General NaNo Chatter

[Belle]

To reiterate what Kat said, the NaNoWriMo widgets are back. XD Grab yours here:
www.nanowrimo.org/eng/widgets

Word War Widgets are there, too.

I just reached 20k. I was hitting a slump during the week but I'm getting energized again. We'll see.

[Nut]

strife said:

nut said:

The good news is that I have a story I really want to write.

The bad news is that I care about the quality, which is slowing me down.

And it's a story I like enough that if it comes down to it, I would rather lose NaNo than mess it up.

So we'll see how this goes. I've got to write faster. I can type fast enough but my mind can't work as quickly as my fingers.

What you could try, Nut, is save your current story up to this point in a seperate file, and then make your NaNo file the 'Brainstorm Version' of your story where you go crazy and write down whatever comes to your mind. That way, it would be easier to go back and fix everything later. ^^

That's my backup plan for late in the month when/if I get desperate. :3 But I'm hoping to somehow catch up before that, because it feels good to be writing stuff that isn't junk. ^^ Although it is sort of contrary to the general idea of NaNo. ^^;

elycien said:

nut said:

The good news is that I have a story I really want to write.

The bad news is that I care about the quality, which is slowing me down.

And it's a story I like enough that if it comes down to it, I would rather lose NaNo than mess it up.

So we'll see how this goes. I've got to write faster. I can type fast enough but my mind can't work as quickly as my fingers.

I care quite a bit about my story, which has resulted in a some days full of depression and angst about the varying quality ^_^; But even more than quality, I really care about getting the rough draft finished. I have to keep telling myself that I'll go back and edit out the plot holes and lame sections later. X3 Because I know that if I'm not really, really motivated, as I am with Nano, I'll never finish it at all, high quality or no.

See, I really hate editing (which I know is a terrible bad habit of mine) and I practically don't know the meaning of "rough draft". >> If I don't get it down the way I want on the first go, I'm probably just going to move on to the next story and let the old stuff rot. Which is why I'm more inclined to take my time and not go on kamikaze dashes through chapters for fear that the junk I churn out will mess with the image I have for the scene when/if I go back to it later.

I'm such a slow writer... XD I'm having trouble just making 1667 words in a day, much less catching up on the nine or so days that I missed. XD;; I expect to be up all night on November 29.

Edit: ...And why does my widget show pale pink boxes on all the days I didn't write at all, but has a bright red box on the day I actually wrote some words? XD

[Dice]

I think I just came the closest to a heart attack that I'm ever going to.

I usually work on my NaNo on my laptop, but I switched it over to the family PC on my flashdrive. I tried to save it. MS Word died, and when I went back to look for my NaNo file, it had disappeared. I seriously almost started either crying or going into cardiac arrest. Luckily, I found it in a temporary file, saved four copies of it under different names, and I'm okay now.

I hope my flashdrive's not broken :/ it's looking a little bent.

[Deleted]

pyrosquirrelx said:

I think I just came the closest to a heart attack that I'm ever going to.

I usually work on my NaNo on my laptop, but I switched it over to the family PC on my flashdrive. I tried to save it. MS Word died, and when I went back to look for my NaNo file, it had disappeared. I seriously almost started either crying or going into cardiac arrest. Luckily, I found it in a temporary file, saved four copies of it under different names, and I'm okay now.

I hope my flashdrive's not broken :/ it's looking a little bent.

Omg! That's horrible... I'm glad you got it back, though. Oh, and good thinking saving it under four copies... That's very, very smart. *should probably do that*

Yeah, I almost had something like that, only I would've missed a few sentences. Anyway, I wrote a little bit before I went to set construction and keyboard lessons yesterday, but when I had to go, I just turned the monitor and sound off. So, I guess while I was at lessons, my dad shuts the power off from the strip. Meaning my NaNo didn't get saved. Luckily it was under the temporary files and I didn't lose the few sentences I wrote, but I was ready to kill my dad about it. XP

[Nut]

pyrosquirrelx said:

I think I just came the closest to a heart attack that I'm ever going to.

