# NaNoWriMo - Nov 2013 - CONSOLIDATED thread



## Dolphin

I need to start writing in earnest, and it seems like a lot of you have had great experiences with NaNoWriMo in the past. Consider this my cry for help: I'm counting on internet friend peer pressure to help me ignore reality and bang out a novel before the end of next month.

So, who's doing it this year? What're you doing to prepare?

If you're a previous winner I imagine this November will just be another day in the office for you, but I'd still love to hear about your experiences. Have you attended NaNoWriMo events in the past? Would you recommend them?


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## AworkInProgress

I'm signed up and ready for Nano this year. And this being my first year and my failure to write daily at this point I'm also hoping the added pressure will help me with that.


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## Jan Thompson

I've heard of this for a few years now but haven't thought of participating bc while I can do many things under pressure, I don't seem to be able to write a novel under pressure.

So out of curiosity, what good reasons would persuade a writer to participate in NaNoWriMo? And are you going to publish what you write as your next book?


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## Lisa Grace

Yes. The 15th Star started as a nano project, and so did Angel in the Storm, Book 2. We just finished taping 2 episodes for Indie Author Chat today on the subject of nanowrimo.org and things you should do to prepare. I'll put the link in this thread when it's up on Youtube.


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## Vivienne Mathews

I've participated in NaNo for the past five years or so. For new writers, it's a wonderful incentive to finally finish that novel they've been pondering for far too long; offering pep talks and encouragement that you'd otherwise never receive. For those who tend to be slow-paced writers (ahem... like me  ), it's an exercise that teaches precision and rapid production. Of the five novels I've produced for the contest, only two were worthy of editing and publication. One is now my biggest seller, the other (though the sales are small) is the novel of which I am the most proud. More than that, those who participate in my regional group are _phenomenal _folk -- people I'd otherwise have never had the pleasure to encounter. It is a wonderful experience. I wholeheartedly encourage you to participate and hope you enjoy it!

As for what I'm doing to prepare? Stocking up on coffee.

For anyone who hasn't done it before? Warn your family. *Knowing grin.*


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## Sebastiene

Three successes.
One (new medication-induced) failure. (I swear!)
Trying again even though you know how bad the experience will be?
Priceless.

FYI, I wrote a blog post with my 6 best tips/tricks to succeeding, if it will help:
http://www.sebastiene.com/2013/10/tricks-to-winning-nanowrimo-from.html


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## Jan Thompson

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Yes. The 15th Star started as a nano project, and so did Angel in the Storm, Book 2. We just finished taping 2 episodes for Indie Author Chat today on the subject of nanowrimo.org and things you should to prepare. I'll put the link in this thread when it's up on Youtube.


I would love to see that. TIA.

Just thinking of Nano makes me nervous already. I don't participate in writing contests for the same reason.


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## AriadneW

I am going to give it a go. I'm working on finishing up what I'm doing now ready to get stuck in. I have an idea and annual leave owing so if I have to take some time out away from children then I have the time to do it lol


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## Dolphin

JanThompson said:


> So out of curiosity, what good reasons would persuade a writer to participate in NaNoWriMo? And are you going to publish what you write as your next book?


Personally, my hope is to that having the structure will help to motivate me and keep me on track. Writing the first book is a big challenge that I'd like to get behind me.

More than that, though, I think writing quickly is one of the major keys to success as an indy. The prose I've written in the past has been slow and labored, and I simply need to get over that. If I can crank out a novel in a month, I might have a future at this. If not, well...let's not consider that. The internet will just have to make sure that I get it done.

The novel I want to write is what I'd had in mind for a debut, but I wouldn't release it until I've got more work ready (or very nearly ready). I'm thinking that it's a trilogy. We'll have to see.


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## RinG

Yep! I at least start NaNo every year and have done since I discovered it in 2006. I love the HUGE forums, and the fact that you can nearly always get a response to a question, no matter how bizarre or specialised, most any time of the day. And the word count graphs, they're awesome!

Pretty much all of my books have been through NaNo at some point in their writing.


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## Guest

I intend to, if I can find another writing tool (my steadfast disgo died on me). I've started the research for it.


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## Gone To Croatan

JanThompson said:


> I've heard of this for a few years now but haven't thought of participating bc while I can do many things under pressure, I don't seem to be able to write a novel under pressure.


Then it should be good practice .



> So out of curiosity, what good reasons would persuade a writer to participate in NaNoWriMo? And are you going to publish what you write as your next book?


Any writer who's never finished a novel gets a good excuse to do so. Any writer who's never finished a novel in a month gets a good excuse to do so . Not sure whether the one I'm writing will be the next novel release, or next but one, but it will go out there in the next few months.

Petrina was actually the first Nano novel I wrote, back in 2006. It was also the first novel I ever finished a first draft of, which wouldn't have happened otherwise.


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## cecilia_writer

I've written a novel for NaNoWriMo every year since 2006 and some extra ones in between - I'm just putting the finishing touches to one that started during this summer's Camp NaNoWriMo.
My favourite things about taking part are (a) the word count target thing that tells you if you're ahead of your goal or not! and (b) the feeling that there are 1,000s of people writing at the same time so it can't be all that weird a thing to do and (c) we have a very active local group here with write-ins at least twice a week.


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## Justawriter

I'm a big fan of Nanowrimo. I did it for a few years and didn't make it, but loved the community and support. I finally 'won' when I just gave myself permission to write without editing (that's what slowed me down during the first few unsuccessful tries) and I committed to writing every day. I think that's one of the keys. I found it really helpful to just get into the habit of writing every day and tried to shoot for 2000 words a day, but there's always days where you just don't come close, but it all adds up in the end.


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## 31842

I absolutely LOVE NaNoWriMo!  All of my Maggie books and my Queen Mab book started off as NaNo (and Camp NaNo) books.  If you do it, I cannot recommend enough taking the time to go to at least one meetup in your area.  Snacks are provided, prizes, typing competitions, fun games, and encouragement.  It was at these meetups that I finally understood the power of group writing.  There are days when I JUST don't want to write.  I call up some friends and we all babysit each other in a coffee shop.  It started with 15 minute word sprints.  Now we are able to sit and write for four to six hours at a time.  And wouldn't you know that one of the regional liaisons ended up being in a random class I took months later and turned into a dear friend.  You'll find all sorts of kindred spirits.  This writing thing can be so isolating and NaNo will bust right through it.  I also have participated in The Night of Writing Dangerously for the past two years.  People from around the globe descend upon San Francisco.  There are write-ins all over town.  And then a noir themed write-a-thon in the Julian Morgan Ballroom, which benefits the Young Writers Program (a free in-school program which teaches elementary through high school students how to write novels).  At the event, they feed you meals that you can eat with one hand while you type with another, folks dress up in their 1940s best, some people even brought portable typewriters, there are writing sprint competitions and bells going off as people hit their 50k mark, there's a Write-a-Thon party train that goes from LA to SF and everyone types there way between cities.  It is a HOOT!  Do it!  Truly!  Do it!  It is so empowering!  And even if you don't make the 50k mark, I bet you'll at least be a few thousand words farther down the road than you were November 1st.


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## NicWilson

Yep. This'll be my third year doing NaNo. I don't do events, or really socialize around it, though. I look at it as an opportunity to test myself. I'm a speedy writer, but I never would have learned that if I hadn't attempted NaNo. 

It's easy for writing to get back-burnered, or for me to coast on whatever my daily progress is, or to procrastinate on starting new projects. So NaNo is my opportunity to prioritize my writing, and provide a baseline to motivate myself the rest of the year. The momentum carries through. Last year, I finished my NaNo project in around 3 weeks, began another, and finished that one in the same time frame. So, two novels in as many months. Obviously, they're very rough, even for a first draft. But having that much done is still a huge advantage, and a great feeling. Neither has been published yet, as I've focused on revising my earlier work, and haven't gotten caught up to that point. 

Your mileage may vary. I'm rather more dare motivated than most writers. About once a month, my wife will offer a reward if I can manage a cartoonishly massive written demand- a quota 4x my current daily quota, to make it to a certain point in a novel in a week, that sort of thing. I don't always make those goals, but I do it often enough to surprise myself.  And I like the sense of purpose.


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## The 13th Doctor

I've decided to do Nanowrimo this year. I've participated twice before, neither times have I finished a story but hey-ho.

I've got the synopsis for the third Quality Times story written down, so _The Ballad of Rhett Rockett_ will be my Nanowrimo story this year.


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## Zelah Meyer

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I joined under the previous ownership and have posted over the years under different Terms of Service.  I do not consent to my name, content, or intellectual properties being used by Vertical Scope or any other entity that they sell or licence my data to.


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## ethanc

I've started Nanowrimo a few times in the past and never got more than a few thousand words. However, this year I'm much more used to writing every day due to a job and I'm no longer in school. I intend to give it another shot this year, though I'll probably be doing a series of shorts instead of a full novel. Maybe I can get it done and get some things to publish. I love the Nanowrimo forums, they're a lot of fun, even if you just browse/lurk.


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## Catana

I've done NaNo since 2009 and won four times. For me, it's tremendously motivating because my writing during the rest of the year tends to be very stop and go. NaNo keeps me at it until I have something long enough to consider nearly complete. Of the three novels I've published, only one is a NaNo project. I'm still working on a couple of the others. 

I don't participate in any of the events, but I'm on the forums, and I usually have a couple of NaNo buddies that I keep in touch with during the month.

I'd encourage anyone to give it a try. The forums have a lot of information about how to get through the month without killing yourself, and ideas for developing your plot and characters. Take all opinions on the forums with a grain of salt. What works for someone else may not work for you. My personal advice: Unless you're already comfortable with being a pantser, it's a good idea to do as much preplanning as you can. 

Things to remember: It isn't a contest; it's a challenge. Not reaching the goal isn't a failure.


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## Melisse

I have participated most years but never win--for one thing, I write short stories and novellas. Plus my family does a huge Thanksgiving with everything homemade, so that take a week. But I have participated in a few write in etc.


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## IAmDanMarshall

_The Lightcap_ was a nano novel. I'll be doing it again this year, but definitely will put more time into planning beforehand. I also already started on this novel (working title is _Gnashers: The Dead Arise_) but am only about 6k words in. I hope for the first draft to be 90k. My goal is to write at least 60k of that during nano this year. I really enjoyed the write-ins and meeting other writers in the area!


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## Dolphin

NicWilson said:


> It's easy for writing to get back-burnered, or for me to coast on whatever my daily progress is, or to procrastinate on starting new projects. So NaNo is my opportunity to prioritize my writing, and provide a baseline to motivate myself the rest of the year. The momentum carries through.


Yeah, I think the point about writing every day and setting more ambitious goals is the main thing I'm looking for out of NaNo. There's a lot of hyperbole about what an extraordinary feat it is to put out 50k words in a month, but there's loads of indies among us who do that _every_ month (or more, in some cases). I think of it more as an opportunity to establish a baseline than a well-supported sprint.


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## TexasGirl

I'm in.

I'm writing the sequel to Forever Innocent, apparently.

People want it NOW. NaNo will help.

NaNo literally changed my life. It's how I wrote my first novel, made all my current friends, and met my husband.


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## Dolphin

TexasGirl said:


> NaNo literally changed my life. It's how I wrote my first novel, made all my current friends, and met my husband.


Good gravy! I wasn't expecting to get a husband out of the deal. I'm not sure I'm ready for that kind of a commitment.


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## TexasGirl

Dolphin said:


> Good gravy! I wasn't expecting to get a husband out of the deal. I'm not sure I'm ready for that kind of a commitment.


Hee hee! Well, just have a book fling then.


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## MrBourbons

Jees, how have I never heard of this before? Probably because I wrote sparingly before this year (teenage years discounted) so had no idea.

But I'm going for it. With the next novel I was going to attempt I wanted to hit at least 50k, so this'll be a good test.


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## Justawriter

TexasGirl said:


> NaNo literally changed my life. It's how I wrote my first novel, made all my current friends, and met my husband.


 I love how we met stories....more details please. Did you meet at a local meet up? Is he a writer too? So romantic!


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## Guest

I think NaNo is potentially destructive to some people. In fact, the premise sounds like an assignment you would get in a creative writing class from a very regimented instructor to establish good writing habits. Well, I have my own assignments, thank you very much. Don't get me wrong. If you enjoy it, by all means participate. I don't judge. I'm sure it has some great aspects.

There are times I wake up, sit at the PC and....nothing. Nothing comes out. At least nothing good. When I have days like that, I try to occupy my time with other things. I believe that forcing work only results in substandard writing. If you have been at it for a while, you understand this, and likely treat NaNo as a sort of game. But for a beginner it could very well discourage them from continuing to develop their skills. They'll look back on forced work and it is clearly not very good. Not great for the self-esteem. Some may think that if they fail, they do not have what it takes to become a writer.

In my mind, when I finish a novel, it should feel like the afterglow of great sex. Not the triumph of climbing Mount Everest, where you take off your oxygen mask, throw you hands in the air and scream "I did it!"


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## RobinBreyer

I have three tries and three successes. Then we had a kid and I skipped last year. This year it will be more of a challenge and I'll be lucky to reach the 50k mark. I don't participate on the official website, I just keep track of my own progress which works for me. I have the book planned and ready to go, I'm just waiting for the 1st to roll around.


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## Sapphire

OK. For better or worse, I just signed up to do it. My screen name is hot&cold (sort of ties in with my real life name ). I'm going into this as a learning experience and exercise in self-discipline.


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## Al Dente

I think I might switch to something a little faster paced for my NaNo project. That fantasy novel is going to take a while. Perhaps I'll go back to writing horror in November. I have a great idea for a series of sorts.


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## Sapphire

My NaNoWriMo book is a brand new project in a slightly different genre. It's still Women's Contemporary, but more the CHICK LIT type. I've been writing mostly Boomer Lit. This will be more playful. Hopefully, that will help me go faster.


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## 69959

My only issue is that I will NOT be starting a new novel. I'll be about 25-30k into a 90-100k word novel when November rolls around. I've heard mixed stories, some saying that to participate you have to start a new book, and others saying it's just a guideline. 

Regardless, my word count goal is 2k words a day 6 days a week. That's about the NaNoWriMo goal anyway. I won't start a new book because I asked my readers, and they overwhelmingly want book 4.


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## JamieDeBree

I've been trying to talk myself *out* of doing NaNo this year (it would be my 9th). I have a few writing projects that must be finished by the first of December, and I'm not at all sure I can get them done before Nov. 1st (for NaNo, whatever I start has to be brand new, no working on something already started - just a personal OCD sort of "thing"). 

In other words, the chances that I won't be working on a brand new novel come midnight on Nov. 1 are pretty slim. It's an extraordinarily addictive event (and how I finished my first draft as well as a bunch of books I've since published). 

But I'm still in denial. ;-)


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## TexasGirl

PamelaKelley said:


> I love how we met stories....more details please. Did you meet at a local meet up? Is he a writer too? So romantic!


I have many lovely amazing details on how I NaNoWriMo changed my life in my Open Letter to Chris Baty -- it's a tear jerker: http://deannaroy.com/2012/10/a-letter-to-chris-baty-on-the-eve-of-nanowrimo-2012/

STACY --

You are what is called a "NaNo Rebel" -- people who don't start a new project on Nov. 1 but continue one, or write something other than a novel (collections, graphic novels, etc.) It's perfectly accepted in the system.


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## Sapphire

TexasGirl said:


> I have many lovely amazing details on how I NaNoWriMo changed my life in my Open Letter to Chris Baty -- it's a tear jerker: http://deannaroy.com/2012/10/a-letter-to-chris-baty-on-the-eve-of-nanowrimo-2012/
> 
> Love this story. It should be a book.


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## 69959

TexasGirl said:


> I have many lovely amazing details on how I NaNoWriMo changed my life in my Open Letter to Chris Baty -- it's a tear jerker: http://deannaroy.com/2012/10/a-letter-to-chris-baty-on-the-eve-of-nanowrimo-2012/
> 
> STACY --
> 
> You are what is called a *"NaNo Rebel" *-- people who don't start a new project on Nov. 1 but continue one, or write something other than a novel (collections, graphic novels, etc.) It's perfectly accepted in the system.


That has a nice ring to it.


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## legion

I missed last year's to work on publishing/promoting the book I wrote for my first NaNo but I'm back this year!

I'll be outlining a new series and writing the first book (or 2?) in the series during November.
Hopefully, this year's NNWM is my lucky 7th...


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## Sebastiene

KateDanley said:


> I absolutely LOVE NaNoWriMo! All of my Maggie books and my Queen Mab book started off as NaNo (and Camp NaNo) books. If you do it, I cannot recommend enough taking the time to go to at least one meetup in your area. Snacks are provided, prizes, typing competitions, fun games, and encouragement. It was at these meetups that I finally understood the power of group writing. There are days when I JUST don't want to write. I call up some friends and we all babysit each other in a coffee shop. It started with 15 minute word sprints. Now we are able to sit and write for four to six hours at a time. And wouldn't you know that one of the regional liaisons ended up being in a random class I took months later and turned into a dear friend. ...I also have participated in The Night of Writing Dangerously for the past two years. People from around the globe descend upon San Francisco. There are write-ins all over town. And then a noir themed write-a-thon in the Julian Morgan Ballroom, which benefits the Young Writers Program. At the event, they feed you meals that you can eat with one hand while you type with another, folks dress up in their 1940s best, some people even brought portable typewriters, there are writing sprint competitions and bells going off as people hit their 50k mark, there's a Write-a-Thon party train that goes from LA to SF and everyone types there way between cities. It is a HOOT! Do it!


Kate, I swear there's no one getting more out of life than you are. So many of us are the quiet "indoorsy" type just struggling along. Somehow, I can just picture you typing in a train car full of people in period costume. I see the one-handed-snacks, a drink, the typing, and wind whistling through the car, blowing your scarf, or boa, or something. YOU are the heroine in someone's amazing novel.


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## Zelah Meyer

Sapphire said:


> OK. For better or worse, I just signed up to do it. My screen name is hot&cold (sort of ties in with my real life name ). I'm going into this as a learning experience and exercise in self-discipline.


I tried searching for you but I couldn't find your profile.


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## Sapphire

Zelah Meyer said:


> I tried searching for you but I couldn't find your profile.


Uh, was there something else I was supposed to do? 
This is my first time. I know I successfully signed up because I'm getting the emails. Profile? It asked for a title and synopsis of the book's story line. I guess I need instruction here.


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## Zelah Meyer

I have deleted this post as I do not consent to the new Terms of Service that Vertical Scope are attempting to retrospectively apply to our content.  I am forced to manually replace my content as, at time of editing, their representative has instructed moderators not to delete posts or accounts when users request it, and Vertical Scope have implied that they will deal with account deletion requests by anonymising accounts, which would leave personally identifying information in my posts.

I joined under the previous ownership and have posted over the years under different Terms of Service.  I do not consent to my name, content, or intellectual properties being used by Vertical Scope or any other entity that they sell or licence my data to.


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## MrBourbons

I'm glad I'm not the only that couldn't find you Sapphire!

I'll add people to my buddy list that point to their profiles, if that's alright. At least it'll help with motivation! My profile is at http://nanowrimo.org/participants/mrbourbons


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## Zelah Meyer

I think the site might be a little buggy.  I found the bit under messages where it tells you who has added you to their buddy list & I did a quick run through to see if there was anyone I'd missed.  I found several people who, when I view my 'buddy of' page it has a tick next to and says I've added them - but when I view my 'writing buddies' page they aren't there, and if I view their profile I have the option to add them as a buddy.

I'm going back through and adding anyone who seems to have glitched like this.  So, if you get a buddy notification from me when you thought I was already on your list - then that is why!


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## Sapphire

OK. Maybe I shouldn't have used a symbol in hot&cold. Oh, well, I think this is the link to me:
http://nanowrimo.org/participants/hot-cold
Let's see if that works. (Did I mention I'm technically challenged?)


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## Zelah Meyer

Yep, that link works.  Strange that it won't work in search though!  Ah well, I've added you now.


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## David N. Alderman

I've participated in and successfully completed NaNoWriMo for the last eight years - this will be my ninth. For the past few years I've been participating in Writing.com's NaNo Prep Challenge - http://www.writing.com/main/forums/item_id/1474311-October-NaNoWriMo-Prep-Challenge - which puts out exercises each day of October to get your characters, plots, and outlines sketched for when NaNo comes around in November. It has been a HUGE help in preparing me for NaNo.

