Hiya,
So how's everyone getting on? We're now half way through (or will be at midnight at least) which means that in theory your word count should be sitting around the 25k mark. Don't worry too much if you're a bit (or even a lot) behind, there's still plenty of time to catch up.
I've been very pleasantly surprised this year, my characters seem to be getting on very well and are actually getting through the plot a lot faster than I had dreamed was possible, so my ambition of breaking the 100k mark this year may actually be realised!
How's your story going? Are your characters behaving themselves or are you having to cope with a full scale mutiny. Newbies, are you finding it easier or harder than you were expecting? Veterans, how does this year compare with last?
If you're experiencing the dreaded Second Week Slump, take heart in the knowledge that everyone else is going through it too. Unfortunately the only way to get through it is to force yourself to sit down and write that next word, then the next, then the next. Eventually it will start to flow and the going will get easier again. And once you've reached that magical 25k, it really is like reaching the top of a hill and looking down the slope the other side. The words seem to come much more easily from then on.
On Friday night they'll be sending out a pep talk from one of my favourite authors, Neil Gaiman, and it says exactly what I wanted to say here (but much better of course) so look out for it.
In the mean time, keep slogging along and perhaps consider coming along to one of the many Write-Ins that we've organised for the rest of the month. They're the perfect occasion to get out of the house, away from the miriad distractions and somewhere warm and conducive to getting lots of words written (plus there's coffee, tea and cake which is always a good thing!) :-)
If you need to know where and when they are, check out the Regional Events calendar at the bottom of the Cambridge forum.
:-)
Lottie
----------
*Hugs*
Lottie
ML for Europe::England:: Cambridge
cambridge_england[at]nanowrimo[dot]org
2007: Rising Angels, Falling Apes - ??
2006: An Ordinary World - 84k+
2005: Dreaming of Jack - 83k+
51,357 / 50,000
Nov 15, 2007 - 07 28
33,385 - frankly I'm boggled. I'm on my second slump but I'm just pushing on regardless and restraining the urge to go back and edit everything. Characters are behaving themselves; several unexpected new characters have turned up including a half-dressed waitress, an inscrutable Pole and a gay PA.
My story starts in 1968 and runs right up to just about now. The trouble is that after 30-odd thousand words I'm only in August 1969. At this rate the whole thing is going to stack up at a Tolstoyesque 1.3 million words. In fact, that's two and a bit War and Peaces.
Hmm. Shall I go for multiple volumes or plot trimming. Decisions decisions.
50,614 / 50,000
Nov 15, 2007 - 08 26
I made it to the halfway mark at 25,976 words. I did not think I would make this far for my first in year nano!
I notice that my chapters are a mess. I have beggings chapters in the middle of my book and end chapters at the begging of my book. I am spending the day doing some chapter rearranging.(I am hopeing that this will give me new ideas to write about for my book).
Thank goodneess for the cut and pase feature in my word processing program!
----------Take care,
Snarfgirl2007
50,024 / 50,000
Nov 15, 2007 - 09 35
After three painless years of NaNo in which words poured out of my fingers, I've been struggling to write anything this year. I've ditched three ideas so far after a few thousand words, but at least I now seem to have something that I might get something salveageable out of.
The worst thing is, I shouldn't be complaining. I know I can make the remaining 38k in the last two days if I have to, which is, after all, supposed to be the point here.
But waah, my plot sucks, and my characters suck, I mean hell, my protagonist is still called Protagonist (or some typo thereof), and at that he's better off than some of the other characters who are NameOne, NameTwo, NameThree and Son. And my setting is wildly inconsistent because I came up with it while staring at the junk I'd already written in horror, and so have done no research. And if I have to write tens of thousands of words real quick, it will be pure drivel.
I guess at least I'm getting humorous typos about camels out of it.
----------The Shadowlover
51,357 / 50,000
Nov 15, 2007 - 09 44
Why not leave it like that? The main character in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is called Hiro Protagonist (Hiro=Hero, right?) and he managed to get away with it.
38,962 / 50,000
Nov 15, 2007 - 12 02
I won't give up. It may yet be publishable.
----------07 Nano: Cafe X: 38,962
57,602 / 50,000
Nov 15, 2007 - 12 49
I am stumbling into the unknown every time I sit down to write. I still have no idea what is going to happen. I've had the 'main character has a secret' thing going on since the beginning of the blook but I've only just worked out what it might be, and even then, it might be something different. This year is blummin hard, but not undoable. It is the worst or the best novel I have ever half written. I wanted to include everything in it but so far I have only managed a lot of sex scenes and mythical beasts and an x rated way of summoning them and making them go away. (my MC, not me!) I've never had the second week slump thing but I think this might be it. I might have to write about a dog rescue team or something...
