Write-Ins Online via Gmail: a bright and cozy idea

Good Afternoon Luxembourg Wrimos,

I had a bright idea in the wee hours this morning. It occurred to me that write-ins on weekdays may not be manageable for some of us. For those who have children, or school work, or whatever, planning a weekday to meet up just might not be in the cards. I include myself in this category, 2 teenagers and a weekly Greek language class reduces my logistical spontaneity.

Most of us have a gmail account (for those, who do not, setting one up is EASY!) Have you noticed the chat function?
Well, my bright idea is for our members to log-in to their gmail account whilst scribbling away in November. This way, as long as other members of our lovely group has your gmail address in their Contacts List, their little dot/icon on the left side of the inbox turns green as soon as one is online. For example, I will be logged-in to Luxembourgnano@gmail.com and since I know that Steph has Gmail account (with her permission :), I will check to see if she is online at the same time as I. As ML I REALLY wish to encourage, to root on towards 50k-words, so I'll roll my mouse over her name and click on "chat" in the little menu. I can imagine writing something like "Hey, Steph, glad to see you! Have you written at least 1.667 words since yesterday?" Steph, then, will see my chat pop up on her screen. She'll reply something like" Hey Yvonne, nice to see you. No, yesterday, I wrote not 1.667, but 3 times as much!" And then I would send her a virtual cheer and a thumbs-up emoticon. See how easy it is?? I chat like this on a regular basis with my family back in the States. Often 4-5 of us are connected to a conference-chat. We can discuss this at Il Pavone in detail. But if any of you are in favor of it now, just send your Gmail address to Luxembourgnano@gmail.com and open a contact for the same in your Gmail address book.

(Hey, Steph, thanks for allowing me to use you as the LuxNaNo-poster-child! Merci villmols!!)

I think that this is a venue for us to stay in touch between our physical meetings. There will come a time during November when you may feel weighed down by the 50k-words. You may feel like you have bitten off more than you can humanly chew. Or, your boss makes you work late. Or you have an essay in French, English AND German, all due on the same day! (Hi, Ada:)) Or you may get stuck with your plot, or your main character. At such times, a little encouragement from a fellow WriMos is usually what it takes to shake off the doldrums and silence the inner critic bent on auto-sabotage with inane automatic thoughts.

Please send me your F e e d b a c k !! Looking forward to hearing from you all :)
Have a lovely evening!!
Warm regards,
Yvonne

Hello,

Ah, you're welcome Yvonne, I'm happy to be the poster-child ;-)

But yes, chat sessions while typing might actually be a good idea, if only for a few minutes. There's other options as well, Skype immediately comes to mind when you say 'chat', but as you said, details can always be discussed on Saturday (hooray) and help provided as well! :-)

Chatting to get rid of your plot-related frustrations or things you just simply need to get out in the open, whether good or bad, is very helpful during NaNo, speaking from experience there. One of my best ideas in last year's plot came after ranting about my plot to a fellow roleplayer (thanks Roguewan!! - even though she cannot see this since she is not from Luxembourg).

Anyways, I keep doing this.. rambling on and on and on lol. I should really get that reined in a little ;-)

Have a nice evening everyone, and see you latest on Saturday!
Steph

Hello!

I think this is a great idea. I don't have a gmail acocunt though. I think i'll just have to create one. I always find it SO HARD to come up with good usernames. i'll just share the username with all of you as soon as i have one. hehe.

also, hi Yvonne:)

bye.

so, this is my gmail account:
ada.human@gmail.com
i named it the same as i named my twitter.

you can now all come and add me as a friend!

ada

OK, so if I got it right, we can gmail chat but only with one person at a time? (that's how I use the feature usually).

Do we have an online kick-off party planned tomorrow at midnight? Who would be fit to attend? Then we could find ourselves an online chatroom.

(or if anyone joining uses MSN/ICQ we can meet there too, what do you say?)

Suzanne

Hello Lux WriMos!

If you log in to your gmail account you will see that I have sent you an invitation to a chat.
We will use this during NaNoWriMo to stay in touch and encourage one another.

This is also the place where our Nov 1 Midnight Online Kick Off will take place.

Should you NOT have a Gmail account, please open one and send an gmail email to Luxembourgnano@gmail.com.
As soon as I receive your message, I will add you to the Luxembourgnano@gmail.com group.

(I also understand should any of the newcomers just wish to write in the shadows.)

Hope to hear from you all (especially dawnrs and luxembourgmatt since you have already manifested yourselves in our forum) :)

Yvonne

That's great news Yvonne!!!

So just to make it clear, I'll be online tomorrow night, for the kick in at midnight! ^^

And I hope to meet some of you virtually!!!

Suzanne

Edit: I just saw the message in the yellow box! XD

OK ONE minute after midnight! Pals, we're going to have SO much fun, I can tell you that! *bounces around*

Suzanne

I am definitely in on the midnight write!

I'm regularly staying up that late anyway, so it would be a shame to go to bed before Midnight on NaNo launch!

Hi, all! I hope everyone's first days are productive!

I have not been checking the threads, but I will send an email per the above instructions with my gmail account. The chat is a great idea and of interest to me since I am heading to India until the 20th. Sadly, I missed all other events so far due to having to tie up some personal ends in NYC. I really regret not being around in person and want to make sure I keep in touch.

Keep writing!
Dawn