And if you ever want to friend me on the NaNo site, here is my profile - http://nanowrimo.org/participants/davidcorbin


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## elsaday

I'll be doing NaNo for the first time this year! 

I want all the buddies I can get!

http://nanowrimo.org/participants/elsaday


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## Catana

BrianDAnderson said:


> I think NaNo is potentially destructive to some people. In fact, the premise sounds like an assignment you would get in a creative writing class from a very regimented instructor to establish good writing habits. Well, I have my own assignments, thank you very much. Don't get me wrong. If you enjoy it, by all means participate. I don't judge. I'm sure it has some great aspects.
> 
> [snip] But for a beginner it could very well discourage them from continuing to develop their skills. They'll look back on forced work and it is clearly not very good. Not great for the self-esteem. Some may think that if they fail, they do not have what it takes to become a writer.


"I don't judge." That's exactly what you're doing. And unfortunately for your theory, there is no such premise. No regimentation, no assignments. People generally go into NaNo knowing what they want to write. They're not forced to do anything, not even continue if they want to drop out. And failure one year is often the goad to try it again. I failed my first two years, and went on to win for the past four years. And I'm not atypical. The whole point is that it's a personal challenge. Some people don't do well when they're challenged, but that doesn't negate the value of a challenge for everyone else.


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## williamvw

This will be my first year for NaNoWriMo, and I'm working to get chapter beats ready in advance for the first book in a new fantasy series. But for real motivation, I bet Dan Marshall (on page 1 of this thread) beer and an appetizer for whoever could hit 50K first in the month. I'm stupid competitive, so hopefully this will help.


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## Guest

Catana said:


> "I don't judge." That's exactly what you're doing. And unfortunately for your theory, there is no such premise. No regimentation, no assignments. People generally go into NaNo knowing what they want to write. They're not forced to do anything, not even continue if they want to drop out. And failure one year is often the goad to try it again. I failed my first two years, and went on to win for the past four years. And I'm not atypical. The whole point is that it's a personal challenge. Some people don't do well when they're challenged, but that doesn't negate the value of a challenge for everyone else.


How did you read judgement into that? I simply stated an opinion of potential harm. Along with it I said that if you enjoy it, that's fine too. Having an opinion is not judgment, I'm afraid. Now if I said "You're an idiot if you like NaNo" that's me being an judgmental a-hole. But as anyone can clearly see, I didn't do that. 
And I maintain that for BEGINNER'S it COULD be counterproductive. And I still think it's sounds like a English class assignment. And I'm allowed to think that.


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## Sebastiene

Be a buddy, share the pain. We're all in this together:

http://nanowrimo.org/participants/sebastiene/


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## Justawriter

TexasGirl said:


> I have many lovely amazing details on how I NaNoWriMo changed my life in my Open Letter to Chris Baty -- it's a tear jerker: http://deannaroy.com/2012/10/a-letter-to-chris-baty-on-the-eve-of-nanowrimo-2012/
> 
> STACY --
> 
> You are what is called a "NaNo Rebel" -- people who don't start a new project on Nov. 1 but continue one, or write something other than a novel (collections, graphic novels, etc.) It's perfectly accepted in the system.


This is wonderful!


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## Vivienne Mathews

I don't know whether anyone else has posted this, but it sure gave me a chuckle: http://nanomusical.com/


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## AngryGames

Welp, already got my story concept ready. Itching for Nov 1 to come around so I can start writing it. I'm actually sitting here sort of giggling about it. Which is weird. I'm too old to giggle, but dammit...

No doubt I will offend a few more sensitive types, but I'm all about that (not on purpose, but if you get offended, more power to me).

http://nanowrimo.org/participants/angrygames

I don't think anyone is going to want to be my 'buddy' this year. I don't even want to be my buddy. I'm a bit frightened at the story I've come up with. I've never heard a 'frightened giggle' before. I have now.


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## Jan Thompson

I'm not participating but I'm just curious - are you all shooting for 50K words or more?


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## AngryGames

The concept I've plotted out should run about 80,000-100,000 words, so I'm shooting for that.


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## Jan Thompson

AngryGames said:


> The concept I've plotted out should run about 80,000-100,000 words, so I'm shooting for that.


OK that's cool. I just read a blog post today that said that from tradpub perspective the NaNo quota doesn't cut it if you're querying tradpub except for certain types of publications. She said that even if you participate in NaNo you need to aim for 90K words at the rewrite. I thought that was pretty good advice.

http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/planning-for-nanowrimo/

"If you write a 50,000 word novel in November for NaNoWriMo, you can revise and expand it in December, but during your plotting you might want to plan an extra plot thread that can be expanded during revisions." - Rachel Kent



justsomewriterwhowrites said:


> I am. A couple years ago, I did the 50,000, with a job and family to deal with. It's not hard if you can let yourself just tell an interesting story and leave perfectionism behind. I actually did worse with NaNo once I went full-time than I did when I was working an outside day job. But I'd proven to myself that I could do it so I didn't feel the pressure to do it again. This year I want to prove my prior win wasn't a fluke. I also need to get a new book written before the end of the year and don't want to wait until holidays get in the way.


I think that may be NaNo's strength - to get people to finish what they write. If they are not querying tradpub anyway, 50K seems to be within the normal range for selfpubbed books.

Sounds like you won before? Well, congratulations!!! Wishing you the best this year.


----------



## Nathalie Hamidi

I'm in, of course!
And this time I don't have the stress I had last Camp NaNo, so I hope I can make it!

My profile link is in my sig, feel free to add me to your buddy list if you're so inclined.


----------



## kathrynoh

I'm doing it again this year. I'm about to release a book under a pen name and am using Nanowrimo to write the 2nd book. I've never written a series before so it's going to be a new challenge for me.

Then I decided to go away for a week on Nov 13th. I figure I can write on the plane (hopefully). Otherwise, I finished in 11 days last year so might aim for that this time as well.

http://nanowrimo.org/participants/kathrynoh


----------



## Wansit

I'm putting my toe in the pond.   Got to write a YA book that's itching to come out.


----------



## Al Dente

All right... it looks like I'm a NaNo Rebel. I *have* to finish one of these manuscripts that's been sitting around for months. The cover I commissioned for it should be started tomorrow if all goes well. I just can't let 10k of a 90k story sit around and do nothing, so I guess it's rebel time! I put it up on my Wattpad account the other day to get me motivated.


----------



## 72263

Signed up for the first time since 2010. I want to write plenty of words in November, so I may as well get a shiny badge out of it . Plus, Nanowrimo is also about community, about having a place to go when your writing isn't coming along as it should, or it's going better than you expected, or if you have small research questions. 

(I did snigger at Kobo Writing Life being a sponsor and presenting themselves as a great platform for authors to have control over their books.)


----------



## Sarah M

I'm in, but I won't start until the 8th. I have to finish something else first, and I want to do a new project on Scrivener and need a few days to learn its tricks. So 22 days to reach 50k is roughly 2300 words a day. 

I guess I'm a rebel, too.


----------



## Sapphire

Question from a 1st timer for all you NaNo veterans out there:
The author information form asks for novels written in various years. Am I correct this is asking for novels written as part of NaNo? Or are they asking for novels written period?


----------



## AngryGames

JanThompson said:


> OK that's cool. I just read a blog post today that said that from tradpub perspective the NaNo quota doesn't cut it if you're querying tradpub except for certain types of publications. She said that even if you participate in NaNo you need to aim for 90K words at the rewrite. I thought that was pretty good advice.
> 
> http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/planning-for-nanowrimo/
> 
> "If you write a 50,000 word novel in November for NaNoWriMo, you can revise and expand it in December, but during your plotting you might want to plan an extra plot thread that can be expanded during revisions." - Rachel Kent
> 
> I think that may be NaNo's strength - to get people to finish what they write. If they are not querying tradpub anyway, 50K seems to be within the normal range for selfpubbed books.
> 
> Sounds like you won before? Well, congratulations!!! Wishing you the best this year.


Eh...my NaNoMo book is going to be self-published, and I ignore everything that traditional publishers, agents, or even you guys here in this forum say I should or shouldn't do. When I hear things like "the trad pub perspective," the only thing I can think of is a bunch of old, rich, white, Christian dudes sitting around a big table making arbitrary rules that are only designed to consolidate their power or influence.

I've swept everything else off the table for November except the three books I'm in the middle of editing so they can be published. I take it seriously in the sense that it is a book I am writing, which I always take seriously, even if the subject matter is not serious (any my NaNoMo book this year is NOT serious at all in subject matter, unless you are able to detect the underlying sarcasm and parody).

I don't know who Rachel Kent is, but I refuse to listen to her the same as I refuse to listen to anyone else. Who is she?

Anyway, I wonder how long before someone doesn't detect the underlying sarcasm and parody within this post.



> The author information form asks for novels written in various years. Am I correct this is asking for novels written as part of NaNo? Or are they asking for novels written period?


They are asking for the previous NaNoMo novels an author has written.

One awesome thing I guess, is that I was contacted by the Boise region group, and told that 'we' are having a NaNoMo kick-off party tonight at Chicago Connection (a pizza place that has an extension on the town mall). So I'm going to go rub elbows with my fellow potato-ites, and see if I can't win the title of Most Annoying Author in Boise.


----------



## Zenferno

I just signed up for my first try at Nanowrimo.  I'm going to write my first trilogy though (3 novellas) so I'm not sure I will qualify for a shiny badge but I'm doing it anyway, consequences be damned!


----------



## Sapphire

AngryGames said:


> One awesome thing I guess, is that I was contacted by the Boise region group, and told that 'we' are having a NaNoMo kick-off party tonight at Chicago Connection (a pizza place that has an extension on the town mall). So I'm going to go rub elbows with my fellow potato-ites, and see if I can't win the title of Most Annoying Author in Boise.


Do they use potato based flour for the crust? 

P.S. 
Thanks for the confirmation on the form.


----------



## Matt Ryan

I failed last year with like 44k words. If I can just get these edits done in the next few days, I'll have the free time to win this year. Good luck everyone!

http://nanowrimo.org/participants/matt-ryan


----------



## A. S. Warwick

This will be my third year at it - didn't succeed previously, but did get to 42k last year before real life got in the way.

Planning on doing a semi-serialised space opera, basically starting a collection of novellas that will continue on after nano.  I've wanted to do a space opera for a while, and that only got stronger after the disappointing ending to the Mass Effect game trilogy.


----------



## kdarden

Definitely doing NaNo again. Last year it was what got me into writing on a regular basis. Still haven't finished the novel from last year, but I did pare it down from 51k to 35k good words. And then went on to write and publish my first novella before Christmas.

And I've just finished publishing my 4 part paranormal series, along with a new book in a new genre.

Last year I hosted a small online FB group to support other people in my writer's groups who were also taking NaNo. I closed it down about mid-year, but have decided to start it back again this year. If you're interested, pm me with your facebook name or fb pen name. The group is totally about NaNo accountability, resources, and support - that's all.

I do participate with a local group and it's great fun to meet for 2 hours each week and develop story, friendship and good writing habits. 

I was in a very good habit of writing every day after last NaNo and I want to bring that habit back to the forefront. And this year I'm a rebel - I have several projects that are partially completed, so that's where I'm headed LOL.


----------



## HarryK

A. S. Warwick said:


> ...after the disappointing ending to the Mass Effect game trilogy.


Right on, man. That ending was the worst video game ending in the history of mankind. Like, even worse than the video game endings favored by the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt (yes, they totally had video games back then).

Not sure if I'll do it this year, but if I do, I'll be another NaNo Rebel.


----------



## Sapphire

I haven't been able to identify anyone in the greater Omaha area doing NaNoWriMo this year. Are you out there?


----------



## kdarden

Sapphire said:


> I haven't been able to identify anyone in the greater Omaha area doing NaNoWriMo this year. Are you out there?


Did you check the site for regions?


----------



## Sapphire

kdarden said:


> Did you check the site for regions?


Yes. It comes up with nothing.


----------



## Al Dente

My local group is having a launch party tonight at Books-A-Million. I'm a bit of a recluse most of the time, but there's going to be around 30 people there, so it actually sounds pretty fun! I can't wait for November to get here!


----------



## David McAfee

Who is doing it this year? I'm not, but that's because I've got too many irons in the fire already. How about you?


----------



## Zelah Meyer

I have deleted this post as I do not consent to the new Terms of Service that Vertical Scope are attempting to retrospectively apply to our content.  I am forced to manually replace my content as, at time of editing, their representative has instructed moderators not to delete posts or accounts when users request it, and Vertical Scope have implied that they will deal with account deletion requests by anonymising accounts, which would leave personally identifying information in my posts.

I joined under the previous ownership and have posted over the years under different Terms of Service.  I do not consent to my name, content, or intellectual properties being used by Vertical Scope or any other entity that they sell or licence my data to.


----------



## Jd488

I'm SERIOUSLY thinking about it.

The funny thing is that it would be a return to my first attempted work, which I abandoned in Chapter 1 for _The Curse_. The last time I tried NaNoWriMo, I failed miserably.

If I accept the challenge, the story is titled, _Second Chance_. There are still a couple of days to think it over.


----------



## Jeroen Steenbeeke

I've never participated, and won't be this year either. The primary reason is that I'm already in the middle of another project (a series of novellas each having 20-25K words), and I know that I have difficulty maintaining the pace needed to finish NaNoWriMo. It's probably less of a problem this year (due to a vacation coming up), but I have no 50K word ideas lying around.


----------



## Guest

I won the last 4 years, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it this year due to personal and family health. I really want to though. I was planning to use it to write the third book in my series, but it really comes down to how much time I end up having to write.


----------



## Guest

I am! My username is onelowerlight--feel free to friend me!

My nanowrimo novel is titled "lost in a working title" and is basically going to be a ridiculous, nonsensical fanfiction mashup of everything I've ever written.  I've got other projects I'm working on too, so I figure this one is just to burn off steam.


----------



## Craig Allen

I just signed up for it last night.


----------



## Amanda Brice

Nope.

It stresses me out. I very often CAN write 50,000 words in a month (or just over that really -- usually takes me 6 weeks) but the pressure to do so with NaNo nearly kills me. 

I'm a total perfectionist, so the entire theory behind NaNo is a complete anathema to me. I literally CANNOT just vomit words out onto the page and not touch it until I'm finished. That's not how I work. I'm a plotter and I'm completely Type A, so I literally CANNOT move forward until what I just wrote is perfect. I just can't.

Participaring in NaNo or Fast Draft gives me hives. Literally. I'm not kidding.


----------



## beccaprice

If I tried doing NaNoWriMo, I think I'd get a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking and spend the month before hand training it. That's the only way I could see doing it.


----------



## phil.H

I must be out of my mind.  Seriously out of my mind but yeah, I'm doing it. I am out of my mind because I am working on a rewrite from the July version, Camp NaNoWriMo. I did 70,007 words for Standing Stone in July. I'm 32% of the way through the first rewrite. I think I am certifiable at this point for going into Novembers.

This one is called Just One Look and it is a different genre. I am also doing it in 1st person which I am not happy about [that may change before Friday when NaNo starts. ] I'm pjh139 if any one wants a buddy to moan and complain with. I was also pjh139 on Camp Nano.


----------



## Cege Smith

I'm thinking about it. I've won NanoWrimo three times and it's pretty much my go-to method anytime I sit down to write the first draft of a novel. I won't even go into the craziness that I'm attempting this week during my PTO from my day job. (I'll leave it at Nano on steroids...)

If I do, I'll be writing the fourth and final book in my Bloodtruth series called "A Heart's Deceit". I wrote the blurb for it this summer and just yesterday I went back and re-read it and thought "huh- that sounds pretty awesome". Now I just need the book to go with it.


----------



## Pearson Moore

David,

I participated last year when I completed the first 85,000 words of Deneb (my sci-fi epic, now published at 267,000 words). This year my writing schedule is different so I can't squeeze in NaNoWriMo. Maybe next year!


----------



## Duane Gundrum

I do it every year, and almost always something in the middle of the month comes up and I end up failing. This is coming from a guy who once wrote a novel in a long weekend and writes really fast. The current project I'm working on already looks like a tragedy as I've outlined it and can't see it ending in less than 90,000 words, which is like two Nanowrimos in a row.


----------



## OEGaudio

I'm doing it this year, for the first time... feel free to add me, OEgaudio. I'll be writing a NA novel, my first one... so here goes nothing.


----------



## elia.elia

I'll be attempting it for the first time this year as well. I hope to finally complete a longer work!


----------



## Alba Arango author

This my first year as well. Sooo nervous and excited at the same time. Mine will be the third in my middle grade detective series, but I have no idea what "crime" my twelve-year-old detectives will be solving, or what on Earth the book will be about. So, yay! I'm going in blind. Well, almost blind. At least I know my main characters are twelve and are detectives. I guess that's a good start.


----------



## Alba Arango author

Oops...my buddy name is Alba Arango if anyone wants to buddy me.


----------



## ekedstrom

I'm doing it this year to smash through a first draft on book 2 in my new series. I think I've buddied everyone above who listed their name. I'm ekedstrom!


----------



## Jill James

I've done it several years. I'm there again this year under Jill James. I'm hoping to make a dent in four novellas. We shall see.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Threads have been merged -- sorry for any confusion.


----------



## locker17

I'm doing my own unofficial NaNoEditMo because I need to keep on editing the book I'm rewriting now and get to the one I wrote in nano last year. I don't know if I will officially sign up though sine I will be editing not writing.


----------



## Natasha Holme

I've registered. I'll be bombing through my prequel and sequel diaries.


----------



## Shaun4

I'm signed up, although actually hitting the 50K mark will be tough this year. I'm too busy to write for 8 days early on, so that leaves 22 days to hit the goal.

Last year I won with a fun little urban fantasy, I've been working on a sequel to it sporadically through the summer and will NaNo a third in the series if I can manage it. I'm prepared to fail, but if I can manage 40K in my 22 days I'll call it a win. The last 10K would be the easiest for me write in December anyway, since I tend to speed up as I go.


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## Dolphin

If homeless, novelless Dolphin can do it, all of you can! Believe!

Then again, that raises the question "Can Dolphin do it?" Time will tell! Tune in to his AlterWriMoEgo (Tyrannosaurus Rex) and let's see.


----------



## Gerald

This will be my 10th NaNo (8 wins so far). I love the challenge. Most of my writing is done as a result of challenges.

This year, I am hoping to write at least one #50K5DAYS segment as well as the NaNoWriMo itself (making 100k), although if the first one goes well, I might shoot for a 2nd. 150k words in a month is a pretty good target, and will get a number of my writing projects back on course.

Edit: #50K5DAYS not DATS


----------



## Christy Dorrity

I'm doing NaNo for the first time this year. I'm extremely slow on word count, but I'm aiming for 2,000 per day. I hope to get a good chunk of the way through the second in my Geis series.


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## David McAfee

Zelah Meyer said:


> Good to see you around again by the way.


Thanks. I don't get on here much since my son was born, but I like to pop in every now and then to stir up trouble. 

Good luck with NaNo!


----------



## Lizbooks

I'm doing NaNo again this year, but I'm going to be a rebel. My goal is to hit 50K but not all on one manuscript. There are a few short stories and novellas that I'd like to write instead.


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## Zelah Meyer

David McAfee said:


> Thanks. I don't get on here much since my son was born, but I like to pop in every now and then to stir up trouble.
> 
> Good luck with NaNo!


Cheers! And good luck with the little one - they are far more work than NaNoWriMo!


----------



## RuthNestvold

I'm in -- as a rebel. I already have 25,000 words written on _A Wasted Land_, and I want to use Nano to help me finish it.  My name there is Specficrider.

I've done Nano at least half a dozen times before. The first (bare bones) draft of _Shadow of Stone_ came out of Nano.


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## Zenferno

I feel completely unprepared for this but determined to do it.  Right now I'm not putting the hours in, not even writing every day, so I hope this will help me get into a disciplined routine I can take forward after it finishes.

Good luck to everyone participating.


----------



## MrBourbons

I recently wrote a short story that was roughly 5,500 words, and I did it in one night. I have twelve chapters planned for my NaNoWriMo effort, and I'm going to thrash the crap out of what I need to write, as doing it on that other story really helped. There were points when I wanted to stop, but I knew what was to come so it really helped putting the finishing touches down. My plan is to try and aim for about 4k a chapter, which will net me 48k in total if I stick to it. Some handy editing or last minute additions will then tip me over 50k.

