Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Anyone Under Quota?

RobReynolds2303 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:01:00 +0000

I sure am.

It's a combination of my netbook not doing what it's meant to do (Autosave = Lie), having very small amounts of time at home, and, yes, maybe a tiny bit of apathy this year.

I suppose it's also easy to get distracted by the spectacular word counts some people are pumping out, but even so the majority of people are aiming for the 50k mark, so I'm guessing I'm not the only one in this position.

But I'm determined to get back on track. I'm trying not to think of it as a 700-odd word defecit, cos then I'd only panic about having to write 2350 words or something to get back on track. I'm just going to think of it as a target of 1800 words a day; this is just 150 more than normal, but in six days the margin will have closed to less than a hundred under par, which hopefully will be easily vanquished.

Anyone else in a similar boat at the moment care to share their tactics for hitting 50k? It's only Day Four, and it's too early to say die just yet! =)
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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Word War Banter

Duochanfan — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:25:13 +0000

Well, for anyone who wants to talk, here ya go, go nutty, lols

sue
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Love is Love, who are we to judge if it is right or wrong.
The Burning Quills
2007 - WIN - Death's Messenger: The Journey Starts
2008 - WIN - Death's Messenger: The Journey Continues
2009 - WSS - Kaspia War Trilogy

Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Word War Info - Edited 6 Nov.

Loriba — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:22:52 +0000

Hi all,

This thread is primarily for me to post info about the Word War to all competitors, so it's being cross-posted to all the regions taking part. If you want to make any comments, however, feel free. :-)

ETA: Here's the link to the leader board: http://www.annelyle.com/projects/scoreboard.html

The regions currently signed up are:

Birmingham
Brighton
Cambridge
Darlington
Devon & Cornwall
Essex
Gloustershire
Lancaster & Cumbria
Leicester
London
Manchester
Newcastle
Norfolk
Oxfordshire
York & Leeds
Dublin
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Eng: Elsewhere
Scot: Elsewhere

Birmingham have made enquiries about joining too. I'm waiting to hear back from them.

Only one region has given a definite No, so we may get a lot more before the 10th. Here's hoping. :-)

All those regions that are signed up should have a Banter thread, so feel free to go over and give them hell (but in a nice way). :-)

There may be a slight delay in the War starting up, as we're reliant on the site API working and the site is notoriously slow during the first few days of Nano, plus we're running it in a slightly different way this year and I'm not sure what problems will crop up because of that. In addition, one of Anne's cats is very seriously ill at the moment, so she may not have time to work on it. I'll be in touch with her and will let all the relevant MLs know if we have to make other arrangements at all. I'll also be in touch when I know the URL of the leader board. :-)

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Lottie
I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Europe :: Scotland :: Isle of Skye

Seriously, how can I write at my PC, when I can watch videos of Pugs dressed as Yoda on it?

digitalruin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:07:52 +0000

Seriously.
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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Introduce yourself!!

Cieria — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:23:53 +0000

Hey!! It's another year of WriMo Madness! Yay!

So this is just a little post to get to know each other.

I'm Lily I'm one of your MLs. The other is Duochan who'll post in a bit. I live in Malvern and get the train into Birmingham quite a bit. :P But if anyone wants some write-ins organized in Malvern, in addition to the weekly Birmingham ones then just drop me a PM and we can sort it out. :)

So a bit about me. I'm 18 years old and doing my third year of college. And this will be my 5th NaNo!

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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Word War Sign Up

Duochanfan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:43:34 +0000

Hi all,

If you read the thread Word War Rules 2009 and think it looks intresting then this is where you sign up. Please remember only to post once here.

Well I'm in.

Sue
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Love is Love, who are we to judge if it is right or wrong.
The Burning Quills
2007 - WIN - Death's Messenger: The Journey Starts
2008 - WIN - Death's Messenger: The Journey Continues
2009 - WSS - Kaspia War Trilogy

Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Worcester/ Malvern Write-ins

Cieria — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:49:29 +0000

Hey all!

So every year we get people asking whether write-ins can be held in Malvern/ Worcester in addition to the main ones in Birmingham.

And so since you have an ML who is located in Malvern this year, I have made it my own personal mission to get things organised.

So I have found a couple of places that will allow us to host our events. All in Worcester City Centre.

First up is the Glasshouse:
It's up near the commandary but I can give directions to anyone who doesn't know the way (or meet somewhere else and take you there.). They've said that they'll reserve a table for us. But they have said that they're not that happy with us going there in the evening. So unless we find a weekday afternoon that we can all do then that may not be an option.

