Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related NaNoWriMo –One Week away!!!!

Okay guys, NaNoWriMo is A month an a half away!

I know some of you are thinking… Jojo it’s month and a half away. Your nuts for starting this thread this soon!

Well I like to think I’m a little nutty.

But no listen! Listen! This is the PERFECT time to start thinking about participating in the event this year. Many authors who finish their stories in November spend the months before preparing and outlining their stories.

There are two approaches to this challenge:

1.No plot and little to no preparation. You just sit down and see what flows out from that brilliant mind of yours.
2.In the months before hand you think of your plot. You outline the story (with out writing anything) and you prepare character sheets.

So for those of you who are going to be planning ahead now is the time to start rolling those wonderful plots around in your head.

Last year we had a lot of participants and a couple of awesome fanfics added to the archive! I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with this year!

So who is thinking about joining us?

EDIT: You don't have to write a LnC fic to join in on the fun. It doesn't matter if it is original or for another fandom. Join us!

/waves enthusiastically

Was just wondering last night if you were going to start a thread this year!

And such timing! I FINALLY posted the end of last year's Nano fic today!

This year's has already been sort of half sketched out [thanks Beth!]. It's the sequel to my next big posting [On The Other Hand] so I really need to finish that before Nano starts.

I still wish I hadn't started *that one* [you know which one I'm talking about JoJo ] so that it could be a Nano fic, but ah well. It's first on the list for after Nano because there's no way I'll get to it before.

And this year, I have no plans to spend nearly half the month in the hospital with a baby .

Carol

I'm glad your thinking about joinning again this year Carol.

I hope others are as well, even if it isn't a LnC story. I know that mine probably won't be.

I'm planning to join, too, JoJo. The novel I worked on last year was done without any plot planned out ahead of time and without the necessary plot-changing research done beforehand, and as a result, it went nowhere. Cause-and-effect storylines like mysteries or certain action-adventures need pre-planning. All that I really did was work out the characters, but not their story.

Anyway, I'd like to work on that novel and see if I can redo it and finish it this time.

BTW, one of my friends here in Colorado did NaNo last year. She started with a book on which she'd written about 18,000 words and then just wrote another 50,000 or 60,000 words to finish it since it was going to be an 80,000 word novel. So she only counted the words she wrote during NaNoWriMo. It was great motivation for her to finish the book.

I figure I can do something like that if I decide to use any of what I wrote last year--just not turn that part in for the word count. After all, I'm writing this with an eye to eventual publication, so it needs to be about 80-90,000 words, not 50,000.

Oh, I am SO in. W00t! I love NaNo.

I was jut saying a few days ago how I need to find something to write about. If not an actual plot bunny, then at least maybe I ought to pick a pairing. hehe!

Someone suggested I try a fairy tale, but I'm not sure I can pull of 50,000 words of it. /ponders. I could turn Clark into the Ice King in one, though - I have an idea for something where there's this king who lives in a palace made of ice. *giggles*

@ Carol -- YAY for being done posting (and in the middle of everything you got going no less... go you!) I'll be looking forward to reading the whole thing once you send it up to the archive (unless..you know..you have it in a Word document and you want to send it over. I offer candies -- I mean, uh, feedback -- to people who send me Word docs. *giggles*)

:waves at Sheila: -- finishing a project sounds like a really good idea to do for NaNo, I agree. And I'm glad to see you're considering joining in again. (also, very OT, but I sent you an email days ago - however, my email provider was having a heck of a lot of issues maintaining proper service, so I'm not sure you got it at all... it wasn't a big deal, but I kind of wonder about it anyway.)


And, to everyone else: I'm totally looking forward to adding more FoLCs on my writing buddies list this year, so .... join in! You know you wanna!!

Lara - I have it in an .rtf file...

Am about 15% done with the final edit before sending it to Labby...

And I most decidedly did *not* write something resembling dialog for one of the scenes for this year's Nano in chat to Beth the other night. Seriously. Ask her. It's so stinking rough I may not even look at it when the time comes. But it was fun anyway .

Carol

You just sparked something (possibly-probably nothing but one never knows...). I remember trying to give a spin off the Princess and the Garbanzo ( I know of all the lame fairy tales... , but if you can hottify a story that involves being "ow" over sleeping on a bean... ) ages ago, but nothing came of it even though I remember penning quite a bit. I have wanted to write something original for a bit.

