I haven't seen any posts recently about the National Novel Writing Moth and I was wondering if anyone else is entering this year? I've decided to give it a go officially this time and have a vague plot in mind plus, I think, all of my main characters. November 30th will prove if I was correct. How hard can it be to write 50,000 words in 30 days? Guess I'll find out soon.
Heh Heh, "Moth" The home page of this site appears to be bust at the moment, but I am thinking of entering. R.
I never really quite got what that is; could someone explain in terms-for-the-stupid what it is about?
This is a competition for budding writers. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel during the moth (you spell it your way, Randywine :razz of November. The entry rules are fairly straight forward:- Firstly, you have to register and join a writers group near to your area. This validates your intention to continue your entry and you are then encouraged to join a local group. There are lots of them on the website. After that it gets easy, you submit your written work for word counting any time between the 1st-30th of the month. If you exceed the 50,000 word limit by midnight on the 30th, you are classed as a winner. During the month of December, the NaNoMo site allows 'the winners' to make final editing adjustments to their script (remember to keep it above 50,000 words) and they will publish useful contacts to help you try and have your work published. I think that's all there is to it... at present. At least I hope so, otherwise I'm going to make myself look really stupid . I know one or two UMB members have had a go in past, maybe they can help both of us. I'll repeat the link to the home page HERE so you can have a better look. (it is working - honest!) This is the first time I've tried to write a large, fictional project: I've chosen to set my story in the middle of the 1500's... and I hate history. :lol: I hope this makes things a little more clear. Did I mention you get a winner's badge and certificate if you complete the task?
I have joined and am going to go for it. I dont know how i'll be fixed time-wise but I'll give it a good shot. I'm going to go for the 3 different characters in an extraordinary situation type thing. Done to death yes, but if the prospect of a deadline actaully gets me passed the 10,000 word mark for once then it'll be worth it. R.
There appears to be a massive amount of entrants this year. The link to the site was busy for over five hours today, before I could login. Have patience if you are trying to find out further details.
I wish I'd Googled my proposed title before designing the cover. Apparently there are two films with the same name. :sad: Still my storyline is completely different from them both so I'll worry about it later if I get sued In the meantime... A man can dream.
I'm seriously thinking about it. I've been trying to write something for my blog every day since I started it, and I've managed to average out at about 500 words per day, most of the time without anything worthwhile to say, so I'm thinking I might just be able to make it, or at least a good shot at it... I've been playing around with ideas, trying to find one that could stand the length of a 50K word novel, and I think I just about have it. At least, it kept me up half the night, so it should be pretty good.
I have swine flu(or says the Doc) and it kept me up the whole night. Don't think I'll use it as a plot device though. :razz: Kat go for it, it would be great if there were a few of us from here doing this. Randy.
I think the count is now four of us. Kobble (Newbit) is also registered so we have the start of a good core of Pratchettites flying the UMB flag. Now I've tracked everyone down you are all on my buddies list as well. I had a meeting in Durham today with a couple of the girls from the Hartlepool area and once we'd got past the 'formal' introductions we spent the next three hours covering a wide variety of topics. Needless to say the next meeting is well into the planning stage. It should be interesting, Michelle is starting her third year and is well into her next tale, number three of a planned series of nine novels, running to 100,000 words each. :shock: She says she does it for fun! Inspiration to us all. Hell, I'm still kicking an introductory chapter around the field. Three weeks and a bare 2200 words. This might be more difficult than I thought it was going to be.
Woooh, first day, managed to get just over 2500 words done, I'm just hoping the whole thing doesn't completely run out of steam... Maybe if I manage to finish this I'll have another stab at finishing Pirates.
I wonder how the NaNo site counts its words? My program said I had 2243 at the end of my session but the NaNo site reckons it's only 2087. Could the international exchange rate have anything to do with it? Will this mean residents in the UK will have to write 10% more than anyone else? @Katcal and Randywine... Goood luck with the word crunching. I've seen your synopsiseses (whatever the plural is) and I hope you both manage to reach your targets. Both your ideas have really fired up my interest in seeing finished books.
