NaNoWriMo

[hubay]

I know I'm a month early, but who's all thinking of doing NaNoWriMo? I was wondering if you guys normally do anything for that in terms of a writing group. If nothing else, I wouldn't mind teaming up with a few people to keep each other on track and maybe critique our work. I like the setup we have here, but I figure the ~3000 word-a-week setup isn't fast enough to really work for november.

Thoughts?

[Silk]

I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo (username Raethe if anyone wants to look me up) but there's no way I can commit to critiquing extra work for November, sorry.  I'll be somewhat surprised if I manage to "win" NaNoWriMo itself.

Good idea though.

[Asmodemon]

I will also be joining NaNo again this year, under username Asmodemon. It'll be the third year in a row and I plan on 'winning' it this year again too.

Keeping each other on track sounds like a good idea, but I won't be up for critiqueing (other) NaNo pieces until november is over (it'll be tough managing time to write as it is). And showing my own stuff at that stage will just wake my internal editor and I can't have that

[LongTimeUnderdog]

Can I actually pop out 50k in a month.  yes.  Cake.

[RavenstarRHJF]

I'm also planning to try again (having failed miserably last year... ).  This time I'm doing it the smart way, though- I've already got a concept and am working on research this month so I don't get hung up on details in November.

[Justice1337]

I can barely write a first draft at a pace of 3k words a day when I do it full time.  And 90,000 words is a pretty low count for me.  Wave if you're the same way.

Oh, and I'm excited to critique people's peices who are participating.

[Dark_Prophecy]

I plan on winning NaNoWriMo this year. It will be the first year I've actually tried it. It's just what I need to finally get myself over my "endless outliner" phase and actually complete the YA novel that's bouncing around in my brain. After that it's onto my "3:10 to Yuma with magic, but not quite" book.

I'm going to be shooting for 2000 words a day, since I know I'll miss at least a couple of days in there somewhere for emergencies beyond my control or space ninjas or something.

[Shivertongue]

Been planning for it since December of last year. This will be my first year attempting it.

Unfortunately, the novel I had planned to do for NaNoWriMo, Wavepainter, is one I have already started and submitted to this group. So I need to find something else to do for it. I have a few ideas bouncing around my head, as well as several stories I gave up on and can try again, but I don't know which one I want to do...

[hubay]

I don't know, I was planning on staying with Fathers of Gods. I know it's going to be longer than 50k, so i figured I can just plow through it anyways and use NaNo as an excuse to work harder.

Or is that a bad idea?

Either way, If anyone else is interested, I wouldn't mind trading Nano's – half-formed or finished – once December rolls around to help each other edit.

[Shivertongue]

I don't know, I was planning on staying with Fathers of Gods. I know it's going to be longer than 50k, so i figured I can just plow through it anyways and use NaNo as an excuse to work harder.

Or is that a bad idea?

Either way, If anyone else is interested, I wouldn't mind trading Nano's – half-formed or finished – once December rolls around to help each other edit.

Technically, it's against the rules. You're not supposed to use anything you've written before, aside from notes.

However, if you're talking about simply adding 50,000 words to Father of Gods, there might be a loophole in that. I was planning to do something completely different, though.

[Silk]

Yes, technically it's against the rules. I've done it before, though--I think as long as you write 50,000 new words, they really don't care whether you work on something new or not. The "must work on something new" is mostly to benefit writers, I think; the basic logic behind the rule seems to be, "At 50k in a month you're going to write crap, probably lots of crap, and you'll have a much harder time writing crap if you think this book is your baby."

[fireflyz]

I think it depends on the situation.  If you're a discovery writer with only a half formed idea or even a fresh idea, then writing 50k words will probably result in some areas that have to be heavily revised later.  If you're working on a current work or else have a strong idea of what you're writing with all the groundwork laid/a strong outline then there's no reason why it need be crap.

Stephen King says to write 2k a day.  I wrote 145k in 8 weeks.  It wasn't crap, though it did need revising.  But I had a strong outline and plenty of time with slow work to think about it every day.  If you're job doesn't allow for much time to think about your writing then 50k inside a month is going to be difficult and likely crap.  Even with a strong outline/idea it would be difficult.  Brandon spoke a lot about having time outside of physically writing in order to be successful in a few of his podcasts.  I think this is very true.

To my mind NaNoWriMo works best for very new writers who just need to write fast and often (to avoid internal editing/fear and improve their craft through practice) and those writers who need external motivation to write at a decent pace.  I know people who took years to write 80k words.  Those types could definitely benefit from NaNoWriMo.  But if your job allows, then I don't think there's any reason for a lot of writing to be crap.

A caveat, this is mostly geared towards those that work from a strong outline with fairly tight writing.  If you're a loose, fast, discovery writer then you will obviously expect to have a lot of revision afterwards.