Our yearly sound-off!

Hi, I'm Robyn. *Waves.*

This is my...*counts on fingers*...4th NaNo. I've not won yet, but I'm hopeful for this year! I'm 17 and a high school senior, and this year I've got a whole load of friends working on NaNo with me. Along with meeting with my friends at school for NaNo workings, I also would like to make it to the write-ins and other get-togethers this year (hopefully with some of those friends who can provide me with transportation!).

I've written fantasy, sci-fi, and romance, and this year I'm going to write another one of those genres...I'm just not sure which. I don't do a LOT of planning beforehand, but I do get an outline/character sketches/a vague idea of plot.

Heys all! I go by Zumie, as you may have gathered from my username. This is my fourth Nano, and I'm hoping to win this time. I've only won once before (two years ago), and it was a savory victory.

I'm a freshman at UMA. Er, I'd love to meet locals this time around. ^_^

This novel is Y/A fantasy, which what I normally write. I occasionally do some sci-fi and paranormal, but mostly I do fantasy all the time. :D

So far I've been doing a lot more planning than I usually do. No idea if it will help or hinder me, but I'm hopeful.

Well, here I am ... most people call me Maisie, but I answer just as easily to Midge so you can call me whichever. I'm a first-year NaNoer and second-year student at UMaine (Orono campus). I've been doing vague sorts of planning since I found out about this adventure, and am now going to attempt to do some more serious planning and get through November with flying colors (even though looking at the planner for that month makes me want to cry a bit). I write fantasy, always with a love story in there (I can't resist a happy ending), probably more in the YA vein than the adult vein, and I'm pretty excited about this particular plot/characters.

Also, as you may have noticed, I have an inordinate fondness for parentheses and a tendency to babble on somewhat. Which, come to think of it, could be really helpful.

Hellohello~

I'm Bethany (as you would see if NaNo would accept what I changed my username to - bethanybob). I'm 19 and live between Augusta and Brunswick. This is my third NaNoWriMo, and I've won the last two years. I'm really looking forward to this year and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can make it to Write-Ins -- that was the big thing I missed last year.

This year I'm aiming for a sort of young adult fantasy. The last two years didn't have a lot of direction or focus, so hopefully this year will go better.

Hi!

I call myself Wandering Fox, my real friends call me Liz, my imaginary friends call me Listy, my associates call me Elizabeth, and my enemies call me their worst nightmare. A little about me:

This will be my fourth NaNo, but the first with a puppy.

I won the last two years. The first year was a spectacular failure.

Even my mundane stories have an element of fantasy about them, but I usually do either sci-fi or fantasy, or both.

At this time, I have absolutely no clue what to do for NaNo this year. But I'm not worried yet, last year's idea didn't come until October. And I always have half-baked ideas lying around I can snatch up if I'm desperate.

I've been attending the write-ins at Panera pretty regularly since they began. I encourage anyone and everyone to drop by.

I am an editor and writer, and am hoping to get some stuff published soon. My last year's NaNo story, I think, does have potential. I do have a blog story to keep me writing (which I am hoping I can get back into updating more regularly), as well as a few other blogs here and there.

Good luck everyone!

Robyn told me I put this in the wrong place, so now I'm putting it here, where she told me it belongs:

Hey, I'm a first year from the area of the Gorham USM campus. I'm going to be writing my novel based in a fantasy realm of my own creation, which is going to later be the realm of an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) that I'm working on. I've been planning out my novel for a little while now. I have several pages of notes, as well as character sketches. In addition to this planning, I will be running a lot of mini-RPGs (role-playing games) for the people involved in the creation of said MMORPG. The book's title, Campaign of Survivors, is inspired by one of the least useful battles in the history of said world, as the book will be semi-history-text in nature. Most information that has been released is currently on my web-page http://mmoproject.8k.com/

Greetings everyone.
This is my first NaNo. I will be writing a small part of what will eventually become a multiple-book science fiction saga covering four different wars. (The series will be broken into four major parts) I've been working on the core concept since I was in 8th grade, I'm now a Freshman in college, and this is my first attempt at writing more than a short story in it. I'm essentially using this thing as a way to get myself to write. So, yeah, looking forward to it.