Heh heh. Yeah good luck to us all... I'll share my Synopsis here now that I have started writing. The Copper House. Sheila is a councillor. Sheila has no life and no time for friends outside work. She is dedicated, hardworking, and murderously bad at her job. It turns out that Sheila doesn’t have any friends in work either because Sheila has just been sacked. Now Sheila is gagging for revenge. Albie is an Alcoholic. Everyone in the world knows Albie is an Alcoholic, even people that have not met him yet. Albie thinks that going to Alcoholics Anonymous will be the end of his life. Maybe it will. Or maybe it’ll just give Albie a whole new outlook in life. Norman would love to be a computer geek, but Norman is way too dumb. Norman’s only friends are the Star Trek characters; they never laugh at him or throw potatoes at his head. Norman’s problems really start when Captain Picard starts telling him to murder people. Even people Norman hasn’t met yet. When something decidedly weird happens one lightning filled night, these three people and their terrible life choices may well be the only ones left who are human enough to save everyone else. Ah well only 48000 words to go. R.
After an early start at 5 am., caused by two live versions of Simon's Cat, I managed to add another couple of thousand words or so. I've just declared 4361 as my running total for day two. Probably when I come to a section I really like, I may improve the totals. Duh?
Welll here we go for the start of week two. After scrapping my original plot, characters and title, I was lost. I eventuially re-named the damn thing, started the story from a slightly earlier time, wrote a short prologue, added a couple of introductory chapters and have totally re-written the plot up to 17k so far. Just to crow about it, I finished the first week with over 6k surplus against the suggested daily targets. I think I'll certainly get past the winning post, and may even take another 30-40k when it comes to tidying the whole thing up during December. How's everyone else doing? Remember, I'm the old guy here... you youngsters should be running rings around me
Well as you know Joc ol' buddy. Not only have I finished my original novel, but had it published in 42 countries , 3 principalities and 1 empire. I have written 12 number 1 hit records and played that Awesome gig at Wembley in front of a global audience of 32 gazillion people. My Olympic gold medal wining high jumpery is not what it once was but has still allowed me to enter and win the Neptunium games (even with gravity at 1.19 times earth normal, and I was ill that day). Further more I mounted an expedition on Saturday to collect all the lost pieces of the one true cross. This we did in record time and I now have an appointment with God tomorrow to discuss the finders fee. All in all a fairly busy week really. But then I woke up...:razz: You have fair flown with the writing mate so well done. I'm just pottering along keeping to the standard word count per day. I had yesterday off. My story is different to what I had imagined so far. but in a good way. And I've also creeped out Mrs. R. by telling her what's going to happen, to my characters, very soon... Joc and Kat keep digging in, I get up at 5:30 every morning to write, I am so going to finish this.... :wink:. It might be rubbish but it'll be finished rubbish. R.
Yay, I made my 20k count tonight. I think I'll be having a day off tomorrow to give you guys a chance to catch up
Well, I've been keeping just over the suggested daily quotas so far, though the last few days have been a bit of a struggle, mainly because of an insanely painful toothache, the cost of the feckin dentist and the worries caused thereby. That is probably not even English, that what I just typed. Might just scrap the whole thing and write a story about the gruesome murder of a dentist... Anyhoo, just over the 13,500 mark, plus what I wrote this morning what hasn't been counted yet.
Go Kat... Does that sound like a feline food product or is it just me? Don't start thinking about scrapping it at this stage. You have the 'ten days blues' apparently. It is an officially recognized, NaNoWriMo complaint whereby you show symptoms of psychotic paronoia and manic intent. But with tooothache, who'd notice the difference?
Gasp! Finally back above the recommended daily word count, Not having another day off not writing again, unless I'm waaaaaay ahead. Still NaNoWriMo hasn't taken over every second of my life. yet. Keep going Kat...Kick thought the day ten wall (and shoot the dentist). Joc, you may have today off. :razz: R
Oh no, definitely not thinking of scrapping anything, no blues at all, t'was merely a dentist-hatred-induced lame attempt at humour. The pain has since got much much worse, but the word count is still strong, and having had a day off to groan and moan in a tiny ball of pain at the bottom of my bed/sofa, I have also managed to catch up a bit on my slight lag in between groaning and moaning.
Fifty thousand words in just 18 days... Hell, I hate this PC and keyboard now. Almost time to get up and I haven't been to bed yet.
I was going to say something mean, but Doctor Who has just come on the TV so I'll be too busy hiding behind my sofa... (because that's the only proper way to watch Dr Who.)
Above the sound of... 'When shall we three meet again...', I hear cheers all round for the winners. Congratulations Kat and Randy, somehow we all made it over the line and are probably better people for the experience, though I doubt it. :lol: Same time next year, guys?
