Europe :: England :: Cambridge

What are we all writing (again)?

Solidus — Fri, 3 Oct 2008 02:30:01 -0700

Strange feeling of deja vu posting this...

My NaNovel this year bears a striking similarity to last year's, except that it will be much better. :-)

It's the story of a man and a woman in a world gone mad. The story of corporations and rebels fighting for control and freedom. Space battles, political intrigue, hot air balloons, flying rocks and domed colonies. And a thousand elephants!

And it's provisionally called The Voice of Freedom.

(And yes, Lottie, I know about the elephants - indeed, shouldn't I have written "a Worlde Gonne Madd"? :-D )
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My progress so far.

Europe :: England :: Cambridge

Chat room!!

Loriba — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 04:39:21 -0700

Hiya,

Those who were around last year will know that we set up a chat room so that participants in our region could get together even when they couldn't, er, get together.

Unfortunately the free chat room last year had some 'issues', the worst one being that if you were typing something and someone else hit send, you immediately lost what you'd typed and had to start all over again. Frustrating wasn't the word for it!

Anyway, this year the wonderful karalianne has offered us a chat room on her own site. sniglet and I were on there earlier today and it seems to work very well. It's very basic and has no bells or whistles (the only thing you can change is your icon really) but if all we want to do is talk, it looks like it'll work very well. I don't pretend to have explored it fully yet, so you may find extra functionality that I've missed.

You can find the room here: http://england.chatnano.net/Cambridge/index.html

In theory, you don't need to register in order to chat, you just turn up and go. If you do register, it requires a username of at least 10 characters which is a bit odd, but it will then remember you when you go back.

I'll be around in the chat room during every Write-In that takes place at CB2 (as they have free WiFi), but I'm willing to organise Virtual Write-Ins in the chat room on Monday and Friday evenings like last year, and possibly some weekends too. Would people be interested in that?

Also, if you want to arrange times to meet in there between yourselves, please feel free to do so. We'll even add times and dates to the calendar to let everyone know about it. :-)
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*Hugs*
Lottie
ML for Europe::England:: Cambridge
http://www.nanowrimo.org/mlcontact
2005: Dreaming of Jack - 83k+; 2006: An Ordinary World - 84k+; 2007: Rising Angels, Falling Apes - 121k; 2008 - Inheritance - ??.

Europe :: England :: Cambridge

Swap meet thread

lapistablet — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:19:32 -0700

Get rid of your unwanted stuff! Get more stuff that you do want!

Honest!

Here's my "does anyone want" list...

ART STUFF: Up for swap/sale due to the Curse Of My Mum. Doesn't affect anyone who isn't me.

A starter box of Daler-Rowney acrylic paints, nice range of colours. Black & white have been very slightly used, others are untouched.
A set of 12 (I think) small and medium paintbrushes, round and flat, can be used with the acrylics. The teeny round one has been used, others are pristine.

Will sell the pair for £15, or swap for sewing fabric to the same sort of value.

2 gigantic brushes, really fat, one round one flat, for oils or acrylics. Totally new. Pro Arte brand, so pretty good quality. £5 each or swap for fabric.

CLOTHES:

A painted silk kimono type dressing gown, light green with an actually nice floral design, free to a good home. Fits size 10-14.
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Europe :: England :: Cambridge

Introductions

Loriba — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 05:16:48 -0700

The title says it all really. This is the place to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to find yourself here. Feel free to say as much or as little as you like.

I suppose I'd better go first then. :-)

I'm Lottie. I'm currently 36, but will have another birthday before Nano starts. I'm a molecular geneticist and work in a cancer research lab at Addenbrooke's Hospital. I'm currently employed by the University of Cambridge, but have a job interview on Monday that will (hopefully) see me move to the MRC and my first ever permanent job!

I'm originally from Norwich, but moved to Cambridge eight years ago, although I often go back to Norwich, so if there are any Norfolk Wrimos who'd like to meet up, let me know!

This will be my fourth year doing Nano, and my third as an municipal liason. I've managed to win every year so far and even managed to write 160k last year, which I was ecstatic about! I'm not sure how I'm going to do this year though as I'll be helping to moderate some of the general forums this time around, so my time will be reduced accordingly.