No doubt it'll be hard, but having a game plan of exactly what you're going to put down when you sit down will help no end.


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## I do not consent

This will be my first NaNo and it's a but daunting to do it and keep up with editing my wip. I'm excited to try though.


----------



## TonyWrites

What are the benefits of signing up for NaNoWriMo?


----------



## Dolphin

TonyWrites said:


> What are the benefits of signing up for NaNoWriMo?


Hanging out with crazy people. Meeting your future spouse at a write-in. Peer pressure and feeling like a jerk if you don't write at least 50,000 words this month. Actually writing 50,000 words, publishing those 50,000 words, and becoming a millionaire.

At least that's what they told me. I'm new to this whole thing.


----------



## kathrynoh

So far 2 and a half hours in here in Aus and I've got over 2,000 words.  Will get more done after sleep and work so I can have a good headstart.


----------



## MarchMarg

I just signed up as well. I'm attempting to start/finish three novels for a word count of 150k.  I've done nano's in the past but didn't make the 50k - but i was working a lot of overtime. This year I don't have a day job for most of november so what the hell. Might as well shoot for the stars right? Means most days i gotta do 6k - I've hit 8k days a couple of times in the last year of writing but i can never sustain it. I'm nervous but super excited at the same time! Oh and i buddied most of the names I've found on this thread.

I'm at :
http://nanowrimo.org/participants/marchmarg/

March


----------



## Sapphire

Twelve hours and forty-one minutes to go. What was I thinking when I signed up!


----------



## sundaze

Registered as part of the rebellion. Sitting at around 45k words on a WIP. Must finish!

Good luck all!


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## dkgould

MarchMarg said:


> Oh and i buddied most of the names I've found on this thread.


Think I got em all too! That was a lot of names!


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## EC

Hmmm.....I've signed up but I'm a bit clueless. 

I had planned on writing 24 Children's short stories this month based upon the lead character and his ensemble of friends. I'd figured around 5-7000 words per story. To be honest I thought I would struggle to complete that in November however this competitive edge may well spur me through. 

Which category should I select? Should I go for Other, Children's Lit?  I had contemplated writing the short stories in a novel format so I suppose I could generate enough words for 2 novels from my target, possibly three? 

Hmmm.....what do you think? Any tips?


----------



## dkgould

theblether-  You can visit the forums- if you scroll way down you'll find the genre specific ones and see which forum you are most comfortable with (I could pick sci-fi or horror for mine, but the horror genre forum always seems to be smaller, more eclectic and more humorous to me than the sci fi one, so I usually hang around the horror forum and class my books as horror)  But honestly, I think it only matters for people browsing through other peoples' projects, you can join any group you are comfortable with.


----------



## EC

dkgould said:


> theblether- You can visit the forums- if you scroll way down you'll find the genre specific ones and see which forum you are most comfortable with (I could pick sci-fi or horror for mine, but the horror genre forum always seems to be smaller, more eclectic and more humorous to me than the sci fi one, so I usually hang around the horror forum and class my books as horror) But honestly, I think it only matters for people browsing through other peoples' projects, you can join any group you are comfortable with.


Thanks very much, I'm on my way to the forums now.

*theblether retires nervously, wondering what he has let himself in for.

ps. I've just found the correct forum, thanks again dkgould


----------



## fallswriter

For those who are about to NaNo (like me), I salute you.....with a poem....that I wrote...while totally procrastinating...http://wp.me/p1PKn7-t0


----------



## Zelah Meyer

I have deleted this post as I do not consent to the new Terms of Service that Vertical Scope are attempting to retrospectively apply to our content.  I am forced to manually replace my content as, at time of editing, their representative has instructed moderators not to delete posts or accounts when users request it, and Vertical Scope have implied that they will deal with account deletion requests by anonymising accounts, which would leave personally identifying information in my posts.

I joined under the previous ownership and have posted over the years under different Terms of Service.  I do not consent to my name, content, or intellectual properties being used by Vertical Scope or any other entity that they sell or licence my data to.


----------



## A. S. Warwick

Well, it has kicked off here in Australia and I have made a start.  350 words done, but now the day kicks in with all that needs doing besides writing.


----------



## Nicole5102

I'm getting excited about it. I'm going to write in the morning hopefully, because I have to bake three kinds of cookies in the afternoon for a gathering. I may have to put up my (artificial) Christmas tree early. Sparkly colored lights inspire me. (not the Twilight kind lol)
Good luck, er, writing, to all!


----------



## Jerri Kay Lincoln

I was just about to enter this year and decided not to.  I just finished writing 64k in one month, so I know I can do it.  But, I have so much to do this month . . . including editing the 64k.  So, I backed down.

Good luck to everyone!


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## I do not consent

fallswriter said:


> For those who are about to NaNo (like me), I salute you.....with a poem....that I wrote...while totally procrastinating...http://wp.me/p1PKn7-t0


Wow. Good job on the poem. I enjoyed it. 
I'm doing my first NaNo this year. Do you guys get together with other NaNo writers IRL?


----------



## Michael Kingswood

I'm in for NaNo as well.

I finished up the novel I was working on yesterday, the sequel to Glimmer Vale (see my sig).  I figure NaNo will be book #3 in the series.

Glimmer Vale came out of NaNo in 2011 - my first time trying NaNo and my only win.  Last year I figured I'd write a bunch of short stories during the month instead of a novel.  That didn't work out so well.  I petered out at about 30k words.  I'm hoping returning to novel form will work out better.

Of course, this year's NaNo will be even more interesting for me.  We're closing on our new house on 20 November.  After that, we'll be moving in.  So really I need to try to be done before the 20th.  That's just 2,500 words/day.  Totally doable….right?



We'll see how this one goes.  The turns over in two hours here in San Diego.  This promises to be interesting.


Best of luck, everyone.


----------



## Al Dente

Good luck everyone! I'm actually doing the NaNo Rebel thing this year, so my word count is a bit lower than what's listed for today. I started this project with around 5,900 words written, and I have managed to write about 350 - 400 so far since NaNo started a few hours ago.

I'm off to get some sleep so I can get back to work on this book!


----------



## Savannah_Page

Good luck, NaNoWriMoers! The big event's kicked off for me here in Berlin. I'm nervous about this year b/c I'm splitting the 50k goal over 2 different books. We'll see how it goes. I've got a chick lit WIP that, as of All Hallows' Eve, stands at 83,538. Looking to finish this baby and start a new novel this month.

I wanted to wish everyone the BEST of luck! If you want to be Writing Buddies here I am: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/savannah-page I'll buddy ya back!

Now get to writing!


----------



## A. S. Warwick

End of day one, 2064 words.  Decent start.


----------



## sarahdalton

I've had a slow start. I woke up this morning not feeling particularly motivated. Such is life. I think I might go fetch supplies in the form of chocolate and hope that it sparks something.


----------



## Zelah Meyer

My son has decided that mummy is NOT allowed to concentrate on NaNoWriMo today (or anything else for that matter).  So, I probably won't be able to start until my husband gets home tonight.  I guess it will be a late one!


----------



## elusya

I'm being a rebel this year as well. Wanna finish up one novel and start and finish the sequel in the same month. So that's around almost 85,000 words. Eek. I also signed up under another pen name so I'm looking at 150k. It's going to be a long day/month!  Good luck everyone!!!

Dominika


----------



## Zelah Meyer

Can I have a word towards my word count for every time I've thrown a cuddly toy raccoon to my son?  If so, I'll already be past my wordcount for the day.  As it is, I haven't been able to start yet!


----------



## Dolphin

Began day one at Denny's, promptly at 12 AM. Stared at screen for about 10 minutes while nervously tabbing between applications and feeling inferior. Wrote 2,797 words. Marveled the 5,024 words written by tablemate in a fraction of the time. Met charming people who also write novels at Denny's between the hours of 12-5 AM. Ate breakfast.

So far, so good. More words anticipated before day's end.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Late to the party, but I'm in. Just decided two days ago. Needed to light a fire under my, um, chair, so this'll do the trick. It's my first completely non-historical, so I don't have to stop and look things up all the time. Already had 26K under my belt and have added 1500 so far today by noon. Another thousand and I'll call it a day. I'm stoked! 

P.S. Stopping in here is my reward.



> Met charming people who also write novels at Denny's between the hours of 12-5 AM. Ate breakfast.


Now there's an idea. That would probably require a LOT of coffee, I'm guessing.


----------



## Ian Rose

1770 words this morning. I'm going for 75k this month, so I need 2500/day. I'll be doing a morning and evening shift each day, with real work and life (and afk breaks) sandwiched in between. Good luck to all!


----------



## Zelah Meyer

As I wait for the opportunity to focus on something without a little hand grabbing my arm, I'm having last minute indecision issues and facing temptation to write something else (no idea what).  I spent the last two days playing catch-up on what I've written for this so far - two days that would be wasted if I did switch.  It's just... arg!  Temperamental plot bunnies.


----------



## Al Dente

I'm only at 700 words so far. Of course, I have been in class all day, so that's not bad. I need to step it up as soon as I get home and take a nap!


----------



## phil.H

I'm at 10731 since Midnight last night but those were the easy to write scenes that were fairly well formed in my mind before I started.  Downhill grade stuff.

Next come the uphill, blasting caps and rock drill work.

At least I have my buffer because I am going to need it.


----------



## 69959

Just entered. I'll be a rebel since I'm already 17k into a 100k novel, the fourth in my series. I wrote 1313 this morning, so I'll play catch up this afternoon. My username is StacyClaflin if anyone wants to connect. I'm not really sure how all that works.


----------



## phil.H

Stacy Claflin said:


> Just entered. I'll be a rebel since I'm already 17k into a 100k novel, the fourth in my series. I wrote 1313 this morning, so I'll play catch up this afternoon. My username is StacyClaflin if anyone wants to connect. I'm not really sure how all that works.


For Buddies you look up the name of the person you want to connect with. When you find their profile, click the add as a buddy at the top and they will appear on your buddy page. If you want to know who added you as a buddy, check the Buddy of page under Writing Buddies. You can find Writing Buddies under My NaNoWriMo at the very top of the page. Click and a drop down menu will appear with it on.


----------



## Lizbooks

I'm at 983 so far--about halfway through my goal for the day. All of you who've written 5K+, I salute you.


----------



## quiet chick writes

I love NaNo! Even though I never win, lol! My best year was my first, 38K. But I'm pushing myself to top 50K finally this year because my daily speed has grown quite a bit since I first started.

But what I love about NaNo is that it gets me in the mindset for discipline. Because really, 1667 words a day is not a super lot. It's the showing up every day that gets novels finished, and that's what I need to work on most. I can bang out 1500 words in a day (and not crappy ones either), but if I only do that a few times a month, it's not worth very much. So that's why I still do NaNo.

I usually rebel in some capacity too. This year I'm 2nd drafting half of my WIP from scratch. 1st draft was written years ago and it's SO bad, lol!

My page is here if anyone wants a buddy: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/lauraraeamos


----------



## Sarah M

I tried to register this morning because I'm a slacker but the email never came. 

I think I broke it.  

FIXED! I just re-registered with a different email. 

SeraBright.


----------



## RaeC

At the last minute I decided I was going to "cheat" a little and write a series of 10 stories around ~5000 words each instead of a 50k standard novel.


----------



## 69959

phil.H said:


> For Buddies you look up the name of the person you want to connect with. When you find their profile, click the add as a buddy at the top and they will appear on your buddy page. If you want to know who added you as a buddy, check the Buddy of page under Writing Buddies. You can find Writing Buddies under My NaNoWriMo at the very top of the page. Click and a drop down menu will appear with it on.


Thank you! 

I'm so glad that I signed up. I wrote a thousand words that I wouldn't have today, and I discovered that the local Saturday write-ins are only 5 minutes from my house! It would be cool if I could make it to some of those.


----------



## Faye Hunter

3300 words for my first day. How did everyone else do? Hoping for a win this year!


----------



## wildwitchof

Hi everyone. Just joining in. After a year of slow writing, I'm grateful for a structured sprint.

Also: my son is doing Nano in school. I have to set a good example 

Unfortunately, he's already beaten me in word count for the day (666! he said proudly.) Little devil.

ETA: I've caught up. 1600 for the day. I'll have to hit 2K most days to meet goal. I'd forgotten how much I loved this.


----------



## Ian Rose

Final count for day 1: 2509. 29 more like that, hopefully. Sleep now.


----------



## dkgould

2300- don't know if I should keep going and risk having nothing planned out to start tomorrow or ruminate on it instead.  I'll probably keep going a little longer.  Stopped three times for research.  I'm a bad girl .  I'll be more oblivious to facts tomorrow.  Facts are for revision   Keep going guys!


----------



## Shaun4

2200. Time for bed.


----------



## Al Dente

I only hit 1040 tonight, so I have a little catching up to do tomorrow.


----------



## AworkInProgress

Only 1060 for day one. Not the best start but I think it's a solid one.  The story is already headed off in a direction that has me excited to write more.  Really hope I can keep the daily writing going.


----------



## elusya

I hit 6411 words today over the three usernames. That's the best word count I've done in some months. I guess maybe working on three different novels works for my brain. See you all tomorrow!  

Dominika


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## Al Dente

I have to come up with a rough outline before I hit chapter 10 in this novel. As of chapter 4, I have one set of characters arguing and another set wandering around in search of an inn. They're kind of itching for some action.


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## dalya

I'm in! I was just lamenting how the dates never line up with my plans, but I actually have about 45k left to go on a novel, to be wrapped before Nov 25, so either I'll let run 5k long or start some other madness.

3276 words today.


----------



## EC

AdrianC said:


> At the last minute I decided I was going to "cheat" a little and write a series of 10 stories around ~5000 words each instead of a 50k standard novel.


I'm doing the opposite, I had 24 short stories sketched out featuring the same children's character. I decided to consolidate the stories into a novel. Well, I think I'll have to do two novels to accommodate the projected word count.

Anyway, day one, 5,700 words. I'm happy with that and I think it's a pace I can keep up. I'll be delighted if I can.


----------



## Zelah Meyer

Husband had to work (ridiculously) late yesterday to make sure that everything was done before his boss gets back on Monday.  

So - since I have friends round for the weekend, I probably won't get to make a start until Sunday evening now.

Still, I have Yomatta's amazing accomplishment to show me what can be done - and I've had years myself where I've pulled four or five 5k days out of the bag to play catchup - so it's still all to play for.


----------



## quiet chick writes

A public service announcement: it is not a good idea to burn a typing finger on a hot pan during NaNoWriMo. Just so you know. Ouch!


----------



## 67499

I jumped into NaNoWriMo at the last minute just for the fun of it and I'm glad I did.  Not only do I get a charge out of the conversation with other writers but I'm finally working on a special novel I always wanted to write but couldn't quite get around to.


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## wildwitchof

Saturday, even with chores and kids, I finished the 2K just now. About 4K total, right on track. It's crazy NaNo has Thanksgiving right in the middle of it, which means I have to finish a week early. But we're pros, right? No problemo.


----------



## Nicole5102

Laura Rae Amos said:


> A public service announcement: it is not a good idea to burn a typing finger on a hot pan during NaNoWriMo. Just so you know. Ouch!


Oh wow, I feel for you, especially during NaNoWriMo.

Even though I made cookies all morning and went to a get-together in the afternoon, I still managed my 2k words tonight. I'm happy.


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## quiet chick writes

You guys, I just realized I'm working, drinking wine, in my pajamas. We get to drink on the job in our pajamas. How lucky are we? How many other professions get to do that?  

Stats: I just rounded 3K, should make par for day 2 within the hour. Might try to bank a little extra to get ahead if I can. Bottoms up!


----------



## quiet chick writes

Nicole5102 said:


> Oh wow, I feel for you, especially during NaNoWriMo.


I iced my finger for an hour and it's feeling okay now. Or maybe it's the wine working, lol!


----------



## A. S. Warwick

3 days in and 6000 words done.  So far so good.


----------



## Sapphire

There was zero chance to write on November 1. November 2 was a struggle. Late last night I realized I was working on a book that I wasn't ready to write. In the early morning hours I switched books and am starting over. 2 days lost! Excitement about my story gained!


----------



## EC

Second day over in Scotland, 8100 words so far.  I don't think I'll do anything on day three though but  a good start nonetheless.


----------



## 69959

I went to a local write-in yesterday. That was fun.  I'm also staying ahead of schedule with my word count. Thanksgiving weekend is going ruin me if I don't.


----------



## Lisa Grace

I got in 2,462 words the first day, and 1,703 on day two, so I'm rolling right along with a total of 4,165...I'll aim for another 2k today. Here is my cover designed by Samantha Fury Covers for "True Treasure" the second in my New Adult History Mystery line:










I've also changed the cover on my 15th Star one too, to tie them in better. I haven't changed it in my sig line yet though.


----------



## Sapphire

Lisa, I love those new covers!


----------



## Lisa Grace

Sapphire said:


> Lisa, I love those new covers!


Thank you, Sapphire . I think they better reflect what is happening in the books. Samantha Fury Covers did them for me.


----------



## sundaze

Day 1--400 words. Eek. My middle daughter came home from college for fall break, I couldn't not hang with her.

Day 2--2300. Much better. 

Day 3. Waves good-bye as daughter leaves driveway, heading back to school. Too much time spent on this forum and Walking Dead is on tonight. Better get busy. 

Where are y'all getting the word counter in you sig?


----------



## Al Dente

I'm now 8400 words in and finishing up chapter 4! This is as far as I have ever gotten on something like this without shelving my manuscript forever. Looks like I'll be finishing my third official full-length work after all! 

This is the first traditional fantasy story I've ever wanted to complete once I started. My characters feel real to me and I'm just letting them do whatever they want, which is exactly how this story is unfolding. The only notes I had when I started this were character names and locations. It's crazy to see these personalities doing what they do with minimal interference from me.


----------



## RaeC

Today's been pretty productive, surprisingly, considering there's football on.


----------



## phil.H

It finally fell in place but I had to dig out the old Legal pad and write by hand for it to do so.  I found pen to paper works better when I am stuck than fingers to keyboard.  No clue why.   My characters come out better when I am writing by hand.

12753 Words so far as of yesterday.  About to make my cup of coffee and start for today.


----------



## Incognita

Kimberly James said:


> Where are y'all getting the word counter in you sig?


If you go to the NaNo site and log in, then click on "Writer Goods" in the menu bar, choose "Word Count Helpers" from the drop-down menu. Click on the link for "Word count widgets," and it'll take you to a page where there are a bunch to choose from. Then you have to put the code in your signature information via your profile page here at KB.


----------



## PhilRedhead

This is my first NaNo, and I gotta tell you all, I think I might have found my favourite way to write. I think that--psychologically speaking--the 'pressure' of the 30-day restriction is really forcing me to concentrate. And in turn, the added concentration is helping me to write more freely, more easily, and with a MASSIVE boost to my enjoyment of the process and my level of enthusiasm.

Only 3 days in, I know, and a long way to go yet, but boy am I ever having fun.

9250 words thus far. First two chapters. I've outlined but I'm managing to retain that all important improvisation. In other words, I'm having myself a ball.

Good luck to all of you!


----------



## Nathan Lowell

Nov 1 - 5100
Nov 2 - 6000 
Nov 3 - in process : 3400 with most of the afternoon and all the evening ahead. 

Goal is 5k a day. 50k by the 10th, 100k by the 20th, completed first draft by the 30th.

So far so good.


----------



## 69959

Nathan Lowell said:


> Nov 1 - 5100
> Nov 2 - 6000
> Nov 3 - in process : 3400 with most of the afternoon and all the evening ahead.
> 
> Goal is 5k a day. 50k by the 10th, 100k by the 20th, completed first draft by the 30th.
> 
> So far so good.


I like the way you think! Maybe someday I'll have the time to write 5k a day. My current goal is 2k a day. I started out with 17k into my novel, so that wouldn't have me at completion by the end of the month, but pretty close! Although if I make 2500 a day I might be able to complete it. Definitely worth considering. Thanks for the push!


----------



## Nathan Lowell

Stacy Claflin said:


> I like the way you think! Maybe someday *I'll have the time to write 5k a day*. My current goal is 2k a day. I started out with 17k into my novel, so that wouldn't have me at completion by the end of the month, but pretty close! Although if I make 2500 a day I might be able to complete it. Definitely worth considering. Thanks for the push!


Thanks. The only way to have the time is make the time.

But I have several advantages, not the least of which is that I'm a full time author.