Hmmm. I'll be done with purgatory in the coming weeks...and I'm familiar with the class I'm teaching already...

*ponders some more*

alcyone

<coughs> I, uh, may have some interest this year. Should be interesting since I am going on vacation for four days at the end of November.

Some people go to Vegas, get drunk and get laid. I apparently will be going to Vegas, getting drunk and ... writing fic? Seems a little off. But hey, it's for the greater good.

I am debating whether to do original fic, or L&C. I think it would be easier to do L&C, probably, but I'll have to some thinking about a plotline that would work. I have something I started last year and stopped, and I may scratch and start it all over from the beginning. But the same idea also could work as original fic. Hmm. Glad I have some time to think.

/waves hand above the computer à la Jedi-mind-trick.

"any file type will do..."



Weeeee!! That's excellent! /dances!

And YAY Jenn! I'm so glad you're thinking of doing it! You'll love it, I'm sure!!

Check your inbox, Lara .

Carol [who goes back to editing said behemouth...]

Lara, I didn't get any email from you. (/me checks junk mail folder--nope, not there.) Try again. I'm at sharper93@msn.com

Oh, and it sounds like we might have a good group like last year. That was so helpful for me trying to make my daily word counts.

Nope. It was brainstorming. Very detailed brainstorming, but brainstorming regardless.

This sounds like so much fun... I really wish I could participate, but I have to keep myself out of it for the same reasons as last year. November is right in the middle of paper/midterm season, and it would be academic suicide to even try this.

But I will be a cheerleader! I hope everything goes well for those of you who are participating.

I might try again this year, but with some actual planning first.

We'll have to see how busy I am come November (first year teaching in my own class!)


Desiree

*nods seriously* Yep. That's all it was.

Twas fun though.

It even has a title and everything already .

But it was fun and I can't wait to write it for real.

Carol

Just a little bump.

I thought I would share one of Chris Baty's emails. Just because... I want to have his babies. *rips her bra off and throws it and Chris Baty's head*

Here is his encouragement email from week one of 2006:

Dear Author,

Greetings! My name is Chris Baty, and I'm the director of National Novel Writing Month. Welcome to this year's noveling extravaganza! It's great to have you writing with us.

As impossible as it may seem standing here on the precipice overlooking a vast November, NaNoWriMo will be over before you know it. This month---like the book you started writing today---moves at a frightful pace. To help give you a heads-up on some of the spirit-lifting milestones and spleen-poking hazards we'll be flying past on our way to 50K, I'll be sending an email like this one to you every Wednesday of the month.

Which brings me neatly to the subject at hand: Week One.

Ah, sweet Week One.
Whether you're a first-timer or a NaNoWriMo veteran, Week One is epic. We step onto its stage clutching a few crumpled lines of dialogue, and bearing only the haziest notions of setting and story. And, when the curtain closes on the seventh day, we're improbably directing a strange and wonderful cast of characters, all of them eager to make their mark on the tale unfolding around them.
The keys to thriving in Week One are straightforward:

1) Surge early. To be on par for the month, you should be writing 1667 words per day. In Week One, try to get 2000 or 2500 a day, and beg, borrow, and steal as much of the first weekend as possible to write. You won't need to keep up this pace throughout the month, but nothing guarantees a NaNoWriMo victory (and a fun month) like opening up a hefty lead in the first week.

2) Know that you're not doing any of this alone. As you dive into your book, 70,000 other souls are going through the same ups and downs of the Great Sleep-Deprived Novel. Whenever you're feeling like hurling your laptop out the window or setting fire to your favorite noveling notebook, come to a local write-in or stop by the NaNoWriMo forums for encouragement and reassurance. Likewise, whe never you've had a ferociously productive writing day, celebrate by sending a pep talk or sports car or box of fantastically expensive Swiss chocolates to a writer in distress.

3) Embrace the fear. It's okay to be nervous. Nervous just means you're pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone---which is when great and magical things happen. Even if you have a complete story outline to serve as a map for the month, it's still terrifying to be stepping out into the frontier of your imagination. I blame this on a lifetime of exposure to the perplexing idea that art should be made by artists, and novels left to novelists.

