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NaNoWriMo

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  • I was thinking of doing a thing where the author and protagonist are aware of each other outside of the plot of the book; I figure that having little "breaking the fourth wall" segments between the author and the protag would be a good way to eat up words.
    An acquaintance of mine is doing that. His main character 'finds out' that she's in a story because she 'meets the same guy on the public transport every day'. Public transport being Jeeps with long benches. Both these characters go to the same school. So yeah, don't go about it in that pathetic way.
    No, I mean having the protagonist talk to me. A little different, but it allows a chance for exposition, and, essentially, time wasting.

    It was an idea I got from a short story by Barry Longyear, wherein the protagonist spends much of his time arguing with the author about the absurdity of his situation.

    Could be a way to generate a very anti-climatic ending.
  • No, I mean having the protagonist talk to me. A little different, but it allows a chance for exposition, and, essentially, time wasting.
    That's why that guy goes through that stupidity. So that his character breaks the fourth wall and talks to whomever.
  • WRONG! That is wrong! You do not want to hear 'less' when participating in NaNoWriMo. More, more, always more! If it takes 2000 words, great, if it takes 5000 words, awesome, if it takes a total 10K of words, epic.
    You're not getting me. That's 2000 words or less of a situation I'm having trouble writing. If I tried to extend it out to 5k or 10k words I'd just be slowing myself down. The 2000 words is to get out of the situation I have my character in, and make a logical setup to something easier for me to write.
  • Today I managed to do a total of zero words. This takes me to 4 days out of 7 that's failed to write any of my novel. I was, however, writing a magazine article (which I actually get paid for) which ran to 3000 words, plus actually had to be edited and formatted, etc. So I don't feel too bad about myself.

    Tomorrow I'll have time to do maybe another few thousand words. Sunday I have pretty much all day to record two podcasts and work on the novel, so I may even catch up then.


    The way I'm going is very non linear. As I'm doing a book about someone living many full lifetimes in a continuously cycling time period I can dip into any part of any life, pick up his story there, run with it for a few thousand words, then stop when I need to. This way if I only want to stick with a few hundred words in that chapter, that's no problem.

    I'm really liking this form of storytelling, as it lets me play and add in what I want. It weaves a broad patchwork blanket of a world, and hint a stories and events which happened both in the past and in the future.
  • edited November 2008
    I've just decided to drive one of my characters insane through torture and solitary confinement during a war, and then be put in command of an army after being rescued. After that he'll probably take revenge on his the inhabitants of his enemy's nation through various atrocities, and tragically realize his wrongdoings just before I kill him off. This is going way better than before.
    Post edited by Walker on
  • Don't do that!
    Make him die heroically while killing civilians. I'll read it.
  • Don't do that!
    Make him die heroically while killing civilians. I'll read it.
    I would, but that wouldn't work as well with the fun little plot device I've got going. See, I've got a bunch of chapters scattered throughout the book named after the five staged of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Each one is a journal entry by the character while he's in solitary confinement, lamenting after his dead friends, and each one takes the theme of the stage and takes it to an extreme brought on by the characters descent into madness. I plan to have all but one of them be a journal entry, and then the chapter titled "acceptance" will be the one where he realizes what he's done wrong, and accepts the deaths of his comrades before tragically snuffing it.
  • edited November 2008
    Never mind, I went to the site and looked it up. (originally, I posted a question)

    I'm 8 days behind. I'm going to write my ass off and hope I hit at least 50,000 words before time's up. How are you guys doing so far?
    Post edited by Sloth on
  • edited November 2008
    How am I doing? Well, for just about everything I do in life I make up some kind of spreadsheet to help keep track or plan. This is my NaNoWriMo thingy. All I do is enter how many words I wrote today (Jer's Novel Writer has a "session wordcount") and it works everything else out for me. As you can see (if the formatting works) I did too many words on the first few days, missed three days, did over 1666 words, which is the minimum target per day, but only if you write every single day. I missed another day, but knocked out a few words this evening.

    Because I've not written for four days out of 8, tomorrow, if I want to catch up completely, I have to write 8203 words. This isn't going to happen, of course. I think I'll make a new column that divides remaining word count by days remaining so it spreads catchup work over future days, rather than making it seem such a massive block.

    Anyway, here it is:
    Date:	Target today:	To do today:	Actual words:	Running total:
    1 1666 -242 1908 1908
    2 3332 -310 1734 3642
    3 4998 1356 0 3642
    4 6664 3022 0 3642
    5 8330 4688 0 3642
    6 9996 4636 1718 5360
    7 11662 6302 0 5360
    8 13328 6537 1431 6791
    9 14994 8203 0 6791
    10 16660 9869 0 6791
    11 18326 11535 0 6791
    12 19992 13201 0 6791
    13 21658 14867 0 6791
    14 23324 16533 0 6791
    15 24990 18199 0 6791
    16 26656 19865 0 6791
    17 28322 21531 0 6791
    18 29988 23197 0 6791
    19 31654 24863 0 6791
    20 33320 26529 0 6791
    21 34986 28195 0 6791
    22 36652 29861 0 6791
    23 38318 31527 0 6791
    24 39984 33193 0 6791
    25 41650 34859 0 6791
    26 43316 36525 0 6791
    27 44982 38191 0 6791
    28 46648 39857 0 6791
    29 48314 41523 0 6791
    30 50000 43209 0 6791
    Post edited by Luke Burrage on
  • Well, for just about everything I do in life I make up some kind of spreadsheet to help keep track or plan.
    Have you downloaded the NaNoWriMo Report Card? It's got a nice layout, and it automatically calculates how many words you've written in a day, your average daily word count, and how soon you'll likely reach your goal (which is, unfortunately, not that accurate past the first day. The chart that tells you where you are is a lot better).