I usually work on my NaNo on my laptop, but I switched it over to the family PC on my flashdrive. I tried to save it. MS Word died, and when I went back to look for my NaNo file, it had disappeared. I seriously almost started either crying or going into cardiac arrest. Luckily, I found it in a temporary file, saved four copies of it under different names, and I'm okay now.

I hope my flashdrive's not broken :/ it's looking a little bent.

Yikes, that would have scared the wits out of me. I'm glad you didn't lose anything.

I've been saving my NaNo to my computer and to a separate memory stick, but maybe I should make a few extra copies on my hard drive just in case.

*is procrastinating on Nano by posting here* I need to start writing for today. Seeing as it takes me around two hours to make the 1,667 mark (*is so slow*), I'm going to be busy till at least 10 PM. *should have started earlier, especially since it's a weekend*

[Deleted]

So... >.>

Last night I scrapped my Nano attempt number one. I figured that I couldn't use it, and I needed to start afresh.

BUT!

I started surfing the Nano forms, and some people had posted questions, asking if they could keep all of the words they had written just connect the two stories with, "...and then [new mc] woke up! "What a strange dream!" he said, and then [insert new plot here]."

Surprisingly, a lot of people have said it's legit; it's down and dirty, but it works; after all, it's not previously written prose, it's all been written in November.

So. I'm looking for more opinions on this. Anyone? I had about 16k on my last story, and 6k so far on my new story. It would actually put me miraculously ahead of the game instead of painfully behind.

Opinions? Please?

[Elcie]

Do it! sure it might be cheating a bit, but everone uses dirty tricks to pad their count a little bit. XD

[Strife]

I wouldn't even consider it cheating. It's ingenious ingenuity! =D

Like the folks at NaNo say, your plot doesn't have to make any sense at all. NaNo participants are essentially writing rough drafts of novels, not polished works of literature... so I say DO EET! ^__^

[Deleted]

Yay! That's an insanely good idea, but it wouldn't work. Who am I kidding, I'm at 41k on day 12 anyway xD!

[Deleted]

Haha alright, thank you guys. ^_^ I was feeling a little guilty, but now I don't feel so badly about it.

[Killix]

You can seriously do that? XD

Wow...I should so participate next year, then, if my story doesn't have to be written well OR make sense. =DDD

Wait, fanfiction is okay, right? >.>
XD Anything I write is bound to be full of crazy obscure references, too. XD

evilhamster13 said:

If I write one more word describing this character's hair, it will turn him into a Gary Stu by default or something .__. but it's so pretty! And I need the extra, purple-prose-y words!

I prefer the term "Marty Sam"

[PFA]

meowth4 said:

You can seriously do that? XD

Wow...I should so participate next year, then, if my story doesn't have to be written well OR make sense. =DDD

Wait, fanfiction is okay, right? >.>
XD Anything I write is bound to be full of crazy obscure references, too. XD

You can do pretty much anything with NaNo. XDDD Writing 50,000 words of complete jibberish like "ghjfk hkjt opljs sjhk" would probably looked down upon, though.

NaNo definitely does not need to be written well, and it can be very very confusing if you wish.

Yes, fanfiction is okay.

[Deleted]

WAAAAAAaaaaaah. ;_;

I'm 8k behind because I have this HUGE WRITER'S BLOCK right nao. D:

This sucks. D:

[Deleted]

Quick tip for not losing your NaNo: When you hit a good wordcount, like 10k or something *shame*, compose an email to yourself. Do it almost every week, or even every day. That way, you have something to start from if you lose your file.

I'm so behind. I'm going to try for a 10k-15k weekend. XD WISH ME LUCK

[Nut]

I was nowhere near this far behind last year.

I could still do this, though. I'll have to write about 3500 words a day... but I could still do it.

Why is it so hard for me to stick with a plotline?

I want to get at least 5k today. Must keep writing...

Edit: I sorta decided to start another story. >_> It was tripping me up too much to be trying to write the other one properly. But I'm tacking them together with some gimmick so I can count both towards my word count, since starting over from 0 at this point would kill my motivation. >>