NaNoWriMo starts 1st November

[oggbashan]

Are you ready for NaNoWriMo?

It can help your writing, provide stories for Literotica, or just prove that writing consistently is harder than you think.

I wrote a How To for NaNoWriMo - (How To) Complete NaNoWriMo

Why not give it a try? You can plan what you intend to write, and during November you need to write 2,000 words a day (allowing for the few days when life gets in the way).

The only person you have to prove your competence to is - Yourself.

Go for it!

It will be a great distraction from the US Presidential Election.

 

[TxRad]

Not this year I'm afrian. Too many irons in the fire.

 

[_Lynn_]

I'm in for my sixth year and what I hope will be my fifth win. Illness interfered last year and I ended up with about 33,000 words. Last week I completed my list of settings, names, etc,. so I think I'm ready.

 

[FallingToFly]

I'm using NaNo as an excuse to finish IG. I started it in I think 2007, for NaNo, and life decided to interfere.

I may also use NaNo as an excuse to write the rest of How To Marry A Rockstar or Ghost.

 

[oggbashan]

A bump to remind those who are interested to start planning how they will find the time to do NaNoWriMo.

 

[lovecraft68]

I write 2-3 hours a day every day for going on three years now.

Nano sounds like an interesting challenge, but I don't feel I need help with discipline and don't want to take away from my scheduled works.

Someday I'd like to give it a shot though.

 

[oggbashan]

I write 2-3 hours a day every day for going on three years now.

Nano sounds like an interesting challenge, but I don't feel I need help with discipline and don't want to take away from my scheduled works.

Someday I'd like to give it a shot though.

You could use it for your scheduled works. You should only count the words you have written in November, but if you are already writing, using the NaNoWriMo counter would give you an idea of how effective your discipline is.

It is very easy to cheat at NaNoWriMo. The only person who knows whether your achievement is genuine is - yourself.

 

[lovecraft68]

You could use it for your scheduled works. You should only count the words you have written in November, but if you are already writing, using the NaNoWriMo counter would give you an idea of how effective your discipline is.

It is very easy to cheat at NaNoWriMo. The only person who knows whether your achievement is genuine is - yourself.

I can use what I'm working on?

I'll check out your how to essay then and think about it.

Right now I wrote down where I left off each night so I know how many words I write.

of course if I counted nightly lit posts I'd probably be up another couple of thousand

 

[oggbashan]

I can use what I'm working on?

I'll check out your how to essay then and think about it.

Right now I wrote down where I left off each night so I know how many words I write.

of course if I counted nightly lit posts I'd probably be up another couple of thousand

You can use NaNoWriMo for whatever you want to. It is a challenge only to yourself.

You can use it to write a completely new work of 50,000 words. Despite NaNoWriMo's title that is unlikely to be a novel. It might be the start of a novel, the first few chapters plus an outline of the rest, but 50,000 isn't enough words to make a novel.

But you can use it to complete work that is currently in progress, as long as you add 50,000 new words. I suggest that could be several Lit stories, or a story or two and the beginnings of a few more.

You could even use it to write essays for college.

The only person who will really know if you have written 50,000 new words is yourself. The only person you will upset if you cheat is yourself. You can set the parameters of what you want to achieve with those 50,000 words.

When I completed NaNoWriMo I already knew I could write 50,000 or more words in a month. I set myself the challenge of writing a complete multi-chaptered story of 50,000 words within the month, and editing it and getting all the chapters posted on Literotica before the end of the month. That meant I had to finish at least a week early to be sure of getting the last chapter posted.

The result was the 12-chaptered Flawed Red Silk. When I started planning the series I had intended 36 shorter chapters but I discarded some. The plots were similar to or variations of plots I actually used, and some chapters demanded a longer treatment than I had intended. The total, after editing and cuts, was just over 50,000.

If you go to my list of stories you can see the dates each chapter of Flawed Red Silk was posted - all of them before the end of November. They haven't been edited since. Perhaps some of them should be, but I've left them alone as an example of what is possible with NaNoWriMo.

But you, or anyone, can use NaNoWriMo as you want to. It encourages you to write consistently, to set time aside for writing, and to stick to achieving whatever your target is.

NaNoWriMo is a writing tool. How you use it is your choice.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yeah, what the hell, I just signed up.

I read the terms and conditions and there's a place I can advertise my published works so that in itself is worth it.

I need all the help I can get.

 

[_Lynn_]

My local NaNo group has several writing events each week. As the group increases in size, they meet in more locations to accommodate as many people as possible. They also have an online chat room with word wars running at all hours.

 

[matriarch]

I metaphorically take my hat off every year to everyone who does this. I don't have the discipline (or the time, come to that), to spend that much time writing every day. Not to mention, it takes a lot of preparation and a workable plot idea.

Maybe one year, when I'm retired, I may actually have a go.

Good luck to everyone who's taking part this year.

 

[NeverWinterNite]

It sounds interesting. I do have some writing I would like to complete and some new ideas I want to focus on.

I'm going to check it out and see if I will have time to do it.

