Gearing up for Nanowrimo

[Petrichor]

Are you planning to participate this year?

I logged into my account today. I've been a member on their website for 6 years now!

Sounds great, but I've never actually written anything! ? Hoping to change that this year. It's been hard for me to figure out where to start.

Edited October 11, 2018 by Petrichor

[lavender's green]

I might just do it too. I've been wanting to, and finally have the time to make it happen.

I also struggle with where to start, though.

[happi duck]

I've been participating since 2012.  I love NaNoWriMo!  I never knew that I love to tell stories!

I am planning on participating but I'm sort of scared.  I'm a "pantser" not a "planner" but I usually at least know what style I want to try and maybe the setting or other basics.  This year I know *nothing*.

I'm also afraid that I'm not up to it this year because I am grieving. (Tmi removed in order to be brief)  It could end up pushing me over the edge or it could be a good push in the right direction.

I'm excited at the possibility of it being a push in the right direction!!

[JustEm]

I am participating for the first time.  Not as prepared as I'd like to be but I needed to take a writing break recently because I just finished a children's book.  Now I want to force myself back into the writing in order to not allow other things to get in my way and allow me to make excuses

[Petrichor]

3 hours ago, StellaM said:

PS In a million years I could never write a novel! so I admire everyone who takes part and gives it a go. Good luck ?

 

I think that's the whole point of Nanowrimo, lol - that anyone can do it.

I have a ton of non-fiction I'd like to write up, and even double checked the dictionary to see if I could somehow twist the word "novel" to include a non-fiction curriculum-type book, but no dice. ?

I like that idea for a character-creating exercise, I'll have to (try to) try it. Motivation is everything, lol.

[Nemom]

I'm doing it again this year.  Last year I decided two weeks before November 1st and I was able to hit 50,000.  

[elegantlion]

I participated for 10 years. I loved it and I miss it. I'm in grad school and pondering when I'm going to sleep, so Nanowrimo has taken a back seat. 

Find local groups if you can, I developed some good friendships from those groups. 

Don't take yourself or your writing too seriously during November, don't edit while writing, don't delete, and enjoy the ride. 

 

[Nemom]

Anyone looking for writing buddies or accountability partners?  You can find me on NaNo as Mandy67.

Last year on day one I just started free writing.  No actual direction.  I just a conversation with myself about the fact that I wanted to do this and brainstormed ideas.  i did have a basic idea of what I wanted my story to be about beforehand, but I had no idea how to put it on paper.  

So for those who state they don't know where to begin, just start getting words either on paper or your computer.  It doesn't matter if what you write on day one is the beginning, middle, or end.  It doesn't matter if it actually makes it into a finished book.  It only matters that you start.  Don't edit.  Don't rewrite anything.  Leave all of the mistakes and just write.  All writers will tell you that the first draft is only for themselves and tends to be total crap.  

It was so rewarding last year to hit that 50,000 mark, but I bet of those 50,000 words probably only 5,000 are actually words worth keeping. If even that.  Lol.  

 

[Petrichor]

3 hours ago, Nemom said:

Anyone looking for writing buddies or accountability partners?  You can find me on NaNo as Mandy67.

Last year on day one I just started free writing.  No actual direction.  I just a conversation with myself about the fact that I wanted to do this and brainstormed ideas.  i did have a basic idea of what I wanted my story to be about beforehand, but I had no idea how to put it on paper.  

So for those who state they don't know where to begin, just start getting words either on paper or your computer.  It doesn't matter if what you write on day one is the beginning, middle, or end.  It doesn't matter if it actually makes it into a finished book.  It only matters that you start.  Don't edit.  Don't rewrite anything.  Leave all of the mistakes and just write.  All writers will tell you that the first draft is only for themselves and tends to be total crap.  

It was so rewarding last year to hit that 50,000 mark, but I bet of those 50,000 words probably only 5,000 are actually words worth keeping. If even that.  Lol.  

 

I really, really, like that (bolded) tip! I was "taught" to write in the "Write a mystery. 2 pages, front and back, double spaced, due on the 21st" and no further instruction/assistance style, so things like this that may be really obvious are really helpful for me.