This month I work on weekends. The fam hates it but I just put on my _artiste _hat. Then they laugh at me and leave me alone.

I used to do 5k days when I had two jobs, too. Practice helps.

Keep typin'!


----------



## RaeC

One thing I'm trying to do is use NaNoWriMo to increase my actual writing speed going forward. The more you write the *more *you write.


----------



## Lizbooks

I'm jealous of all your word counts! 

Thanks to a last-minute project being dumped into my lap on Friday, I'm behind: 1769 words. And I'll probably only be able to write for about an hour tonight before getting back to work. Once this project is done, though (tonight...cross my fingers), I'll have a nice eight-hour stretch to write and I intend to catch up then.


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## 69959

Nathan Lowell said:


> Thanks. The only way to have the time is make the time.
> 
> But I have several advantages, not the least of which is that I'm a full time author.
> 
> This month I work on weekends. The fam hates it but I just put on my _artiste _hat. Then they laugh at me and leave me alone.
> 
> I used to do 5k days when I had two jobs, too. Practice helps.
> 
> Keep typin'!


I agree with practice. Over the summer I was writing about 800 words in the mornings (4:30-6:00). Now I'm up to 2k as long as I'm prepared. I just need to keep upping my daily word count goal. I keep finding that I can do more than I thought!


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## N. Gemini Sasson

6787 so far. Trying to eek ahead because I have a few days this month where I have other commitments. Every 500 words I reward myself with a break to do other things. I'm even looking forward to folding laundry because it means I'm |that| much closer to 50K.

Yesterday and today have been a slog because my husband and I decided to enter a marathon that's six weeks from now, so we ran _18 miles _ yesterday.  Sure, NaNoWriMo and marathon training in the same month. Bright idea. Gawd, I'm tired.


----------



## Clark Magnan

N. Gemini Sasson said:


> 6787 so far. Trying to eek ahead because I have a few days this month where I have other commitments. Every 500 words I reward myself with a break to do other things. I'm even looking forward to folding laundry because it means I'm |that| much closer to 50K.
> 
> Yesterday and today have been a slog because my husband and I decided to enter a marathon that's six weeks from now, so we ran _18 miles _ yesterday.  Sure, NaNoWriMo and marathon training in the same month. Bright idea. Gawd, I'm tired.


In my neck of the woods, all the good marathons are in October and I always take November (more or less) off from running. Thus, NaNoWriMo is a good fit. Good luck on both to you. I'd say you're nuts, but you run marathons, you already know that.

6229 words on day 3 for me so far. On pace.


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## Al Dente

I wrote 1677 words today! It's nice to hit that daily goal.


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## N. Gemini Sasson

C. A. Magnan said:


> In my neck of the woods, all the good marathons are in October and I always take November (more or less) off from running. Thus, NaNoWriMo is a good fit. Good luck on both to you. I'd say you're nuts, but you run marathons, you already know that.
> 
> 6229 words on day 3 for me so far. On pace.


We're heading south for our race, C.A. The cooler weather lately has been nice to train in, but the darn time change makes it tough to get the miles in during the week.

And I agree, it's insane. This is purely a bucket list item. One and done. I'm going back to 5Ks after this.

Well done on staying on pace with your word count!


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## Incognita

Ack, I don't know whether to post here or in the 1K a day thread, but I guess since it's officially NaNo, I'll post here for November.

Wrote 3,060 today, putting me at 8,075 overall. I'm trying to get between 2.5K and 3K every day so that I'll actually complete the novel this month. It's feeling doable right now, but I know the first 15-20K always feel great...until I slide into the Slough of Despond (aka the dreaded "middle").


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## Craig Allen

Got 1029 words Nov. 1
5014 Nov 2
5003 Nov 3

So far, I'm on schedule.


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## dalya

I don't want yellow or red days! Only green days!

P.S. everybody who wants one, the Calendar-style widgets are here:
http://nanowrimo.org/widgets



> My Month is a simple display showing overall progress and how you did on any given day. Light green and red show where you were above or below the goal for the day, bold green and red are reserved for days where you did exceptionally well or monumentally badly. Example:


(That's mine, but yours would have your username)


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## Nicole5102

The first three days went well, with me hitting the 2k goal each day. I'd like to up that to 5k a day, but I wonder if I'd feel too much pressure then. I guess there's only one way to find out! 

The bad news is that my barely-there outline and notes have been thrown out the window. As soon as I starting actually writing their story, the characters took over and now my notes are useless. I never use outlines anyway. I'm not sure why I thought I could use one for NaNoWriMo.


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## Guest

Made it up to 11,409 today.  I always start after midnight and like to get those words in there shortly thereafter so I can get that green box on my calendar real quick.


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## Jd488

I'm not faring as well. I haven't broken 2k words per day yet, doing 300 yesterday.  

I just broke 3k total and am on chapter 3. This is starting to look more like a novella than a novel, but it will go wherever it's meant to.


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## 69959

Greg Strandberg said:


> Made it up to 11,409 today. I always start after midnight and like to get those words in there shortly thereafter so I can get that green box on my calendar real quick.


I'm the same way. I start writing at (about) 4am and as soon as my session is over, I put my word count in so the box won't be red.


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## N. Gemini Sasson

ChristinePope said:


> If you go to the NaNo site and log in, then click on "Writer Goods" in the menu bar, choose "Word Count Helpers" from the drop-down menu. Click on the link for "Word count widgets," and it'll take you to a page where there are a bunch to choose from. Then you have to put the code in your signature information via your profile page here at KB.


Gah! Whenever I put the code they give in to my signature, just the code shows up, not the widget. What am I doing wrong?


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## MrBourbons

N. Gemini Sasson said:


> Gah! Whenever I put the code they give in to my signature, just the code shows up, not the widget. What am I doing wrong?


It needs to be added like this:



Code:


[IMG]http://nanowrimo.org/widget/LiveSupporter/mrbourbons.png[/IMG]


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## N. Gemini Sasson

^ Got it. Thank you!


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## NicWilson

I have to admit- I'm not loving NaNo as much as I used to.  I'm so drained that I'm making my quotas, but I don't have the energy to go much past it. I gave in and took yesterday as a free day, just spent time with my wife once I got off work.

Also, my wife's NaNo totally backfired on us. She finished the first draft in three days, though it's shorter than 50k, and she suspects she'll be adding a lot once she calms down and returns to it. I don't know whether to be proud of her, or scared, because she's a first time writer, who was only doing it to be able to nudge our writerly friends along with friendly "even I can do it, so what's your problem?" joshing. It's been special seeing her work on it, but apparently, the story idea I worked on with her was so traumatic, that she insists it's never happening again. So, now I'm insecure about my own writing, feeling bad for putting my wife through days of emotional anguish on a sad story, and disappointed that she doesn't connect with writing the same way I do. This is not how I thought this would go.


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## Clark Magnan

NicWilson said:


> I have to admit- I'm not loving NaNo as much as I used to. I'm so drained that I'm making my quotas, but I don't have the energy to go much past it. I gave in and took yesterday as a free day, just spent time with my wife once I got off work.
> 
> Also, my wife's NaNo totally backfired on us. She finished the first draft in three days, though it's shorter than 50k, and she suspects she'll be adding a lot once she calms down and returns to it. I don't know whether to be proud of her, or scared, because she's a first time writer, who was only doing it to be able to nudge our writerly friends along with friendly "even I can do it, so what's your problem?" joshing. It's been special seeing her work on it, but apparently, the story idea I worked on with her was so traumatic, that she insists it's never happening again. So, now I'm insecure about my own writing, feeling bad for putting my wife through days of emotional anguish on a sad story, and disappointed that she doesn't connect with writing the same way I do. This is not how I thought this would go.


I'm sorry you're in a rough patch, but your wife's experience sounds rather positive to me. Didn't you say she plans to go back and add to it? Give her (and yourself) time. You're hitting your goals; you don't need to love the writing while you do it and certainly don't need to go above the daily goals. That's the point. For most of us, writing is a solitary, kinda lonely venture. You've had this experience with your wife, even if it turns out to be the only one of its kind and you have all the other NaNoWriMo people to connect with too.

To stretch an analogy a bit, mostly because I was talking about this earlier: I run marathons. I have, in my time, gotten friends to do the same. They *all* say "never again" just as I did after my first one. Some of them really never run another. Others change their mind and come back for more. We're all a bit closer regardless and have at least that one shared experience to converse about, even years later. This may not be so different.


----------



## Al Dente

So far I have managed 980 words today. I hope I can keep it up after class when I'm sitting at home. I'm just a few hundred words shy of the 10k mark!


----------



## dkgould

David Scroggins said:


> So far I have managed 980 words today. I hope I can keep it up after class when I'm sitting at home. I'm just a few hundred words shy of the 10k mark!


You can do it!

I'm blocked  going to have to try later. Maybe some word sprints will help this evening


----------



## Zelah Meyer

Starting from cold is always hellish.  I had a busy weekend with friends over.  Then I procrastinated like anything today to put off starting.  I've managed a whole 194 words so far - woo-hoo!  

Still, getting started is the hardest part.

Husband has booked tomorrow night to go over some paperwork, so I probably won't get to write much again until Wednesday now.  Ah well, what will be will be.  The main point of this for me is to get back into the swing of writing regularly again - so that I can continue after NaNoWriMo comes to an end.


----------



## NicWilson

Clark Magnan said:


> I'm sorry you're in a rough patch, but your wife's experience sounds rather positive to me. Didn't you say she plans to go back and add to it? Give her (and yourself) time. You're hitting your goals; you don't need to love the writing while you do it and certainly don't need to go above the daily goals. That's the point. For most of us, writing is a solitary, kinda lonely venture. You've had this experience with your wife, even if it turns out to be the only one of its kind and you have all the other NaNoWriMo people to connect with too.
> 
> To stretch an analogy a bit, mostly because I was talking about this earlier: I run marathons. I have, in my time, gotten friends to do the same. They *all* say "never again" just as I did after my first one. Some of them really never run another. Others change their mind and come back for more. We're all a bit closer regardless and have at least that one shared experience to converse about, even years later. This may not be so different.


It just bothers me, since I've had to push myself harder for every year's NaNo to keep it challenging. Last year, I finished early, extended my quotas into December, and wrote the first draft of a second novel in three weeks. So I wrote for 6-7 weeks, and got two novels out of it. This feels like a step backward. I'm not unhappy with my writing, and I'm excited for the story I've outlined. But it's a bit disheartening working seven days a week at the dayjobs, still pulling in a 2k per day quota, and having the lady blow right past me, on her first project ever, finishing a 35k first draft in 3 days, with one of those days mostly taken off due to her not feeling well. Part of me's overjoyed at the whole thing. Though she may not pen the actual words, she's very closely involved in my writing anyways. But it's different sharing the first draft with her. I'd really hoped she'd enjoy it enough to continue working this way with me. And I keep asking myself if it would be different if I'd asked her to write a different story. I think I broke the woman. I haven't seen her this listless in a long time.


----------



## WG McCabe

I started late and I'm behind.


----------



## dkgould

NicWilson said:


> It just bothers me, since I've had to push myself harder for every year's NaNo to keep it challenging. Last year, I finished early, extended my quotas into December, and wrote the first draft of a second novel in three weeks. So I wrote for 6-7 weeks, and got two novels out of it. This feels like a step backward. I'm not unhappy with my writing, and I'm excited for the story I've outlined. But it's a bit disheartening working seven days a week at the dayjobs, still pulling in a 2k per day quota, and having the lady blow right past me, on her first project ever, finishing a 35k first draft in 3 days, with one of those days mostly taken off due to her not feeling well. Part of me's overjoyed at the whole thing. Though she may not pen the actual words, she's very closely involved in my writing anyways. But it's different sharing the first draft with her. I'd really hoped she'd enjoy it enough to continue working this way with me. And I keep asking myself if it would be different if I'd asked her to write a different story. I think I broke the woman. I haven't seen her this listless in a long time.


Think of her more like a bottle of soda that's been shaken up and suddenly let loose. She got super excited to do something like this with you (at least, that's what it sounds like anyway) and it's brand new to her. You do this every day (or at least several times a week). It's a _job_. I don't care how in love with it we all are, it's still a job, and sometimes that's exactly what it feels like (that's why we keep upping the ante- I do it too, this is year 4 for me, more done every year). It wasn't another ho hum routine to her, so she did it fast, and now she's got the post book blues . It's not really the story (well, not the whole reason anyway), it's just the adrenaline's gone, the project is over and until she finds her next project/hobby/obsession, she's probably going to be a little down. We all get like that sometimes.

And Patrick Szabo- you're only a little behind, you can doooooo eeet!


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Hey, folks---

the widget for NaNoWriMo is very cool, and no problem with it in your signatures. But it's a bit bigger than our max height for images, 125 pixels (see Forum Decorum), so if you are going to add it to your signature, make sure you put the height=125 delimiter in the first img tag, like this:

[nobbc]http://www.website.com/thisisyourimage.jpg[/url][/nobbc]

Make sure there is a space between img and height and that you've spelled it right. :D If you have any questions, PM me.

Also, our maximum width for sigs of 800 pixels still applies, too. That's about nine covers. If you already have nine covers, there's no room for the NanoWriMo widget...

Betsy


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## Jd488

Better day yesterday: 1,700 words and a grand total of 4,800 words.


----------



## Sapphire

Only 800 on Sunday. 2100 yesterday. I'm almost up to speed, but have to catch up those first 2 lost days.


----------



## quiet chick writes

Somehow I got myself into the predicament of needing to write a scene where two men are fishing (no women around) and I have no idea what two dudes fishing talk about when there are no women around, and also, I haven't been fishing since I was ten. This should be interesting.


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## Sapphire

Laura Rae Amos said:


> Somehow I got myself into the predicament of needing to write a scene where two men are fishing (no women around) and I have no idea what two dudes fishing talk about when there are no women around, and also, I haven't been fishing since I was ten. This should be interesting.


I have no help for you. I thought they just drank beer and didn't say much of anything. But then, how would I know? Be patient. There have to be some fishermen on here.


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## NicWilson

dkgould said:


> Think of her more like a bottle of soda that's been shaken up and suddenly let loose. She got super excited to do something like this with you (at least, that's what it sounds like anyway) and it's brand new to her. You do this every day (or at least several times a week). It's a _job_. I don't care how in love with it we all are, it's still a job, and sometimes that's exactly what it feels like (that's why we keep upping the ante- I do it too, this is year 4 for me, more done every year). It wasn't another ho hum routine to her, so she did it fast, and now she's got the post book blues . It's not really the story (well, not the whole reason anyway), it's just the adrenaline's gone, the project is over and until she finds her next project/hobby/obsession, she's probably going to be a little down. We all get like that sometimes.
> 
> And Patrick Szabo- you're only a little behind, you can doooooo eeet!


No, she wrote it fast, because she hated it, and needed it out of her headspace as soon as possible, before it started an anxiety spiral. I haven't seen her this severely upset, for this long, since her dad was in the hospital. I talked to her more about why the project upset her so much, and I still don't really get it, but I can kind of see her reasoning. Her story focuses very heavily on the very real dangers that housepets can face, and she's home pretty much all day with five pets. She hasn't let them out of her sight since we got the outline fleshed out all the way. One of our kitties got out when I was taking the trash out, and I couldn't get her calm for about three hours after, even after we lured him out from under the porch, and hauled him back inside. I'm curious to read her work, to see how much of whatever traumatized her is in the execution. I really should have picked a sillier idea for her first go-around. Hopefully by the time next year rolls around, some of the trauma will have faded. That's about the only way I can see her being willing to try again.


----------



## MrBourbons

Today is my third best day for NaNoWriMo word count. 4,283 and 20k total.


----------



## 69959

I must have lost my mind. On top of Nano, I'm working on the 3rd draft of one novel, the 4th of another, have tons of paperwork due for my business, and am leading a class tomorrow night. Seriously, what was I thinking? 

Yet I'm still ahead of the word count for Nano!


----------



## dalya

Reporting in that you guys are spurring me on! Plus my husband's "helpful" suggestion I write faster and get an additional book out before Christmas.


----------



## Nicole5102

I've still got a bit more writing to do tonight to catch up my total wordcount from Monday's fiasco. 
Can I write while watching basketball? Sadly, I think not. The game is getting turned off.


----------



## WG McCabe

dkgould said:


> And Patrick Szabo- you're only a little behind, you can doooooo eeet!


I just need to get in to the rhythm. Funny thing, when November rolled around and friends/family asked if I was going to participate in NaNoWriMo I told them nope, I have enough projects to work on. Then three days in I decided 'what the heck, I've had this idea in my head for about six months, might as well go for it". And what happened when I sat down to begin? I tossed that idea aside and started working on a different book. Writing is kooky.


----------



## Sapphire

2288 today.


----------



## dkgould

NicWilson said:


> No, she wrote it fast, because she hated it, and needed it out of her headspace as soon as possible, before it started an anxiety spiral. I haven't seen her this severely upset, for this long, since her dad was in the hospital. I talked to her more about why the project upset her so much, and I still don't really get it, but I can kind of see her reasoning. Her story focuses very heavily on the very real dangers that housepets can face, and she's home pretty much all day with five pets. She hasn't let them out of her sight since we got the outline fleshed out all the way. One of our kitties got out when I was taking the trash out, and I couldn't get her calm for about three hours after, even after we lured him out from under the porch, and hauled him back inside. I'm curious to read her work, to see how much of whatever traumatized her is in the execution. I really should have picked a sillier idea for her first go-around. Hopefully by the time next year rolls around, some of the trauma will have faded. That's about the only way I can see her being willing to try again.


Poor thing  I understand about pets being so precious and how devastating it can be when they are lost or come home injured. Was it fiction or non-fiction? I hope she feels better soon. Maybe she can turn it into a positive thing- like information to warn pet owners about those dangers or seeing if animal rescue needs some positive, happy forever home stories written for press releases to help her get the bad stuff out of her head.


----------



## wildwitchof

Hi guys! I'm trying to do this before a holiday trip Nov. 23-30. So, basically, a little over 2K/day.

Today I'm at 9,921. Stay on target, stay on target...


----------



## 69959

Didn't hit the word count today (1452) but my 2yo kept waking up, making it hard for me to get up on time and then I had to get him back to sleep in the middle of writing. We'll see if I can get some more words in later today. This week is crazy!


----------



## Jd488

I did 2,276 words yesterday. So far today, I'm at 884 and I'm nowhere near the end of the scene. My total word count right now just broke 8k, at 8,016. 

Back to writing!


----------



## Incognita

2,700 yesterday. I write in the late afternoon once my other work is done, so I have to see that stupid red mark on my widget almost all day. I'm not behind -- I'm just not a morning writer!


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Don't know about the rest of you, but just the feeling that I'm being held accountable makes me stop faffing around and get back to work.

(Still pretty sure 2/3 of what I've written so far is crap, but crap can be fixed... in December, right?)

NaNo on, intrepid authors!


----------



## quiet chick writes

N. Gemini Sasson said:


> Don't know about the rest of you, but just the feeling that I'm being held accountable makes me stop faffing around and get back to work.


Me too. Even though it's still just me being accountable to myself. I mean, nobody is going to yell at me if I don't finish my NaNoWriMo but myself, you know? But I remember doing pretty well when we did that 8-hour story challenge too. I work so well under a deadline, and so terribly on my own, lol! *am hopeless*

I wish I could find a way to have real, concrete deadlines for the rest of the year.


----------



## Clark Magnan

ChristinePope said:


> 2,700 yesterday. I write in the late afternoon once my other work is done, so I have to see that stupid red mark on my widget almost all day. I'm not behind -- I'm just not a morning writer!


I hear you. Most of my writing happens in the evening so I have that red bar hovering over my thoughts all day long. Seems to work, though.


----------



## willswardstrom

My first NaNoWriMo. I've written about 1500 words today and am up to 12K so far.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Laura Rae Amos said:


> I wish I could find a way to have real, concrete deadlines for the rest of the year.


You know what this has made me start to do? I dangle carrots in front of myself. Like, I can't visit the Home Goods store to shop for a new laundry hamper until I hit 15K. No trip to the pet store to replace a wimpy aquarium filter until I hit 20K, etc. Last night I wouldn't let myself open up the book I'm reading until I'd hit my daily word count. No big insurmountable deadlines. Just manageable goals. Little doable chunks = small rewards. I need to do this all the time.

Oops! Timer's up. Have to hit another mark before I can come back here.



