10k weekend

Me too. *makes face* I figure if I get to 30,000 tonight I can make 20k on the retreat (at 1,000 words an hour I figure this is doable... just...)

Good luck!

Well, if you guys are far behind, what does that make me?!!

I'll see what I can do. Tomorrow is not such a good day but I should manage to get some good words in on Sat and Sun.

ETA: They have Thanksgiving today, which is good for us, as they'll have the whole family commitment thing. But on the other hand, since it's on a Thursday, most of them will probably chuck a sickie tomorrow and therefore have the whole day to write. So, I'm not sure if that works in our favour or not...

10K is doable, very doable! But 20K is a bit ott for me!

I can write an average of 4k per day... which equals 12K for Friday, Sat and SUn... Oh, whatever happens happens!

Those who eat pie live longer.

2007: Waddle 118K

I finally did the 30 000 tonight! Still have 6000 for the day's total, but I figure I can catch up on Sunday - Sat's off, grocery shopping and voting in the morning, 4 hours on the your rights at work stall in Hasluck, then party after. Sunday's a deader for writing. Oh, hang on. I'm on holidays tomorrow night! *grin*

Jules.

"I'm in the middle of 15 things, all of them annoying." - Claudia Christian, B5, Season 1 - J. Michael Strazinski

Harumph! How rude!

Just for that, we aren't going to send you any pumpkin pie!!

Apollo16

Well we're trying to kick your butts here. You aren't allowed to fight back! :-D (kidding. Mostly.)

EDIT: Not a big fan of pumpkin pie either. . . :-P
EDIT2: But I'm thankful that at one stage you WERE going to send me pumpkin pie ^_^

*headdsk*

kill me. Kill me now.

If the rest of you are BEHIND, I don't know where that leaves me.
2006??

This is my first time with NaNoWriMo and I've had so many interruptions, but even though there is so far to go on my count and so little time left, I haven't given up.

When I look at the number of words I've written against the ACTUAL time spent writing them, this is still doable.
A 10K weekend? I'm game.
I'll need to be pushing almost that hard to get to 50K on time anyway.
I've got nothing to lose...
Errr ... except maybe some brain cells and the use of my fingers.

I need to go now and kick my MFC's fictional butt. She's so busy establishing herself as a personality and being in tune with her surroundings, she's not letting me get much actual story written. Other than the bit where she's about to do something she never knew she had the courage to face. If she'd just stop dithering and get on with it.
I can't think where she gets that trait from. No sir.

I've been writing slowly but steadily the whole month - had a couple of days with under 1000 but forced myself to make it up quickly. Now I can see the end, and I'm hoping to do 2k per day for the next 5 days to finish up.

I really, really didn't need NanoWrimo this year... the page proofs and edits for my previous novel gave me more than enough writing-related material to deal with during the first two weeks of the month, and I'd just spent eight months writing and rewriting the blasted thing.

I was hoping for a nice non-writing break in November, but there you go ... had to confront the challenge once more.

Simon Haynes, programmer of yWriter
Author of the Hal Spacejock series
Also on Myspace!

I delurk!

I've just crossed 40,000 words this afternoon after voting (haven't updated wordcount score though). My motivation to cross 50k in the next 36 hours is that i've got crunchtime on a project at work looming this week, and i doubt i'm going to have the energy after work (let alone time) to so much as drool on myself let alone write the climax of a novel that i'm finding really interesting to write at this point. Good thing it's just filling in gaps from now on then. :)

Good luck all. You can count on my 10k words being added to the pile if previous weekends are anything to go by. :)

Okay, my new strategy worked a treat.

I was getting a bit bogged down in the details. after clawing my way from 18,364 at start point yesterday to a mere 19,331 and not advancing the actual story one bit, I realised that at this rate I wasn't writing a novel so much as the world's most long winded introduction. Well, not quite, given there was a bit of plot in there and a bit of exposition and some foreshadowing.
It's also scary to contemplate how long this thing might become if I ever do get to the end of my set of plot ideas. (These are from the frantic scribbling after my sudden flash of revelation earlier in the month.) If I stick with it after the month is up and get into editing, no doubt it will be rather severely pruned, but it will still be a monster.

So, how not to get to the end of the month with a smaller than 50k word count and nothing resembling a genuine 'THE END' in sight?