[Nemom]

3 hours ago, Petrichor said:

I really, really, like that (bolded) tip! I was "taught" to write in the "Write a mystery. 2 pages, front and back, double spaced, due on the 21st" and no further instruction/assistance style, so things like this that may be really obvious are really helpful for me.

Are you familiar with Scrivener?  They offer a free 30 day trial and if you win NaNo you can purchase it for 50% off.  It is less than $50 when it is full price.  If I remember correctly, last year they extended the free trial a little longer if you participated in NaNo.  I think I downloaded it mid October and then had the free trial until December 7th.

I really like this app.  I could just start writing and then worry about organizing later.  You can find it on the NaNo page under Sponser Offers.  The Scrivener website has a lot of tutorials that will do a better job of explaining how it works than I can.   

[Petrichor]

17 hours ago, Nemom said:

Are you familiar with Scrivener?  They offer a free 30 day trial and if you win NaNo you can purchase it for 50% off.  It is less than $50 when it is full price.  If I remember correctly, last year they extended the free trial a little longer if you participated in NaNo.  I think I downloaded it mid October and then had the free trial until December 7th.

I really like this app.  I could just start writing and then worry about organizing later.  You can find it on the NaNo page under Sponser Offers.  The Scrivener website has a lot of tutorials that will do a better job of explaining how it works than I can.   

Never heard of it. Will check it out, thanks!

[Pen]

I ‘d like to try it out. Am interested in a social group. 

I guess I start by going to website and signing up?

What does winning mean?  What is the shortest amount of writing allowed ?  

[happi duck]

Reaching 50,000 words = winning!  You just verify word count not content.

[Petrichor]

13 hours ago, StellaM said:

Is anyone interested in a social group for November, for keeping on track?

Yeah!

[Nemom]

19 hours ago, StellaM said:

Is anyone interested in a social group for November, for keeping on track?

I would be.  

 

[happi duck]

6 hours ago, Seasider too said:

 

Not sure how much it’s emphasized these days, but it used to also be part of the goal to have a complete story arc - thus  the novel-in-a-month concept. I believe that’s changed over the years as folks use NaNo as a month long challenge to just write 50K words. 

The point was to get your story told in a complete (even if crappy) first draft that would prove to yourself it could be done. Then after November, revision time, when you slow down and truly practice and refine your storycraft. Having a complete first draft is a huge hurdle leapt. 

Not knocking those who achieve 50K words on a manuscript that will eventually take 100,000 words to tell the story. Just reflecting on the thoughts shared by the instructor at a recent writing workshop I attended. He said there are thousands of would-be authors with 120K word count unfinished manuscripts sitting in a drawer because they didn’t have a clue how the story would end and had written themselves so far in that they couldn’t get out. 

So, just a friendly challenge for your 50K NaNo words to include a beginning, middle, and reasonably thoughtful end. You can always go back and add words to the narrative. Use the remaining weeks of October to consider your plot. If you’ve not read Chris Baty’s No Plot, No Problem, you might enjoy reading that one before getting started. 

(Collective “you” here, not just happi duck)

ETA I’m using this book this year, have started roughly plotting my NaNo novel, but going to crack the spine on Fast Fiction tonight. https://www.newworldlibrary.com/Books/ProductDetails/tabid/64/SKU/82546/Default.aspx#.W8NQBRZOnYU

Yes, you're right...write a novel, start to finish, in a month.  I was just answering that "winning" was word count...no one reads your novel to award the title of "winner"

[Pen]

On 10/12/2018 at 4:28 PM, Nemom said:

Are you familiar with Scrivener?  They offer a free 30 day trial and if you win NaNo you can purchase it for 50% off.  It is less than $50 when it is full price.  If I remember correctly, last year they extended the free trial a little longer if you participated in NaNo.  I think I downloaded it mid October and then had the free trial until December 7th.