> My first NaNoWriMo. I've written about 1500 words today and am up to 12K so far.


That's fantastic! I bailed on my first NaNo after five days. Keep up the good work!


----------



## dkgould

N. Gemini Sasson said:


> You know what this has made me start to do? I dangle carrots in front of myself. Like, I can't visit the Home Goods store to shop for a new laundry hamper until I hit 15K. No trip to the pet store to replace a wimpy aquarium filter until I hit 20K, etc. Last night I wouldn't let myself open up the book I'm reading until I'd hit my daily word count. No big insurmountable deadlines. Just manageable goals. Little doable chunks = small rewards. I need to do this all the time.


I put weekly goals on the calendar- I figure about the same pace as now, about 1500-2000 words per day and put the total on Sunday. If I am behind by Friday, I make my husband watch the kids so I can catch up on Saturday. And then I have a total set for the last day of the month. But it will only work if you are tough on yourself! The rewards system is too nice for me most times  I need more punishment if I don't do well, that seems to work better


----------



## quiet chick writes

dkgould said:


> But it will only work if you are tough on yourself! The rewards system is too nice for me most times  I need more punishment if I don't do well, that seems to work better


This is me. I am way too easy on myself when I've been a slacker. I need some big scary mafia goon to threaten to come to my house and take my Sims games away from me or something (because you know losing my Sims is WAY more scary than a mafia goon, lol!). And then actually do it.


----------



## dkgould

maybe have a friend/spouse/parent (whoever is going to be toughest on you) put a parental lock or password on your game and then not let you play until you do your homework!  My husband takes away my kindle if I don't make my word count


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

dkgould said:


> My husband takes away my kindle if I don't make my word count


  NOOO!!!! That's just MEAN!

(Reminds me of when my daughter was pulling a C in French I and we took away her books. Totally worked. She ended up with A's at the end of the year.)


----------



## A. S. Warwick

I'm just remaining on schedule, at 10,100 words after 5 days, but I've picked up a whole bunch of relief library tech work over the next 4 weeks which is seriously going to impact the amount of time I have to make the target.


----------



## 69959

Laura Rae Amos said:


> Me too. Even though it's still just me being accountable to myself. I mean, nobody is going to yell at me if I don't finish my NaNoWriMo but myself, you know? But I remember doing pretty well when we did that 8-hour story challenge too. I work so well under a deadline, and so terribly on my own, lol! *am hopeless*
> 
> I wish I could find a way to have real, concrete deadlines for the rest of the year.


I tell my readers when my books are due out. Keeps me moving!


----------



## TexasGirl

Wrote 6000 words today to get caught up and a little ahead at 11,251.

Deanna's got her groove back.


----------



## Sapphire

A little over 2000 today, so I'm up to 7141 words to date. I lost the first 2-1/2 days of November with a total book change, and spent a hunk of time today working on the blurb for book I'm publishing within a week. I need to kick into a higher gear.


----------



## Incognita

A hair over 3K today. Things are progressing nicely. But, in the immortal words of Han Solo, "Don't get cocky."


----------



## Nicole5102

Argh! It's like a ran into a wall head first. Gotta get words down today and my brain is mush. Any advice?


----------



## dalya

Nicole5102 said:


> Argh! It's like a ran into a wall head first. Gotta get words down today and my brain is mush. Any advice?


Go somewhere with no internet, or yank the plug out of the wall.

I did 1500 words at Starbucks, where there is wireless, but on days where I'm very naughty, I take myself to a different cafe, with no internet.

If the choices are stare out the rainy window versus make up some cool story, the block will dissolve.


----------



## dkgould

skip the blocked part for now maybe, do another scene and then come back to it.  I have to do that sometimes.  Hate doing it, but sometimes it's what works.


----------



## pauldude000

I bit the bullet and joined up myself. I am doing another new Joe Anderson novel as my project, which means with the two I have published, and the one I was already working on, that will make four in the series when they are all completed. Along with the two other novels in various stages of completion. (Groan)

Has anyone here ever felt like they are suckers for biting off more than they can chew?

What sucks is that I just fired up the word processor last night for the project and typed out ~2500 words, though I envisioned the plot and outline when I joined a couple of days ago.

I have had people ask me how I do it; basically, how do I complete one or more chapters a night with minimal line editing required afterwards? 

The answer is Simple. I refuse to stress out. I want to, but I refuse to. I do not know about anyone else, but I cannot write when I am stressing; I get an instant case of writer's block. I wait till the kids are in bed, then I put in a couple of straight hours of writing with no distractions, editing as I go.


----------



## 69959

2564 words this morning.


----------



## Al Dente

I was out for a few days due to a minor emergency, but I'm back and managed almost 1,700 words today.


----------



## Incognita

2525 today.


----------



## Nicole5102

The advice above did help, so thank everyone. I finally was able to get some words down before midnight, even if I didn't hit 2k for the day. Now I'm on a roll so I'm just going to stay up and keep writing.


----------



## dalya

3300 today for me. Great work here from everyone on the thread! I'm really feeling the Nanowrimo spirit.


----------



## sarahdalton

I've been averaging about 2000 a day which is ok. I know I can do better but as I'm adding 50k onto a novel I'd already started, I'm a bit past the 'honeymoon stage' of the book and into the sticky middle. 

Here's hoping I get this book finished by the 30th 

Great work all, keep it up!


----------



## Guest

Just passed the 20,000 mark - well ahead of schedule, 8 days of green squares.


----------



## Sapphire

I attended a local NaNo writing session last night, first time for me. It did keep me focused on my keyboard which I had not tackled all day up to that point. My total for yesterday was a little over 2100 putting me at 9260.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Wow, I'm impressed how everyone here is doing. Inspirational! 

I have my morning chores done, laundry in, dishes put away, dogs fed, coffee made and ready to start - and it's just past 8 a.m. I need to squeeze some extra words in today because tomorrow we're going to visit our son at a college race and then do dinner. Wondering if I take the laptop, whether I can actually manage to get some writing in while the OH drives? Well, I do have 8 hours to kill and I can only talk to him so much before we start repeating ourselves.


----------



## sarahdalton

I'm loving 15 minute word wars this year. I've done two so far today and they've both worked out really well.


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## Nicole5102

I'm realizing doing Nano just how infrequently I have been writing day after day after day until this effort. By the end of this month I hope to have made it a good habit instead of skipping days.

I've also realized I need one of those programs to turn off the internet. No will power. None.


----------



## Clark Magnan

17,800 so far. Stat thingy says I'll be done November 23rd. Is it bad luck to talk about that? 

Yeah, probably bad luck. Forget I said anything.

Praise be to the green bars (well done all).


----------



## Guest

EelKat said:


> I'm going to answer you by pasting the "About Me" section of my NaNoWriMo profile:


I fail to see how your posts have helped anyone - a link would have sufficed.


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## dalya

Oh, man, I nearly yellow-boxed it today. But I pushed on! Into the green!!!! Not again, yellow. Not again.


----------



## 60865

Doing my first write in, yeah.
We're being good and writing not talking.

Trying to insert the code for the word count widget and I can't figure out where to put it ...


----------



## A. S. Warwick

I've sort of fallen over in the last few days.  Basically I've had a fair bit going in in life (good stuff mind) which has seriously cut into the writing time.  Plus I'm just not feeling the story I was working on.  May restart with a fresh one and see how it goes.


----------



## dalya

My box was red, then yellow. I felt like crying. Everything I write is fine to me--sometimes good, even--but everyone will hate it. Cliche author drama! Then I wrote some more words to make my box green. I don't care! Box green, good.


----------



## Michael Kingswood

Running a little behind so far.  Just finished back to back 2100 word days, and am up to 12,113 words total so far.  I've got my Scrivener project target set to Monday and 18,333 words, the plan being to be caught up by then.  Feeling good overall though, still.



Hope everyone else is having fun.


----------



## WG McCabe

After a stupid week and stupid house problems I got back on the horse tonight. I'm still way behind, though.


----------



## sarahdalton

I had a day off yesterday which I think was a bad idea. I'm out of the groove now. I'm ahead on word count, but this isn't about getting to 50k for me, it's about finishing this novel. So I've still got quite a bit of work to do.


----------



## Guest

I really want to go back and start editing but I'm stopping myself.  I have moved some things around.  I've also divided the book into 5 parts, which I really had already, but I've decided on 6 chapters for each part.  The parts are just days, starting with Monday, June 8, 1973 and going until Friday.  I've got those all titled and hyperlinked so I have the basic structure to work with.  Now I just hop around and write scenes as they come and fill in things as needed.  There's still a lot to do and I'm shooting for 60,000 finished.


----------



## Jd488

I have no idea how long my NaNoWriMo novel, _Second Chance_, will be. When it's done, it's done. As of yesterday, I wrote 2,056 words and the total word count is 15,173. Chapter 15 is now complete. My daily average is 1,686 words. Each day's results are posted on my FB author page. Hopefully today will be better. I have done some editing, which slowed down my pace. As tempting as it is, I need to keep that in check.

I'm hoping it turns into a novel as _The Curse_ did, but I'll be happy if _Second Chance_ breaks 50k word mark. At this point, it's on pace to do that.


----------



## 69959

Even though I typed less than 200 words yesterday (I usually take Saturdays off from writing) I'm still ahead of the word count. I'll have to make an effort to go to the Saturday write-in next week. That was the only reason I hit my goal last Saturday.


----------



## Incognita

1,820 on Friday (I didn't have as much time as usual to write because we went to see Thor...gotta have your priorities, you know?) and 2,060 yesterday. Today should be a quiet day, so I'm hoping for a little bit more. It would be really nice to get past 25K today.


----------



## quiet chick writes

Yikes, we're supposed to be up to 16K-something today? 

Catching up would mean about a 4K day today, which pretty much will not happen for me. But I'll try to get my green box at least. I could maybe get 2K. It's shocking how fast you fall behind after just a couple bad days.

<bright side> At least I'm writing way more than I would have been had I not decided to do NaNo this year. </bright side>


----------



## Incognita

2,795 today, so I managed to just squeak past 25K so far. Whew...I wasn't sure I was going to make it.


----------



## Clark Magnan

ChristinePope said:


> 1,820 on Friday (I didn't have as much time as usual to write because we went to see Thor...gotta have your priorities, you know?) and 2,060 yesterday. Today should be a quiet day, so I'm hoping for a little bit more. It would be really nice to get past 25K today.


Tried to see Thor today but the next several showings were sold out. Go figure. My wife and I are usually the only people who go to the movies on a Sunday morning.

Wrote nearly 2000 words today though.


----------



## Nicole5102

I'm still playing catch-up on my word count. All those non-green boxes are freaking me out.


----------



## WG McCabe

I did around 1800 words today. Still way behind but I will (hopefully) catch up by this time next week.


----------



## Incognita

Clark Magnan said:


> Tried to see Thor today but the next several showings were sold out. Go figure. My wife and I are usually the only people who go to the movies on a Sunday morning.
> 
> Wrote nearly 2000 words today though.


Yay on the word count, but too bad for missing Thor. Part of the reason we took time off on a Friday afternoon to go see it was that we figured the theaters would be overrun this weekend.


----------



## Gone To Croatan

Laura Rae Amos said:


> It's shocking how fast you fall behind after just a couple bad days.


This is why I try to do at least 8-10k on the first weekend, so I start off well ahead .

Nearly up to the half-way point with _Horror Movie_, and someone is finally going to get eaten by a monster.

Of course it would be easier if I hadn't decided to also write a short story to submit to an anthology by the end of the month.


----------



## dalya

NANO I WILL DO THEE


----------



## AriadneW

I tried to do a mammoth writing session at the weekend to get ahead. Ended up with migraine and going to bed early. I made it to 30k though, and this week is going to be crazy at work so I figure I've got some breathing space.


----------



## Guest

TraceDex said:


> I decided to take a break today. My daily numbers are never consistent. Sometimes I can write 4k+ and sometimes I can get about 100 words out hahaha. I guess I need help with the whole _discipline_ thing.


Writers are like soldiers - discipline and routine win the day.


----------



## pauldude000

I am not doing so well. A lousy 4369 words on the wall, and 19 days left. I just can't find the time, and when I do, my kids are awake. I believe the word I am looking for is ARGH!


----------



## sarahdalton

My goal is to break 25k today. 

I need to get some Rocky music on or something.


----------



## cecilia_writer

I'm almost keeping up with my self-imposed target of 2,000 words a day. I had one day when I spent a lot of time on the train and because I had the wrong glasses with me I could only manage 1,000 (500 there and 500 back!). I don't usually use the coloured chart, I prefer to see the bars on the website going up and up.


----------



## Jd488

I wrote 1,569 words yesterday and my total count is 16,777. Chapter 17 is done. 

Eager to see what happens next in this story.


----------



## Clark Magnan

I love and hate these little green boxes.


----------



## 69959

Got sick and lost today's writing time. I was going to make up for that in little writing spurts, but that didn't happen either. I got 190 words for the day. At least I was ahead of my word count, and am not behind because of this. Tomorrow I will conquer.


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

Joining the thread a little late. Good job everyone!
I'm going the Nathan Lowell route and trying for 5k a day. Average so far of 4200ish/day, so almost there. 

At 4091 for the day today, 909 left to go. Now if only I stop looking at the author gif thread.


----------



## Gone To Croatan

27,500... I was hoping to hit 28,000 but I have to get up early tomorrow .

Genny just got attacked by the monsters, and Producer is about to get eaten.


----------



## dalya

Dragged it out a bit today. I blame my Starbucks for not having any seats for me. (Darn nanowrimo people and their laptops are everywhere!) But I got my word count goal done. Need to get up early tomorrow because I have one of those things that interrupts writing. Social plans, I think it's called?


----------



## sarahdalton

Why is it, that when I write more than 2000 words, the next day I find it really hard to get motivated? It's like my brain needs to chill out for a few days after the last writing sprint. 

Maybe it's like marathon running and you have to train it. 

Today might be a starbucks and caffeine day.


----------



## I do not consent

Anyone else finding early morning to be a good NaNo writing time? Motivation is a funny thing. A small change sends to make a difference. Reminds me of a productivity improvement person who said he tried to learn guitar by practicing one hour a day but found himself not hitting his goal. He tried different things to motivate himself but what eventually tipped the balance was when he put his guitar on a stand next to his bed,I think it was, so that he would practically trip over it to get out of his room. Maybe there is an equivalent for writers.This NaNo experience has been eye-opening for me. Funny I just joined it on a lark.


----------



## Hugh Howey

Hit 44,000 today. Three more days, and I should be officially "done." But I'm aiming for 80K this month with the first two books revised and out to editors. December is for publishing!


----------



## Guest

J. B. Bouman said:


> Anyone else finding early morning to be a good NaNo writing time?


I usually start my writing for the day late and really get going after midnight. I usually submit around 3 to 4 AM. That's a nice way to not see that red box too much. I'm shooting for a Nov 20th finish, or 50,000 words, even though I'll probably need 60,000 for my story.


----------



## sarahdalton

J. B. Bouman said:


> Anyone else finding early morning to be a good NaNo writing time? Motivation is a funny thing. A small change sends to make a difference. Reminds me of a productivity improvement person who said he tried to learn guitar by practicing one hour a day but found himself not hitting his goal. He tried different things to motivate himself but what eventually tipped the balance was when he put his guitar on a stand next to his bed,I think it was, so that he would practically trip over it to get out of his room. Maybe there is an equivalent for writers.This NaNo experience has been eye-opening for me. Funny I just joined it on a lark.


If I get up at 7am, I easily write 3000 words before midday. If I get up at 8am, I struggle to write 1000 before midday. The moral is that I need to get my arse out of bed before 8am! Plus willpower. Willpower would be good.


----------



## sarahdalton

I'm at procrastination station this morning. I take a break to check out reddit, start reading Bear Grylls' AMA, discover that he climbed Mount Everest at the same time 4 climbers died, then find my way to a Guardian extract about a climber who tried to save a woman but couldn't (pretty heartbreaking) and then start reading about climbers who have died trying to reach the summit... argh!! I've depressed myself AND managed to waste almost an hour on this. Sigh!


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

sarahdalton said:


> If I get up at 7am, I easily write 3000 words before midday. If I get up at 8am, I struggle to write 1000 before midday. The moral is that I need to get my arse out of bed before 8am! Plus willpower. Willpower would be good.


I bow to your willpower. I'd have to switch back to caffeinated coffee. And schedule multiple naps.

I'm just showing up here to give myself a kick in the bum. I was away from home most of two of the past three days. I got all twitchy and cranky.  I did manage to write on the laptop while in the car Saturday. That was a first. 

We need to do this every month.


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

I whole-heartedly endorse morning writing. I just started a few weeks ago, writing on the treaddesk for an hour before work, and it's changed my life. I have more energy during the day, I seem to write faster in the morning, and by the time I "sit down" at my desk at night for my regular writing session, it feels so good knowing I've already knocked out 1-1.5k words of my goal.
Ok, starting my morning session now--DIE, WIFI! DIE!!!!111!


----------



## Incognita

Another 2,500 yesterday. I admire you morning writers, but I just can't get the mental writing gears going in the morning. That's why I do all my "chores" first. (Rent gotta get paid, son.)


----------



## 69959

Morning is my best time for writing. I've trained myself to start writing as soon as I get up (4-ish) and then I go until about 6. When I know what I'm going to write, I get more words. That and not being sick. 

This morning, I got 1692 words. It was also one of "those" mornings. My laptop battery was dead, so I had to plug it in and get that going. As a result, I didn't get to write in my typical writing spot. I'm getting over being sick, so I couldn't remember what I wrote last time, so I had to keep looking things up. Then one of my kids woke up. Still, I passed the target word count for the day.


----------



## MrBourbons

I found that I managed to get plenty done first thing in the morning at the start of this month. I work during the day, so can't get any done then. I had been writing some more in the evenings, but this past week has been a real slog. I've been ill and after that not in the mood at the end of the day, so I'm hoping I can get back on this horse. I'm so close to 25k that I just need a nudge over to keep going.


----------



## sarahdalton

Endi Webb said:


> I whole-heartedly endorse morning writing. I just started a few weeks ago, writing on the treaddesk for an hour before work, and it's changed my life. I have more energy during the day, I seem to write faster in the morning, and by the time I "sit down" at my desk at night for my regular writing session, it feels so good knowing I've already knocked out 1-1.5k words of my goal.
> Ok, starting my morning session now--DIE, WIFI! DIE!!!!111!


It seems to be working for you! 48k, wow!

I managed about 1800 words today. I might do a bit more later, but I'm really not in the mood at all.

On the plus side, what I wrote today I consider to be of a higher quality than what I wrote yesterday. I know nano is all about the word count, but that is a big deal, I think.


----------



## Nicole5102

sarahdalton said:


> On the plus side, what I wrote today I consider to be of a higher quality than what I wrote yesterday. I know nano is all about the word count, but that is a big deal, I think.


I agree with you Sarah. If I'm putting down lots of crappy sentences then what is the point?

I got 974 words done this morning early. Plan to finish up and go over my regular count later today. First, though, I need more coffee!!


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Did anyone notice that today's NaNo pep talk was from Bella Andre? 

Those yellow boxes are making me twitchy again. Gotta go.

Oh, and Dalya, those 'social events', we just do them to prove we're not reclusive sociopaths, right?


----------



## dalya

N. Gemini Sasson said:


> ...
> Oh, and Dalya, those 'social events', we just do them to prove we're not reclusive sociopaths, right?


Saved by the bell! My friend is a writer and we're supposed to write during the day. (Not bloody likely, but we'll see...)

I agree with morning writing. I've been withholding my morning coffee until I'm done my first-thing internet stuff, then I have to start writing. (That time is now, because I do not rise early.)


----------



## willswardstrom

Got over 3,000 in yesterday. Haven't had time to write today yet (silly regular job). 

Passed 20K last night.


----------



## Gone To Croatan

Was aiming for 30,000, but I have to work on a short story instead so I won't quite make it. Still, another couple of thousand down, and the werewolf fetishist girl got some action.


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

Passed 50k! Now I can tell all my friends I won nanowrimo, right? And then they'll smile and nod politely, and edge slowly away. 

Passed 4k for the day. Aiming for 75k for this novel.
I don't know why I didn't do this the last few years. Seeing all those little green squares is like crack. *shakes fist at last sunday


----------



## dalya

Endi Webb said:


> Passed 50k! Now I can tell all my friends I won nanowrimo, right? And then they'll smile and nod politely, and edge slowly away.
> 
> Passed 4k for the day. Aiming for 75k for this novel.
> I don't know why I didn't do this the last few years. Seeing all those little green squares is like crack. *shakes fist at last sunday


Yeah? Well I showered today and put on clean clothes. Did you?