I'm Kel. :)

* I live near Newport and this is my third NaNo year, but only my second year on the boards.
* I'm thirty-six, but I tell people I'm twenty-nine, just like my grandmother always told me to do.
* I love the Red Sox and Heath Ledger, in that order. During the off-season the order switches, though.
* I have a hubby, two kids and one cat. I love them more than both the Sox and Mr. Ledger, on-and-off season. The cat's name is Hazel Mae, just like the sportscaster from NESN. If we had a male cat he'd be named Varitek.
* This year I'm writing the prequel to my 2005 NaNoNovel (that I recently completed and am trying to find an agent for.) It, like its predecessor, is set in a rural Maine town with a stagnant economy due to mill closings. (Sound familiar to anyone?)
* My number one pet peeve is having to listing to people From Away call Bangor "Ban-ger." It makes me want to poke my eardrums with a sharp object. So far I haven't, though.

I'm looking forward to getting to know my fellow Maine writers!

Hello everyone!

I'm Jen, and this is going to be my second NaNo (and hopefully my second success!).

This year I'm working on what it seems like a lot of people are doing: young adult fantasy. I usually write that genre and lit fic (both with a hint of crazy futuristic worlds, oh boy!). I'm determined to have by November 1 a fully detailed outline (instead of last year when I only did half of it and a "eh, we'll see what happens". What happens is you get to 35,000 words and then have a break down!) :) Oh, it's fun.

I live in Belfast, which has plenty of hip, cool, trendy coffee shops (also, bars!) in its vicinity, so I'd love to meet up with anyone in the area. I'm also a graduate of UMaine-Orono, so if any current students want to chat, I'd love it!

Let's have a good time!

Hi my name is Meri! i was an ML of Maine last year (hopefully again and more stable then last year with health crisis)

This will be my third nano-wrimo. and I have no idea what I'm going to do. I'm 23, live in south portland, and run my own business on top of school and a 40 hour job (and trying to be a writer)! Newly Wed and normally I write either fantasy or horror but not sure what I'm going to pop out this year!!!!

I hope to see you all soon! Drop me a line if you ever have any questions or need some pep emails! I'm good at keeping people focused and going!

Well, people probably remember me, but still:

My nickname is Maemi, but my real name is Joana. I'm a seventeen-year-old senior at Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln. This'll be my third NaNo and hopefully my third win. I plan to go to UMaine Farmington or College of the Atlantic for Creative Writing next fall.

Um, I also like to sing, act, draw, and I play a mean harmonica :P. I obsessively carry around notebooks, and some of the places that I've stopped cold and started outlining my novel for this are a little... yeah. Um, I dunno what else. I'm a lesbian if that matters at all. Other than that, I guess there's nothing interesting about me.

I'll follow Ken...

- I'm Aynslie, I'm a middle school Literacy teacher and I live in Portland.
- I'm not really sure if this will be my 4th or 5th year doing Nano. I know I did it in 2004, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I might have done it in 2003 also. I just can't remember, mostly because I can only remember about 5% of my life in late 2003/early 2004. So if anyone remembers me from 2003, give a holler; at least I could pop that piece back into the puzzle. I was registered under the name "Aynslie" then, not "Aunt Silly", so that's why it doesn't say I joined back then.
- I "won" in 2005 and 2006, though I prefer to think of it only as successfully writing 50,000 words, since--technically--we're really only competing with ourselves.
- This year I will be one of the co-ML's for southern Maine.
- I write fantasy with huge chunks of historical fiction worked into them.
- I have very high expectations for everyone this year and I will spend a lot of time encouraging everyone and urging you all to take advantage of the write-ins.

Ok...
I'm Teresa, also known as Jazz in some places. This will be my fourth or fifth NaNo attempt. I sorta won last year, but not before that. Usually it takes me 6 months to write 50k words. At least.
I attend the Westbrook meetings/Write-ins. I write mostly fanfic, and modern setting fantasy. This year... I'm not sure what genre it will be, but it'll be something.:)
Also do art, costuming, and used to do theatre stuff.
C'mon by. I don't bite.

Well, I kinda mentioned a bit in another post but here goes again.

I go by Goldenmane just about everywhere on the net (except a few places I go by SohNakar or Shimmerwing, depends if Goldenmane was taken or not ^^ My real name is Becky and I'm an overstressed and underpaid worker who likes to pass the other 11 months of the year working on crafts to sell at local shows, RPing or tinkering with fan fics/art/and recently costuming/you name it (I have too many hobbies to keep up with @.@).

