Wednesday 2 November 2011

NaNoWriMo is here and I'm joining in!

Yes, after faffing about for a couple of years, I’ve finally decided to have a go at this National Novel Writing Month malarky (actually, it should be International Novel Writing Month by now, surely?). 

The question is: can I pump out a 50,000 word novelette in just 30 days?

My good friend Don't Feed the Pixies did exactly that a couple of years ago, and produced a highly readable and thrilling story, which I personally think he needs to go back to and brush up with a view towards publication - jus' sayin'.

I need to knock out at least 1,667 words a day on average for 30 days to get there. 

Doesn’t sound too bad when you say it like that, does it?  It can take me 1,000 words just to get warmed-up sometimes. 

Mind you, I’ve already managed to miss one whole day through having to go to work then having to go to a KT Tunstall gig (which was brilliant, in case you were wondering), so now I need to catch up if I’m to stay on track.  I've created a spreadsheet to track my progress and everything.

If anybody asks, yesterday was a planning day, ok?

The story I'm going with is one that has been kicking around in my head for years, but about which I have never so much as jotted down a single note on paper.  I’m already abuzz with thoughts of possible interesting (I hope) characters to plonk into my story.  It will be Science Fiction, set in the far-ish future (saves piddling about with boring research) and will be a kind of murder mystery suspense-y thing. 

NaNoWriters are, I believe, allowed to do a little planning before 1st November, but the actual writing itself must wait until the first day.

I’ve had a poke about on the NaNoWriMo website and there are forums where you can discuss your ideas, get help with plot holes, etc.  This part of it looks quite interesting, and I particularly like the ‘Adoption Centre’ forum where people leave ideas for character names, funny lines, etc., for others to pick up and use.

I’ve now actually written the first couple of paragraphs (127 words) and am itching to do more, but I have to work. 

Really.

Darn it.

12 comments:

  1. As Eva says...

    I write anywhere from 300 to 800 words a day. Wonder if I could double that...

    Pearl

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  2. i have also made a start - or two starts as it happens. Both struggling starts and not nearly as good as the previous one. Going to see tonight if i need to go back to basics or not

    Just a forewarning though - to do 50,000 words in a month you need to average 1,666 per day

    Never fear - the previous effort is on my list of things to look at - right after The Firewalkers

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  3. Ooohhh.. I love the idea of this, and if I had any words available in my head, I would be tempted. Sods law says that I'm currently not processing words... Took the kid to kt tunstall concert as a surprise earlier in the year, she loves her. The event was such a big shock that the kid had a panic attack and I had to sit near the back with her for a while, we'd managed to get seats three feet from kt's feet!... It ended well though, dragged the kid back to the front and she got the set list and kt's guitar pick, I can report that the woman plays HARD!

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  4. Eva - Thanks!

    Pearl, I bet you could easily do one of these - and it'd be funny too.

    DFTP - Hope you get some progress tonight. Yeah, I know - 1666.something to be exact, so I rounded up to 1667 for safety.

    Watercats - KT Tunstall is AMAZING! She plays a mean guitar all right, but I love the clever things she does with loops and whatnot. Did she have a support act when she played over there? She had two last night: a young chap called Sam Lewis, who played a good guitar and had a nice strong voice. The other was a girlie called Rozi Plain and, oh my days, she was not very good. You Watercats would have kicked her ass all over the stage if you'd played there. Seriously! The last song she did, she asked the audience to join in on one bit - not a single sould did. The biggest applause she got was when she got off the stage. But KT was a total revelation. I always liked her stuff but the live experience was sooooo much better.

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  5. Cool! You're a fabulous story teller so I think you'll have a fine tale at the end of the month.

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  6. Bug - cheers for the encouragement.

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  7. Good luck, but get on with it. Enough with the shilly-shallying already.

    I decided to give the nanowrimo a miss because I can't produce anything worth reading in a month. It'll take six moths afterwards to knock any sense into whatever I'd write. And even then ...

    However, you are brave (or foolhardy), so best wishes.

    (I wonder how far I'll have got in a month? Not 50.000 words, that's for sure.)

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  8. Friko, it's certainly a challenge. I've had to rewrite a fair bit of the stuff I've done, so far but the thing is on a better footing now. 2200-odd words and more to come later on tonight.

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  9. We both wish you the best of luck and will keep checking back to make sure you're on track. Because if you're not, we've hired a big meathead to break one bone for every 100 words you're behind. Think of it as 'motivation!' No need to thank us!

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  10. Beer for the Shower - you guys will be the wind beneath my wings, but ya better tell Mr Meathead to start with my feet, cos I'm already behind. Catching up slowly though. I have to adjust my style from uber-condensed blog to yes-it's-ok-to-describe-stuff and actually allow the characters to talk to each other and stuff.

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  11. Good luck with the Novel. Given the weight of that burden, I'm especially honored that you took time out to join in with wordzzles this week. Thanks.

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