Anyone ever tried it before, or thinking about trying it this year? I have meant to for the past few years, but always ended up procrastinating. This time I am determined, so I officially signed up, donated money to the site, and had some promo artwork drawn, just to make sure I stay motivated. I have gotten 3 of my Facebook friends to sign up, so far.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/530145

Hmmm. May consider this.

I have a buddy of mine urging me to do this. I just don't want to churn out pages though. I'd like to do something partially readable.

Wow. That is very, very tempting.

I've always avoided this. I've little doubt I'm capable of pulling it off, but all a project like this would do is distract from existing works in progress. So, it' snot a big priority.

I do think it's a great annual event, though, especially if it encourages people to really dive into writing and invest themselves in seeing a big project through to completion. I hope many folks take part and learn something from the experience.

Already wrote a draft for one this year. Got two others in the planning stages. We'll see if I can get my thinking on one or the other of them to come together enough to write steadily.

They key thing to remember is that you only have to take this as seriously or not as you want to.
I was talking to one of my other friends, who has published two books, and who has done NaNoWriMo from 2005 - 2008 but is not this year because he is too busy on other stuff, and I was saying that I look @ this like exercise. Think of it as you are really out of shape, and you want to get back in shape, but first you're going on a crash diet and intense workout plan. So you are starving yourself, and working out for an hour every single day, to drop that first extra 100 lbs as quickly as possible. Once you have done that, then you can get into a looser routine, of just working out for like half an hour three times a week, maybe spoiling yourself with desert now and then, etc., just to maintain a decent shape. He said that is the perfect analogy.

This is about getting yourself into the habit of writing every day, of starting something and not stopping until you complete it. When you are done, you can go back, look over what you wrote, see if it is worth fixing, or just trash it altogether. But @ least you will know you have the discipline to do it. The NaNoWriMo motto is: "December Is For Editing." In fact, my friend said one of the things he's currently working on now is rewriting the book he wrote for NaNoWriMo last year.

I got the idea for my story months ago. After I read the book adaptation of the latest Star Trek movie, and then starting reading a bunch of other ST books, I really wanted to write a Sci-Fi story of my own, but wasn't sure exactly what it would be about. Then a little while later I read an interview with the creators of Independence Day, talking about the planned and aborted sequel. And that got me thinking about showing the aftermath of an alien invasion. I have bounced around various ideas in my head, over the past few months, but had not really gone forward with it, and now I think this is the perfect opportunity to just get it all down, and see what I come up with. I know how it will begin (17 years earlier, right after the first invasion has been defeated, and people are celebrating all over the world) and how it will end (right before the 2nd invasion fleet enters Earth's atmosphere, and the various world militaries are bracing for counter-attack), but the middle will just be made up as I go along. I know who 4 of the main characters will be, but am still thinking of several others, and will probably just create many as the story proceeds.

And I am not even necessarily going to stick with the rules about length and whatnot. My goal is to just finish a whole book. If I feel that I have come to a satisfactory ending, and yet I am only @, for example, 40,000 words, I am not going to just write a bunch more random stuff, just to make it to 50,000 words. I'll just stop right then, and then start editing. I am not concerned with winning the competetion (though that would be nice). If I finish, and prove to myself that I have the discipline to block out time to write every single day (even if one day I am just writing a few sentences in 20 minutes, while other days I am spending 5 hours writing several chapters) , then that is a "win" for me.

Good luck to everyone else who signs up!

Writing a novel is easy. What's impossible is getting people to read your novel.

Writing a novel that is worth reading is not necessarily so easy.

All of the local fiction/writing/networking I've done has been preoccupied not with advice on writing, but with advice on marketing one's writing. It's easier to get a query letter for a 50,000-word novel critiqued than the 50,000-word novel itself.

Maybe it's not so easy to write a novel, but it is certainly much more fun than trying to sell it.

Even the writing a novel isn't easy for most people. Most people can sprint. Few people can run a marathon. Even fewer can run a marathon and be competitive while doing it, but that's another matter altogether.