52,481 / 50,000
Nov 15, 2007 - 16 24
Hmm. Let's see....
I got off to a smashing first week, hitting 18.8k on day 6
I then hit the second-week blues, managing a mere 100 words from the 7th to the 14th
I started 7 different stories and have since merged 3 into 1 (my current work), dropped 2 and finished 1.
I've written 2500 words of the Cambridge & Oxford NaNo team fight (Read: violent death) scene. I think it'll require another 2.5k.
I have taken up the Dvorak Keyboard Layout today (15th) on a standard keyboard. It's making things spectacularly slow.
I gave up on the Word War.
I gave up on writing my NaNo Novel.
And I've been talked back into both by Cambridge's wonderful MLs!
Now to trudge onwards and catch up to the minimum required...or maybe I'll take it slowly and lose in a chilled manner! We'll see.
50,152 / 50,000
Nov 16, 2007 - 03 54
Well, I was going pretty well until Tuesday, when I got an attack of the painful wisdom teeth (probably brought on by the cold snap). As a result I wrote only 500-odd words on Tuesday and nothing on Wednesday or Thursday. However I haven't given up - the miscellaneous pains in the general region of my head and face are settling down, and there's a Saturday write-in to look forward to :-)
In the meantime I've been reading a novel set in 16th-century Venice (to keep me in the mood) and working on the conlang for my non-humans that I started last year (to keep my Muse distracted and happy). Hopefully I'll get some more actual Nano-writing done today!
----------2006 Winner (undergoing revisions)
2007: Treasons, Stratagems and Spoils (alt history fantasy)
Three brothers, two murders, one stolen necklace - and a shipload of trouble!
~o~o~o~o~0~o~o~o~o~
50,024 / 50,000
Nov 16, 2007 - 09 09
Heh!
The trouble is, surrounded by names like Erik, Ranulf and Kerr or Akin, Tabun and Dalmar, Protagonist would look deeply wrong... and I don't like Hall, which lets Hero out.
----------The Shadowlover
51,357 / 50,000
Nov 16, 2007 - 09 30
My patented character-naming approach in this situation is to find the translation of the word 'protagonist' in one of the Germanic or Slavic languages (or Nordic at a push) and use that.
Alternatively, carefully assemble all the scrabble letters required to form the word 'protagonist', cup them in your hands, blow on them three times, close your eyes, turn around twice, throw the letters onto the floor, grab a copy of the Copenhagen telephone directory and pick the fifth name on page 212.
50,418 / 50,000
Nov 16, 2007 - 17 08
Well, I am just about keeping up to target. I'm totally new to NaNo and fairly new to writing in general, and I don't think I was fully prepared for quite how hard it would be - what with real life creeping in and everything! Still sitting down and forcing myself to write the number needed to stay on track though, and intend to have a full day of writing next weekend when I have a whole load of time to myself.
I'm pretty pleased with what I've been writing. Some of dialog is terrible, and I have of course, been using six words where one would do, but the overall shape is coming along nicely, although my characters have given me a few surprises along the way.
I think I am sort of enjoying it - I certainly feel like I'm getting somewhere with it, and it's all good practice, if nothing else. If I do this again though, I shall remember to keep November clear and to stock up on ready meals beforehand...
PurpleDaisy
102,337 / 50,000
Nov 17, 2007 - 13 49
For me this year is going much more smoothly than the last two. I like my characters, I don't mind the tortuous detour we have taken as we are now edging back onto plot. The secondary characters who should get sequels in due course are behaving nicely and letting me get to know them better. The new characters I wasn't expecting have all blended in nicely even if two of them would like a story of their own please! So far I haven't got any "Insert scene here" comments in the text and haven't really felt that nasty feeling of "There should be a whole scene here to explain X - but I really don't want to write it!" I haven't even had a great urge to go back and edit.
I am waiting for something to go wrong! lol
----------2005 - Team 324 - contemporary action smut - 53K (now 57K) unfinished
2006 - Dragon's Breath - fantasy romance smut - 82.5K (still 82.5K) unfinished
2007 - Dark Masters: Smoke - sci-fi smut
(I'm better at the unfinished part than the smut part!)
71,343 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2007 - 08 52
Hit 25k on the 11th, actually; by the 15th I was on 32. Madly in love with my characters. Slump hitting now, though, as I'm at 40k and we're barely a third of the way into the story :) Don't think it's going to be done in 50k, think I might hit 70k by the end of NaNo, but I also think there's going to be another 20-40k still to write even if I manage that...
----------NaNo 07: The Thief and the Blood