Secondly is the Library:
I haven't confirmed this but I went in and got the email address of the person to speak to. So if we decide that this is a viable option then I'll email them and get this all sorted out.

Thirdly, Laebrye has informed me that Charlston's in Reindeer court will take us. I'll have to go in there and make sure but that could also be an option.

Lastly is a last resort option. We may need to use someone's house. I'm happy for mine to be used, but maybe not every time. So if you are happy to host write-ins in your house (and don't live somewhere obscure that no one will be able to find.) then drop me a PM and let me know. We've already had two people offer up their houses (I'm naming no names but one of them is me. :P).

Any other ideas then please either reply to this thread or PM me.

Thankyou
Lily

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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Taking on the world

artman-opensphere — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:03:08 +0000

Yay guys, we're 30th in the charts out of 484 listed places worldwide :o)

We rock.

Most importantly the Manchy arch rivals are 61 places behind us in 91st he he. We love you really!

We are beating amongst others:
All of France
Manchester
San Francisco
York and Leeds
Wales
Newcastle
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Japan
Did I mention Manchester

Germany and Austria only have 3 times us and London only twice :o)

C'mon let's go all out for the top ten :o)
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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Second Write in - 7th November

Duochanfan — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:16:31 +0000

Hi all

We had such a great turn out for the Kick Off and first write in, it was brilliant to see so many new and old faces. I hope we will see you all again on Saturday 7th November, at the Coffee Lounge in the Basement. It will start at 12 noon once again

On another note, Lily and I will be meeting at the Coffee Lounge between 10 and 10:30am for breakfast at the Victorian Resturant, their full english breakfast is £5.50 you can have veggie if you wish as well. Or anything else, lols.

Second Write In - Coffee Lounge - 12 Noon

For early breakfast - meet outside Coffee Lounge - 10am to 10:30am

We hope to see you at the Write in

And well done all of you so far our total word count is soaring :D go pat yourselves on the back.

Sue and Lily.
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Love is Love, who are we to judge if it is right or wrong.
The Burning Quills
2007 - WIN - Death's Messenger: The Journey Starts
2008 - WIN - Death's Messenger: The Journey Continues
2009 - WSS - Kaspia War Trilogy

Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Coventry Area Nanoers

alienatedduck — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:08:58 +0000

Coventry always gets a bit over shadowed by Birmingham seeing as we're so close so I though I'd post to tempt fellow Coventry people out of the woodwork. Maybe you've lived here all your life? Or maybe you study at one of the two universities? Or maybe you live nearby in places such as Leamington Spa or Kenilworth (or other places near by that my knowledge of geography doesn't cover!)

If there's enough interest we could maybe do our own meet up at some point? Or at least we can chat about our Nanos and the wonder of Coventry.

Anyway I'm Gary and currently live in Canley. I know, not the most glamourous place. I lived in Earlsdon last year, and Leamington the year before. I won't do a whole big into as there's a general thread for that, but I though I'd get a Coventry board up to say hi.
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2008: A Turtle, And Other Things That Destroyed The World - Currently rewriting
2009: The Floating City

Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Anyone else had that 'this wasn't supposed to happen, but it's kind of cool' moment?

Aiwevanya — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:24:44 +0000

So I have a character in my book that's a eunuch, there's a complicated reason as to why this happened to him within the story, but my chief motivation for creating him in the first place was as a foil to my other main male character who's... kind of the bastard offspring of Captain Jack Harkness and Lord Byron, with maybe some of the more entertaining Borgias thrown in for good measure... anyway the point is he had to go to a funeral vault to examine some bones (the eunuch that is) and when he got there an overly chatty young lady with bright pink hair wrote herself into the story as a mortician that could be relied upon to carry his half of the conversation, now I think he's falling in love with her... which can only end tragically all things considered... and this girl didn't even exist until five seconds before she said 'hi there, and started going on about how people aren't really interesting until they're dead...

So... anyone else had something like that happen? okay, possibly not very like that, but cool stuff that wasn't supposed to happen, happening to the least likely character for it to happen to... if you see what I mean.
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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Operning Liners!

Duochanfan — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:57:38 +0000

Right, November first is here, midnight has past and we are opening up for those of you brave enough to put up your opening lines.

here is Mine (be warned of spelling mistakes.)

'The cold and dampness from the flagstones leaked into my bones, making the injuries I have gotten from my incarceration, radiates in pain everytime I shivered.'

there ya go! anyone else?

Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Best and worst

apmbsd — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:15:59 +0000

After my recent Merry Hill writing extravaganza (coffee and muffin ftw) I have no surpassed my previous NaNoWriMo effort (2004 - 6028 words) which means even if I were to write no more then I could feel proud that my efforts are the best I've ever managed. Granted that's not saying a right lot but...for some reason this pleases me :)

So...in order to turn this from a self-congratulatory love-in into a meaningful thread, answer me one of the following questions:

If this is your first NaNoWriMo then what would you consider to be a success? Obviously 50,000 is needed for a 'win' but do you have any personal targets which would make you proud even if you were to fall short of the total?

If you have participated before, what were your best and worst efforts?
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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Photos from the Write-Over

Cieria — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:10:03 +0000

Not sure which code it is that I have to use, so if you could just bare with me and I'll g
et it right eventually:

First up: Our supply of sugar for the night. This kept us going. :P

Shot of us with the sugar. I look like I'm glaring at the camera evilly that's just because it was a rush for me to set the self timer and then get down to be in the photo... or is it? Mwahahaha

Group shot about 15 or 20 minutes before midnight.

After midnight, us all hard at work. :)

Taking a break to smile at the camera. :)

Things getting tough! Everyone asleep in the early hours. Wake up and write!!

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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Arrghhh

David Wake — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:23:51 +0000

Just wasted an hour coping with stupid stupidity and screaming at the computer because stupid Microsoft have four different ways of changing the language in Word to English (UK), but a hidden auto-change it back to English (US). The web is full of other people who have spent man-hours coping with this crap, which adds up to man-lifetimes. Microsoft are effectively killing UK citizens. The Government should so something.

People, please make sure you are backing up.
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Cheers,
David.

Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

NaNos at Aston University, Brumland

Gorb — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:54:52 +0000

Well, Birmingham Uni and even the BCU have people in here, so here's my shoutout to see if anyone else from Aston is participating in this crazy scheme.

Yup, that's pretty much it.
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I would shout about being an Iron Warrior, but I'm not sure how many Warhammer fans are around here . . .

Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Word War with Manchester

Ginger-barnet — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:10:49 +0000

Hi All,

I just wanted to ask if the stats on the 'Regional Info' tab are current?
If they are, we're currently creaming Manchester by almost 200,00 words. It states they are on 227, 014 and we're on 418, 224! Yay us, lets keep us the great work.

Ginger :o)
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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

University of Worcester students?

Dillip89 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:44:26 +0000

I noticed there was a University of Birmingham thread, so I deicded to see if there was anyone else at the University of Worcester doing NaNo? Would be nice to share my pain with someone else around here!
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2008 - City of Jade (Fantasy) - Won! :D
2009 - Untitled (Sci-Fi) - Work in Progress

Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Plot! Characters! Drama!

nhrn — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:46:13 +0000

Well, it's the fifth of October and despite what I've been telling myself all year, I have done little to no planning. I have some ideas for characters and notes for things that could happen but nothing concrete, I was in the same situation last year and that turned out awfully. So this year, with the help of these two links
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?p=4197908
http://wondermark.com/554/
I have come up with excellence personified (sort of) anyway, back to the point of this thread. Have any of you motley lot starting thinking about what your novels will be about?

P.S. I will post something about what I've come up with once I've removed all the nonsensical stuff from my notes.
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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Joined on Day 2 - Late?

starlighter — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:51:36 +0000

Hi everyone!

I've been doing NaNoWriMo every year since about 2005! Yay me! And this year I started on the 2nd Day of the month, writing. Joined up today and I already have 550 words. I think that's quite an achievement.

I'm from Wolverhampton, part time worker, part time student. I study Philosophy and Journalism (BA Hons). Has anyone got a busy day-to-day schedule and how do you find your time to write? This is the first time I've been so busy while writing :-/ I need ideas on how to balance out my day...

Happy writing everyone!

:D
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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

University of Wolverhampton

Silver17 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:53:34 +0000

Any students from Wolves Uni doing NaNoWriMo, or just anyone from Wolverhampton in general?
I havent met any yet, but that doesn't mean they dont exist
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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Word War Rules 2009

Duochanfan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:40:13 +0000

2009 Rules:

Eligibility
You must live within the UK or Ireland, and be relatively close to the region you wish to represent.

Sign-ups
Your ML will provide a "Word War Sign Up” thread on your local forum to track word count. Participants will post ONCE in the Word War Sign Up thread by 8pm on 10th November stating that they wish to participate. There is a minimum team size of five participants. If less than five people sign-up to take part, your ML has the option of joining forces with another region in order to increase the team size. If your ML is unwilling or unable to do so and you still wish to take part, you may go direct to another region and ask to join their team, but please give your ML time to arrange for the entire team to join another one before you do this.

