NanoWriMo This Year...

[mrlich]

Anyone else in my circle of peeps interested in doing NanoWriMo this year?

I've 'thought about it' in past years, and I've 'sorta' done it in other years, but this year I think that I'm going to do it 'for real' so I'm wondering who else might be up for it. I figured I would ask now so we could prep by doing the other stuff now that tends to get in the way in November.

Anyone?

Comments

[roughhouser.livejournal.com]

I did this a couple years ago, but it was in like June instead of November because a couple of us thought there was too much stuff always going on in November. Sure, we didn't share the whole bond with all the writers doing it "for real" at the right time, but we were okay with that. It was a very rewarding but tough month for me. I didn't manage to get started until day 8, so I had a little over three weeks to do the 50k words. Don't do that. It stung. ;) But in the end, I finished the month with a 54k word novella that needed a lot of polish but was a fun, solid adventure, I think. I plan to use it as a base later and expand it to a full length novel, probably in 2010. My advice to you is this:
1) Consistent pacing is best. Write every single day, even if it's 500 words or so. More is better, but doing the skip-a-day-or-three and then trying to make it up on a Saturday is harder.
2) DO NOT EDIT. You're reading this, and you're STILL going to catch yourself self-editing as you write. Try to minimize that. Get it all out first, and then use the rest of your month (if any) to edit at the end.
3) Do a plot outline first, and break it down by chapter or section, and approximate each of those sections' word counts. This will help you keep on pace with the 50k count, and let you know how wordy to be or not to be (heh) in each section.

I'm working on my novel until the end of this year, so I definitely can't do the nanowrimo thing with you this time around, but best of luck, dude.

[mrlich.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the advice sir! It seems to be well founded - both in that I trust your opinion on such things but also because your words seem echoed by a number of others.

I'm actually getting more than a little jazzed about it already. In fact, I'm finding it a little hard to not write something out now and break the rules. I'm generally just distracting myself for the time being. Hopefully that will create a little build up for later.

Side note: is that a new icon?