I really like this app.  I could just start writing and then worry about organizing later.  You can find it on the NaNo page under Sponser Offers.  The Scrivener website has a lot of tutorials that will do a better job of explaining how it works than I can.   

 

I looked and am not sure it is free this year ... or I’m not finding it. 

 

I don't have a word processing program on my computer (a Mac) right now. What should I get? Scrivener even if not free?  Or Pages?  We need something anyway for school work.  I may mostly try to use my cellphone though.  It has Pages. 

 

Advice anyone?

[happi duck]

Is Libre Office still open source (free)?  We had that on a Mac once.

[Nemom]

14 hours ago, Pen said:

 

I looked and am not sure it is free this year ... or I’m not finding it. 

 

I don't have a word processing program on my computer (a Mac) right now. What should I get? Scrivener even if not free?  Or Pages?  We need something anyway for school work.  I may mostly try to use my cellphone though.  It has Pages. 

 

Advice anyone?

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/download  Here is a link to the free trial.

https://nanowrimo.org/sponsor-offers  Here is info for the discount.  Looks like you enter NANOWRIMO as the coupon code.  You can receive 20% off regular or 50% off if you win NaNo.  Last year when I did the trial offer, I seem to recall using the coupon code allowed me to extend the trial period until after November 30th.  However, I am not sure if that is the case again this year.

I have a Mac and I use Pages for my every day stuff and Scrivener for writing.  Is Pages not free on your Mac?

[Pen]

16 hours ago, happi duck said:

Is Libre Office still open source (free)?  We had that on a Mac once.

 

Never heard of it before but looked it up and yes it’s still free. Is it good?  I found the description confusing. 

2 hours ago, Nemom said:

I have a Mac and I use Pages for my every day stuff and Scrivener for writing.  Is Pages not free on your Mac?

 

Probably is free. It came loaded on my original Mac, but I haven’t looked at App Store yet, since I got given this Macbook by my mom who hated it. I need to look at a bunch of things for it including upgrading from El Capitan to Sierra or High Sierra. We only had dial-up till recently and anything at App Store was a big deal requiring trip to city for a place with WiFi.  Now we have hotspot, but I forget that I can use that from home now. 

 

Can you move or copy things between Pages and Scrivener?

[happi duck]

Libre office, iirc, has Microsoft-ish components.  Their Microsoft Word equivalent wasn't hard for me to learn for the basics.

I don't know enough to give a more helpful answer!

[Pen]

I have regretted my username of Pen. Easy to type in but terrible for finding my own content. Any suggestions for good NaNoWriMo username? 

[Ravin]

My Nanowrimo forum name is the same as here.

I've participated several times, but never managed to hit 50K words, though once I did get to what felt like the end of the story I was writing. Going to try again this year, though!

[Ravin]

Nemom, I added you as a buddy on Nanowrimo.org.

[Nemom]

50 minutes ago, Pen said:

I have regretted my username of Pen. Easy to type in but terrible for finding my own content. Any suggestions for good NaNoWriMo username? 

I use my Pen name on NaNo.

And yes, you can copy and paste between pages and scrivener

[Lady Florida.]

I have Scrivener but a lot of people love yWriter, and it's free. 

[forty-two]

4 hours ago, Pen said:

 

Never heard of it before but looked it up and yes it’s still free. Is it good?  I found the description confusing. 

 

I use Libre Office, and I like it.  It's basically an alternative to MS Office - LibreOffice Writer is like MS Word.  I've found it to be fairly comparable to Word - everything I like to do on Word I can do on Libre Writer, and there wasn't much of a learning curve.  I switch between MS Word and Libre Writer frequently (depending if I'm using my computer (running Libre) or my dh's computer (running Word)), and it's not a problem.  I even work on the same docs on both systems, converting them as I switch, and I have no problems with that either (although there's nothing complicated about my docs).

It's not the same as Scrivener or another creative-writing specific sort of program, but it's an excellent alternative to MS Word.

Edited October 15, 2018 by forty-two

[Pen]

If you managed to reach 50,000 words roughly how long did you spend daily on writing?