 

[sunandshadow]

or just prove that writing consistently is harder than you think.

Having learned this lesson twice, I think rubbing my own nose in it again would be bad for my self-confidence.

 

[oggbashan]

My local NaNo group has several writing events each week. As the group increases in size, they meet in more locations to accommodate as many people as possible. They also have an online chat room with word wars running at all hours.

Beware! The NaNo groups can become self-defeating as the socialisation takes time when you should be writing. Ditto the forums.

 

[oggbashan]

Having learned this lesson twice, I think rubbing my own nose in it again would be bad for my self-confidence.

It could be that your current lifestyle doesn't provide enough time in a month, or in a November, to do a NaNoWriMo.

Or that your writing is dependent on the attention of a Muse?

I agree that it isn't sensible to set yourself an unachievable target but could you try to finish a story in November, or a set number of words that are feasible for you?

NaNoWriMo is about challenging yourself to write. The only person who really appreciates your achievement through NaNoWriMo is yourself. If your achievement is less than 50,000 words but meets the target you had set for yourself - you've won!

 

[_Lynn_]

Beware! The NaNo groups can become self-defeating as the socialisation takes time when you should be writing. Ditto the forums.

Because we meet in public areas, we stick to writing. The socializing is for afterward, when they gravitate to the restaurant next door.

We had an excellent completion rate last year. I was one of the very few who didn't make it to the 50k.

 

[lovecraft68]

Beware! The NaNo groups can become self-defeating as the socialisation takes time when you should be writing. Ditto the forums.

No worries for me. I'm anti-social

Remember Ally Sheedy's character in Breakfast club?

I'm her, minus the dandruff.

 

[JackLuis]

I'm thinking about NaNo again this year. I did it in 2008 and started a story that demands a sequel, I'm thinking two>

But if I can get the second saga down, I can shift to another protagonist and tie up the loose ends.

Good thing I have this month to finish the plot outlines.

 

[Tx Tall Tales]

Because we meet in public areas, we stick to writing. The socializing is for afterward, when they gravitate to the restaurant next door.

We had an excellent completion rate last year. I was one of the very few who didn't make it to the 50k.

The first two years I did NaNo I was traveling for business a lot, and joined writing groups in half-a-dozen cities. Most of the time it worked out pretty well, and I got some work done. Typically not as much as I could do on my own.

I'm definitely going for it again. 5 wins in 6 years. Here's my 2006 win - 72K words. Big overkill.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

I write 2-3 hours a day every day for going on three years now.

Nano sounds like an interesting challenge, but I don't feel I need help with discipline and don't want to take away from my scheduled works.

Someday I'd like to give it a shot though.

2-3 hours everyday? For three years?

Curious... How many of your completed works have you attempted to get commercially published? It would seem, unless you started out with poor... well, everything, that you should be well ready for a full-time writing career.

Q_C

 

[lovecraft68]

2-3 hours everyday? For three years?

Curious... How many of your completed works have you attempted to get commercially published? It would seem, unless you started out with poor... well, everything, that you should be well ready for a full-time writing career.

Q_C

First off I did start out with poor everything. Well, not totally true. I had a great idea for a BDSM series and started working on it. But my grammar was terrible and I had no idea where to start, but just kept writing.

I have 1,000 printed pages of this stuff.

Two years ago I found lit and started posting some of it. I then wrote the 50 chapter 962k incest/bdsm opus Siblings with Benefits. That's published on Smashwords, but being incest not a ton of sales.

I started on amazon a few months back and..... if you missed my other thread am going part time at my job to pursue a career in writing.

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=829929


Self published and honestly no desire to track down a publisher.

As for where I started, This January I came full Circle(pardon the pun as that's the name of my BDSM group) and restarted my first attempt from scratch. I finished it in 3 months first draft 280k

No outline at all, everything in my head and never had to go back and rewrite. The final draft minus the stuff I figured I would save for down the line is 238k and if you;re curious click the "My Answer To Shades" in my sig and that's what started 3 years ago.

50k in a month will not be an issue.

 

[lovecraft68]

The first two years I did NaNo I was traveling for business a lot, and joined writing groups in half-a-dozen cities. Most of the time it worked out pretty well, and I got some work done. Typically not as much as I could do on my own.

I'm definitely going for it again. 5 wins in 6 years. Here's my 2006 win - 72K words. Big overkill.

So is the winner the person who came up with the most words in November?

I heard this is an honor system and it amazes me people are that honest.

 

[_Lynn_]

So is the winner the person who came up with the most words in November?

I heard this is an honor system and it amazes me people are that honest.

NaNo itself doesn't proclaim a winner. Completing the 50k during the month is a personal challenge.

I'm sure there are people who aren't completely honest. They have to live with that.

 

[Tx Tall Tales]

Winner means you complete 50K words in the time alotted. It's not extremely difficult, takes me about an hour and a half a day, for most of the month.

The trick is not to edit. Not to reread. Type, type, type. You can edit and fix when it's over.

I learned this the hard way, spending over 80 hours of writing in my second attempt, and having to write for three hours straight on the final day to hit 50,700 words.