This is my third NaNo and second one being Central Maine's ML. (I consider Central Maine anywhere from about an hour or two drive out of Bangor where our write-ins are located. Give or take if anyone else wants to join us.)

Normally we hold our write-ins (as well as the Central Maine Write More (CeMaWriMo) meetings) at Borders in Bangor. Though they had some downtime with completely revamping their cafe, changing companies and lots of other stuff. This weekend (probably before then) I'm going to go over there and make sure we can still take over part of their cafe for our write-ins. More on that as news develops.

I'd like to welcome everyone on board again and congratulate everyone now for being brave enough to want to pound out a 50k word novel in a month. Here's to a good month and a lot of winners from Maine ^^

Goldenmane is twisting my arm to post in the Maine Forum. I don't know why. :). The baseball playoffs are on tv so why should I spend all this time writing a silly post? There is more in life than Nano, isn't there?

On the serious side of things. Nano is a great time and I do like trying to do it and I have won over the last two years. Sadly, though, I am not a person who handles pressure well and Nano is a form of fake pressure as in "I really don't have to do this". While I don't want to blame things on my health, it is true that my health takes a toll on me in the form of exhaustion. With everything going on in my life adding pressure to my health, Nano is something that I don't need to add to the mix.

So I debated long and hard over the summer if I wanted to do this years Nanowrimo. I am certainly not at a loss for writing ideas from adventure to, fantasy, science fiction and adult fantasy. This makes Nano relatively easy to do as far as the idea section goes. But doing the 1667 words a day gets to me. I suppose it gets to a lot of people. But over the last two years this Nano pressure did get to me, sometimes in the form of anger and frustrations, other times in the form physical manifestations. Do I need to do that again?

Even though Nanowrimo's goal is 50,000 words I never complete my novels in that number of words, it takes me many, many more. This means that I am still working on my Nano 2005 and 2006 novels. I add more words but many ideas come between them. I have been working on 4 different projects since the end of last years Nano, one that has been sitting around since 1992. Do I want to add another one to the list? Well maybe.

This year I decided that I would work on another project, one that has been in the works for 10 years. But I decided that I will not rush trying to make the word count. This might help relieve the pressure. I hope.

Well here goes the other stuff. On the boards (and most everywhere else on the web) I go by Rigelk (one of my characters). My name is Don. I have been writing ever since I was in grade school. I have been interested in writing fiction from the beginning. I have had a few non fiction pieces published, a few poems and a couple of short fiction pieces published on the web. I have yet to submit my novels for publication because I don't think they are ready. I write a lot during the year, although I go out and enjoy the sun as much as I can during the summer. A lap top would certainly help in this regard. While I love what a computer can do with editing, cutting and pasting and saving files and revisions on different disks (cd's nowadays), I miss my old manual typewriter that did not depend on boot ups, power or storage systems. Just stick a piece of paper in and go. If you get interrupted you can just walk away. There was no worry about failing to save your work; no worry about power outages or thunderstorms. But on the down side if you made an error you had to start all over again. Oh well writing isn't perfect.

I wish all Nanowrimoers a winning nanowrimo.

Hi, I'm Tirza, Taffizah, Tizara, Tizar, and any other manifestation and mispronunciation of my name. I am out of school, but in the working world. This will be my first NaNo, and I'm still trying to figure everything out. I wanted to do it for the past couple of years (we had fliers in my school), but was either too busy or was totally unreminded to. I hope I can pull it off with the near full time work schedule I have.

My novel has been kicking around in my head for the past year or so. I haven't been able to write it for a multitude of reasons, most of which involve the amount of schoolwork and regular work I have had. This just might be the final bump in the butt for me to write. Even if I don't cap the 50k, hopefully it will be what I need to get this thing written, finally.

Hope everyone meets the goal!

Name's Sarah. Nickname's Ahava. Whichever one works for you, is fine for me. This is my second year doing nano, and I won last year. Going to be doing something in the same world as last year, hopefully with a different twist, I'm still trying to get the world i write for all straight in my head. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and win again.

Living in Bangor at the moment, but moving to Thorndike by the end of this month.

Nothing else spectacular about me, really. Except that I work for Verizon, and if anybody has questions about the Fairpoint deal, ask and I will get you answers. At least, until they lay me off.

--Ahava

Hello all!

