NaNoWriMo in Germany

Anybody stationed in Germany doing NaNoWriMo? I've met one other person in the lounge doing NaNoWriMo but I figure with as many bases as there are, there have to be more!

Me! But I think I'm the person you met, lol ;)

How are you enjoying it here so far?

Add a third! Where in Germany are you guys? I'm stuck out here in the boonies of Bavaria...

I'm at the Graf training area near Nurnberg. I would love to rock an English language write in.

Let's establish our locations.

f

I'm in the Hohenfels area (Parsberg), so not too far out. This is my first go with NaNo. I'm already working on 2 projects (sloooooowly), but since we're supposed to start a fresh project, I'll do that, at least for this first time around, so I can legitimately call myself a winner. Right before we came to Germany almost 3 years ago, and while working on project #2, I had a plot idea and wrote it down on a small piece of paper for later use. I had developed it a bit more, but can't find the stuff anywhere. Luckily, I remember which direction I wanted to go with this story, so I have a good baseline, even though it's pretty rough at this point. I'll use today and tomorrow to assemble some sort of a loose outline, so I'm not going into writing entirely blind on Tuesday.

My plan is to drag my little netbook to work with me and do some writing during my lunch hour, and then a bit in the evening.

Have you guys/girls done anything to prep?

Happy writing,
Nickie

So, now, about one day from the beginning of Nano, do we want to do a write in this year?

It seems like Vilseck seems to be the epicenter for the Vil/Graf/Ho community.

And, there have to be folks in other communities too. If you are a "Nano Orphan", sing out.

f

I'm a "Nano Orphan". We're moving in the beginning of November to Baden-Württemberg.

I'm in Bad Fallingbostel so miles away from you guys. Not found any other British NaNoers out here, does that make me an orphan?

I am near Ramstine /Landstuhl area if anyone is interested. I was in Great Britain for 7 years and hang out with the Cambridge WriMos. This is my first year in Germany and still getting over the culture differences.

ok, it looks like we have two clusters of primarily English speakers.

One is obviously in Graf, one is pretty much in K-town.

So, we have information. What are we going to do with it?

f

Hi everyone,

I'm over in the western part of Germany, at Spangdahlem AB. My husband, sons, and I just PCSed here in July, and love it here. I'm glad to know there are other military-affiliated NaNoWriMers in Germany besides me!

The countdown is on... 15 minutes to go!
Lee

I'm in Heidelberg. I'm a wayward college student taking advantage of the fact my family's stationed in Germany, and have been here since January. We've been stationed in Heidelberg in the past, though.

Despite making plans to do nanowrimo for the past... five years?, this is the first year I'm actually doing it.

OK, this is taking away from writing time.

It seems like some of us are kind of, sort of, in for a write in. Since we have a lot of us in the Vilseck/Graf/Hohenfels area, let's do it there.

And, I think we need to set a date, and set it before midnight on Thursday, Central European time.

So, does anybody have any preference between Vilseck and Graf? I can find out about on base child care if anybody wants.

f

Holy Cow! It's 12:33 in the morning, but I did it! I met my daily goal. Maybe tomorrow I'll start a bit sooner...lol I don't even want to think of having to wake up in the morning for work...yikes!!! But I'm sure that I'm not the only one putting in a late night ;-)

Btw, I downloaded Scrivener - heard tons of awesome reviews about this program from fellow nanoners on the German board. You can get a free trial until 7 Dec if you are doing the NaNoWriMo (just have to google scrivener nanowrimo and the special download page for us comes up). I already fell in love with the program and didn't even get to play with all the functions yet.

About the write-in, I'll try to make it from Hohenfels, if we're not leaving town.

Night-night ya'll,
Nickie

Ok, I am taking a break. I can take a few minutes for this.

We have a date, October 12 or 13th. I would like the 12th, its a Saturday. At 1667 a day, that's about twenty K in. That's a time when I fall behind.

We need a place. It needs to have

nearby quality child care
wifi and power
some sort of food and drink available, especially coffee

It would be NICE if it had,
Real food and beer available
The ability to be open for long hours
train/shuttlebus access

Anything else?

I'm not a parent, so I don't know about the "certified military home child care" people. I know that CYS has a certification program of some sort. I think that this might give us more flexible hours, but I have no idea of the quality.

So, if I set this up, is anybody gonna come?

Now I have to get back to work.

f

Just checking in to see how everyone is doing. Me? I'm almost caught up at 9011 words on day 6. My eyes are starting to cross, so it's time to put my story to sleep for the night and get cracking at it again tomorrow.

Stuff I've learned so far:

- 1667 words are a lot... hehehe. I usually write in the post library on my lunch hour for 35-45 minutes and can knock out about 400 words. Then, when I get home after grabbing food for dinner and then cooking it (doesn't take long and takes my mind of sitting in front of the computer all day at work), I either sit down on my favorite recliner with netbook on my lap or at the kitchen table and crank out 2 or 3 more scenes.

- Weekends are not for catchup. Learned that this go around when I had 2 slow days during the week. Of course I still want to enjoy stuff with my family instead of writing all day. So, I'll be trucking on all week, so I can have a little down-time for family.

- I can easily write blog stuff with the TV running, but with my novel, it has to be mellow music or I can't see the movie in my head... you know what I mean, I'm sure.

- Another thing I learned is to turn my screen to black background and green writing (I use scrivener) and I can just focus on the story instead of playing with word-count charts etc.

- Finally, I try not to get bogged down with outlining. I have a very lose skeleton outline and every day, I look at possible scenes that I could write and pencil / type them in. When I begin writing a scene, I first add some random key words that come to my head that I may want to cover or mention in that section. The filling in happens as I watch my "movie" as it plays out in my head and my fingers do the typing.

How's everybody else's writing coming along? Any tips?

Nickie

Hi,

This is my first NaNo. I have only just found this forum so it saves my a trip to England to more experienced folks. We are in the Spang/Bitburg area.

I love writing but my family decided I needed a boost to finish a project. I started slow but I am catching up. I am hoping to catch a NaNo write in England this weekend.