# NaNoWriMo



## ChibiJaime (Jul 22, 2007)

I'm just curious as to whether anyone is participating in it this year. I'm going to! I'd love to know if any other writers (furry or otherwise) are planning to.

If you have no idea what NaNoWriMo is, click here!


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## verix (Jul 22, 2007)

I might. I have a book idea running around in my head that I've been trying to get down on paper. This would be a good excuse to go through with it.


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## ChibiJaime (Jul 22, 2007)

Pretty much my thoughts on it, too. I've got a lot of ideas and I sometimes lack the wherewithal to do it.

I figure if I give myself a deadline, it'll help me actually put my mind to it and write.


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## IanKeith (Jul 22, 2007)

I always join and never finish, my best result only being about 3,000 words... :/


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 22, 2007)

I've heard of this elsewhere.  Doesn't really appeal to me, as right now I'm concentrating on my one major project (88,000 words and counting!) and so have very few other ideas.  It might be fun, though, trying to belt out 100 some-odd pages in a month.


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## ChibiJaime (Jul 22, 2007)

M. Le Renard said:
			
		

> I've heard of this elsewhere.  Doesn't really appeal to me, as right now I'm concentrating on my one major project (88,000 words and counting!) and so have very few other ideas.  It might be fun, though, trying to belt out 100 some-odd pages in a month.



Wow, you've got a lot more spunk than I do these days. I've been trying to get started for weeks (on a separate project, mind) and I find I just can't concentrate sometimes. I've got the ideas, I've got the determination to get it done... but I keep getting distracted. Which is why I feel having a deadline might help.

Any helpful hints, maybe? :3


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## koutoni (Jul 23, 2007)

[size=medium]i'd love to be able to push myself to do it (it's November, yeah?), just to be able to say "hey, i wrote a novel!  stick that in yer pipe and smoke it!"[/size]


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## DarkMeW (Jul 23, 2007)

I was planning on to, but I planned on doing the last two and something always seems to come up that's more important.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 23, 2007)

> Any helpful hints, maybe? :3


Ummmm.....
I treat writing like a job, actually, since I do hope to make money off of it sometime.  So, like with any job, I make sure I fill my quota for the day before I do other things (a quota being, for me, at the very least 2 pages).  Then just stick with it, and eventually you get into the habit of doing it, and you've got a novel by the end of the year, so long as you don't keep making excuses not to write.  And don't worry about getting it right the first time, because you won't; just concentrate on getting the ideas onto paper, then fix everything later.
It's borrowed wisdom from Stephen King and some other people who wrote books on writing, but it's worked for me.

This kind of thing would be where a writing section would come in handy, _desu ne_?


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## ChibiJaime (Jul 23, 2007)

I'll definitely keep those ideas in mind.

And I so agree on the writing section. I noticed it was discussed in suggestions, but the thread got buried and nothing came of it. And it was older than I've been here. :/


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## themocaw (Jul 23, 2007)

I tried last year.  Tried and failed


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## ChibiJaime (Jul 23, 2007)

themocaw said:
			
		

> I tried last year.  Tried and failed



Awh. Maybe try again? I picked up the "No Plot? No Problem!" book today, and it's got some good tips and tricks.

The more I bring this up, the more I feel we need a writers' forum. :/


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## Kyrre (Jul 25, 2007)

I am fond of the concept behind NaNoWriMo, and have been participating since 2003.  In 2004 I managed to complete the task with just over 65k words, and have yet to come close.  Granted, in 2004 I wasn't taking college classes and writing dozens of pages of papers of reserach... so perhaps there's something to note for that.

This year I plan on rewriting my novel I wrote when I was in high school seven years ago.  It spanned 196 pages and I was very proud of it.  I had saved an electronic copy online, on a disc, and to a word file.  The website no longer exists (and cannot be retrieved through the WaybackMachine, believe I tried), the disc was corrupted, and my old computer's motherboard was fried in an electrical storm.  The only hard copy I had was throw away by my father... soooo, I don't have this wonderful story any more.  It really depresses me at times.  I won't really have a new copy of it either, because I'm changing it so drastically from the original version, renaming nearly every character and adding and removing some as well.  It will follow the same general path, but continue on longer than its predecessor and will be writen much better.