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

Mimi said:


> Yeah? Well I showered today and put on clean clothes. Did you?


*Looks down*.

No, ma'am.


----------



## Nicole5102

I consumed caffeine ALL day long. Which is why I'm now up at 1:10 am, about to go back to writing. because sleep is a joke.


----------



## sarahdalton

It's 6:56am here. 

Let's do this!


----------



## 60865

Bed time on this side of the pond.
Have a productive morning!


----------



## sarahdalton

Olivia - Lady_O said:


> Bed time on this side of the pond.
> Have a productive morning!


Fingers crossed!


----------



## Guest

Endi Webb said:


> Passed 50k! Now I can tell all my friends I won nanowrimo, right? And then they'll smile and nod politely, and edge slowly away.
> 
> Passed 4k for the day. Aiming for 75k for this novel.
> I don't know why I didn't do this the last few years. Seeing all those little green squares is like crack. *shakes fist at last sunday


Makes me want to put word count widgets on my site year round. I certainly feel more productive this month.


----------



## legion

Got a late start this year--did a whole lot of nothing the first week, then started to work in earnest to try to catch up on Sunday (11/10). Currently at 8k so still lots of catching up to do, but I'm not worried; lots of time on my hands the next few days.  

I'm also completely 'pantsing' it for the first time, but the story has been grabbing and keeping my attention so far--at least for an hour or two each day. I keep letting it yank me wherever.
I have a backup project to work on and add words to in case I get stuck at some point though.

Still, I better set some kind of goal...let's see, I'll go for a 10k total before bed, then aim for 5k per day beginning with 11/13. 
With 40k left, the 50k goal could be met in 8 days (by 11/20).
Here goes!


----------



## pauldude000

I put in a hard day today. I wrote somewhere around five or six thousand words today, all total. I lost track of just how many. I think it was in the four thousands plus change when I started, and now it is 10,350. 

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me this was a good day.


----------



## Jd488

Yesterday started off VERY slow. By 5pm, I had 400 words in. Luckily, I got into a quick groove and ended up with 1,069 words. The total for the month is now at 20,450.


----------



## cecilia_writer

I managed to reach 25,000 words this morning. I am on holiday from work this week so I thought I might get more done than usual, but I seem to write more effectively when my writing is crammed in between other stuff than when I have most of the day to do it! If it's a work day I usually get up half an hour early during NaNo and write 500 words before I go to work, then I write another 500 or so at lunchtime and then the rest of the day's word count after my evening meal. This week I have my computer on most of the day with my novel file open, and just add a bit more when I feel like it (or when the cats are having a rest - one of them likes to go in and out a lot).
I looked at the 25,000th word and it was 'a' so you can guess how riveting this novel is so far!


----------



## sarahdalton

It's 1pm here and I've managed 4000 words so far.  

I'm feeling pretty spent but I might go for a leeetle bit more later if I can manage it. 31k in now. Woop!


----------



## 60865

back to the grindstone.... Good morning all!


----------



## 69959

Much better day today. 2121 words and I even stopped ten minutes early. The plot is picking up and I'm finally feeling the direction that it needs to go. I'm 38.5k words in with a goal of 95-100k - not this month. I'm a nano rebel, having started the novel before and will finish it next month.

Anyone else having a difficult time writing outside of the scheduled writing time? I don't have a lot of time for writing during the day, but when I do, I have less than no desire to start writing. 4-6am no problem. 1pm big problem.



Endi Webb said:


> Passed 50k! Now I can tell all my friends I won nanowrimo, right? And then they'll smile and nod politely, and edge slowly away.


Congratulations! Great work!


----------



## Hugh Howey

I'm sitting on 49,218 words. A 2-hour train ride across Italy tonight should get me across the line. Aiming for 80K in total, though.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Hugh Howey said:


> I'm sitting on 49,218 words. A 2-hour train ride across Italy tonight should get me across the line. Aiming for 80K in total, though.


You're missing all the scenery, Hugh.

So, is anyone else out there judging time by 'Words remaining'? It took me ten minutes this morning to remember what day of the week it was.


----------



## Incognita

2,480 yesterday, and passed 30K. I'm really hoping I'll be able to get the whole thing done this month.


----------



## sarahdalton

Hugh Howey said:


> I'm sitting on 49,218 words. A 2-hour train ride across Italy tonight should get me across the line. Aiming for 80K in total, though.


I once went on a train from Florence to Rome. Dear God they go like a bat out of hell! I don't know how you can concentrate, I had to hold on to the side of the train and hope for the best!

We do have quite slow trains in England, though, so it could just be me...


----------



## 60865

Writing in European trains is fine, the seats are comfy and the tablets wide enough.
I tried writing in the plane between Paris and Atlanta and the space between the seats is so narrow that it's difficult to keep the laptop flat. Maybe in business...


----------



## dkgould

sarahdalton said:


> We do have quite slow trains in England, though, so it could just be me...


Ha! You think yours are slow, try Thailand!


----------



## cecilia_writer

I love long train journeys especially in mainland Europe - French trains are the best in my experience.
I usually find I have trouble with my eyes, but that's probably caused by extreme old age! I wrote on a train last Friday for a while but I had brought the wrong glasses with me - I wear varifocals for every day and my netbook was at the wrong angle for them to work at screen distance, if that makes sense. I must remember to take my reading glasses next time.


----------



## Zelah Meyer

I'm having a major NaNo-fail at the moment.  

Sleepless nights, an ill toddler, and "Oh, I forgot to mention..." social engagements have taken a big chunk out of the month.  Probably mostly my fault though!

I shall try to get something done this month, but I don't think I'll hit the 50k.


----------



## dkgould

Zelah Meyer said:


> I'm having a major NaNo-fail at the moment.
> 
> Sleepless nights, an ill toddler, and "Oh, I forgot to mention..." social engagements have taken a big chunk out of the month. Probably mostly my fault though!
> 
> I shall try to get something done this month, but I don't think I'll hit the 50k.


I hear you, sick twins over here too. Try not to think of it as hitting the overall goal, it gets overwhelming (especially when you are behind)- just think of it in chunks, can I do 500 words in the next hour? Can I get the daily goal done? Reward yourself for smaller goals (10,000 words, 20,000 words, etc.) Even if you don't hit 50k you'll still be much closer to a new book than you were when the month started, and you can't get discouraged about that!

Hope your baby feels better soon! it's so hard when they are sick at that age, there's not a heck of a lot you can do to make them feel better and they don't understand why you can't make it better. My boys have been looking at me all week as if they were saying, "Why are you doing this to us mommy?" and it breaks my heart


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

It's so hard to write at all when you have little ones at home, let alone hit 50K in a month. Hang in there, both of you. Hope the kiddos feel better soon!


----------



## 60865

Someone sent me this for motivation :
http://nanocountdown.com/
It freaked the hell out of me!


----------



## Zelah Meyer

dkgould said:


> I hear you, sick twins over here too. Try not to think of it as hitting the overall goal, it gets overwhelming (especially when you are behind)- just think of it in chunks, can I do 500 words in the next hour? Can I get the daily goal done? Reward yourself for smaller goals (10,000 words, 20,000 words, etc.) Even if you don't hit 50k you'll still be much closer to a new book than you were when the month started, and you can't get discouraged about that!
> 
> Hope your baby feels better soon! it's so hard when they are sick at that age, there's not a heck of a lot you can do to make them feel better and they don't understand why you can't make it better. My boys have been looking at me all week as if they were saying, "Why are you doing this to us mommy?" and it breaks my heart


Ouch! I can't imagine trying to deal with two of them!

I agree, there's few things worse than not being able to help your child when they are ill and unhappy. 

Hope your two are soon on the mend.


----------



## Incognita

3,115 today. I always like the days when I can hit 3K. (No sick kids over here...just a slightly needy dog.)


----------



## Guest

I went back and read through parts 1 and 2 today, editing a bit and moving stuff around.  I know they so don't do much of that, but at some point you have to start whipping things into shape.  

I cut out all the chapter headings and made a 1 paragraph outline under each, even for those that have been written.  That helped me type up a bit on the chapters, and now I've got a real detailed structure to follow the rest of the way.  So do those outline words count?  I'd say they're about 750 or so.


----------



## 69959

Another good day. 2164 words. Love it when everything flows.


----------



## RinG

I only just managed to hit 10k (all up, not in one day!) today, and I don't even have the excuse of a sick kid. Just a busy one, who leaves little room for writing!

I'm just keeping plodding on, and reminding myself that all words are good words...


----------



## Guest

You might remember a few months ago I was transferred to a different department at my day job after my employer closed our assembly operations. Well, my new supervisor took me to lunch to welcome me to the team, and during that conversation the subject of books came up and that I publish. I never knew she was an avid reader, and she has two Kindles and a Nook in her household. So I gave her copies of two of my books (after confirming that she liked horror and wouldn't hold the content against me). But I never heard anything after that.

So yesterday she came over to my desk while I was on my lunch hour and asked me what I was doing. I told her I was just working on my NaNoWriMo project. Which lead to her asking what that was and me explaining it is a writing challenge to write a novel in one month. She asked if it was a sequel to one of the other books because she really enjoyed them. I resisted the urge to tell her to go write a review in that case.

So I told her it was based on characters from some short stories I had published, but they weren't horror stories but contemporary fantasy.

"Oh, I like contemporary fantasy," she said. "I have my Kindle." Which of course translates to "So I get free copies, right?"

So I gave her free copies of the Nancy Werlock three short stories I have out.

This morning, I'm fairly caught up on all of my work, so I went to her to see if there were any projects she needed me to work on.

"If you don't have anything to do you can work on Houston's [character in the book] book," she said.

"I was going to do that during lunch," I replied.

"As long as your regular work is done you can go ahead and work on the book under two conditions."

"Oh? Cool! Um, what are the conditions?"

"I get to read it before you publish it."

"Fair enough."

"And you have to promise nothing bad happens to Houston."

*Blink* *blink* "Can you define 'bad' here?"

You remember the face Kathy Bates made in _Misery_ when she learned the content of the book?

Yeah.

"Houston will be fine."

So, yeah, on the bright side I have permission from my boss to work on my project during the work day. The bad news is she never really explained what she means by "bad" so&#8230;


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> So, yeah, on the bright side I have permission from my boss to work on my project during the work day. The bad news is she never really explained what she means by "bad" so&#8230;


That is really cool, Julie! Your boss is a fan.


----------



## Guest

N. Gemini Sasson said:


> That is really cool, *****! Your boss is a fan.


So long as she doesn't become my "#1 fan" I should be fine


----------



## Clark Magnan

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> So, yeah, on the bright side I have permission from my boss to work on my project during the work day. The bad news is she never really explained what she means by "bad" so&#8230;


That's all kind of terrific. Now, do you seriously maim Houston the next time raises are discussed and suggest he might recover completely if and only if ...?


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Clark Magnan said:


> That's all kind of terrific. Now, do you seriously maim Houston the next time raises are discussed and suggest he might recover completely if and only if ...?


Holding the characters hostage. Clever!


----------



## Incognita

2,000 today. Wanted to write more, but I was out running around most of the day.


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

Phone call from a beta reader to spend 1.5 hours discussing what he thought of the book = less writing time for Endi. Endi sad. More words....


----------



## dalya

Keep writing, guys. Keep writing. Tomorrow/today is Friday, the half-way point.

MUSH, PUPPIES!


----------



## sarahdalton

Oh my goodness, you guys have been beavering away! I'm so not in the mood today after a bad night's sleep. Must. Press. On.


----------



## Jd488

Made it halfway to the 50,000 word goal yesterday! I wrote 3,266 words, bringing the total to 25,035. There's plenty of story left to write.


----------



## 69959

2349 words today, bringing me to a total of 27027, which isn't too bad since I had two days at less than 200 words.


----------



## Incognita

3,1015 today. It started out as one of those, "Oh, God, I don't want to do this, crap, have I only written 752 words so far, kill me now" days and then...it got better.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Wow, you guys are killing it! And I see a couple at least have already made the 50K. Are you going to take a break now and let the rest of us catch up? No? Oh, all right. Keep up the great work!


----------



## WG McCabe

I am way behind but I have decided to really do a push this weekend and make NaNoWriMo my monkey.


----------



## Nicole5102

Don't know what happened to my day, but it's 11:36 pm and I am just sitting down to write...not good. This weekend I plan to get ahead of the game. Nothing planned socially so I'm going to be my writer-hermit self. I'm not giving up!


----------



## dalya

"One more scene, one more scene."

<Crouches in corner, making snarling noises.>


----------



## Nicole5102

Congrats Mimi on your numbers - over 51k is terrific!


----------



## Guest

Spent this afternoon going back and changing a lot of the NAME, BARGIRL, STREET, BUILDING, MAN to actual proper nouns.  I've been using Google Maps a lot to put in specific streets for my chase scenes and just as little filler details while driving around and such.  There's a line between putting in too much detail, and maybe I have at some points.


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

Ugh ... sick kids, busy saturday, a clear wifi signal with FB and Utube and kboards calling ... it must be the third week funk.

Coming up on 2500 words for the day. Hopefully the kids can get to sleep so I can lay down a fresh pile of steaming words later tonight.


----------



## Incognita

3,035 today. I'm actually kind of starting to like this book....


----------



## dkgould

Lost internet today- best writing day I've had in a bit!!  Think I'll hit 5000 before the end of the day (although the internet is back now so . . . )


----------



## Clark Magnan

Why my wife is the coolest:

Wife: You want to watch a movie or something tonight?
Me: I can't. The words.
Wife: The words must flow.
Me: The words must flow.

Then we nod at each other and I go to my desk to hit my word count.


----------



## Lisa Grace

Sorry I haven't been checking in here, but yay, I'm right on target with 26,001 words in. I still have an hour and half to finish the next 665, so while I'm "just on target" I'm really happy with the flow, and my story is coming along great. Not to mention I've been on antibiotics and steroids for the last week for a sinus infection that went into my bronchial tube.


----------



## dalya

Epilogue written. And that book is done. Now I just have to revise, which will add some words, then start something new ... immediately? I don't like the idea of having red boxes on my calendar.


----------



## WG McCabe

I have tons of red boxes on my calendar. It's been a crappy month, work-wise. Started the evening with 8500 words already written and am now sitting at 12900 words. My goal for the weekend was to do 10,000 words, so I need 5600 on Sunday to make it. But I am going to shoot for 6100 to get me to 19K heading into the last 13 days.


----------



## Guest

Mimi said:


> Epilogue written. And that book is done. Now I just have to revise, which will add some words, then start something new ... immediately? I don't like the idea of having red boxes on my calendar.


I've been thinking about that too. That's why I'm glad I've got another ten thousand or so to go. But what about those days when I'm ready to edit? All of a sudden that little calendar isn't looking so hot. I guess we could always start taking them down. No!


----------



## RinG

I'm so far behind it's beginning to seem impossible to catch up. Didn't even bother to write today, I just couldn't summon the energy. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day...


----------



## 69959

Got 2313 words this morning, despite still being sick. I'm finally learning to let the typos sit, and not fix them during my writing time. My total words for the month is 30,897. 

The book is almost at the 47k mark, and it's the last in the series (of four) and I'm beginning to worry about wrapping everything up. Suddenly 100k words seems too small.


----------



## elusya

Hey everyone, so nice to come on here and see people chugging away. I hit problems in one of my outlines and am so far behind on that novel. The other one is doing a bit better but I haven't yet hit the halfway goal. Would love to catch up with 7k words today. 

Just saw all that red on my calenders. i have so many words to catch up on.


----------



## MarchMarg

Hi everyone, nice to see people have made it past 50k already. It's amazing that even falling behind one day can be a real setback. It's gonna be amazing word count days from now on!!!


----------



## Guest

elusya said:


> Hey everyone, so nice to come on here and see people chugging away. I hit problems in one of my outlines and am so far behind on that novel. The other one is doing a bit better but I haven't yet hit the halfway goal. Would love to catch up with 7k words today.
> 
> Just saw all that red on my calenders. i have so many words to catch up on.


I saw your two calendars when we started a couple weeks ago and wondered how that would go for you.

I thin NaNo comes down to 95% discipline and 5% talent.


----------



## Hugh Howey

Greg Strandberg said:


> I thin NaNo comes down to 95% discipline and 5% talent.


So true. The same could be said for writing in general. Or most things.

Think about how much latent talent will never go recognized because our greatest geniuses failed to hone their natural skills or take the time to express them. What we see are the works from the motivated far more than the works from the gifted.


----------



## Nicole5102

I'm not sure how gifted I am, but I do know I'm motivated. Some days more than others, however. I seem to write in spurts, like a couple days off and then the next days will be very long writing days. Participating in NaNoWriMo has made me try to write every day and it feels like using a muscle I haven't used before. I'm hoping by the end of the month to have gotten it into shape.


----------



## Incognita

Nicole5102 said:


> Participating in NaNoWriMo has made me try to write every day and it feels like using a muscle I haven't used before. I'm hoping by the end of the month to have gotten it into shape.


That's exactly the way I feel. I have a pretty brutal release calendar shaping up for 2014, and I'm hoping by making myself write every single day no matter what, I'll get in the habit. My output when I do sit down to write isn't bad, but it does make a huge difference to do it every day.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Hugh Howey said:


> So true. The same could be said for writing in general. Or most things.
> 
> Think about how much latent talent will never go recognized because our greatest geniuses failed to hone their natural skills or take the time to express them. What we see are the works from the motivated far more than the works from the gifted.


I see this in athletes, too. Focus, discipline, commitment - they all trump sheer talent.

BTW, the husband is making dinner so I can write. I think I need to do this more often.


----------



## WG McCabe

I didn't make my complete goal but I DID manage to double the words I already had written. Knocked about 8000 words out in the last two days and I am finally on a good roll.


----------



## Incognita

2,500 today. I probably should have done more but was having too much fun playing around in Adobe Muse.


----------



## Jd488

I wrote over 2,000 words today and broke the 30,000 word mark. So far, I'm on pace to finish the first draft before the end of the month.


----------



## WG McCabe

I don't know why I chose this story to write about this month. It's semi autobiographical and in writing the novel I am bringing up and dwelling on a lot of bad crap (well, at least bad to me). It's rough.


----------



## Guest

Patrick Szabo said:


> I didn't make my complete goal but I DID manage to double the words I already had written. Knocked about 8000 words out in the last two days and I am finally on a good roll.


A nice row of green will look real nice, and I think you can do it this week.


----------



## WG McCabe

Thanks Greg. I agree, a row of green will look awesome. This thing is going over 50K, though, so I am going to have to use the Thanksgiving holiday to get a really big push.


----------



## ElleChambers

I took a day off today since I spent the last five days completing my first horror novella. 35,000 words done, 15,000 to go on my second project (three short stories). I should be able to do this if I can resist editing the novella.


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

2700 so far. Had some toast and chocolate milk (and managed _not_ to put it in a sippy cup out of habit). Making one more push on the treaddesk to make it a clean 4k.

Only 5% talent, huh? Man, I've got this writing thing nailed!


----------



## dalya

Greg Strandberg said:


> ...
> I think NaNo comes down to 95% discipline and 5% talent.


I don't believe it. I don't think people write 50,000 words in a month if they don't have _some _belief in their talent. Fake modesty is tiresome. Let's all just admit we are awesome, okay?


----------



## WG McCabe

You're pretty brassy for a Canadian.




For the record, I've been with a Canadian girl for 14 years. I love Canuckleheads.


----------



## 69959

I got 1755 this morning. Today getting the words was a struggle because I'm still sick (ugh) and I hadn't planned for today's scene. It didn't flow well, but it picked up and hopefully tomorrow will flow.


----------



## Nicole5102

I can't seem to settle today. I write 500 words, then suddenly jump up and wash dishes, or cook or something like that. Then I sit back down at the computer and write another 500 words. It's adding up, but it isn't, unfortunately, like being in the zone. I wish all writing was like being in the zone. I love the writing zone when it flows like magic.


----------



## Guest

I've probably done a couple things that are going to hurt me going forward.

First, I submitted my first two finished parts to the Kindle Serials program.  That makes me want to stop writing and wait.  Not good.
Second, I started working on a new book about SEO.  That's really taking a lot of disparate blog posts and adding, combining, and bundling.  Still, not NaNo.