I'm really looking forward to this year as I've had an idea mooching around in my head for about three years now and it's time has finally come (I think. It's amazing how often I change my mind at the last minute )

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*Hugs*
Lottie
ML for Europe::England:: Cambridge
http://www.nanowrimo.org/mlcontact
2005: Dreaming of Jack - 83k+; 2006: An Ordinary World - 84k+; 2007: Rising Angels, Falling Apes - 121k; 2008 - Inheritance - ??.

Europe :: England :: Cambridge

Regional Dares

Yorrix — Sat, 4 Oct 2008 04:13:34 -0700

It was suggested we have a regional dares thread, and since I came up with the first one, I to set the ball rolling. :P Feel free to give and take.

Here it goes:

Name your main character Ethel.
+ If your main character is a guy.
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- Yoz -
2007: The Dust on the Wind - 50K
2008: The Rise of King Drust

Europe :: England :: Cambridge

Regional Word War anyone?

Loriba — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 11:05:25 -0700

So, are we going to do it again? Shall we throw down the gauntlet to the other regions of the 7000+ British Isles and challenge them to beat us once more? :-)

Those who've been here before will know what I'm referring to, but to those who don't, it goes something like this:

A word war is a competition to write the most words in a set amount of time. (Sounds quite simple when I put it like that doesn't it?) There are forums on the site (and a chatroom) where they run wars of between 10-30 mins (typically) and they are a great way to spur yourself on to getting lots of words down in a reasonably short period of time - trust me on this, it's how I managed to write 160k last year.

The difference between those word wars and the Regional Word War, is that, whilst those wars last for a few minutes and are between individuals, the RWW is between regions of people and lasts for the entire 30 days of November. There are regular updates to see how each region is doing and it encourages us to get behind our team members and try to lift them when they're feeling like they really can't make it. The competition is intended to be a bit of fun and a bit of extra incentive to get to that 50k goal (or higher if you want).

Signing up is purely voluntary. Sign ups are usually allowed up to the 10th (ish) of November, and people are allowed to drop out up to the 24th (ish) of November in order to take into account changes in circumstances. etc. After that drop-outs are forbidden to prevent everyone bar the one member of the region with 300k dropping out with ten minutes to go! (As there are different numbers of competitors in each region, the scores are worked out as averages so you can imagine how that skews the figures!) :-)

We set up banter threads in each of the participating regions so that people can have a light-hearted dig at one another, and it's usually good fun.

So, anyone interested? This isn't an official sign-up thread, I'm just trying to gauge interest at the moment (there's no point me asking the other regions MLs if they want to take part if no-one from here does after all) :-)
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*Hugs*
Lottie
ML for Europe::England:: Cambridge
http://www.nanowrimo.org/mlcontact
2005: Dreaming of Jack - 83k+; 2006: An Ordinary World - 84k+; 2007: Rising Angels, Falling Apes - 121k; 2008 - Inheritance - ??.

Europe :: England :: Cambridge

NaNo Aids

Yorrix — Sun, 5 Oct 2008 15:54:36 -0700

elyoda was speaking the other day about posting some resources of use to the forum. I thought this was a good idea, and thought it would be good to have a general and collaborative list of useful items to help NaNo'ers (new or otherwise). I certainly have a friend taking part in NaNo, and another considering, and would love to have resources to help them; elyoda has already helped me with redrafting my book from last year (thanks). I'll let elyoda post and take credit for his items. ;)

Well, without further ado, here goes. Most of this stuff is easy to find (hey, I found it), but it's still useful. :P

Books/Articles:

Free Book: NaNo for the New and the Insane
Spacejock, NaNoWriMo Forms - Progress forms, tips, one-day catch up, and other stuff...

Dares:

Names:

20,000 names - Not bad if you want a name from a region.

I think that's it for now. Feel free to add stuff you feel is of use to other writers. :)
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- Yoz -
2007: The Dust on the Wind - 50K
2008: The Rise of King Drust

Europe :: England :: Cambridge

Baty basics for one November

nlubbren — Wed, 8 Oct 2008 06:31:55 -0700

Hi, this was really intended as a reply to Sitara but the topic is now 'closed for comments' and I neither know how to reactivate comments nor how to close down future comments, alas.