Here's my strategy to writing successfully.  I always carry a notepad with a pencil on me at all times in November.  I'll write anything down that comes to mind as soon as it does, because I'll have my tools ready for me.  I write while on the toilet, even if it's a few sentances.  I don't own a car, so when I'm getting a ride to go somewhere or taking the bus, I'll write then.  You learn to find times where you can squeeze in a few words here and there, and eventually those sentances turn into paragraphs and they help boost your word total tremendously over a span of 30 days.


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## ChibiJaime (Jul 25, 2007)

Kyrre said:
			
		

> I am fond of the concept behind NaNoWriMo, and have been participating since 2003.  In 2004 I managed to complete the task with just over 65k words, and have yet to come close.  Granted, in 2004 I wasn't taking college classes and writing dozens of pages of papers of reserach... so perhaps there's something to note for that.
> 
> <snipped for brevity>



That is some awesome advice that I give a sound and hearty thank you for! I'm pretty jazzed up about this... I've never tried to do anything like this before, and I've always wanted to write a novel... I've always just been too scared that I wouldn't do my ideas justice.

A chance to let loose and have fun while writing could be just the boost I (or anyone else) may need to really get into it.


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## Summercat (Jul 25, 2007)

I'm participatin'. I'll see if I can't set up a furry forum for NaNoWriMo or something.


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## ChibiJaime (Jul 25, 2007)

If you do, drop a line about it here. I'd be interested.


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## Kyrre (Jul 28, 2007)

Another word of advice: don't worry if you don't do your ideas justice.  You have to keep telling yourself to write ahead anyway.  You waste precious time if you sit and think about how to word something properly, or delete things because they don't fit the idea you have in your head.  The trick to getting high word counts is to leave the stuff you know you're going to delete in your book for now, and just keep writing.

In 2002 I hit about 35k words, but I know for a fact if I hadn't deleted things along the way I would have hit my goal.  Then again in 2003, I was up to about 37k, and the same thing bothered me... I deleted paragraphs that would have pushed my word total up closer (but that year, probably not over the total).  In 2004, that's when I employed the strategy of "No deleting allowed!" and I not only met the goal, I got farther along in my story than I had in my previous two years of trying.  This did three things for me:

1)  I met my goal and got bragging rights!!  XD
2)  I had a longer, almost-completed story in December to revise, which is more important to me than have a short incomplete story than looks good up to where I got.
3)  I had felt more comfortable just writing everything that came to mind, which helped me become a better writer not just recreationally, but in my essays in school as well.  It made me realize that I don't need it to be perfect when it first goes down on the page, and it doesn't need to be perfect for me to get past it.  You can -always- go back later, and that's the biggest thing I got out of that.


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## ChibiJaime (Jul 28, 2007)

Just write, write, write.

Egh, every time I go back to this thread, I pine for a writers' forum here on the board. But with everything that's going on lately, that's so unlikely...


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## Kyrre (Jul 28, 2007)

Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing one of those myself.  I don't know if I'd post much in it... but I'd probably read a lot of it.  lol


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## Kiniel (Jul 30, 2007)

_


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## Vore Writer (Aug 13, 2007)

I tried a couple of times. I think the first time I did it I failed. I completely lost interest in the story I was writing. The chapters were pretty much repeat, nothing major was really happening, and I nuked it with a sucky ending. The second time I did it I passed, but I haven't touched the story since. I think I just wrote it to see if I could actually write 50,000 plus in a month.

As for doing it this year, I have no idea. It depends if I'm still writing Run or not.

There's another thing called NanoWriye, and it's basically like Wrimo but you have a year and not a month to write. All you really do is just set a goal, and obviously you try and beat it by the end of the year.


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## ChibiJaime (Aug 14, 2007)

I don't know. Having a year to do it just seems... ehn. I'd forget and lose interest. A month gives my friends ample reason to be my ruthless slave-drivers cheerleaders.

Also, having a year just seems to take away from the original point, which was writing for writing's sake, not for having a perfectly sculpted piece at the end of the month.


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## fruitcake (Aug 15, 2007)

I participated last year, but I didn't finish.

I'm going to give it another shot this year.

I wish it wasn't in Novemeber... I'll probably be too busy fretting about midterms to finish (again!).


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