I guess the real question is how to keep those green boxes coming for the next 12 days.  Would I be alright with yellow?  Could I live with myself?


----------



## Incognita

2,635 today. If I REALLY push tomorrow, I might be able to hit 50K. We'll see. (Not that the book will be done. But it'll be nice to prove that little graph that keeps telling me I'll be done on the 20th wrong.)


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

ChristinePope said:


> (Not that the book will be done. But it'll be nice to prove that little graph that keeps telling me I'll be done on the 20th wrong.)


It's kind of like that little box on your GPS that says: 'Estimated time of arrival'. I'm always trying to beat that.


----------



## SVD

971 tonight - I think I'm doomed.


----------



## dalya

I'm editing right now, and I have to revise for MANY hours to have my word count go up.


----------



## I do not consent

Endi Webb said:


> 2700 so far. Had some toast and chocolate milk (and managed _not_ to put it in a sippy cup out of habit). Making one more push on the treaddesk to make it a clean 4k.
> 
> Only 5% talent, huh? Man, I've got this writing thing nailed!


Ha ha. 5% - I was thinking the same thing.
Is it difficult to write with the treaddesk?


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

J. B. Bouman said:


> Is it difficult to write with the treaddesk?


The first few days were a little weird, but now it feels completely normal: it's just the way I write. In the last 2.5 weeks, I've walked 150 miles in 50 hours, lost 5 pounds, and written 72k words. I can't believe I didn't do this a year ago when I first heard about them. My energy during the day has gone _way_ up, and while I don't write any faster (maybe like 20% faster), I do think better when I'm exercising regularly which means there's less "down time" when I'm trying to write.

Treaddesk: Three thumbs up.

Trying to finish up this novel tonight by going through all the little notes I left to myself over the past few weeks. I'll get an idea in the later stages of a book and write a scene, but realize that I never really motivated that scene or introduced that minor character, so now is the time I go back and fill in all those details. But this stage of writing always means lower word count: I hear ya, Dalya.

And then tomorrow I start all over again. Oh baby.


----------



## 60865

Mimi said:


> I don't believe it. I don't think people write 50,000 words in a month if they don't have _some _belief in their talent. Fake modesty is tiresome. Let's all just admit we are awesome, okay?


Yep, we're all awesome and amazing and talented and ... perseverant too.
Let's hang in there.


----------



## quiet chick writes

I wrote 3000 words today! I never thought I'd ever write that much in one day! 

And I can honestly say that at least 14 of those words are really, really good, lol!  

Last week, life plowed over my NaNo with a truck, so I've got a lot to catch up on. Nearly broke 20K, but I think I used up all the words I had in my brain. Need to crash now. 

Congrats to everyone who's passed 50K already! That's very impressive!


----------



## Jd488

Yesterday, I had my best day so far this month, writing 4,005 words. The total word count is up to 34,127. My book, Second Chance, is now in Chapter 37.


----------



## sarahdalton

I broke the 40k word barrier this morning but I'm really struggling today. I have a scene where some of my characters need to help another character escape. I hate these scenes because I always lack 'heist' imagination. They usually end up doing something cliched like using a disguise or sneaking around at night.


----------



## dkgould

sarahdalton said:


> I broke the 40k word barrier this morning but I'm really struggling today. I have a scene where some of my characters need to help another character escape. I hate these scenes because I always lack 'heist' imagination. They usually end up doing something cliched like using a disguise or sneaking around at night.


 Never underestimate the tunnel. Except air ducts. You'll fall right through. Or bribery. That's a good one.

Entering the obsessed phase now, which gets really confusing. Started having plot dreams the past few nights- which would be great, because it would mean I just have to type, except I keep having to go back and look at what I've ACTUALLY written down versus what I dreamed I wrote down. I don't like it when my head is fifteen scenes ahead of my fingers, it slows everything down and makes me panic that I'm forgetting something!


----------



## sarahdalton

dkgould said:


> Never underestimate the tunnel. Except air ducts. You'll fall right through. Or bribery. That's a good one.
> 
> Entering the obsessed phase now, which gets really confusing. Started having plot dreams the past few nights- which would be great, because it would mean I just have to type, except I keep having to go back and look at what I've ACTUALLY written down versus what I dreamed I wrote down. I don't like it when my head is fifteen scenes ahead of my fingers, it slows everything down and makes me panic that I'm forgetting something!


Oh crap. I wrote a novella a while back that involves air-duct sneaking. Damn, they'll just have to be the super-strength kind that exist in my world.

This one is set in a forest and is infiltrating a secretive community. I've still not quite decided, but it does so far involve a prince dying his hair using dye created by the leaves of a made up tree (it's a fantasy story so I can do that, yay for fantasies!).

Dreaming about typing is a new one! I know what you mean about looking back though. I keep forgetting the names of the places I've made up, so I just put in a little indicator for me to check it when I edit. There are a LOT of those this time around. Editing is going to be fun!


----------



## 69959

I got 1955 words in this morning. It turned into an action scene, so I think that helped. That and feeling a little better. Now if I can get through the last read-through of my holiday novel that I want to publish by the 28th.


----------



## Incognita

3,665 today, and I passed 50K! But no rest for the wicked...there's a lot more book to write before I'm done.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

ChristinePope said:


> 3,665 today, and I passed 50K! But no rest for the wicked...there's a lot more book to write before I'm done.


I'm jealous - all your boxes are green. Way to hit the mark, Christine!


----------



## Guest

Another night of floundering around.  I've really lost most of my steam after getting over that 50,000 mark.

...a few hours later.

I managed to get things going pretty well.  Finally tackled this flashback sequence that spans three parts and plays a pivotal part at the climax.  Of course I had no idea how this would go, and there are still some loose ends, but it's much further than it was.

And I finally got to use that line I wanted - "you should have stayed in the car."


----------



## 69959

Congrats to everyone who already hit 50k! My novel is at almost 53k, but I started the book before nano. 

I got 2196 today. It took longer to get my words, an unexpected poisoning threw off my plans.


----------



## Incognita

Stacy Claflin said:


> It took longer to get my words, an unexpected poisoning threw off my plans.


Of you or a character??


----------



## sarahdalton

3.5k done for me today. That means I'm up to 44,600k for nanowrimo and a whopping 58k for my book (I started it before nano). I've guestimated the book to be between 70-80k so that means I could have finished the first draft by the end of the month. Woop!


----------



## Zelah Meyer

I managed 194 words at the start of the month and haven't written any more yet!  I decided that it was more important to finish the pre-editor edits on my novel.

I finally got that done and e-mailed off tonight (yay!   ) - so I plan to get back to NaNoWriMo tomorrow and see what I can manage to get done by the end of the month.  I don't expect that I'll manage the 50,000 (I'd have to write 5,000 a day to manage that, and I very much doubt my son will give me that much time and space!) but I hope to manage 10,000 to 20,000 words.

Well done to everyone who has already finished & good luck to everyone who hasn't!


----------



## dalya

I'm revising now, and thus only inching up 700 words a day. I like revising, though. It's just work. I don't get as worked up over it as I do with the first draft and the Scary Blank Page.


----------



## Incognita

Just 2,050 today, probably because I was too busy checking my sales all day because of my BookBub ad.


----------



## Clark Magnan

ChristinePope said:


> Just 2,050 today, probably because I was too busy checking my sales all day because of my BookBub ad.


Ooo ... exciting! 

Still chugging along. Few days from 50K.


----------



## WG McCabe

Pro Tip: When trying to catch up on the ol' word count for NaNoWriMo DO NOT buy a new guitar.


----------



## Nicole5102

I got over 4k words written today and it feels damn good. Now to keep that pace going...


----------



## Sarah M

I think it's official I am a NaNoWriMo dropout.   Again.


----------



## Marcella

I am late to the party, but I'm de-lurking to make a confession.  This is the first time I sat down to write for twenty days in a row...


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

Marcella said:


> I am late to the party, but I'm de-lurking to make a confession. This is the first time I sat down to write for twenty days in a row...


Confession is good for the soul. Now as penance, do it again.
(Good job!)


----------



## Jd488

After falling off the wagon for a day, I wrote 2,665 words, bring the total to 36,797. Chapter 40 is about to begin.


----------



## WG McCabe

Edward M. Grant said:


> I got distracted by Saints Row 4. I also let one of the other guys at work move computers around, so I was there until 7:30pm figuring out which cables were connected wrong (hint to computer manufacturers: the green light should only light up when cables are connected right ) .


It's easy to do, man.


----------



## sarahdalton

I feel like I've been distracted by the entirety of the internet this morning. Only 2 paragraphs down so far.


----------



## 69959

ChristinePope said:


> Of you or a character??


My character! Sorry, I probably should have been more clear about that! 

This morning, I only got 1009 words. I way overslept between being sick and having a kid wake up in the middle of the night. I'll have to try to get the rest of my words later today.


----------



## Incognita

Another 3,000 today. I was worried about not feeling motivated after hitting 50K, but I think my real motivation is to finish the darn thing. (Also, I don't want any little red boxes on my calendar!)


----------



## Nicole5102

Hit 40k earlier tonight. Woohoo!  
Then I discovered a major plot problem. Boohoo.


----------



## Guest

Endi Webb said:


> Confession is good for the soul. Now as penance, do it again.
> (Good job!)


You're really pumping those words out. Weren't you just at 60 thousand something a couple days ago!


----------



## dalya

I finished the writing and revising the WIP (which I started in October). Now I guess I'll see how many red boxes in a row I can stand.

EDIT: I'm posting my calendar in here and taking it out of my signature. I need to take some time off, since I got my project done early. I don't want those red boxes in my signature stressing me out!


----------



## sarahdalton

I've got just over 3000 words to do before 50k. I hope I can do it today!

I think there's about 10-15k left of the manuscript though, so hopefully I can finish the entire draft by the end of next week. I've never managed to carry on after hitting 50k before so this will be a first for me.


----------



## sarahdalton

Woohoo, just hit 50k! *Dances* 

I feel like I can chill out a bit now and finish the rest of the WIP at an easier pace. I'm really looking forward to my free hardback from Lulu though. That's going to be cool as!


----------



## 69959

I got 1693 this morning. I'd like to get the 50k before Thanksgiving, but I'm going to have to start writing a lot more to make that happen.


----------



## quiet chick writes

Are you guys writing on Thanksgiving? I think, considering I have no chance of making 50K, I'll probably take the day off.  

My revised goal for the end of the month is 40K.


----------



## MrBourbons

Ugh. I started so well this month, pelting into the distance like a whippet. I wrote consistently for the first six days. Then two separate illnesses and one for my son destroyed all the writing ability I had. This last week has seen attempts finishing in double and triple figures.

Regardless, I want to hit 50k this month even if it doesn't mean my novel is perfect or needs numerous patches in places. I've managed over 2k tonight, and I've resolved the outstanding outlines for the upcoming sections. I've finished 7 chapters (of a projected 12) and am not far off 33k. Finishing it now will mean keeping the same pace of about 2,150 words per day for the rest of the month. I hope I can do it. It'll be hard, but I need something good to pick me back up.

Congratulations to those who have already hit 50k too!


----------



## Marcella

2,271 for me today...I'm chugging along.


----------



## Incognita

Laura Rae Amos said:


> Are you guys writing on Thanksgiving? I think, considering I have no chance of making 50K, I'll probably take the day off.


I'm planning to. It's just the hubby and me (I refuse to travel for Thanksgiving...what a nightmare!), and he has the main duty of smoking the turkey, so I should have plenty of time to write. I hope.

Another 3,010 today.


----------



## Clark Magnan

Yeah, I plan to write on Thanksgiving, thought I'm not sure yet I like the idea. I'm more concerned about the plans I have to tile a room during the four day break. I can cook a turkey while writing, but can I grout? 

Over 2,000 today. I should be at 50K by Thanksgiving, so I might change my mind and take a break.


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

Greg Strandberg said:


> You're really pumping those words out. Weren't you just at 60 thousand something a couple days ago!


I slowed down when I finished book one and went straight on to book two. To prepare for nano I had a nice plan for book 1, but nothing for book 2, so the first few days I had no idea where I was going with it. For this series I want to get a bunch written before I go back and edit them, that way I can tie stuff from later books back to the earlier ones.



Laura Rae Amos said:


> Are you guys writing on Thanksgiving? I think, considering I have no chance of making 50K, I'll probably take the day off.
> 
> My revised goal for the end of the month is 40K.


I think I will, but I won't push myself. I think after a 2000 calorie meal my treaddesk will look irresistable.


----------



## ZanaHart

I finished my first cozy mystery during the July NaNo camp, and got it up on Kindle and Createspace late in Sept... it needed a LOT of tweaking after July. I wasn't exactly pantsing but my plotting was minimal and chaotic. Anyway, for this NaNo I am about 42,000 words into my second one, and I tried a different tack with it, spending a good bit of time in October on my plot outline in Scrivener. So I had a good idea where I was going when I began writing on November 1. I know I'll finish writing by the end of the month, but I may finish what I've got plotted at too few words and need to do more description. At present, it's too strong on dialogue!

I use the NaNoWriMo website to keep track of my word count progress and sometimes to read their pep talks, but I haven't gotten onto their forums. Nobody else doing it that I know of in my town.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Laura Rae Amos said:


> Are you guys writing on Thanksgiving? I think, considering I have no chance of making 50K, I'll probably take the day off.


Not me. After ignoring my family (okay, husband, the kids are away at college), they deserve my undivided attention. Running a 5K at 8.am. that morning, then dinner at our place, maybe a movie.

I should hit 50K this Sunday, then I plan to take it easy for a few days. I'm going to be soooo glad to see the chiropractor Monday afternoon after so much sitting. I have a treadmill desk, too, but my word count goes way down when I use it. I find I can edit well enough while walking. Writing at top speed, not so much.


----------



## Lisa Grace

I fell behind on Tuesday.  I had to take my daughter to the ER after they tossed her in the air (she's a flyer) on her cheer team, and threw her over the heads of the catchers. She fell seven feet, and the doctors thought she had cracked some vertebrae. I spent my evening in three different ER rooms while they took x-rays.
She just has a back sprain, but I wasn't home for most of two days, then I was emotionally drained from the strain. (Pun intended.)
I'm at 32,043. I can catch up with 3k a day...so I'm off to get crackin'.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Lisa, nothing is as important as being with your family when they need you. I hope your daughter mends quickly. I can't imagine how frightening that would have been. Hugs.


----------



## Guest

LisaGraceBooks said:


> I fell behind on Tuesday.  I had to take my daughter to the ER after they tossed her in the air (she's a flyer) on her cheeer team, and threw her over the ehads of the catchers. She fell seven feet, and the doctors thought she had cracked some vertebrae. I spent my evening in three different ER rooms while they took x-rays.
> She just has a back sprain, but I wasn't home for most of two days, then I was emotionally drained from the strain. (Pun intended.)
> I'm at 32,043. I can catch up with 3k a day...so I'm off to get crackin'.


I've seen news reports of cheerleaders becoming paralyzed in incidents like that. You must be relieved! It isn't just on the field that injuries can happen.


----------



## Sapphire

Lisa, how frightening was all that! I can't imagine. My kids had a few minor injuries growing up, but only two trips to the ER and neither was serious. I'm glad she's on the mend.


----------



## Incognita

Yikes, Lisa -- I'm glad to hear she's okay. That's really scary.  

4,030 today.


----------



## Shaun4

I started the month with a vacation, so I'm gradually climbing out of the hole all month. Here's my calendar to explain my fun:









But I'm hoping to be at 40K by Monday, and then I'll still have 5 days left for that final 10K. Should be manageable.


----------



## 69959

LisaGraceBooks said:


> I fell behind on Tuesday.  I had to take my daughter to the ER after they tossed her in the air (she's a flyer) on her cheeer team, and threw her over the ehads of the catchers. She fell seven feet, and the doctors thought she had cracked some vertebrae. I spent my evening in three different ER rooms while they took x-rays.
> She just has a back sprain, but I wasn't home for most of two days, then I was emotionally drained from the strain. (Pun intended.)
> I'm at 32,043. I can catch up with 3k a day...so I'm off to get crackin'.


I'm glad she's okay! That sounds scary. When my stepdaughter was in cheer, she almost ended up with a broken nose when the girl she was catching went down the wrong way.

As for Nano, today I'm dealing with the red box. The kids built forts out of leave piles and bushes, we got the lights up on the house, and started cleaning for Thanksgiving. So long as I get about 2k a day through Thanksgiving, I will still hit the goal with a couple days to spare. Then I'll still have 36k left before finishing my novel.


----------



## Guest

I've got about 6,300 words to go before this book's finished.  When that happens I'm just going to continue on into book 2 for the rest of the month.  I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up the momentum, but getting the basic structure and feel of that next story is important after being immersed in that world for the past 23 days now.  

I've gone through and given the first 3 parts proofreads, but I'll probably be going over them all a few more times.  The last few pieces are falling into place.


----------



## 60865

MrBourbons said:


> Regardless, I want to hit 50k this month even if it doesn't mean my novel is perfect or needs numerous patches in places. ...


Do we "win" if we reach 50 000 word count or does the work has to be finished. 
I'm asking because my story won't be done at 50, I think there's no way it can be wrapped up for the end of the month.


----------



## 60865

Oh good, then I have a chance.
Is there anyone left in Canada around you? 
Since yesterday there's more Canadian license plates in the Florida parking lots than American ones.


----------



## MrBourbons

Olivia - Lady_O said:


> Do we "win" if we reach 50 000 word count or does the work has to be finished.
> I'm asking because my story won't be done at 50, I think there's no way it can be wrapped up for the end of the month.


I had a rough aim of 12 chapters and 50k for my novel, but expected it to grow once I get round to editing. Like Edward M. Grant said, it's only about the word count and not finishing the book. I know for sure mine needs a lot of love, but it's about the consistent word count through November than managing to finish it.


----------



## cecilia_writer

I like to be able to write 'The End' at the end of my NaNo novel even if it isn't quite true. A couple of years ago I didn't have time to get to the end of the plot so just before I stopped writing for the month I wrote 'They didn't find out the whole story until much later. The End.'
I have a feeling that's the sort of stage I'm going to get to this time too. I'm at 47,000 words so the 50,000 word goal is in sight but I'm not exactly going to have the whole mystery solved by then. But that's ok.


----------



## 69959

I got 2624 this morning. Outlining first definitely helps with the word count!


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

I'm |thiiiiiis| close. I'd planned to finish today, but yesterday my husband and I decided to do a really long run, as in 20 miles, in preparation for our upcoming marathon and I was completely wiped out yesterday. Still recovering.

This is the first time I've ever written a story straight through. Usually I jump around a lot and edit more as I go along. While I know I'll have a lot of fixing to do later, the most valuable thing about NaNo is that it got me back in the habit of writing every day, which is something I'd gotten really lax about this past year.


----------



## Incognita

3,000 exactly today, which puts me a little past 65K.

And it's true -- getting those writing muscles in shape by doing it every day makes a huge difference.

(Although I'm probably going to be exhausted when this is all over and take at least a couple of days off to recharge my batteries.)


----------



## Clark Magnan

One more day and 50K is in the bag. I've failed NaNoWriMo so many times before this.

Though, yeah, as others have said, the book isn't done by a long shot. Probably needs about double that. Which doesn't sound so awful anymore. Though, uh, not another 50K next month, mostly likely.


----------



## Guest

Well it's after midnight so everyone who's passed 50,000 should see that they're now a winner.  5 days left, and anyone in the US might run into some problems with the holiday this week.


----------



## 69959

I'm on track to hit 50k Thanksgiving morning. I got 2105 this morning. As much as I hate getting up before 4:30, hitting 2k by 6:00 is a great feeling.


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

Finally have a decent outline and book 2 is starting to gel. But, uggh. I might have to go back and rewrite the first 15k words, cause its boooorrrring.



Clark Magnan said:


> One more day and 50K is in the bag. I've failed NaNoWriMo so many times before this.


Awesome! Feels great, doesn't it?


Stacy Claflin said:


> I'm on track to hit 50k Thanksgiving morning. I got 2105 this morning. As much as I hate getting up before 4:30, hitting 2k by 6:00 is a great feeling.


Go go go go! I can't imagine getting up at 4:30. I stand in awe of you. Almost there!


----------



## MrBourbons

After so many ups and downs I'm up to 37k now, and I've managed 3,487 today. In order to hit 50k I need an average of 2,500 for the next five days. Hell, I may even get some more done tonight!

