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NaNoWriMo...some Litopians are hooking up, want to join us?

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When I first started NaNo, I was offered the advice of riff-writing each scene without worrying about too much. It's a lot of fun, and no one is ever going to see it. And some really good words/scenes/stories came from just letting it all out (of course, I did have basic, staged scene outlines).
 
Great advice, @CageSage, thanks – believe it or not, I'm sitting trying to do that right now! :) :) I've taken a scene already written (years ago) and rather than edit and fiddle with it, I've set myself the task of rewriting the entire scene without (and that's the hard part) referring back to what I originally wrote. I'm just 'letting it all out' as you say. A very interesting exercise. I'm hoping it'll make the scene stronger. We'll see...
 
Another option is to ask the characters what they're doing and why ... sometimes, the answers have surprised me. And even interviews count toward the Nano words.
 
That's great too. Thanks. And good to know it counts. I'm trying to be very circumspect about the word count - I realised I got it all wrong on the 2nd day! I'm seriously crap with numbers and have no idea how I managed to check it one day and get 1736 and the next discovered it was about 300 less than that. :eek:So I'm doing more for tomorrow to make up for it.

(At the moment my heroine is so sad she'd tell me to piss off it's none of my business what she's doing :D )
 
Hello All,
I might have to slow down on NaNoetc because my operated hand has been feeling worse and worse. Turns out I've strained it and have internal bleeding. Anyway, I'll do what I can, but not kill myself over it. (Not really a problem because the creative juices had stopped flowing anyway... I feel a bit like dear Lex Black... Something just not happening for me.) But I did unlock my first badge which put a smile on my face.
 
@Rachel Caldecott-Thornton
So sorry about your hand - it's only NaNo, it will be back next year, and in the meantime you can read or have chats with your characters (of course no one is going to think you're crazy for talking to yourself; they know you're doing NaNo, right? It's normal during November, isn't it?).
Take care of body and mind.
I do ten minutes dashes and leave an hour in between, three sessions in the morning and three in the afternoon, leaving a middle-of-the-day gap of about three hours. Just because I'm obsessed doesn't mean I'm a masochist.
Pain does not allow the brain time to focus on anything else.
 
Today is day 6 and I lasted one more day than usual before needing an 'out' day. This one is a pain day, and even though I finished my morning session words (and I will be using these words to add to that count 'cos I'm writing about NaNo and writing about writing), there will be no more today.

The benefit to blasting out of the blocks in the first few days is to reduce the concern when this day is reached. It always happens. Either the brain says, 'I can't keep this up' or 'enough! I need to think.'

it will happen, and it means nothing. It's part of the process, the time to listen to the undercurrent of what the story is about.

Are you having that day? Or has it already happened?
I'm coming back for a short session tomorrow, and then that will be a 'day off', too. [and yes, if you're on AWF as well, you'll see this is a direct copy-paste.]
 
At this point I am approximately all of the way behind. I'm wondering if it's even worth it to keep kidding myself at this point.

How is everyone else doing?
 
I feel I hit that wall yesterday, but I pushed through. It helps sprinting with the WANA tribe because I'm accountable if I turn up there. And I make myself go there. I've been sprinting with them for a year.

I'm also reading Story Genius and that's really inspired me. I can't wait for tonight (when I'm free to write).
 
I've hit a knotty point in the final denouement of my WIP. I'm pushing through, working on the basis that if I get a reasonable ending sorted for the first draft, I can then improve upon it on revision.

Anyway, that's slowed my word rate down somewhat.

But it's all part of process.
 
KateESal said:
I've hit a knotty point in the final denouement of my WIP. I'm pushing through, working on the basis that if I get a reasonable ending sorted for the first draft, I can then improve upon it on revision.

Anyway, that's slowed my word rate down somewhat.

But it's all part of process.
Click to expand...
A secret to endings is to look at the first chapter/scene to see how it can 'come full circle'. Even if not a direct correlation, maybe a metaphor?
A writer I know keeps a list of things that might end up in the denouement, and when the time comes, she plays with one or four of them to see which one has the most emotional effect.
Personally, I do several short 'tells' and see how I can dramatise each one. The 'winner' might involve more than one, but never too many.

Good luck!
 
Just hit the 50k. Now I need a week off to recover. What the win gives me (in December) is a discount voucher for Scrivener (which I'm allowed to give away) and a free upload of titles to IngramSpark until 31 March 2020 (saves USD49 each time). Worth the pain n
1573259830889.png
 
Thanks, everyone. I've been doing this for several years and I've discovered the recipe for the secret sauce. Wanna know?

The secret sauce ... is doing several sessions a day. I do a lot of thinking between sessions, too, so when I write, there's no stopping. Ten minutes flat out can get me over 1k words, and doing ten minutes each hour for three hours in the morning and three in the pm, and there you have the average that goes over five and a half k per day.
The secret ingredient to the sauce is the thinking in between. Knowing where I've finished, having it fresh in the mind, makes it easier to focus the 'stew' for the next sessions.

I do it this way due to ar-fur-itis, but a person who didn't have to stop after ten minutes could do a rapid-fire 30 mins morning and evening, or a more manic style -- so if this is what you do, do you want to share at the end how it worked, what helped, what didn't? Your secret sauce may help another writer find their pace.
:carrot: or :shortcake:?
 
Fantastic, @CageSage! Well done. That's a great achievement. And it's good advice re timing too – I'm going to try that. I have a guest staying at the moment so I'm stealing time away from her to do my word count. But I can't wait for her to leave (awful!) so I can really get stuck in. I know what I want to write but have no time to do it. Frustrating.

@Lex Black – I don't think it's too late to start trying until 30th November at midnight... so don't beat yourself up. Start again today (or mañana. Whatever works for ya :) ) Even if you're only writing plot points that might come to you, or dialogue scenes. Anything. I worked in journalism for decades and believe me, no one – well, no one who wanted to eat regularly – ever said Oh I just don't feel like writing today. Sit down. Write. Repeat. :D Good luck!
 
I fit my writing around my husband, kids and my work. Plus the online course I'm doing at the moment. And my newspaper-reading and Twitter habit. So I'm not as productive in terms of word count as I might be.

That said, I aim to write something every day, even if it's only a couple of sentences. And eventually, it gets done. :-)
 
This is my graph. It's a clear indication of why I leap out of the blocks.

1574285189508.png

I'm now down to one session a day because I've met the target and feel no stress in working toward completion of the editing stage/s. Although this is the fourth rewrite of the story, this one is 'the one' and has me feeling confident. I think a lot of the lack of confidence prior to this was that this is the middle book of a trilogy - linked by context, not by character - and the fear of the saggy middle was with me from the start. Not anymore!
I'm excited ... well, it comes and goes, but the story will be ready for the reader who most begged for it by January, 2020.
 
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