Introduce yourself!

I'm Christy in real life, and this will be my forth Nanowrimo. I have finished with 50K each year. My username for the last three years has been orual, after a character in C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, but I couldn't pronounce it at write-ins. MageRaven is more fun and a good deal easier to say.

Of all the words I've written in my years as a Wrimo, I still think the last lines of my first NaNo novel are the best piece of literature I have ever written: "And the ninja vampirates stormed the apartment, armed to the teeth with sharp little pointy stars. They bared their bloody fangs at the girls and hissed. I guess ninja vampirates hiss. Maybe they growl. That sounds more menacing. They howled a war cry that sounded a lot like a pack of drowning Chihuahuas, and left the room."

It makes me weep with joy.

See you all soon.

Christy

Winner - 2006, 2007, 2008 as Orual

I always hate writing introductions. They feel... contrived.

Hmmm. Telling people about myself feels contrived. What does that say about me, I wonder...

Ahem. Moving on. (And leaving that whole line of questioning aside for the moment--I'll pick it up with the shrink later!) My name is Nikki and this is my fourth year participating in NaNoWriMo. The previous three years, I slaved over an epic fantasy trilogy that shall likely never see the light of day again. The first year I didn't actually "win", but I had fun and loved it so much that the next year tried to write not one but two novels at once (targeting 100,000 words in 30 days). We won't discuss that. It was crazy--enough said.

This year I'm putting together a series of short stories to go along with the urban fantasy novel I've just finished up and started sending out to agents. Who knows, maybe when Familiar takes the publishing industry by storm and becomes a smash hit, I'll be able to sell them to my ravenous cult-like collection of fans. ;-)

~Nikki
http://www.nlberger.com

NaNoWriMo 2006 - Aundroma I: Memories
NaNoWriMo 2007 - Aundroma II: Missions (won!) AND Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
NaNoWriMo 2008 - Aundroma III: Momentum (won!)
NaNoWriMo 2009 - Death Makes A Lousy Dinner Date

Hi, I'm Jennifer Sigman, this is my first.

I'm planning to write something fantasy-ish, not 100% sure what yet.

Eek!

-jenn

Is the Eek! because you're not sure? Because if so, there's no need to worry. Nano novels have a way of somehow working themselves out. My first Nano, I didn't know what I was doing until about a week before (heck, I didn't even know what Nano was until about a week before) and even then I only had the opening scene. If you're worried, come to the plotting bash, whenever our esteemed MLs set it for, and we'll help you figure it out.

~Nikki
http://www.nlberger.com

NaNoWriMo 2006 - Aundroma I: Memories
NaNoWriMo 2007 - Aundroma II: Missions (won!) AND Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
NaNoWriMo 2008 - Aundroma III: Momentum (won!)
NaNoWriMo 2009 - Death Makes A Lousy Dinner Date

I'm Incandescent/Natalie, depending on which end of the computer you find me on. I'll be turning 21 just in time to return to reason before WriMo starts up. This'll be my fourth year, and it's meant to be a tie-breaker. I've won two easily, and lost two badly.

Because 50k doesn't really feel like a challenge anymore, I've decided to royally screw myself over. I'm writing 200k (4x the most I've ever written before). I'm switching to the Dvorak keyboard layout instead of QWERTY (which I had never heard of until last week). I'm leaving my laptop at home and writing from my new AlphaSmart. I'm changing what keys I'm pressing, where I'm pressing them and how long I have to keep doing so. Hopefully that will keep my interest.

This year, as with the last three years, I'm going to be attempting Only Child. Unlike the last three years, I think I actually have a shot in hell of completing it. I'm giving myself the liberty of basing off two chapters I've already written to my own satisfaction (not counting them in word-count, though). Seems like most of my failure with this story is trying to get the tone of voice right. I'm either going to continue through that trilogy (should be 250-300k by the end of everything), or write another book in the same universe. I have two stand-alones very, very roughly planned, and a second trilogy I'm rather fond of. We'll see.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/NanowrimoUtils/MyMonth/95590-goal=200000-pc-day...
Ideal Goal: 200k
Minimum Goal: finish Only Child

I am Kevin.

I've never gotten over 20k words before.

Busy as hell in Nov.

Student at USC.

Most people do not like my style of writing because it tends to be abrasive with stripped dialogue and lengthy digressions (Kundera-esque). Oh well, doesn't have to be good right ;p.

---
Je suis fail

Greetings all new Wrimos and welcome back returners!