Name: Wendy C. Allen a.k.a. EelKat

About Me: For those who know me, I am of course EelKat and for those of you who do not know me, well, I'm still EelKat. I am a writer of the Gothic, Horror, and Science Fiction genres. I am an artist who loves to draw and paint pictures of cats and dogs and birds and roosters and flamingos and peacocks, and I sell my art online via CafePress and Zazzle.

Our lives were turned upsidedown when we lost everything in a flood, than 6 months later after begining to rebuild our lives we lost everything again in a fire. Our family of 7 lived on the streets, homeless for 8 months, living in a shelter built out of tarp an cinderblock. This month marks 8 months since we got back in a house again and off the streets, and we hope to rebuild our lives, literaly from the ground up.

I am owner of The Twighlight Manor Press and Copper Cockeral Cards and Gifts.

On the internet, I am know as EelKat, my alter-ego, the talking black bobcat from Planet Diona (a character from both The Twighlight Manor series & The Planet Ptarmargin series, as well as The Chrystonite Chronicles).

In alphabetical order: I like Alan Rickman, Alice Cooper, American History, birds, candy, Carl Barks, cats, C*C*DeVille, Colombo, comic books, Darkwing Duck, David Bowie, Disney, dogs, Don Rosa, Donald Duck, dvds, eels, Etiole, fashion, gothic, haunted houses, horror, Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp, Kieth Laumer, movies, NegaDuck, pigeons, Prof. Snape, Retief, roosters, sci-fi, Scrooge McDuck, Sir Roderic, Twighlight Manor, Uncle Scrooge, video games, Vincent Price, Willy Wonka, writing, Zorro.

I am the creator and Administrator of A Writer's Desk, the forum for writers.

I am an active eBayer and regular poster on the Padded Cell.

I am a huge fan of Don Rosa and his book The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Of course that means I'm also a huge fan of Carl Barks and his art work and stories as well.

So what do I do when I'm not writing books or cruiseing online? Living life. You know the drill. But that's boreing, so what else is there? Well, I love to watch movies and read. My fave actors are Vincent Price & Johnny Depp. Another actor/character combo I like is Alan Rickman as Prof. Snape.

My fave writers (after Don Rosa and Carl Barks) are Kieth Laumer (Retief) and Douglass Adams (Hitchhicker's Guide To The Galaxy & Dr. Who).

My fave TV shows are Darkwing Duck, X-Files, Star Trek (original), Dr. Who (Tom Baker), Xena, Colombo, and Sherlock Holmes staring Jeremy Brett.

My fave singers are C*C*DeVille, Poison, David Bowie, & Alice Cooper.

I love cats, dogs, roosters, birds, and esp. eels. (Have or have had pets of all of the above.)

I love living near the ocean, I love the smell of the salt air, the sound of the waves, the feel of the sand between my toes... nothing in the world is better than living on the cold icey North Atlantic Ocean!

Oh yeah! and I love html!

About My NaNo History:

This is my third year.

In 2005 I barely started, but can't even remember why I didn't finish.

In 2006, my old account got deleted so I had to set up a new one. Last year my horror/sci-fi/romance finished NaNoWriMo with 183,000 words.

This year, I'm going to write an Adventure/Fantasy. Here is what I'm planning to write for 2007:

I want to write a Carl Barks style adventure story for my NaNo this year. You know... treasure collector goes on mad-dash quest to find lost/forgotten treasure, which takes him to the deepest darkest jungles where he meets up with all sorts of strange native tribes, grabs the sacred artifact, and barly escapes with his life. The Indiana Jones series of movies was based on Carl Barks' stories btw. Carl Barks stories (written in the 1930's and 1940's) are action packed and loads of great fun.

This year I'm doing an Adventure~Fantasy(I think....may change mind by the time November gets here... last year I had everything planned out a month in advance and than threw it all out on day 2 of NaNo and did something totaly differant!)

I'm thinking Carl Barks style adventure set in a fantasy world backdrop. I'm planning to send my hero off after a "lost treasure", and have him end up in the deep jungle where there's a lost civilization that is totally cut off from the rest of the world and is totally differant from humans as we know them. Not sure yet if it'll be a "magic realm" or not.