I'm feeling pretty confident now. I really wasn't at the weekend - I was verging on giving up.


----------



## Incognita

Endi Webb said:


> I can't imagine getting up at 4:30. I stand in awe of you. Almost there!


I'm in awe, too. That part of my brain generally doesn't kick in until after lunch.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Made it! I was a little confused when I went to paste my words into the validator and nothing showed up. I exited from the page, tried again and voila!

I'm off soon to a much needed visit to the chiropractor (during which he'll probably chastise me for sitting for so long at a stretch every day). Coincidentally, I stopped right before the pivotal scene in my novel. I need to mull it over and maybe do some light editing before I tackle it. I plan to keep writing every day through the end of the month. I'm so close to being done now I can't stop!

It's been very helpful to be able to come here each day and check in. Seeing everyone's progress, and hearing about the bumps and challenges, have really kept me plowing forward.


----------



## Shaun4

Congrats everyone. I will probably be racing the clock on Saturday night to get in on time!


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

So what's the deal with the validator? I just update my word count at the top of the page. Is there a reason to use the validator other than to make sure my word counter is working alright?


----------



## 72263

I'm very impressed with those of you who have finished early! I'm still at 35K, but for me, it's not Nanowrimo without a sprint to the finish.


----------



## dkgould

Endi Webb said:


> So what's the deal with the validator? I just update my word count at the top of the page. Is there a reason to use the validator other than to make sure my word counter is working alright?


It's to verify you're a winner for all those nice goodies at the end (like free copies from createspace, half price on scrivener if you and everyone you know doesn't already have a copy, etc- I think there's like 13 prizes this year)

Dragging my butt across the finish line this year, started off so well too! Ah well, I'll get the 50,000 but I'll only be about halfway through this book- at least I'm halfway there instead of no ways there!


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

dkgould said:


> It's to verify you're a winner for all those nice goodies at the end (like free copies from createspace, half price on scrivener if you and everyone you know doesn't already have a copy, etc- I think there's like 13 prizes this year)


And that spiffy little 'Winner' badge. Which I forgot to download.


----------



## Lisa Grace

N. Gemini Sasson said:


> Lisa, nothing is as important as being with your family when they need you. I hope your daughter mends quickly. I can't imagine how frightening that would have been. Hugs.





Greg Strandberg said:


> I've seen news reports of cheerleaders becoming paralyzed in incidents like that. You must be relieved! It isn't just on the field that injuries can happen.





Sapphire said:


> Lisa, how frightening was all that! I can't imagine. My kids had a few minor injuries growing up, but only two trips to the ER and neither was serious. I'm glad she's on the mend.





ChristinePope said:


> Yikes, Lisa -- I'm glad to hear she's okay. That's really scary.
> 
> 4,030 today.





Stacy Claflin said:


> I'm glad she's okay! That sounds scary. When my stepdaughter was in cheer, she almost ended up with a broken nose when the girl she was catching went down the wrong way.
> 
> As for Nano, today I'm dealing with the red box. The kids built forts out of leave piles and bushes, we got the lights up on the house, and started cleaning for Thanksgiving. So long as I get about 2k a day through Thanksgiving, I will still hit the goal with a couple days to spare. Then I'll still have 36k left before finishing my novel.


Thank you for all the well wishes, prayers, and empathy.  It is scary letting your kid do things you know are dangerous, but it's something she loves. Her daddy is a daredevil and she's inherited that thrill seeking bug. (Which is so not me.)

I'm not quite caught up; I'm at 36,000+ but I'm going to write for a few more hours this evening, and should catch up in the next three days. I do plan on finishing with my 50K. I've never come this far and not finished.


----------



## Incognita

I only did 2,415 today, but I'm blaming it on doing piles of laundry, which sucks my will to live.  

Best of luck to everybody as we enter the home stretch!


----------



## 69959

Endi Webb said:


> Awesome! Feels great, doesn't it?Go go go go! I can't imagine getting up at 4:30. I stand in awe of you. Almost there!


Thank you. Is your goal 100k? Awesome job so far!



ChristinePope said:


> I'm in awe, too. That part of my brain generally doesn't kick in until after lunch.


Thanks. I just do what I have to. It's the only time I have to write. I used to struggle getting up before six. Started setting my alarm back little by little, and still do at times. I've trained myself to start writing when I get up. I can't do anything else that early! I also outline the night before, so I know what to write when I wake up.


----------



## 60865

Endi Webb said:


> So what's the deal with the validator? I just update my word count at the top of the page. Is there a reason to use the validator other than to make sure my word counter is working alright?


Yes you get to see a cute video and be virtually congratulated.
Also you can purchase a winner's teeshirt... 
I think there's something about the sponsors as well but I don't read the fine prints after office hours.

AND I DID IT ...  
I passed the 50K mark at 5 am and spent the day cleaning up stuff around my place. 
The story is not finished but I'm going to try to dream about something else tonight.


----------



## Guest

So when are we gonna take these dang calendars down?  I've only got about 3,000 words to go now, and I might not fill it up with all green this week.  I guess I should just take it down.   I certainly don't see as many in the forum as I once did.


----------



## 69959

I might take mine down tomorrow. It looks like I'll hit 50k then. I got 2232 this morning, giving me a grand total of 48,250 for the month.


----------



## Jd488

I'm going to hit 50,000 today, but I'm not sure if the story will be finished this week.


----------



## Nick Endi Webb

Greg Strandberg said:


> So when are we gonna take these dang calendars down? I've only got about 3,000 words to go now, and I might not fill it up with all green this week. I guess I should just take it down.  I certainly don't see as many in the forum as I once did.


I'm holding on to the bitter end. I worked hard for those green boxes, dang it.


----------



## Clark Magnan

Greg Strandberg said:


> So when are we gonna take these dang calendars down? I've only got about 3,000 words to go now, and I might not fill it up with all green this week. I guess I should just take it down.  I certainly don't see as many in the forum as I once did.


Yeah, I hit 50K last night (yay!) and this is where I would go back and edit my previous novel, which has been stewing in a drawer while NaNo kept me distracted. I'll probably take it down today; I've got my little certificate to replace it with.


----------



## Incognita

Endi Webb said:


> I'm holding on to the bitter end. I worked hard for those green boxes, dang it.


That's about how I feel, too.


----------



## 69959

I've decided that somehow, some way, I'm going to hit 50k today. It's a good day for it. It's the one year anniversary of publishing my first novel.


----------



## Incognita

Stacy Claflin said:


> I've decided that somehow, some way, I'm going to hit 50k today. It's a good day for it. It's the one year anniversary of publishing my first novel.


You're so close! You can do it!

Okay, and why is my stupid widget showing two red boxes in a row (for Tuesday AND Wednesday) when it's only Tuesday 


Never mind. I guess the NaNo servers hiccuped or something.


----------



## Clark Magnan

ChristinePope said:


> You're so close! You can do it!
> 
> Okay, and why is my stupid widget showing two red boxes in a row (for Tuesday AND Wednesday) when it's only Tuesday
> 
> 
> Never mind. I guess the NaNo servers hiccuped or something.


Yeah, mine did that a few times. It goes away.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson

Endi Webb said:


> I'm holding on to the bitter end. I worked hard for those green boxes, dang it.


You are fricking amazing, Endi! I don't know how you manage it all. That word count blows my mind.

I'm going for the holiday look in my calender now - green _and_ red. Too busy vacuuming up the life-sized dust bunnies that have accumulated this month to replace mine just yet. The great news is that as I'm moving furniture and pushing the Swiffer around, ideas for the scenes I skipped keep popping in my head. I may have a solid first draft by Christmas after all.


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## Incognita

Another 3,080 today, and I passed 70K. I was aiming for 80K for this book, but I think it may end up being a little longer. I'm still hoping to finish it by the end of the month, though. (Crossing fingers AND toes.)


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## Guest

4 more days of those boxes.  I wasn't sure I'd get my green today.  Usually I start writing after midnight but I only did about 400 on it last night.  So it'll really seem like double-duty today.  Just 6,668 words spread over 4 days to have a full calendar.


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## 69959

I did it! I hit 50k! Not that I'll slow down, though. Another 30k or so until I finish the novel.


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## Guest

Stacy Claflin said:


> I did it! I hit 50k! Not that I'll slow down, though. Another 30k or so until I finish the novel.


Good job! At first I didn't think I'd hit 50, then 60 came and now I'm closing on 70 and worrying I might not be able to wrap it up!


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## TexasGirl

I'm at 42K. It's gonna be close!

I've been writing in 4K spurts every few days rather than daily so I don't do the calendar. It would depress me!


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## cecilia_writer

I had to stop at just over 50,000 though normally I might have continued straight on to the end of the novel - I still have a list of extra chapters to write this time. I don't think it's quite as satisfying if you don't reach the end, but it just can't be helped. I will carry on writing a few hundred words a day for now, and then leave it to marinate while I help with a pantomime, then pick it up during my Christmas and New Year break from work.


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## Incognita

Congratulations, Stacy!

Another 2,770 today. It's going to be touch and go whether this book is actually finished by November 30th. Even if it's not, I'm going to plow on until it's done because it would only be a day or two after that, probably.


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## 60865

I was afraid I would slow down after I hit the 50 mark and I did and then I remembered that I have an editing slot on Dec 18 so I've got to wrap the story and re - re - re - re edit before that date.
I'm in awe of all you who are so consistent they only have green boxes. I edit almost every day before I start working again and some days my word count was actually negative.


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## Nicole5102

I think I'll be taking down my calendar after midnight. I'm really happy that I hit 50k. This experience with NaNo has really showed me a few things about my writing discipline and what I'm capable of doing. Lessons I'll be using in the future. It's been fun to see everyone posting in this thread about their progress. Now it's back to finishing up this novel.


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## Nick Endi Webb

Stacy Claflin said:


> Thank you. Is your goal 100k? Awesome job so far!


It's whatever it turns out to be. I'm actually trying to write several novels in a row without stopping for 3 months, and then go back to edit them all together in Feb.



N. Gemini Sasson said:


> You are fricking amazing, Endi! I don't know how you manage it all. That word count blows my mind.


Aw, you're making me blush. It's been hard, but other kboarders here have inspired me with their work ethic, so I got rid of all non-work, non-family, and non-writing activities for the month and got on the treadmill.

But december 1st? Yeah, I'm sleeping in.



TexasGirl said:


> I'm at 42K. It's gonna be close!


Almost there! You're gonna make it!



Nicole5102 said:


> I think I'll be taking down my calendar after midnight. I'm really happy that I hit 50k. This experience with NaNo has really showed me a few things about my writing discipline and what I'm capable of doing. Lessons I'll be using in the future. It's been fun to see everyone posting in this thread about their progress. Now it's back to finishing up this novel.


I think that's the most valuable part of nano--learning/relearning that you really _can_ write a novel if you just sit your rear in the chair and start typing. It's learning the discipline and forming the habits that are the hard part. Once those are in place, every month can be nanowrimo.

Good job everybody! It's been fun having writing buddies.


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## WG McCabe

This entire month went to hell for me. Failure.


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## Guest

Olivia - Lady_O said:


> I was afraid I would slow down after I hit the 50 mark and I did and then I remembered that I have an editing slot on Dec 18 so I've got to wrap the story and re - re - re - re edit before that date.
> I'm in awe of all you who are so consistent they only have green boxes. I edit almost every day before I start working again and some days my word count was actually negative.


I hate that. I've gone negative a couple days and had to write more to catch up. These are of course the days when 1,667 is tough to get.

I have my huge document, which still has little notes and chapter outline notes. I've deleted a lot of that type of stuff, but some is still there and will be until after the 30th.

I've started to cut out my parts into other documents to edit and then I'll insert them back. Sometimes I get more, sometimes less. I usually add a lot though. Hoping to finish tonight and begin the long road to a final edit in a few days.


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## Sapphire

I confess...I'm a drop-out!  First I had a late start. Then I switched books. I did well for several days. I got lazy about updating my word count. I slipped into a hit and miss pattern of writing. Maybe next year...

 Here's the good news: I did get a good start on my new book with a far better word count than shows on my Nano page. Book 2 of my series is published. Book 1 paperback is updated with its new cover. I'm finishing final review of Book 2 paperback before sending it off for formatting. I've been doing promo work on both. I've found some typos in Book 2 and will be uploading corrections to Kindle, etc. So, I did get a lot done.


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## dkgould

Sapphire said:


> I confess...I'm a drop-out!  First I had a late start. Then I switched books. I did well for several days. I got lazy about updating my word count. I slipped into a hit and miss pattern of writing. Maybe next year...
> 
> Here's the good news: I did get a good start on my new book with a far better word count than shows on my Nano page. Book 2 of my series is published. Book 1 paperback is updated with its new cover. I'm finishing final review of Book 2 paperback before sending it off for formatting. I've been doing promo work on both. I've found some typos in Book 2 and will be uploading corrections to Kindle, etc. So, I did get a lot done.


It sounds like a busy month! Don't feel bad about dropping out, you got a LOT accomplished- and that's the point, to build good work habits! You are doing fine on that!


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## Incognita

Exactly, Sapphire -- if NaNo motivated you to get things done, even if it wasn't 50K in a month, that's still a huge accomplishment.

I got another 2,625 in today and am now in the home stretch. Looks like I should be able to finish this up on Saturday -- and then I'm going to go out and party!


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## Jd488

I wrote 3,090 words today and my word total is now 56,700. Not sure if my project will be done by Saturday, but we'll see.


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## Natasha Holme

50,145.
Good night


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## Guest

One more day to go.  This month has reminded me a lot of when I wrote my fantasy trilogy 3 years ago.  Then it was 2,000 words a day no matter what.  I did that for a little more than 11 months, missing just about 7 to 10 days total.  I hope I can keep on and finish up this current trilogy before March.


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## MrBourbons

One day to go, 1,212 words left to write. Nearly at the end of chapter 11, with only the final one to complete. I'll aim to finish it off next week, seeing as I'm not in a rush once those last few words are written tomorrow.


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## 69959

Congrats to all who have hit the mark & good luck to those almost there.  I need to finish my novel (2-3 weeks) so that I can move on to my new series. I can't stop thinking about it!



Sapphire said:


> Here's the good news: I did get a good start on my new book with a far better word count than shows on my Nano page. Book 2 of my series is published. Book 1 paperback is updated with its new cover. I'm finishing final review of Book 2 paperback before sending it off for formatting. I've been doing promo work on both. I've found some typos in Book 2 and will be uploading corrections to Kindle, etc. So, I did get a lot done.


Sounds like success to me!


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## Incognita

After pounding out 4,685 words today, I passed 80K and finished the book. 

So I am done and will now go replace my widget thingy, since I don't want to have one of those evil red bars on my calendar.


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## ElleChambers

I finished today with over 51,000 words. I wasn't sure I was going to make it - I got a real job last week (bye bye, ghost hunting) and the stress of final interviews and running around for drug tests/ID renewals, well, I was dog tired and writing had to take a backseat for a while. I didn't finish both projects I was working on (my short story collection _Grindhouse_ is one story short), but my novella is done and it's awesome.

Congrats to everyone who's already won and good luck to everyone still writing!


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## dkgould

squeezing across the finish line with just one day left to go!  Now I just have to write the other half of the book!  Congratulations everyone!  If you haven't finished yet, keep going, you can do it!


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## Guest

I'm going to wear my calendar proudly tomorrow, and then take it down after midnight.  Well, maybe before noon the next day.


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## J Bridger

Won for the first time last night so that's awesome.


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## sarahdalton

Pats on the back all round. Good effort guys!


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## Jd488

I finished yesterday. I wrote a project high 6,083 words, bringing the total count to 62,709. At the end of the first draft, my second book, Second Chance, has 62 chapters and an epilogue.

Congrats to those who finished their NaNoWriMo projects!!!


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## jdcore

Blogged about my NaNo experiences today, the whys, the ... well, just the whys mostly.

http://lupamysteries.blogspot.com/2013/11/nanowrimo-2013.html


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## MrBourbons

WIIIINNNNNEEEERRRRR!!!!!!!

Congratulations to everyone else that's reached this milestone as well.


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## A. S. Warwick

Well, another failure for me.

Just after it started I got some temporary full time work.  Which is goo money wise, but no so good for writing.  Throw in an assignment that needed finishing and being newly married and I'm surprised I got any writing done at all.


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## Shaun4

Squeaked in with a half hour to go. Consider I had an 8 day vacation and a nasty cold in there, I'm super happy to get over 50k, even if I only got there at 11:30 on the last day!


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## Lisa Grace

Yay! I won yesterday at this time, with 50,070 words. I'm still tickled pink 24 hours later. I printed out my winners certificate last night too. Today was such a busy day I didn't get any extra writing in. I caught up by making sure I wrote around 2,500 a day, and I had one 4k day to finish it up.  I love the treasure chest symbol since the title of my nano book is _True Treasure_.


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## dalya

Congratulations, everyone! I expect to see your new Nano novels up on Amazon tomorrow! Ha ha ha!


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## sarahdalton

Mimi said:


> Congratulations, everyone! I expect to see your new Nano novels up on Amazon tomorrow! Ha ha ha!


Bwahaha! No way! I made a long list of things that were crap while I was actually writing it. I have a LOT of editing to do.


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## Incognita

Congratulations to everyone who made it across the finish line. That's a major accomplishment. 



sarahdalton said:


> Bwahaha! No way! I made a long list of things that were crap while I was actually writing it. I have a LOT of editing to do.


My new motto while fast drafting is "we'll fix it in post."


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## AngryGames

59k from one book
33k from another

I win yay. 

I guess.


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## dkgould

AngryGames said:


> 59k from one book
> 33k from another
> 
> I win yay.
> 
> I guess.


Not "I guess" you're supposed to say "Winnah, Winnah, Chicken Dinnah!" and scare the cats. After all, no one else is going to do it, so you've got to


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## Marcella

Congrats to all!!

I'm still pinching myself.  I can't believe I did this!


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## AngryGames

dkgould said:


> Not "I guess" you're supposed to say "Winnah, Winnah, Chicken Dinnah!" and scare the cats. After all, no one else is going to do it, so you've got to


hehe...everyone on my facebook page asked me what prize I won.

I told them "carpal tunnel syndrome"

Then I told them to get the hell off my (virtual) lawn.

Funny thing is, neither the 59k nor the 33k are finished. One is looking like it will be around 150k and the other probably 100k *sigh*

I forgot to congratulate all that even participated, regardless of whether you 'won' or not. It can be tough to sit down and even write 1,000 words, let alone 50k.

But...now that you wrote however many thousands of words, DON'T STOP WRITING. Keep going. You made it this far.


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## quiet chick writes

Congrats to everyone for all the hard work! I did not "win" (as usual) but I did write 26,000 really great words, and figured out a lot of stuff for this book. 

I'm going to try to keep it up for December too. 

But I'm going to miss my NaNo chart with all the little green boxes though. I think perhaps that's the biggest reason I do this every year, lol!


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## Savannah_Page

Just wanted to send out Congrats!! to everyone who nailed NaNo this year. Great work! And to those who entered the challenge and made headway on their novel, 50k reached or not, _fabulous_!! Wish I could have managed it this year, but November was an edit-two-manuscripts kind of month.

See you next year!


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## N. Gemini Sasson

Congratulations to all those who reached 50K! To those of you who did it while holding down jobs or having young kids at home, I bow to your superpowers.

If you didn't make it this year, don't let it bog you down. Life gets in the way, storylines stall and sometimes the best books are the ones that come at their own pace.

A few years back I bailed after a week and swore I'd never write under that kind of pressure again. This time I had a detailed outline, but it went out the window in the first week. I plowed through and made it, even though parts are rough. I still have weeks of wrapping up, pruning, fluffing and final editing to do. This has been a wonderful discovery of what we're all capable of and I've enjoyed the camaraderie.

May all your NaNo books be great successes!


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## TonyWrites

I crossed the 50K mark on November 27.  It helped make Turkey Day 2013 one to remember.


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## dkgould

Hey, by the way, if anyone who didn't quite make it wants that 50 percent off coupon for Scrivener, you are welcome to mine, just drop me a line and I'll send you the code.  I've already got a much beloved copy.


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## NicWilson

I'm just relieved NaNo is done. I finished at around 72k, with one short novel complete, and another well on its way. I stalled a few times, and am still kicking myself for that. Still, my double-nano wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Next year, that'll be the year that I write two novels in a month.


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