Can you believe it is already October? And not only October--it's the 7th. How did that happen? Anyway, enough of that. I'm supposed to be introducing myself.

Hi, I'm Kalayna, your local Co-ML. This is my fifth time participating in the challenge (omg, is that really correct? I feel so old--lol) and my fourth year as ML. My favorite color is blue and . . . wait that's not the info you want. You want my story. Here it is:

Way back in October 2005, I was staring at the daunting NaNoWriMo challenge for the first time. At that point, I'd been writing for 12 years but had never crossed the 20-30 thousand word threshold. How in the world was I going to write 50k in just one month?

The answer: One day at a time while applying BIC (butt in chair).

Before my first NaNo, I was what I call a 'Muse-Struck Writer.' As in, I only wrote when the muse hit me up-side the head with words and I couldn't do anything but write. This meant I might write 5-10k words in a single week, but then not write another word for three or four months. This is not a great way to write books because (as you all probably know) the muse is a fickle creature.

NaNo forced me to come back to the keyboard every single day. (Even when the muse packed her bags, gave me the finger, and took a cruise without me.) Some days it was hard--the words died on my fingers and my eyes turned gritty from staring at the blinking cursor. Some days I beat my head against writer's block until my keyboard was impressed into my forehead, but once I broke through those blocks (and I did) the words rushed out of me, sweeping the muse and her cruise boat back whether she wanted to be or not. As they say, the muse comes to those at the keyboard ready to type.

At the end of those 30 days, I had more than 50k words on the page, and I kept writing until I'd written a complete book. I am very happy to say that book, the book I wrote 'THE END' on for the very first time, was published under the title ONCE BITTEN earlier this year. (After a lot of serious revision, of course.) The sequel, TWICE DEAD, will be coming out in February 2010, and I just signed a three book contract with ACE/ROC for a new series. I have a total of nine books published/under contract, and I can honestly say none of that would be possible if I hadn't participated in NaNo and learned that I didn't have to wait for the muse, I could trudge on with out her; that if I wrote every day, even if it was only a little, I would eventually reach the end; and that sometimes I had to fight the words and I had to write complete garbage, but the wrong words can be edited--an empty page can not.

So, if this is your first NaNo and you've never finished a novel before, know that you are in good company. Many of us returning Wrimos have been in your shoes (and we have the false start novel graveyards to prove it.) Returning Wrimos who didn't make it last year, I encourage you tap into the support network NaNo offers. Every year I note that active Wrimos, those who show up at events and touch base on the boards (but not so often it becomes a distraction), tend to be the ones who finish. I think this is because of the extra push of seeing other wrimos word counts and, of course, from word wars. For those returning triumphant Wrimos, please consider adopting a first-timer (I'll start a thread soon).

All and all, no matter your personal writing story, welcome everyone. Vikki and I have already begun planning some great events and we will be by your side through this crazy writing adventure. I look forward to seeing each and every one of you at the finish line!

Write with abandon,
-Kalayna

Columbia, SC Municipal Liaison
Once Bitten NaNo from 2005.
My BLOG

name: haricot vert (always lower case. unless my mother is calling me down for something, in which case: all screaming caps).

genre: so every time i write genre, i remember a friend totally mangling the pronounciation and how i wanted to laugh until i puked, but decided that mockery was not a virtue i wanted to exercise at that time.

what i'm writing: something (=if i tell you, the start of november will have me writing something completely different, so i can't do that, dave).

hopes, dreams, aspirations: to be a contender.

p.s. merry christmas to all and to all a good night!

Trebuchet Club member
--------
It's the end of November and you're still twitching? Come over to www.ToBoldlyNano.com ; we've got what you crave.

Hello everyone. My name is Tyhitia and this is my first Nano. I have a few completed novels, a completed screenplay, and a documentary script. :-D I write mostly horror, fantasy, and a little sci-fi, but I dabble in a few other genres also.

I'm looking forward to participating in Nano this year and feeling all of the craziness. I look forward to meeting you all. :-D

I'm Tonya and this is my second attempt at NaNo. I failed last year with a little over 25k but, I'm more than ready and determined to succeed this year. I have commitment issues when it comes to writing. In the beginning, it's all roses and I write constantly. When the going gets a little difficult; I bail. There's more than a large handful of poorly written attempts that have been left behind in my wake. Sadly those abandoned stories are the extent of what I've written. I am not a writer. I am a daydreamer.