So here is how I'm going to be a Baty purist for one November!

Sitara wondered why I planned not to plan this year. Hah! Because I cheated in my two previous nanowrimos! I used material I already had! I used characters from elsewhere and imported them, and I even used whole chunks (gasp) of prose, cut and pasted and only slightly adapted! (I know. The horror.)

So this year I'm going back to the basics of Baty:

"You must start your novel from scratch on Day One of the event." (p.28)

"You only get one week, maximum, to research your book before you start writing it." (p.82)

(from Chris Baty, No Plot? No Problem! San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2004)

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Europe :: England :: Cambridge

Blog-u-like...

lapistablet — Tue, 7 Oct 2008 17:37:08 -0700

If you have a writing blog, a NaNo blog, or just a plain old blog blog, post and let the world know :)

Me, I gave up Livejournal as a social forum, but I'm back for NaNoWriMo, and depending how it goes I may even keep it around permanently as a writing blog:

http://lapistablet.livejournal.com/

Vicky
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Europe :: England :: Cambridge

Vicky has a new username...

lapistablet — Tue, 7 Oct 2008 11:35:05 -0700

Muahahaha! It is I, Leclerc! *lifts up glasses*

Anyway just thought I'd make it obvious so people know. Buddy me! G'wan!

Vicky
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Europe :: England :: Cambridge

I'm Nina

nlubbren — Tue, 7 Oct 2008 03:57:15 -0700

Hello, I'm Nina and I signed up under an idiotic name but if I change my name now, I'll lose my glorious history of having won Nano! So I'm stuck with it.

I can't remember my age but my vintage is 1962 (so you do the math... I cannot add more than is on my fingers, alas). I did Nanowrimo for the first time last year but then I did it TWICE, once by myself in April and once, because I just couldn't resist, with all you wonderful lot in November. I won each time and I swore not to be drawn into it again this November but already, I can feel the fatal pull of those evening sessions in CB2 and the heady rush of leaving family and dinner in whatever states at home to head out into the insane world of 1,662 per day.

Oh dear.

I have no plans to write anything this year. I will continue womanfully to resist until 1 November. And then I will finally follow Chris Baty's advice (because I didn't do this either time last year) and just plunge right in, without pre-planning or even pre-thinking. Just do it as the man says.

This is going to be hard. Because I'm still living in those novels I wrote last year...

And I look forward to meeting y'all again! And the new people! :-)

Noveling Nina
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Europe :: England :: Cambridge

Meets - When and What they are :-)

Loriba — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:33:09 -0700

Hiya,

If you've read the other threads, you'll have noticed that I talk a lot about meets. Nano-veterans will know what I mean by these, but for our newcomers, I thought a brief explanation would be in order:

There are two main types of meet: Social gatherings and Write-Ins.

The Social gatherings consist of: A Kick-Off Party, a weekly relaxation meet, and the all important Thank God It's Over party. They involve people sitting around, talking, drinking and basically having fun and relaxing -something that you'll come to realise is very important during Nanowrimo. :-)

The Write-Ins are exactly what they say on the tin! They're times when we get together to write. We tend to have a very relaxed attitude to all our meets and there's always a small amount of chatter at these things but the emphasis is on writing, so if you aren't planning on writing, please be prepared for someone to ask you to move to a separate table where you can carry on your conversation without disturbing those wanting to get their quota for the day.

Apart from the TGIO. all of the meets run on a 'drop-in' basis. We'll give you a start time and an end time and we (the MLs) guarantee that there will be someone there between those times, so feel free to arrive and/or leave at any point. You are not expected to stay for the entire duration of the meet, unless you want to. Usually both the MLs will be there but occasionally something comes up and one of us won't be able to make it. In the unlikely event of neither of us being able to make it, someone will post on the forum to warn you beforehand, so check the forum before you leave for the meet. If this does happen, you're more than welcome to still go to the meet (our presence isn't essential to these things after all), it's just that if no-one else turns up, you might be there on your own. :-( It's unlikely but it does happen.

