I got an error message when sending an email this evening, so it's possible not everyone got it. Here's the text:
Hi everyone!
I first want to thank everyone who came out to the Kick Off Party on Tuesday. I have to say, I think that was one of the best Kick Offs we've ever had, and it was definitely a great way to start the month. If you couldn't make it, no worries, we've got lots of stuff going on throughout November!
A few notes: the NaNoWriMo website can sometimes be a little slow the first week of November when everyone's signing up and checking in. Normally, you can find the calendar at the top of the NYC forum page (http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/50), but if that's not accessible, you can find the Google calendar here: http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=fklqgh544mqrd83ite3qdp46k4%40gr...
Here are the upcoming events for next week:
Sunday, November 1: Write-In at the Greenwich Treehouse, 46 Greenwich Ave in the Village, 3pm-6pm
Monday, November 2: Write-In at Panera Bread, 3801 35th Ave in Long Island City, Queens, 7:30pm AND Write-In at Saint's Alp Teahouse, 164 Bedford Ave (Bedford Ave & North 8th) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 7:30pm
Tuesday, November 3: Write-In at Old Bridge Deli, 373 Lexington Ave (near 41st St), Manhattan, 6:30pm
Wednesday, November 4: Online Write-In! We'll be chatting from 6pm to 10pm, pop in any time. Login to the chat room at http://chatnano.net/tempchats/nyc.html
Thursday, November 5: Write-In at Cocoa Bar, 228 7th Avenue (b/t 3rd and 4th Streets), Park Slope, Brooklyn, 6:30pm (note: this is a cafe, not a bar, despite the name)
The thinking behind the write-ins is that we'll all be writing at the same time. Bring your writing implement of choice (laptop, pen and paper, chisel and stone tablets). We'll run word sprints, we'll bounce ideas off each other, there's a high probability that we'll give out some gold star stickers. Drop into the NYC forum for more information.
Also, I mentioned this at the Kick Off, but I want you all to know that we've agreed to participate in a Word War with Chicago! New York and Chicago have roughly the same number of participants this year, so we're counting the whole city's word count against Chicago's. Whichever city has the most words written at the end of November wins... something. Bragging rights, at minimum. If you live in New York and want your words counted, be sure to choose NYC as your home region by editing your userinfo on the NaNoWriMo website.
As always, I (and Olga, Alexis, Teresa, and Livvy) are available to answer questions and offer advice if you need it. I hope to see you at a write-in and I wish you a prolific start to the month!
Happy writing,
Erin
New York City Municipal Liaison
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~Erin
New York City Municipal Liaison
blog | twitter
78,343 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 16 06
In case you missed it:
Hi everyone,
That was a heck of a first week, wasn't it? The participation and enthusiasm this year is something to behold, and so many of you have already accomplished great things and made all of our write-ins a lot of fun, so keep up the good work!
Before I get to the good stuff, a few orders of business: 1) Those looking to unsubscribe from this list should not contact me directly but rather follow the handy-dandy unsubscribe links at the bottom of this message; I do not have control over the list. 2) I apologize for the email blunder last weekend. I know some of you got that email about the November 1st venue change a couple of times. There was a lag in email delivery coming from the NaNo site, and the message consequently arrived in most of your inboxes well after (days after) the meetup had ended. Whoops! That will hopefully not happen again.
That's out of the way. Phew! So, now it's week 2. Week 2 is notoriously the toughest week. The euphoria of the first week has worn off, you're staring at your word count and wondering what you got yourself into, characters you weren't expecting showed up and wreaked havoc. Don't freak out! Stand up, take a step back, eat a piece of chocolate. Better? Good. Because you can do this! It's early yet, and there's lots of time to make up any ground you've lost due to your actual life intervening. Those characters will do things you won't expect, or you'll hit a pocket of inspiration and write 4,000 words in one afternoon, or you can come on out to a write-in and write 600 words during a sprint. Magic is possible during November. Even when it gets tough this week, don't lose hope!
Seriously, come to a write-in. We have stickers.
A note to those of you who have donated or want to donate: We're having a super awesome raffle this year. You can either buy raffle tickets directly from an ML such as myself (all proceeds go to the Office of Letters and Light) or if you've donated online and you show us proof of donation and we'll give you the appropriate number of raffle tickets. There are more details here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3337234 (Also, as of this writing, New York is the third-highest donating region in the whole world! All of you are awesome and your generosity is appreciated!)
Here's the schedule for this week:
Monday: Write-Ins at the Panera in Long Island City and Saint's Alp Tea House in Williamsburg, both 7:30-?
Tuesday: Write-In at Old Bridge Deli, 41st and Park, 6:30-?
Wednesday. Online Write-In, login to the chat here: http://chatnano.net/tempchats/nyc.html 6pm-? We were still there until about midnight last week, so pop in any time.
Thursday: Write-In at Ozzie's on 5th Ave and Carroll Street in Park Slope, 6:30-? (Note the location change)
Friday: Drinks at Madame X on Houston. This is a meetup just for socializing.
Saturday: Write-In at Lenny's Bagels on 23rd Street, 2pm-5pm.
