Be Excellent To Each Other

Oddly, no. However, the one person who has survived reading the entire farrago only has to mutter 'On to Richmond' in my presence for me to cringe and want the ground to swallow me up.

I've a few ideas brewing and am tempted to give it another go this year. It is surprisingly fun once you get into it.

Not long to go now, and I've already junked most of my ideas. Bah. Probably won't do historical fiction again, but it's handy to fall back on. All I know is that any the sex scenes will take place away from the narrative. Unless I really, really need to get the wordcount up.


EDIT:

For those considering taking part, the site is at < http://www.nanowrimo.org/ >.

Write a novel about sexy vampires. EVERYONE loves sexy vampires right now. Or, even better, try to pre-empt the next craze. We've had troubled wizards, we've had sexy vampires, so I reckon you could hit gold writing about a despondent mummy, or maybe a nihilistic Minotaur.

Sexy lesbians?

Former Terminators trying to re-integrate into human society after the fall of SkyNet.

Poor Warbot.

I have almost certainly settled on a ghost type scary story thingy for my first Nano attempt, and have written two (TWO!) pages of notes and stuff and whatnot.

I am quite excited by it all, I don't mind admitting.

Yay! It's great fun. Just remember that nothing matters except the word count. Really - if you cringe at the end of a sentence just move on to the next one.

Last year I used Q10 ( http://www.baara.com/q10/ ) for most of the writing as it has a handy status bar giving me my word count for the session, how close I am to a target (I set it at 1667), and how close to an overall target (50,000) you are. It also blanks the screen so all you see is your words and these figures.

Oh ta for that link, and I will be giving that a bash I think.

And so it begins.
Thanks in part to the clock change I was up and typing by 5:30, and managed to bash out 1674 words (7 more than the daily target). It's going to be a long, fun month.
Good luck to other Beexers doing it (you can stalk me on the Nanowrimo forum quite easily - it's 'kern').

Okay, I've started this. As I always say I'm going to do these things and then never actually do, I've decided to wait till now before saying anything, but here we are. I have started. I'm only 250 words in though, but at least I have a decent idea to work from for a change.

Is this something you're meant to register for beforehand or something? To be honest, I was just going to use this as an opportunity for my own personal amusement, but I'm going to endeavour to add something to my story every day. I'm fortunate at the moment in that I'm in a job where I have to do an awful lot of writing, but work is a bit slow right now, so writing this at work means I also get to look busy!

I very much doubt I'll have the time to do a whole 50,000 words, but I'll stick whatever I've done on here at the end of November for everyone's amusement - even if I've barely completed one chapter by then.

Cool.

If you need validation (and the chance of winning an amazing PDF certificate!), you can register at http://www.nanowrimo.org . Writing's writing, so good luck with it, whether you join the site or not.

(No prizes for guessing my username over there)

I haven't started mine yet but then I am being relaxed in terms of the 'rules', and I just aim to have something completed by the end of the month.

General question to those joining in - do you give up Xbox-ing and telly watching etc for the month, or what? See I'm not prepared to go that far, but I certainly aim to find an hour or so most evenings, and more at weekends.

Anyway, good luck, everyone.

P.S. I'm trying to open up the web site in the background and it's right slow to load. I suppose the first few days are the worst.

I'm just going to do most of mine at work when I get some down time. I managed a mere 500 words or so today, but I'm actually fairly pleased with that. I fear that many may find my novel to be utter gobshite though.

For me, I tend to do write when I'd otherwise be fiddling on the Internet or reading.
I'm not very happy with how my work opens, but it's still flowing so I think I can reach the end in time, regardless of how dire some of it turns out to be

So how's this going for everyone? I have managed one chapter or so, and about 700 words! But that's okay, since it's got me writing, and actually I've made more notes for some ideas for a different story which I am much keener to have a crack at, so it's not been a wasted experiment for me.

Going slowly for me. I stalled really badly this week and didn't get much written at all. If I can get as much done tomorrow as I've written today I'll get back on track, but not feeling very confident at the moment. I think I'm struggling to immerse myself in the setting of my book (the present day, in what they're already calling 'Poorly-disguised-south-midlands-city') and whilst some of my characters aren't as emo or annoying as last year, they don't seem to be doing much. I fear I might need to bring in a bear mauling just to liven stuff up if I continue.

Still, not even half-way yet so still plenty to play for!

I like this way of thinking.

The bears are still in their chains, despite their noticeable sense of anticipation this morning that they might be dining on fresh major character tonight. They will remain as a credible threat as we work our way through the misery of the 20,000s.

Got to 23796 today - 1209 words below the target, but I'm happy enough. Won't be too hard to catch up now.

I've written a great scene involving a magic show which whilst it doesn't add much to the plot (aside from a couple of characters trying to sneak the odd stroke, setting things up for later) was enjoyable and very good for the wordcount.