For a full list of the meets for this year, please click on the link to the regional calendar at the top of the forum. If you can't get onto the calendar let me know and I'll try to figure out what went wrong.

Returning Wrimos will notice that this year's calendar is very similar to last year's. Last year seemed to work very well, with a lot of people able to make it to one or more meets a week, so we've decided to do the same again.

I realise that there will still be some of you who would like to come to a meet but are unable to make any of the official ones, particularly those people who live a long way from Cambridge and can't get into the city. I apologise for this in advance, but unfortunately we can only organise 'official' meets for times when at least one of the MLs can make it. There is no reason, however, why you can't organise your own meets at a time and place to suit yourself (even if they overlap with ones we've already organised.) If you want to do exactly that, let myself or sniglet know and we'll add it to the regional calendar. The only thing we ask is that if you organise a meet, that *you show up*, as there's no guarantee that we'll be able to.

As this post is getting rather long, I'll post a reply with directions to all the venues straight after this.
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*Hugs*
Lottie
ML for Europe::England:: Cambridge
http://www.nanowrimo.org/mlcontact
2005: Dreaming of Jack - 83k+; 2006: An Ordinary World - 84k+; 2007: Rising Angels, Falling Apes - 121k; 2008 - Inheritance - ??.

Europe :: England :: Cambridge

Interim Write-In Meet

Loriba — Fri, 3 Oct 2008 04:15:28 -0700

Sorry about the short notice guys (although it has been on the Calendar since last weekend) but the last of the Interim Write-In meets will take place tomorrow between 11am-2pm at CB2 Bistro in Norfolk Street Cambridge.

If you don't know what an interim meet is, during the off-season we arrange to have one Write-In meet on the first Saturday of the month, and one Social meet in the pub on (usually) the third Wednesday of the month (this month's is the fourth, just to be awkward.) :-)

So, if you've got some writing to finish before Nano starts and want an atmosphere conducive to getting the words down, come along to CB2 tomorrow and join me. I'll try to remember to have a table tent with me and a copy of No Plot, No Problem, for easy identification.

For directions see the topic on Meets - What and When They Are, although I'll probably be sitting close to one of the windows upstairs so that I can spend all my time gazing out of it...er, I mean, making use of the fresh air to help with the inspiration, etc. :-)
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*Hugs*
Lottie
ML for Europe::England:: Cambridge
http://www.nanowrimo.org/mlcontact
2005: Dreaming of Jack - 83k+; 2006: An Ordinary World - 84k+; 2007: Rising Angels, Falling Apes - 121k; 2008 - Inheritance - ??.

Europe :: England :: Cambridge

Welcome Cambridge Wrimos!

Loriba — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 04:02:36 -0700

Hiya,

Well here we are again, and I hope you're all chock full of ideas just bursting to get out of your head and on to the page (or disc) for this, the 10th anniversary of Nanowrimo. If you are, you're very lucky, feel free to brag. If not, don't worry about it, all you need is one idea (even if it's only a very vague one. That's the way I've worked for the past three Nanos and I don't see that changing any time soon.) :-)

If you're new this year, you're most welcome. Pull up a chair, pour yourself a drink, and we'll spend the next month exploring the wonderful world of high speed novelling together. The site is very big and can be quite intimidating at first, but don't let that put you off. Take a good look around and you'll soon find the areas best for you.

If you've done this before, welcome back, it's good to see you. You'll notice that the site is slightly different this year, with lots of new features and we're hoping that this early launch and the year-round sign-ups will ease the pressure on the servers and prevent a huge crash next week - the first week in November is a different story of course. :-)

My co-ML and I have been planning Write-Ins and social meets like crazy and we'll shortly be putting them on the regional calendar for everyone to see.

We're also going to organise one or two pre-planning meets for mid-late October, so keep an eye out for a thread for that.

I think that's it for now. If anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to ask (that's what I'm here for, after all.). You can either hit reply and ask here, or (if you're shy) Nanomail me, or use the ML contact form (a link to which should be appearing in my sig shortly).

Right, I'm off to start a couple of threads so that we can start to get to know one another properly. :-)