.

Do they have an equivalent/parallel project for screenplays?

I may do that one.

08:36 / 26.10.06

I have no ideas yet. Eek.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:21 / 26.10.06

I'm really glad you said that. I'm fucked so far. I've got lots and lots of bits in mind, but can't either put them together or decide on one to concentrate on.

I encouraged a friend at work to take part, and he's thoroughly destroying my confidence by being way better prepared. Bastard. (Still, I'm looking forward to reading it).

09:34 / 27.10.06

Yesterday I got Chris Baty´s (the founder of Nanowrimo) book No Plot? No Problem! - A low-stress, high-velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days and have actually been reading it.

As examples for 50.000 novels he mentions Catcher in the rye, Brave new world and Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.

Not so positive for me: he says, it´s best if you already have a full plate. Being able to already accomplish lots of stuff a day, one more task isn´t much of a problem, while having all the time in the world can make getting up and eating breakfast before 02.00 pm nearly immpossible.

Whisky Priestess

09:51 / 27.10.06

Alas, he's talking shit, because Brave New World is a lot longer than 50,000 words. Although The Great Gatsby is probably around that mark.

14:08 / 27.10.06

He also mentions The Great Gatsby, along with The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer and Of Mice And Men.

And I did a word count of Brave New World here using Microsoft Word; it´s 64.493 words. Is that such a large difference? He probably wasn´t able to find enough well known novels, that were +/- 5% around the 50.000 mark.

22:22 / 27.10.06

i'm starting this with a friend.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

god help me.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

00:09 / 28.10.06

I'm going to unofficially aim for more of a novella, I think. I did the three day novel once and ended up deleting it because it was shite. I have a few ideas but I want to go in without too much thought out because I'd lose interest otherwise.

20:38 / 31.10.06

In less than half an hour it´s midnight and I can officially start procrastinating away. Only I won´t, because I already feel the characters rebelling against me, demanding to be set free and fool around like the characters in Flann O'Brien´s novel At Swim-two-birds.

Anybody else nervous, excited or feeling stalked by the muses, hm?

00:56 / 01.11.06

I'm really quite torn here. Should I get pissed drunk in honor of Halloween (undeniably my favorite day of the year)? Or should I stay sober so that I have my head on right when midnight rolls around and November begins? I have less than an hour to decide this, as that is when the booze arrives.

05:54 / 01.11.06

I decided to both get drunk and work on my novel. 400 words later, I'm regretting it.

08:51 / 01.11.06

I just finished my first chapter with 1.719 words on four pages. 1.667 words is the average per day (for 50.000 words in a 30 day month), and the writing was so fluent and easy, I´m quite optimistic for the next few days!

Tabitha Tickletooth

09:20 / 01.11.06

Mist you frighten me with your positive start and your authoratitive citation of daily averages. This year I have deliberately taken the free-for-all, whatever happens happens approach. I write all day for a living (journalist) so the number of words doesn't daunt me. I'm doing it for the fun! I'm starting with two characters and an opening scene and I'm going to see what happens. Quite often when I'm writing (pleasure) I stall because I'm not sure what happens next. So when that happens, I'm just going to make the characters do things because they have to, in order to make my word count. Dance suckers, dance.

I think I'm hoping to write the novel Stoatie's hoping not to write!

At the end, I expect to have an utterly unreadable mess with some good bits in it and a few ideas that might work and can be explored properly. And a really big grin.

So, apart from Mist who else is out of the blocks fast? I'll be putting finger to keyboard tonight for my first words and I'm damned well looking forward to it. Dazzle me Lith-writers, with your feats of writing prowess

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:55 / 01.11.06

I appear to have written 2009 words in just over an hour (I was aiming for 2000 a day, to give me a reasonable distance to fall from). I frighten me. I must now go to the pub to relax.

Of course, after those 2009 words, I have absolutely bugger all idea what comes next. And I don't think it's going to be the same story I had in my head right up until I got back from walking the dog this morning, either, so that's not much help.

12:03 / 01.11.06

I only have 775 words so far, but hey, it's a start. My story contains fog.

The Ghost of Tom Winter

12:53 / 01.11.06

2,567. After an hour. Afterwards I had an amazing headache.
I think I can still push out some story of what I was writing, I have an inkling it's turning into a mystic murder mystery though. Hm.

Tabitha Tickletooth

14:07 / 01.11.06

An impressive start Squirmelia - every word is sacred. And fog sounds very promising.

I am at work, writing something very dull and work-related about technology strategy boards but I'm thinking about my novel and what I'm thinking involves squirrels.

Stoats/Mist - want to give us a key-word clue as to what those first pages contain?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:20 / 01.11.06

Mine? Bloke on train. Bloke in station. Evening newspaper headline "20 feared dead in cult blaze horror". Bloke in pub. Bloke at house freaking out.

I've now been down the pub, and made notes and everything. I have most of this planned out now. I just need a reason for everything. Damn. That should be the easy part, surely?