At the moment, I set mine in the middle of a lush green jungle, probably South America or PNG but not sure yet. I was thinking that maybe their city was in a volcanic valley, where the mountains were so tall and so forbodin (rumbling and spouting lava) that the people never dared leave the vally, while at the same time outsides thought it was just on big volcano so never went into the valley. That's how I'm planning to isolate my city anyways.

I was thinking of having an oracle of some sort in my story, but I don't much about oracles. But I was thinking of having some sort of "holy building" in the center of the civilization, with a priestess of some sort where folks go to seek advice.

Hi Jen, I live near Belfast too. :-)

Yay! I was wondering if there were any mid-coast writers! We'll have to get coffee...

Hi all! It's me! LOL I had to do a name change since I couldn't remember my password and the address they wanted to resend my password no longer exists!!

Anyway, Maniacwriter is me Shandier aka Lori

I'm 39.
I teach middle school.
I have three published novels.
This is my sixth NaNo and I have finished all but one.
I am writing another YA with my shapeshifters this year.
Internet safety is the name of the game.

I guess that's all. If anyone wants to be my friend... add me! lol

Hey,

I'm Chris. This is my first NaNo. I never even knew this existed until one of the kids at my store (Crossroad Games in Standish) mentioned it. I have a fantasy/adventure story in mind for my first novel and am spending the month of October working on preparations for it so that when the 1st hits, I'll have a taste of the world I'm writing in. I'm excited and a little nervous as well. There's a bunch of us that plan to get together on Tuesday evenings in November for moral support/conversations about writing/etc. If any of you are in the Standish area and feel like joining us, stop on by. We'll meet at 6pm starting on November 6th!

I'm no kid, Mrs. Hill >>

Hello all!

I'm Andrea and this will be my third Nano. I "won" in 2005 and I say that lightly because while I hit just over 50k words, I did not finish my novel. I didn't even crack 5k last year, so this is my attempt to redeem myself.

I'm 35 and live in Auburn. I'm actually From Away (Seattle) but I married a native and have been in Maine for over five years.

I have no idea what I'll be writing this year, but it will contain elements of horror and suspense. Stephen King, Ruth Rendell, Ramsey Campbell, Peter Straub, John Harvey, Minette Walters and Shirley Jackson are some of my favorite authors.

I went to some of the Westbrook write-ins in 2005 and hope to make many more this year. Good luck to everyone!

Sorry dude. When you're mom is younger than me, that makes you a kid.

My name is Michael, but I've been Belcatar on the internet since there was an internet.

This is NaNoWrimo number six for me...I've won every time, plus a Script Frenzy victory in June. I live up in Haynesville. There is not, as the song describes, a tombstone every mile, nor is there any ghostly girl who hitches rides home from truckers. Well, maybe there's a girl who hitches rides home, but she hasn't hitched a ride from me.

I work at East Grand School in Danforth. Last year I persuaded another teacher to NaNo with me. I'm hoping to get a couple of more teachers this year, and hopefully a student or two.

My novel this year is fantasy, a detailed account of a six day siege against a walled city. I have maps and some other information available, but no plot notes or anything like that. My goal is to write a decent, complete draft so that my wife will have something readable after 30 days of NaNo Widow-Hood.

Hi Zumie! I'm working on a YA/fantasy too.

I live in Bowdoin, so I really feel isolated! Thank goodness my hubby writes with me.

Hubby and I got the "No Plot No Problem" book on a whim last summer, and we could not wait until November, so we had our own private writing month in July. We both "won" and we had a blast. We are both doing it again "for real" this Nov. This novel is going to be set in the same world as the first, but not necessarily a sequel.

:) Jen

Oh my goodness, I have a doppleganger. I'm 36, but tell people 28, I have a DH, two kids, and cat. DH is watching the red sox right now.

:) Jen

Hello everybody!

I'm Ellen aka Ellie aka that girl who lives with Kendra.

I really tried nano last year, and kinda sorta tried it the year before. Never won.

HOWEVER! I've always wrote deep sort of emotional introspective stuff and just run out of juice. Even last years novel which was kinda fantasy cause it took place in an MMORPG. well, my main still spent the majority of it sitting at her desk, sulking when it really came down to it. NOT THIS YEAR! Oh no! this year is a REAL fantasy! A running, jumping, climbing trees and putting on make-up when you're up there fantasy (please someone get that reference). So, I have high hopes that I might be able to stick it out.

HELLO THERE, ELLIE!!! ; )