[Petrichor]

Has anyone tried OneNote for this purpose? It seems like it might have some of the beneficial features that Scrivener has if you write individual scenes as separate pages?

[vmsurbat1]

Hello!  I'm joining in--here as well as the group.  I've had a biggish writing project in mind for years and decided that I'd use the energy and encouragement of NaNoWriMo to get started!  My daughter participated (and made her word counts!) several times during her high school years and enjoyed the challenge very much; so I know it can be done.

Question re: Scrivener for those who use it....  I know it is a powerful program with lots to learn, but is the learning curve such that trying to use it for the first time with NaNoWriMo will be more distracting than not?  

 

[vmsurbat1]

I've been browsing the NaNo site and found this extended trial offer for NaNo participants.  I think I'll give it a go.  I can always NOT use it if it proves too distracting from the task of writing.

Also:  Is it more helpful to post here or on the group/club thread?  

Quote

Get Writing: Download the NaNo Trial

Scrivener’s NaNoWriMo trial is the same as the trial version on our site—except that it will run from October 15th until December 7th, 2018. This gives you time to prepare before November starts and to export your work once the month is through—not to mention all that frenzied keyboard bashing in between. Oh, and the extended trial will work even if you have tried—and used up—the trial time on Scrivener in the past.

Download the trial version for macOS and Windows here:

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/nanowrimo 

The trial contains a special “Novel (NaNoWriMo)” project template (under the “Fiction” category when you select File > New Project…) that contains a few tips and is set up with a deadline of 30th November.

The Science Bit

• The Scrivener for Mac trial requires macOS 10.12 or above.
• The Scrivener for Windows trial requires XP or above.
 

 

[Lady Florida.]

16 hours ago, Petrichor said:

Has anyone tried OneNote for this purpose? It seems like it might have some of the beneficial features that Scrivener has if you write individual scenes as separate pages?

Hello. My name is Kathy and I'm an impulsive software collector.  ?

I downloaded yWriter but didn't care for it. Fortunately it was free.

I have Scrivener but am still learning how to use it nearly one year later.

I've been using OneNote because it's what I know. I found this OneNote novel template last month but haven't tried it yet. It's probably what I'll use this year. It looks pretty good and easy enough to figure out, especially for someone like me who is already familiar with OneNote.

I really want to learn Scrivener because from what I understand it's the only one that will easily format ebooks. But when it comes to just writing it has such a big learning curve that I don't make the time to sit down and learn it properly.

[Ravin]

20 hours ago, Nemom said:

I use my Pen name on NaNo.

And yes, you can copy and paste between pages and scrivener

I search for writers in Nano with the name "pen" and 129183 results, all with "pen" in them somewhere, pop up.

[Pen]

17 minutes ago, Ravin said:

I search for writers in Nano with the name "pen" and 129183 results, all with "pen" in them somewhere, pop up.

 

Wow  thanks for checking that!

Yeah. Not a good username for searching my own comments. 

I came up with something I am not thrilled with, but is okay. Or at least an improvement. And allowed me to sign up. 

[Lady Florida.]

Does it allow you to change your username? I'm not crazy about mine but I took it because several previous tries were names already taken.

[Pen]

If any of you find writing a considerable amount here on these forums is easier than writing on a novel (I do), is there any way to use this to help?

That is , beyond mutual encouragement?

 

Ask each other questions???

 

 

[Pen]

2 minutes ago, Lady Florida. said:

Does it allow you to change your username? I'm not crazy about mine but I took it because several previous tries were names already taken.

 

I don’t think it does. A box came when I signed up that said to choose carefully because it would be permanent. 

 

Though, if you don’t have prior years you care about losing, I guess you could start from scratch with new name. 

[Lady Florida.]

23 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

I don’t think it does. A box came when I signed up that said to choose carefully because it would be permanent. 

 

Though, if you don’t have prior years you care about losing, I guess you could start from scratch with new name. 

 

19 minutes ago, Seasider too said:

 

Yeah, I’ve had about four different names on that site and will likely have yet another this year. 

I might just do that. There's really nothing there because I never put anything up on the site.