    As an aside, would someone please tell me why I thought that committing to 100K this year was a good idea?

  • As an aside, would someone please tell me why I thought that committing to 100K this year was a good idea?
    My guess would be temporary insanity.
  • I'd forgotten you can post excerpts of your novel in the "About the Novel" section of your profile. I added chapter one of my novel if you care to check it out. I've not read it back since reading it (as encouraged by the NaNoWriMo website), so beware of glaring mistakes.
  • I just hit 1250 words. Three quarters still to go!
  • I just hit 1250 words. Three quarters still to go!
    Aren't you a little short for a novelist?

    *is shot*
  • I just passed 16666 words. Two thirds still to go. From a quarter done to a third done in one day makes me happy. Unfortunately to get to the the next big goal, "half done", is a much bigger step.
  • edited November 2008
    I'm falling horribly behind between work, my dad and I actually getting somewhere on the basement, the election and the fact that 5 days at the end of the month I'll be in Ohio, I should make a plan to write 50,000 words in February ^_^ Oh yea, and Fallout 3 :-p
    Post edited by Cremlian on
  • edited November 2008
    I'm with you, Cremlian. There's too much other stuff going on this month I'd rather be doing.
    Post edited by Johannes Uglyfred II on
  • My characters need to quit talking and start actually doing things. I'm just shy of 38k, and I've only finished one chapter. That's right. One. I got about halfway through another, then I hit a wall and started a different one, which I'm about two thirds of the way through. Of all this, I would wager that about 80% of it is made up of useless dialogue.

    I'm going to have sooo much editing to do. 0_o
  • I'm up to 2255 words and feelin fine. Not a hope of getting to 50,000 this month, but feelin fine.
  • I'm with you, Cremlian. There's too much other stuffgoing on this monthI'd rather be doing.
    Like playing WoW? ^___~
  • I'm with you, Cremlian. There's too much other stuffgoing on this monthI'd rather be doing.
    Like playing WoW? ^___~
    I know people at work who have taken off the rest of this week to play the expansion. I meanwhile, will be getting said expansion at 5 pm this evening and will play it then (like a sane, working person).
  • I'm with you, Cremlian. There's too much other stuffgoing on this monthI'd rather be doing.
    Like playing WoW? ^___~
    Actually I have barely touched WoW in the month of November, because of Fallout 3 and other fun things.
  • I gave up WoW for Warhammer Online. It's a much better game.

    However, I gave up pretty much everything else for Fallout 3.

    Fucking mirelurks.
  • Whoot! I got past 20,000 words. Just three fifths of the way to go. And while I missed writing for four days near the beginning of the month I've almost caught up completely. If I do another 1123 words today I'll be back on track for the 1666 words per day average.

    Day: Date: Target: Behind: To catch up by 30th: Sessions: Today: Running total:
    Sat 1 1666 -242 -305 1908 1908 1908
    Sun 2 3332 -310 -135 1734 1734 3642
    Mon 3 4998 1356 1656 0 3642
    Tue 4 6664 3022 1717 0 3642
    Wed 5 8330 4688 1783 0 3642
    Thu 6 9996 4636 68 1718 1718 5360
    Fri 7 11662 6302 1860 0 5360
    Sat 8 13328 6537 448 1431 1431 6791
    Sun 9 14994 5095 -1285 1292 1816 3108 9899
    Mon 10 16660 4236 -736 1380 1145 2525 12424
    Tue 11 18326 1641 -2595 1014 1768 1479 4261 16685
    Wed 12 19992 1100 -570 2207 2207 18892
    Thu 13 21658 1123 -6 1643 1643 20535
  • I gave up WoW for Warhammer Online. It's a much better game.

    However, I gave up pretty much everything else for Fallout 3.

    Fucking mirelurks.
    The problem Pete, is everyone gets one free MMORPG, your now on your second so you have no excuse for playing :-p
  • I gave up WoW for Warhammer Online. It's a much better game.

    However, I gave up pretty much everything else for Fallout 3.

    Fucking mirelurks.
    The problem Pete, is everyone gets one free MMORPG, your now on your second so you have no excuse for playing :-p
    Let's see here: Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Dark Age of Camelot, WoW, and now Warhammer Online. I'm out of excuses.
  • I think I'm done for this year, unless I suddenly get a flash of enthusiasm later in the month. I just can't seem to muster up enough excitement this year for NaNo, mainly due to the prospect of other things I'd rather be doing. I think I'm allowed, considering how long I've been participating in NaNo. I know I can get to 50K when I really want to, so it's not a matter of proving that I can do it anymore; I just participate when it's fun now, and since it's not currently fun, I'm out. XD;
  • Gad, you people are dropping like flies. I'm still chugging along at 22,000, and I've got enough stuff in my head to get to 25,000 by tomorrow, I think.
  • Geordie accent:

    "Day fifteen in the NaNoWriMo FRCF house and we're down to just three housemates. Misakyra is clearly doing best at almost forty two thousand words. Running neck and neck for second place Luke and Günter, who've been within a few thousand words of each other at the end of each day for the past week. Both are just under twenty five thousand words. Compared to Misakyra this looks hopeless, but both are on target for a successful year...."
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