It's that time again

[altivo]

Frost is on the punkins, at least in this part of the country, and the leaves are falling into heaps of brightly colored snippets that rustle underpaw. That means it's time to think about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, for those of you who still don't know.)

Starting November 1 (no cheating and beginning earlier) you can bid for the title of novelist by committing yourself to write at least 50,000 words by November 30 at midnight. Sign ups are now open at the website linked above; membership, writing pep talks and cameraderie are free. Write about whatever you like, in whatever language you choose. Get those 50K words down on schedule (just 1667 words a day will do it) and join the ranks of the winners. Share your work in progress by posting chapters there or on a writing site like FurRag or keep it all to yourself if you prefer, but join us for the fun.

I've done it for three years now, and actually broken the 50K mark in the last two. You can think about what you want to write, the characters, the setting, the plot in advance, but just don't start actually writing until 0000 hours on November 1. C'mon, you can do it. ;D

Comments

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Ya know, at least the leaves are crunchy now. I rode my bike
hither and yon this morning, it was crispy but I had on the
hoody and the shell.

The poor trees are still not right after the 2006 storm.

>.<

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we're seeing a lot of dead trees this year and I think it's due to the severe drought in the summer of 2005. Everywhere you go there are dead trees, obvious now because they've been dead long enough to start shedding their bark so you see bare white skeletons.

[flaredragon.livejournal.com]

Oy vey, not this again.

I don't know what to make of this but theres at least two of you "Nanowrimo" folks on my friends list. I'm torn between writing for the month myself and proving to myself that it's as trivial as I think it is, and defriending anyone that's going to be spamming my pages with two thousand word updates until december rolls around.

*sighs heavily* Either way, this will not end well, as usual.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Poo. Go back and look at my entries from last November. I didn't spam you with anything more than what I usually do. I always write an LJ post every day. During November it includes a word count and a pointer to the text for those who want to read it. It doesn't put the actual text onto your friends page. Nobody should do that unless they put it under a cut so you don't have to look.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Sounds promising. What kind of novel will you be doing? :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I think I will be using the same two main characters as last year's story, but going back in time about 20 years or so to when they first met. I know in general how it happened, but I haven't decided on whose viewpoint to use or what the genre will be exactly. Usually I put my characters together in a setting and let them tell me what they want to do. This one could well turn out to be a third party, Hammel the bobcat detective, telling how he first met Fennec and Argos.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I can barely write 50 words in a sequence before my mind starts wandering. At least I won't have to use pens anymore, my hooves would hurt after 3 words.

I have always hated writing because of my bony hoof-fingers.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's all a matter of practice. For the bony fingers now you can get pens with nice squishy rubber barrels even. But I know you can use a keyboard. ;p

Samples of my writing are at http://www.furrag.com/viewuser.php?uid=17

[fiddlergrl.livejournal.com]

Go NaNoWriMo! I participated for two years, and really had a lot of fun. However I don't think I'm going to go for it this year, as I seem to be having enough trouble keeping up with touring, keeping my house livable, and doing the reading/writing for an online Art History course. Ack!

But good luck for a successful and fun novel experience!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I do plan to have fun. It's been a blast the last couple of years as things start to fall into place about the middle of the month.

[cozycabbage.livejournal.com]

Ugh, 50,000? I barely managed 10,000 in September. Don't even ask about October.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, I assure you it's quite possible. Thousands of people do it every November. You have to set aside a chunk of time every day, and I find I need about an hour to make sure I hit the quota. If you're going to miss a day, it's best to get ahead so you aren't behind schedule afterward. You don't strive for polished writing, because you can go back later and edit. Instead you race to get all the ideas down.

I usually find that the story starts tumbling out faster than I can write it, and I have to make notes ahead as I realize that certain things will be essential.

[dongstyle-ltd.livejournal.com]

Long lost nudge!

I accidentally signed up. This time around I think I'm actually wising up and have really convinced myself it's a bad bad bad idea so I'm not going to even think about making the 50k mark...it kinda took over my life last year to make it but this year my exams are [i]right after[/i] that (coming off an 18 week teaching semester with no holidays except Melbourne Cup day).

So. Like, yeah. If I do enter, I will flip the bird at the minutae of the rules again and just keep going with my original novel, which I barely made progress on (but did a lot of reviewing) since last NaNo.

Anyway, hi!

[dongstyle-ltd.livejournal.com]

...as you can see I'm very not used to LJ anymore. I used BBCode xD

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Good to know you're still ticking over. They haven't worked you to death yet at least.

Yeah, you're entitled to a special dispensation under the circumstances. If you can get any personal writing done at all, you're doing very well. XD

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

*Pencils this in to his calander with erasable ink*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You're still listed as active on their website, and you're still on my buddy list there.