[Pen]

1 hour ago, Seasider too said:

 

I’ve participated randomly over maybe ten years, have a couple of win badges out there, but now that I have more time to write on the horizon, I might actually use my “real” pen name and start a page I’ll stick with. Oct 31 will tell. ?

I am reluctant to put any plot information out there, to be honest. If anything beyond the basics, I might include a cover design because sometimes there are prizes for that. And it helps me practice the marketing side. But again, time will tell. 

 

How do you actually do a cover design and post that? And is it a lot of work?  I have never even used a photo or avatar. Probably I should not waste time on a cover, but maybe it would provide focus as I write. Mood and image. 

[happi duck]

I don't know whose bright idea it was to put Thanksgiving into NaNoWriMo but at least Thanksgiving is early this year! ?

When Thanksgiving is later it's hard to take a few days off.

Every year I hope to stay at par but that never works.  I always end up needing marathon days of thousands of words.  Marathons are fun though!

[happi duck]

I'm failing at finding the social group.  I found an old one from 2014 but there's a new one, correct?  Can someone post a link?  (If that's even possible!)

[Lady Florida.]

8 minutes ago, happi duck said:

I'm failing at finding the social group.  I found an old one from 2014 but there's a new one, correct?  Can someone post a link?  (If that's even possible!)

See if this link works. If not PM Stella M. She set up the group and is the group owner.

 

[Lady Florida.]

2 hours ago, Seasider too said:

 

I’ve participated randomly over maybe ten years, have a couple of win badges out there, but now that I have more time to write on the horizon, I might actually use my “real” pen name and start a page I’ll stick with. Oct 31 will tell. ?

 

I've been writing stories for as long as I can remember (my cousin and I wrote some really corny ones together when we were preteens). I've also had stories in my head that never made it on paper. But I've never been one of those people who could have a day job and be a writer on the side. Whatever my primary job was is where all my energy went and I wasn't able to make writing my primary job. First I was a teacher, then I became a sahm, then a homeschool mom. Now all of that is behind me and I have time to devote to writing. I've read about authors who started their careers later in life and I'm using their stories as my inspiration. 

[happi duck]

18 minutes ago, Lady Florida. said:

See if this link works. If not PM Stella M. She set up the group and is the group owner.

 

Thank you!!

[Ausmumof3]

On 10/12/2018 at 12:11 PM, Petrichor said:

 

I think that's the whole point of Nanowrimo, lol - that anyone can do it.

I have a ton of non-fiction I'd like to write up, and even double checked the dictionary to see if I could somehow twist the word "novel" to include a non-fiction curriculum-type book, but no dice. ?

I like that idea for a character-creating exercise, I'll have to (try to) try it. Motivation is everything, lol.

Why don’t you write a curriculum with a fiction story to maintain reader interest like life of Fred and Quark Chronicles of Grammar Galaxy!  There’s definitely a market for that kind of stuff.

[Ausmumof3]

I wish I was participating but I know I really don’t have time to add one more thing even for a month right now.  I used to write a lot before kids but never found the time since.  Well ... except stupid forum posts of course!

[Pen]

For people interested in writing, but not a novel, one of the “badges” is for NaNoWriMo Rebel: people writing anything other than novel. 

[Nemom]

23 hours ago, Ravin said:

I search for writers in Nano with the name "pen" and 129183 results, all with "pen" in them somewhere, pop up.

Lol.  I meant that I use my pen name of Mandy67 on the site.  

[Pen]

19 minutes ago, Nemom said:

Lol.  I meant that I use my pen name of Mandy67 on the site.  

 

I thought  that was about *my* username Pen. Not only does searching it bring up a load of others with pen in name, but also troubles with penmanship, what pens should be in supplies,  pent up frustrations...  ?

[Petrichor]

9 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Why don’t you write a curriculum with a fiction story to maintain reader interest like life of Fred and Quark Chronicles of Grammar Galaxy!  There’s definitely a market for that kind of stuff.

Lol, I didn't even think of that. That would be perfect ?