This year I'm trying first person narrative for the first time in a modern-day fantasy. I'm hoping the added ease of first person along with a good yet flexible outline will help me get through this. Even though I desperately want to complete a novel, I have no aspirations of ever getting it published. I'm in this for the fun. ( or should I say torture... meh. fun / torture. to-may-to / to-mah-to.)

- Tonya

Hello I'm Josh,

This will be my first attempt at noveling and I'm looking forward to coming up with something half as good as vampirate chihuahuas.

I really don't respect the 50k word count but I have it under good authority that I really should. My thought process goes like this: I like video games (read: addicted). I can easily play video games for multiple hours a day (18 was not unreasonable during weekends) Writing is like describing a video game to others, only it is a video game with characters that I have created and my characters are going to cheat, alot.

As an aside, if you have not seen Trogdor the Burninator I highly suggest you watch it--it will enrich your life, give it meaning, put pep in your step and music in your soul. Or at least provide a chuckle, unless you’re already undead in which case you should work on your chihuahua growl.

-Josh

Hi all, I'm wodhaund here on the forums, and I answer to Boots most frequently if we're standing face to face (or laptop to laptop as case may be come November!). I'm also a student at USC noveling my way along between classes and working as a dispatcher (it's really not that exciting, I promise).

I didn't manage to win last year, but I got a perfectly respectable 30k by the time I was finished, and for seat-of-my-pants writing (which I don't do, generally!), I think that's awful good! This year I'm plotting through October (refining, really) so I'll be really prepared come 12.01 November 1!

I'm looking forward to meeting everyone at write-meets!

Euphemia (2008)
Heir of Solland (2009)
Need to waste some time this Nano? Check out Subeta!

Tonya, welcome back! This year will be your year! :D

Make sure you try and do some of the meet-ups that we are running. They are good for getting chunks of words out of your head and onto the computer screen/notebook.

Welcome! to the other folks who have sprung up like mushrooms at midnight. :D (that is very much a compliment, just in case you wondered.)

Trebuchet Club member
--------
It's the end of November and you're still twitching? Come over to www.ToBoldlyNano.com ; we've got what you crave.

-jenn

Welcome to all the newbies and welcome back to the veterans! I hope to see you at some of the regional events.

Go Tigers!

Jenn, I'm pretty sure we all have the WTH moments as November gets closer. :D ...At least I hope we do... otherwise, you and me are out in the cold.

...

...Wanna snuggle for warmth? o_O

Trebuchet Club member
--------
It's the end of November and you're still twitching? Come over to www.ToBoldlyNano.com ; we've got what you crave.

Thanks haricot_vert! I'm really hoping so.

Last year I didn't make it to any of the meets. I no longer have a laptop so I hadn't planned on attending any this year either but after reading Kalayna's post about active Wrimos having better success, I guess I will just have to drag myself in with good old fashioned pen & paper. ;)

- Tonya

We had people with good old fashioned pen and paper at last year's meets, so don't let a lack of laptop stop you! So you better show up to some this year, or else!

(Or else what? I'll...figure that out later. Much like my plot. XD)

Euphemia (2008)
Heir of Solland (2009)
Need to waste some time this Nano? Check out Subeta!

Welcome back former wrimos! It's nice to see so many familiar usernames. And welcome to all the first timers too. Nano is an awesome experience. I'm sure you'll love it.

How did everyone hear about NaNoWriMo? I found it online one year when it was already half over. The next year I discovered it again at the very end of October, and I just jumped in.

Winner - 2006, 2007, 2008 as Orual

I'd been writing the same two pages over and over again for years, tweaking it a little bit every time, and then never getting any further. One day, sometime around mid-October 2006, I wrote these two pages again, hit that same wall, and bitched about the damn thing to the internet **coughcough** I mean, I blogged about how frustrating the situation was. A friend of mine was gearing up for the upcoming NaNo, and she suggested I try it out.

~Nikki
http://www.nlberger.com

NaNoWriMo 2006 - Aundroma I: Memories
NaNoWriMo 2007 - Aundroma II: Missions (won!) AND Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
NaNoWriMo 2008 - Aundroma III: Momentum (won!)
NaNoWriMo 2009 - Death Makes A Lousy Dinner Date

hello, this is my first time writing a novel. my novel is about a upper middle class young catholic girl raised in the deep south who was raped at age 13 and how that rape was the beginning of a downward spiril in drugs, alcohol, and a lot of sex - eventually pregnancy -- until one day all that began to change... i hope to write a story of hope, that no matter how much pain suffering and stupid stuff you do - life can turnaround.

aah yes it is the story of my life and I am now a successful military chaplain with 3 master degrees. i could have been a statistic, homeless on food stamps, out of work etc..... but through a series of events I made it. made it through raising a child, made it through more than one marriage, got off the drugs and alcohol.

now i have to say this is not a novel I want to write, but throughout my military career many people have asked me to write the story.

to me it seems egotistical to write my life story. I am just one person, but God can do a lot with just one. I should have been dead a long time ago, with all the crazy stuff I was doing= but i survived it all - to include a recent combat tour .