As someone who has done NaNoWriMo for eight years now, I can tell you this: Novels are not written by novelists. Novels are written by everyday people who give themselves permission to write novels. Whatever your writing experience, you have a book in you that only you can write. And November is a beautiful month to get it written.

Have a great first week, everyone! I'll be writing like crazy until Wednesday the 8th, when I'll drop by your inbox again with some thoughts about the spleen-tastic adventures awaiting us in Week Two.

Write on!

Chris
NaNoWriMo

Guess what I got in my inbox overnight?

An email from Chris Baty .

Carol

I'm playing it safe this year and going for a fanfic. Nothing guarantees failure like creating a new universe. I know God did it in only 7 days, but he had a SLIGHTLY bigger advantage...

James

I got Chris's email overnight, too. and OMGosh! I still haven't finished editing the fanfic I've been working on for nearly a year, which I promised myself I would finish before I started working on my novel outline.

(/me hurries away, singing, "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date...")

Yeah getting his first email is what made me think of the old ones I still have stored in gmail.

I'll probably share more of them as time goes on. ^__^

Ah, Jojo... this is why I love you so. *giggles madly*

I'm so excited about NaNo!!! And I get to spend the 1st week of it ON VACATION!! ....and IN ALASKA!!! SQUEE!!

ahem... ok. Calming down, now. (:whispers: I'd better calm down, cause I have not decided what I'm writing yet...)

Hey Lara, how do you REALLY feel about NaNo?

I, for one, am scared to death! Yes, I meet deadlines for a living, but this is BIG. Like ... big. I hate self-imposed deadlines because I'm my harshest critic, and I am all panicky I won't meet the deadlines I will have to set for myself to meet the actual deadline because I will be spending four days in VEGAS toward the end of the month. WOO!

However, I do have my plot ready, and I am stoked about that.

Jenn, if you shoot for 2000 words per day instead of 1667, then you can take 4 days off at the end of the month and still have your 50,000 words.

Here is week two from 2006. I suggest you guys read these for encouragement during the month of November.


Dear NaNoWriMo Participant,

Hi there! It's Chris Baty again. And if you accepted the challenge in last week's email, you opened a comfortable word-count lead right out of the gate, increased that lead in the first weekend, and are now sailing far ahead of pace, preparing to plunge into the 20,000s.

You are looking good, feeling great, and your back is slowly accumulating an array of "kick me" signs, placed there by your fellow participants as you sprinted past us. A few signs, though, are a small price to pay for victory. And you *are* going to be victorious. If you are a day or less from 20K, you have everything it takes to win, and win big. Keep it up. Don't slow down. We admire you, even if you made us feel so bad about ourselves that we had to put those signs on you.

But this email is not for those doing exceptionally well. It's for the rest of us---authors with underdeveloped word counts, overdeveloped novel-guilt complexes, and sensational procrastinating abilities. Because we are the ones who are going to begin having serious misgivings about this whole escapade in the next seven days.

Why?

Because it turns out we are too busy to do this.

Or because a crisis has brought some novel-eating turmoil into our lives.

Or because our stories are really, really bad, and we're wondering why we're sacrificing so much of our time to produce a consistently crappy book.

It all adds up to the fabled Week Two Wall---a low-point of energy, enthusiasm, and joie de novel that strikes most NaNoWriMo participants between days 7 and 14. This is when our inner editors, who largely turned a blind eye to our novel flailings in Week One, return to see how things are going. And their assessments are never kind.

The plot is draggy. The characters are boring. The dialogue is pointless, and the prose has all the panache of something dashed off by a distracted kindergartner.

If you're feeling any of these things---or find yourself starting to feel them this week---know that nothing is wrong. In fact, you're likely on track for a great NaNoWriMo. Just lower your head, pick up your pace, and write straight into the maw of your misgivings. If you are thinking about quitting, DO NOT DO IT IN WEEK TWO.

If you have to quit, do it in Week Three.

I'm serious.

Because if you quit in Week Two, you're going to miss an amazing moment---the moment when your novel begins to click. You'll miss a genius plot twist you can't foresee right now that will suddenly elevate your book from a distressing mess to a sort-of-tolerable mess. And then you'll miss the euphoric breakthrough that follows that twist, when your book improves itself all the way to not-half-bad.

Not-half-bad will make you scream, it feels so good.