I took a break after the 19,331 point, then came back to my laptop, opened my exercise book of scribbled plot points and started typing those straight into the document in red capitals.
Once I've got them all in there, my story outline is complete and 'the end' will be there. Only it's going to be a skeleton.
I can go back and add the flesh to the bones, selecting one small section of red text and then typing over it, with the detailed version of what the note indicates. It's valid to include my red caps sections in the tally, because, they're part of the actual novel. When I type over them, they'll be replaced with other, or rather, more words. The same sentences will more or less be in there. They'll have company and maybe be rearranged a bit, but they'll remain.

That's what I did over three or four sessions yesterday afternoon and last night.
My most productive writing day so far, and right on target for my 10k weekend.
I also have the added satisfaction of seeing an actual plot unfolding.

I copied and scrambled the document this morning to do a validated word count update and discovered I'd made it to 23,398.
My first painful session plus my frenzied red caps bonanza netted me 5,034 words that weren't on the page before.
I haven't made it to the end of my exercise book scribblings yet.

I have realised that about half a page from where I left off in my exercise book, there's an event that makes a pretty firm close of chapter. Firm enough that it lends itself very nicely to being the close of book 1 of 2. Or maybe, given that I don't have so much of the detail mapped out for the story arc from there, book 1 of a trilogy. That's a rather big hairy audacious statement to make, for a first time novelist who hasn't even hit halfway mark yet on the monthly word count, with less than a week to go.

I've just come out of a period with loads of outside interruptions and being a bit blocked, writing-wise. Am now feeling freer to write, and more in command of the actual writing. Half a novel in less than a week? Based on the ACTUAL time I've spent typing so far - yeah, I can do that. The reality is that even if I DO hit the 50k by the deadline, I'll be a long way from finished.
I'll have 'the end' of book 1 there, but the poor thing will be looking a bit anorexic. Apart from the over-sized head. This is going to be a long haul. Even before I get up to the editing stage.

Okay, that's my typing fingers nicely warmed up. Something cool to drink and it's time to get back into the red caps plot point fest. My plan is to actually get into fleshing some of those red notes out with standard format black text in at least half of my writing time today. That, and to make sure I add at least another 5k to my tally.

Good luck to everyone else who's aiming to make a last minute run from behind. It's possible. We can do it!

Congrats galeana. That is one killer plan! ^_^

While my novel isn't screaming for a sequal, it is probably going to be FAR in excess of 50k. Around 100k, which considering it's a fantasy (of sorts) means that its about where normal fantasys are.

*headdsk*

kill me. Kill me now.

Hi Schrodingers cat. My novel is a fantasy too. It was that or do a sort of semi fantasy, semi comedy sci-fi type thing I had an idea for. I had to go and choose the one that was going to turn itself into an epic! Mine isn't going to be a novel with a sequel so much as a very long novel that probably lends itself to being divided into two parts. Book 1, Book 2. It covers three generations of two families, so there's a fairly natural cut off point just after the birth of the third generation. Their story is about half of the plot I have in mind. I don't think the second part would stand well alone. The first might, but there's a major plot point unresolved where I plan to make the division. It plays out through the third generation's story arc.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I have to write the thing first.

The catch up plan worked well yesterday too. I carried on my frantic red caps plot point list, fleshing some of it out a little as I went along and ideas came up. That got me to 28,807, which is a few hundred more than I needed to get through 10k for the weekend.
The problem now is whether I can sustain that same wild pace for the rest of the week and make it over the 50k line by Friday.

I lost today to committee work and a meeting I had to be at tonight. Just home now, eating dinner at 11.30pm. I'm going to try and get a few paragraphs in before I head to bed. I have to work in the morning, and I also have to go out for a few hours on Thursday night. That still leaves me the rest of tomorrow, all of Wednesday, about half of Thursday and all of Friday.
If I pace myself and ignore everything outside of basic necessities, I might just get there. It's worth a shot.
I'm not sure how the family will take it, but they've been supportive so far.
They've also been promised that after I've had Saturday off to recover, things will get back to the strange chaotic mess that passes for normal at our place. I might even feed them something that takes more effort than shoving something under the grill. Or, depending how I feel about the end of the writing month, perhaps we'll go out for the evening.

so i knew my week was going to suck big time so i didnt sleep on the weekend and knocked out 30000 words or so... and finished it off tonight :)

for those that have 11k with a few days to go it is possible :D

now i can sleep.... actually i cant... that is why i had no sleep because i was going to be staying up with work... ok that sux

sorry lack of sleep rambling

I wanted to say thank you for the challenge... it was just what I needed to reach 50k.

Oh... wait... I wasn't invited? Well, I always did want to crash a party. ^.^