The Regional Word War
You must update your word count every two days, on the even numbered days of the month, by 8pm. If you are unable to update your count, contact your ML. During the last partial week (26th –– 29th Nov), you must update your word count daily, by 8pm. If this isn't possible, contact your ML immediately.

If you do not update your word count on four consecutive occasions (8 days) it will be assumed that you have given up and you will be removed from the war (unless you already have more than 50k). If you know that you’re going to be away and won’t be able to update, let your ML know so that we can prevent this automatic removal. (The final date that non-updaters will be removed is the 24th Nov, after this date, all surviving participants will remain in the competition.)

You must input your final (verified) word count by midnight on 30th November. After midnight, you will no longer be able to update your count.

Scoring
You may drop out of the Regional Word War at any time up to 8pm on 20th November without affecting your region's count. If you do not drop out by messaging either myself or your ML, you will be in for the remainder of the competition, NO MATTER WHAT!

If, as a result of automatic elimination or voluntary removal, your team falls below five members, your ML will be given 48 hours to arrange to join another team (this may be extended slightly on negotiation with myself, this is the first time we've had this rule and I'm not sure how it's going to work yet) after which the team will be disqualified. Up to 8pm on the 24th of November, any remaining team members who wish to continue to take part can join one of the other teams (with that team's permission). After this deadline all teams will be fixed.

During the Regional Word War there will be a regularly updated leader board on an external web site. I'll post a link to this board to each competing region as soon as I've confirmed it.

Only the official word count from the "Word War Sign Up" threads on the NaNoWriMo web site will be considered when computing the final score.

After midnight on 30th November, I will ask the other MLs from competing regions (or their designated representatives) to verify the figures before declaring a winner.

Results
There will be two prizes:
The city/region with the highest average word count.
The city/region with the highest proportion of winners from the starting participants.
The MLs will compare results, and when all regions agree, the results will be posted on the NaNo boards.

Banter
Participants are encouraged to engage in good-natured banter with participants from other regions in the various Word War Banter threads. Banter should remain good-natured and within the bounds of good-sportsmanship. The use of 'smileys' in messages is actively encouraged.

Our God-like powers
MLs decide what "good-sportsmanship" means.
We reserve the right to remove folks from the competition for any violation of the rules and guidelines listed above.
MLs are the final authority in any dispute or question about the rules.

Trophies
Each team member receives a personalised winner's certificate, plus goodies to be determined...

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Love is Love, who are we to judge if it is right or wrong.
The Burning Quills
2007 - WIN - Death's Messenger: The Journey Starts
2008 - WIN - Death's Messenger: The Journey Continues
2009 - WSS - Kaspia War Trilogy

Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Extra words

ananaso — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:19:01 +0000

I was going to write:

"Hmm," she said. "You'll need a visa."

Instead, I wrote:

"Well, well," the woman in red said. "You'll need to obtain a government employment licence."

Anyone else chucking in extra words like this to boost the word count?
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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Where you write.

digitalruin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:27:03 +0000

I started yesterday; cracking my knuckles and easing into the chair, fingers primed.
Nothing.
For a longer time than I would have liked it stayed that way. Either an empty page mocking me, or somethig soulless staring back.
Ew.
It took a while to figure it out but I cannot write in my own home. I tried both yesterday and today and it failed.
Yesterday I sat in a pub, lacking any kind of local cafe at 22:00 it was my only choice. The words came out then. Writing with pen and paper is slower than typing, I'm not used to it, and the footie was on, so my progress was pained.
Today, as I said, same deal. So I go out. Merry Hill to try out the new food court and see if I could write. And I did. And very satisfied with the food court I was.
I cannot write in my own home it seems. I have to be out, the more public the better. I sit in my little writers bubble half ignoring the world passing by me, half jotting it down. And it works gloriously.
It's now officially day 3. If any of you are struggling I suggest doing the same thing.
Tomorrow is Wolverhampton for me, as one of my scenes is set there and I'd like to be there as I write it. If you see a lad with his head in a paper notebook, notes all around, struggling, don't pity me, I'll get there eventually.

Hope you're all doing well!
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Europe :: England :: Birmingham-West Midlands

Radio 2 Shout-Out

Rolnikov — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:41:18 +0000

At 26:42 you'll hear the shout-out to those of us at the midnight write-in at the Thistle hotel...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nkb70/Emma_Forbes_01_11_2009/
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Theaker's Quarterly 30 * Dark Horizons 55