And you know what? The more you write, the better it gets. So make it a priority to write in torrents this week. Allow your characters to change, and have change forced upon them. Follow your intuition, even if it leads away from where you thought your book was heading. And know that writing a novel is like building a car. Your only job this month is to create a clunky machine that will eventually move people from one place to another. If your beast rolls at all at this point, you're doing great. Pretty prose, snappy dialogue, brilliant metaphors---they're all part of the high-gloss paint job and finishing touches we put on *after* the body is built.

In December, we'll have nothing but time for adding flames to our hoods and airbrushing a majestic eagle or pair of sunrise stallions on the sides of our new rides. For now, the 20,000s are calling, and we can't get distracted by the small stuff if we're going to get there. In the challenging confines of Week Two, our books will truly be built. Characters will evolve. Plots will unfold. It's going to be difficult at times, but once we make it into (and out of) the 20,000s, everything gets much easier. And envious tales of our literary feat-in-the-making will begin circulating amongst our friends, family, and co-workers.

At which point, we'll probably find a note or two on our backs as well.

It'll be awesome.

Keep plowing onward, brave writer! Good things are coming. I'll be back next Wednesday for some thoughts on Week Three.

Dreaming about my airbrushed eagle,

Chris
NaNoWriMo
8400 words and counting

Almost time guys!! Here is Chris latest post on the website:


One week remaining until writing commences! It's been inspiring to see so many folks roughing out ideas and characters with each other in the forums.

For me, one-week-out tends to be the magical window when I begin receiving a wealth of half-baked ideas from my imagination, all of which it fervently pitches as the centerpiece for that year's novel. Most of these tend to be barely altered versions of real-life stories that people tell me that week, or news headlines or advertisements I misread.

This morning, I saw the following headline on Yahoo news: "Seven orcas missing from Puget Sound, researchers say"

Being half-awake, I misread it as: "Seven orcs missing from Puget Sound, researchers say"

At which point my imagination galloped over. "Hey!" it said, excitedly rubbing its little hands together. "Check this plot out! What if there were some sort of floating orc pen off the coast of Washington State? And over years of seaborn captivity, these grumpy orcs had become passably good swimmers, had developed a taste for kelp, and had renounced their slaughtering, pillaging ways to become friendly tourist attractions, complete with hoop-jumps and show-stopping finales where they leapt out of the water to nimbly pluck a mackerel from the mouth of their trainers? All is going well, until one day seven of them simply disappear? Yeah? And, over on the mainland, some very strange things start happening. Boom! What do you think? Pure gold, right?"

Trying not to offend, I'll grab the little notebook that I keep close at hand in October and November, and jot down something like "orcs escape mackerel sound," a note so cryptic that I'm guaranteed to read it a few days later and have absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

Still, when you amass enough of those, eventually something sticks. My tip: Get your own wee notebook if you don't already have one, and keep it and a pen handy these next couple days. Go on walks. Take long showers. Good ideas come at the strangest times, and I have a feeling some humdingers will be coming your way soon.

Enjoy the weekend, everyone. We'll be posting a new WrimoRadio on Monday.

Chris
NaNoWriMo

I'm excited about this. Of course the muse keeps changing her mind about what fic I'm going to write and won't get OTOH done before next week.

Still exciting though! Of course, we're going to KC for 3 days, plus Thanksgiving means I'll lose a couple of days but I plan on spending no time whatsoever in the hospital this year...

Carol

I'm in!

I have this bad habit of being spontaneous, so of course I'd wait until the last minute to decide to join in on the fun. I've been doing a lot of reading and realized that I'm tired of reading, it's about time I wrote my own novel. I've only been seriously thinking about it since January.

So here I go. I'm going to go completely crazy, I'm sure, but it sure does sound like fun. And just maybe I can teach myself some discipline when it comes to writing.

I'm pretty excited, actually. Here's hoping that we all reach 50,000!

I had my plot all lined out and now I don't remember what my subject was. I'm hoping James does...


Elisabeth

I remembered my subject all on my own, but now I'm in a conundrum. I got a second idea that is equally as appealing as the first one. I wonder what the criteria should be for deciding which one gets written.


Elisabeth
PS If you would like to weigh in I am accepting 2 cent donations. Let me know and I'll e-mail you or PM you with my two vastly different ideas.