I'd never say that writing a novel is easy. It's too dismissive of the accomplishment of creating something that massive. Of tackling a project that large and sticking with it to the end. Only a small percentage of people who say they'd like to write a novel ever actually complete a novel-length work. So if they do I won't tell them it was easy, I'll tell them congratulations, you accomplished something to be proud of.

Now go write another one.

(The 50k mark for NaNoWriMo, incidentally, is somewhat out of date. Unless you're writing for younger readers, that's too short for today's market. Not that people take part to create something for publication ... just sayin')

Yes, the business side of things is wearisome to the extreme and is certainly not fun. I do not enjoy it. But at the very least it helps separate the professionals from the amateurs. There is writing, and then there is all the other stuff that goes with it; the research, the letters, and on and on and on. For good or ill, the two things are tightly interwoven.

You make it longer, no one will even try.

Yeah, it is also extremely easy to come into a thread that is supposed to be about something positive and encouraging to others, and just post some dimissive negative crap about how hard it is. But, hey, that is what the internet is for, right?



Right. I think it was J. Michael Straczynski who said that most people who say that they want to write, do not really want to. What they want is to "have written." They want to say "I wrote a book/script/whatever" but do not want to make the effort to sit down and do it. That is one of things that I think NaNoWriMo is good for. Above all else, it seems like it will be fun. I was just talking to one of the other participants and we were both saying that it is tempting to just start now. Hopefully that enthusiasm will just increase up until Nov. 1st (which is, thankfully, a Sunday).

Oh, I agree, just pointing out that 50k is no longer the reality when it comes to publishing. And if you're doing fantasy, fuggedaboutit. Word counts are very high in that genre, even for first time novelists.

For a challenge like this, though, it's a good number.

On both parts of this, absolutely. I've a couple of close friends who are certainly the "I want to have written" type. We used to have long, rambling conversations about writing, but not anymore. Realized a long time ago that they're not serious about it.

On the latter half, the reason why I like the idea of NaNoWriMo (even if I don't participate) is for stories like that. If it gets people fired up about being creative and ready to tackle such a big challenge, that's pretty awesome. I always feel like, don't talk about doing something creative, go do it.

At the end of the day, like you said, it's just fun to do.

Right. The writing itself has to be something enjoyable. Most of what people call "talent" is just a matter of being motivated enough to keep doing something until they've had enough practice to be good at it.

Which brings us to my problem. Over the last year and a half (I don't think the timing is a coincidence) I've had a hard time getting that motivation. I used to love writing for hours at a time if I had the chance. Now I have trouble getting started and continuing. I think I demonstrated to myself with that novel draft I wrote a while back that I can still do it. Now I've got to figure out how to repeat that. I've got to overcome the malaise somehow. I think if I could do that I'd enjoy writing again.

Give it a shot! Even if you do not complete it in the time-frame of the event, maybe it will @ least spark your interest again. What have you got to lose? I think it was Wayne Gretzky who said something like: "You'll never make every shot you take, but you'll miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

I was working on a novel last year that I just lost interest in finishing. I think the problem was that while I wasn't trying to make it autobiographical, I was trying to write about a character with whom I tended to identify with. Ultimately, I got bored with it for exactly that reason. It's a shame--I think it would be a pretty fun story if I ever found the time and the inclination to knock it out, but I find it more personally engaging to write about characters who live outside of my own existence.

As for the 50k word count--again, all of the writers groups and classes I ever came into contact with weren't interested in critiquing anything over 1500-2000 words.

I got smart in my old age--I'm back in school and attempting to get a semi-useful degree--and not bothering with any English classes.

I signed up. Let's see if I can pull it off.

At the library conference last week one of the speakers was a published writer advising librarians on what sorts of things to tell patrons who have questions about publishing. She mentioned NaNoWriMo as a useful exercise. She pointed out that 50,000 words is only about a third of the length of a typical adult novel. So if you can't do that in one month, that's not a good sign that you're cut out to be a novelist.

I haven't signed up, but I'm planning to try it this month.

Cool, thanks! There's a 24 pages of comic books in 24 hours drawing/ storytelling contest every year, too; the official day was October 3rd. Yah, who has 24 hours? LOL Would still love to try our own version, never pushed myself to do that, darnit. 8 hours, maybe?