Glad it's not just me. I had high hopes for this but it's not been happening so far. I'm definitely going to try and get more done than I have though as I'd like to at least get far enough to give my story some traction. I'm actually curious about making what I've done available here once I've done enough to get some kind of idea for how utterly atrocious it is!

I'm more than happy to send to anyone last year's effort, provided they don't laugh too loudly at the sex scene.

Coming very close to admitting defeat. Stuck in the mid-20ks, and have been far too busy to sit down and write. Also, bereft of ideas and little enthusiasm for plodding through the 'plot' - the most fun I've had has involved writing irrelevant dialogue or sequences.

If I get a burst of enthusiasm I might see if I can get to 35k by next week, but it's not looking likely.

Well, I didn't make it. I got to around 24,000 words and dried up. Real life also intervened at a critical moment when I could have caught up, but it in the end it just didn't happen.

Still, glad I attempted it, and there are some sequences I'm quite pleased with. Roll on next November!

27 days before the madness starts again. Blimey.

Ooh, I'd forgotton about this.

I need to make for last year, which started well but kind of went nowhere. Still, 24,000 words is still more than I'd normally write, and reading it again there were paragraphs I was proud of.

I might miss the first two days writing, but I'll give this a go. I've only managed it once so far. Anyone else up for it?

Would dearly love to, as I've recently started re-reading some of the stuff I wrote a couple of years ago, and have been surprised to find myself enjoying some of it quite a lot. It's certainly given me a bucketload of ideas.

Unfortunately, I don't think it meshes well with a 6 month old baby.

I might give this a go - I've just inherited a dinky little laptop so I could spend my train time doing something at least partially constructive. I'm going to pre-empt the next stage in the current "sexy vampire" craze by writing a novel about a group of sexy zombies.

I'm looking forward to this. I've a great idea, and I think I can make up for not winning last year. Worse comes to the worst, I'll finally write that bear-mauling scene I've always threatened to include.

Are the bears being mauled, or doing the mauling?

Depends.

Well, I've just got back from America and have commenced to write, four days late. I've just got 650 words down so far this lunchtime break. A long ways to go. Looks like I've got some catching up to do! How's it going, Squirt, Kern?

Welcome back Pete.
Going well so far: I am about 600 words ahead of the daily target and keeping up a fair pace, but want to use this weekend to get ahead.
Shockingly, I am trying not to recycle character names from previous years (though they might have cameo roles as putrifying corpses - a joke my reader will appreciate) but I hope it isn't too obvious who's friend list on sinister Facebook I've been using as a name generation device.

And yes, I am doing another ACW piece: I tried writing something in the present day (in an unnamed grimy south midlands college town) last year but just couldn't connect with it. Write what you know and all that...

Good luck!

Enough about these 'words', Pete. Where are the photos?

He only needs 50 to win

Stalled badly. Need to really get back into the swing of things this week, else that'll be it. Bah.

Nowhere near. Oh well, there's always next year.

2009: Win
2010: Fail
2011: Fail

Still, an average of .33333 ain't bad, and I enjoy the writing.

Pshaw, I failed badly too. I blame social engagements and America. And because I'm lazy. Still, got me back in the mood for writing.

Sod it. Next year is going to be a 50,000 word feeding frenzy for bears*. Or I just grow a moustache instead.


*Rather than wear bear bells in Yellowstone, my mates and I would sing all the old Scout songs as we entered remote areas. Just as well nothing happened that time we were on the open plain with a grizzly a half mile or so from us, as 'Yogi has a cheesy knob' would have been really terrlble last words.

I'd still pick you in my team with that batting average!

Almost November, but I think I'll take a year off this year. Otherwise, I'm likely to only get 6000 or so words, given my almost mathematical decline:

2009: Over 50k
2010: Around 25k
2011: About 12.5k

I think I'll grow a moustache instead.

Do you have to hit a folicle count?

I'm tempted to do Nano this year, despite failing the last two years horribly. But I won't be going abroad or anything this time, so maybe that will help.

Okay, it's nano time! I start now, with fifty thousand words to go. Fleurgh. Got a beer, got courgettes roasting in the overn. Wish me luck!

Good luck Pete!

As mentioned above, I'm sitting it out this year, though in a strange way am already missing the fun intensity of the first 15k or so.

Do it, Mr NervousPete! And remember to put a badly realised sub-dom relationship in, along with some cringingly bad sex. You'll have a bestseller in no time!

Do it, Mr NervousPete! And remember to put a badly realised sub-dom relationship in, along with some cringingly bad sex. You'll have a bestseller in no time!

especially if you do it twice

Malc

Actually, you should probably make it a trilogy. Everyone loves trilogies.