Note: most of these locations DO NOT have free wifi, so plan accordingly. The full calendar with more details is available towards the top of the NYC forum page, here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/50
As always, you can email me with questions. I do enjoy hearing from you. Due to the volume of email I've been getting, I may not respond immediately unless you ask a direct question, but I have been reading all of your email, and I appreciate it.
Now, go out there and get that word count!
Happy writing!
----------Erin
New York City Municipal Liaison
~Erin
New York City Municipal Liaison
blog | twitter
21,167 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 17 23
Thanks so much for the emails and pep talks! You guys have made this first NaNoWriMo fun despite the challenge. I have had this book in my head for while now and I am glad to finally get it out on paper. I could use the additional storage space in my brain as gray matter is at a premium at this point.
Question - I live in lower westchester and would love a write-in uptown or even in westchester. Would that be possible? I will definitely try and be in the online write-in on Wed. Thanks again for all you do! Here's to making it to the finish line for all of us!!
78,343 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 19 23
I know some people in Inwood are doing write-ins on Saturdays. (That's a fifteen minute drive from Yonkers, for perspective.) Westchesterians may be organizing in the New York :: Elsewhere forum. We don't really have the resources to do anything in Westchester, unfortunately, but you are of course welcome to come to anything we're doing in NYC.
----------~Erin
New York City Municipal Liaison
blog | twitter
45,509 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 19 29
I have, gratefully, received the pep talk e-mails. I have printed out a couple and keep them with me for motivation and support. Thanks so very much. No doubt about there being appreciation here from a NaNo 1st timer.
----------~Twilight TIme.
~Twilight TIme.
78,343 / 50,000
Nov 15, 2009 - 09 05
Hey everyone,
One of the things I really love about NaNoWriMo is that it's always a challenge. Challenges aren't supposed to be easy, and the struggle is what makes accomplishing the goal that much more sweet. I love, also, how some participants make it an extra challenge: they write in a genre they've never written in before, of they make the word count goal higher, or they aim to write TWO novels during November.
Still, for a lot of us, just getting to 50K is a struggle in and of itself. Today's the 15th, the big halfway point, and you're still trailing behind, maybe, or you're on pace but are swiftly losing momentum. And, no doubt, writing is work. There are days when you don't feel inspired, or when your characters won't cooperate (everyone in my novel this year is just so dern nice; I keep telling them, nice is boring! Conflict! CONFLICT! *cough*), or even days when you just don't have time to write. How do you stay in the game? The same things don't work for everyone, but I thought I'd give some tips based on what works for me:
1. Take a walk! I tend to do my best thinking when not in front of the computer. Take out the dog, put on the iPod, or just wander around the park for a bit. (This November has been unseasonably warm, and the forecast calls for a week of sunny days, so there's lots of opportunity for this!) Just see what ideas pop into your head. Have a pad of paper handy in case, like me, you tend to forget those ideas when you get back to your apartment.
2. Word sprints! Set a timer to count down 10 minutes and write as much as you can before the timer goes off. For added pressure, log into our chat room (link below) where there is often somebody running sprints. At our write-ins, people have been averaging 300-400 words per 10-minute sprint. So, you could hit your word quota for the day in about an hour!
3. If you have to miss a day because life calls, give yourself a break. Stressing about how far behind you are can make writing harder. If you won't have time on Tuesday, make up the words throughout the week.
4. Thanksgiving! I bet a lot of you have four-day weekends coming up. Maybe you have family obligations for part of that time, but budget in some extra writing time. A lot of NaNo participants use the long weekend to make up for lost time.
Hang in there! You can do it!
I apologize for screwing up some of these addresses last week. If you had trouble finding us, I am enormously sorry. Try again this week! I've revised the meetup schedule so that I've got the right cross streets this time!
Monday: Write-Ins at the Panera in Long Island City and Saint's Alp Tea House in Williamsburg, both 7:30-?
Tuesday: Write-In at Old Bridge Deli, 41st and Lexington, 6:30-?
Wednesday. Online Write-In, login to the chat here: http://chatnano.net/tempchats/nyc.html 6pm-?
Thursday: Write-In at Ozzie's on 5th Ave and Garfield Street in Park Slope, 6:30-?
As always, check the Google calendar for details. You can find it as well as lots of other fun stuff on our local forum: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/50
One last thing! Olga and I leave Friday for San Francisco, where we will be participating in the Night of Writing Dangerously, a NaNoWriMo write-a-thon fundraiser. We've raised the funds we need to participate (and a big, big thank you goes to everyone who donated) but we are overachievers, so we want to raise more! All donations go to the Office of Letters and Light, the organization that runs NaNoWriMo, Script Frenzy, and the Young Writers Program, and it is a non-profit organization. If you've got a couple of dollars lying around that you're willing to contribute, we'd appreciate it! You can donate here: http://www.gifttool.com/athon/MyFundraisingPage?ID=1891&AID=806&PID=1067... (And if you are going also, let me know!)
I think that's everything. Email me with questions, etc. And write hard!
Happy writing,
----------Erin
New York City Municipal Liaison
~Erin
New York City Municipal Liaison
blog | twitter