14:45 / 01.11.06

Short synopsis of my first chapter:
A young scientist, quarantined and recovering from a work related accident (pox), gets a visit from his only superior, a general, who promises him a surprise/gift, and leads him to a secret vault (in the form of a red cube), where the government stores weird artefacts they traded from the russians, who found them while building a city in the boonies. YS can pick any artefact he likes and take it home, since the government has given up on ever making sense of said artefacts...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:07 / 01.11.06

Looking back over the notes I've made, I think I've caused myself serious problems already. Mainly in that the part of the narrative that's likely to end up more stream-of-consciousness deals with a man who doesn't drink. Therefore I'm not gonna be able to follow my original plan of some serious writing in the morning, followed by some "mad shit to be edited later" in the evening.

I'm also not entirely sure I like my protagonist, and that was supposed to be key.

Ah well. Early days yet, I guess. There's still plenty of time for them to wake up and find it was all a dream.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:08 / 01.11.06

I've also realised I have to take a lot of the planned action out of the pubs in which it was originally intended to occur, on the grounds that my pub dialogue reads like Garth fucking Ennis.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

16:05 / 01.11.06

I'm at just under 3000 words as it stands. Decent start. Hit a slight snag, but I'm going to read through what I've got so far and see what happens next.

How comfortable do people feel talking about their work while they're doing it? Any brainstorming sessions worth pursuing?

The Ghost of Tom Winter

16:47 / 01.11.06

My first bits of story are about Scientist A who shrinks Scientist B using his mind, then the Scientist B accidentally explodes Scientist A's head because he grew inside his head. Then the cops come after him and suddenly he is participating in a tribal ritual in Fiji. It'll somehow relate to another man who is a Forensic Anthropologist but I haven't gotten that far yet. Then there is a drug addict who will also play some roll in whatever the story will be.

I'm taking the make shit up as you go road. And if an idea pops up I'll just jot it down on a sheet of paper. I have no aim or goal except to make a somewhat continuous plot through out the whole 50k words.

Last year my novel was just a bunch of fragments of various things happening. I'm trying to avoid that this year

How comfortable do people feel talking about their work while they're doing it? Any brainstorming sessions worth pursuing?

I don't mind people reading what I've written so long as they don't suggest something that would make me delete or re-write a bit. As I told my girlfriend, you can point out contradictions, plot holes or try to give suggestions at character/plot development, but never point out grammatical errors or ideas that seem stupid and should be taken out.
So yeah. I only accept criticism that will further the word countage.

17:09 / 01.11.06

I don't tend to show mine to anyone, although sometimes if weird enough things happen in my stories, I enthuse about those to anyone who will listen.

2258. Still a lot of fog.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:24 / 01.11.06

Don't actually have the story as yet- most of it's going to be in flashback and I'm not sure how the events I'm flashing back to happened yet.

Basically, this guy's the only survivor of a religious cult who have all mysteriously burned to death in a fire, and has returned to his previous life in London. His flashbacks should provide the main story, as I think of it (handy narrative device meaning I can put cool bits in as I think of them). Someone else is tracking him down, presumably to kill him. I'm not entirely sure who, yet.

13:52 / 02.11.06

I didn't get shit done. Friend of mine came over with a major emotional emergency and ended up consoling him all night.

Does anyone here lock their doors and disconnect the phone when they plunge in? Am I crazy or a bastard for considering that?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:39 / 02.11.06

I was going to- in the end I bottled it and just told the two people I thought might call not to call for a few hours. The one I'd forgotten to tell (who was, ironically, the one who was DEFINITELY going to call) called me within minutes of me stopping, so it was all peachy.
4000 words now. I'm on target. I want to start getting ahead, though, so when I go back to work in about 10 days I can slow down a bit.

18:42 / 02.11.06

Chris Baty´s advice concerning the early word count is to hit 10.000 at the first weekend "to have a cushion". For many nanovelists the second week is apparently a bit tricky.

18:52 / 02.11.06

*hat in hand*

the spouse is doing NaNoWriMo and head-desking over not having enough ideas at present.
Anyone have some kickers I can present him with or strange relationship suggestions?

I gave him a few but I figured I'd poke into this thread and ask.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

20:21 / 02.11.06

Depends - what's his angle?

I've got to get to work now, I haven't accomplished much of anything today. I'm hoping for 1000 words or so by nightfall.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:46 / 02.11.06

If I can keep myself to an hour solid a day, and keep up the 2000 words per hour thing, I should have the 10,000 at the weekend (well, Sunday).

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:58 / 02.11.06

I'm sitting at 3313 words and I'm going to pause it for a few minutes, long enough to run over to the corner store for a couple things to make dinner with. The flow's great once it gets going, but you have to let it sit now and then in a jumble, until you figure out WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. Mostly, I need another character to come in and I have to decide which one and what he or she needs to do when ze's there.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

05:37 / 03.11.06

Sitting at 4144 words, time for bed. Everyone else's endeavours? How go?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:49 / 03.11.06

According to NaNoWriMo's own word counter I'm on 6014 words.

I tried putting it through the AOLer translator and it added an extra 1000, but made it incomprehensible.

I'll stick with the English version.

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