I fear looking into my dark past and I fear other people reading about it., but I feel I must try - because i know there alot of other young women who might gain a little hope from my story because I am not special, I am just me.

So now you know a little more than you want to know about me. my hope is the NaNo event will just get me started writing.

your thoughts are welcome.

I am Jillian. I live in Lexington. I first participated in NaNoWriMo in 2004, but now I honestly can't remember how I heard of it. I won my first go-round, but never repeated the success in years I attempted it again. Other attempts were made with older ideas I held too dear to my heart for the brutal, relentless fictional exploitation that is Nano. I was afraid of roughhandling my darlings at the risk of leaving them bruised and scratched in the aftermath of tossing them into a thirty day whirlwind of creative desperation and drive, their battered bodies beyond further help once I'd wrung them dry for the sake of a word count. So this year I am working with fresh material, a snippet of an idea which pinged in my brain just a few days into October, then began hinging itself to other ideas which started to pitter patter their little droplets against the windows of imagination that I was squinting out of. The story makes no sense and has no plot, and is an utter mess, a catastrophe of nonsense, a disaster zone of radioactive silliness, which will be fun to detonate all over a hapless computer screen.

I would like to attend some meetings (I have in the past, but it's been a while), but my transportation situation is a little funny. If I don't make it to meet up with any of y'all in the flesh, though, I still plan to participate in vicious (well, friendly-vicious) online competition (well, I'm not very competitive, so maybe more like encouragement). Wow, vicious competition gets turned into friendly encouragement. My psychology just isn't well-suited to making threats of this nature. I will try harder once November begins to be more generally menacing (but, you know, friendly-menacing). I need to toughen up or something so I don't just nap the month away. So, GRRR, and all that. Yeah, GRRRRRR, I'MA GONNA WRITE SO CRAZYFASTLIKE IT'LL SCARE Y'ALL FOOLS!!! Not that any of you are fools or anything, I'm just trying to get in the spirit. Although, maybe we're all fools here, but in the best possible sense. But, GRRR.

Hello all, I'm "Joseph Dover," a USC student who lives off-campus but in a nearby suburb. I've written in short bursts before, even trying (and failing) to hold to a 500 words per day habit, so NaNoWriMo ought to push me to the limit. I look forward to meeting the Columbia writers and pooling our efforts to reach the end of November with some semblance of sanity or energy left. But if we don't, writerly friendships are great too :)

My story is about a man and a woman who end up in each other's subconscious, so it's a fantasy adventure of sorts.Lots of psychological metaphors and using flashbacks to provide context, those sorts of devices (they also allow me to add characters or jump tracks as desired).

This is my first nanowrimo and I'm full of naive idealism. LET'S DO THIS!!

J'Ello! (It's a greeting)
I'm L. Yes, like the letter. This is my second attempt at NaNo and I do mean 'attempt'. Last year I washed out at 13k, but this year I plan to churn out the junk without a care to plot. That had been my downfall last time, getting too attached to my characters.

I heard about NaNo when I was IMing with my friend and she randomly sprung this writing thing on me so I clicked the link.

Some may say I then promptly sold my soul, but it was a fair deal as I had already given my heart to writing.

I'll be living it up in pencil and paper again as I don't actually own a laptop and it'll be like a bulit-in encryption that way. Once I've got myself worked up in a storm, my handwriting starts a rapid decline.

A fun fact about me is that my birthday falls upon the Night of Writing Dangerously, November 22. Cool, right?

Anyways, I look forward to this year and hope I can at least crack 25k this time.

Fun Fact: Claiming NaNoWriMo as your religion and your writing desk, along with the buliding that houses it, a place of worship will not get you federal tax reductions.

NaNo 2008: To His Face-Fantastic FAIL (13k)
NaNo 2009: Blackjack-We shall see...

L, I love your sig file. :)

Welcome some more to our local wrimos. Good times in store for us all, hopefully hopefully.

MageRaven (love the re-name, btw), I first got into the challenge by seeing that one of my favorite on-line cartoonists was doing it and saying: hey, I've wanted to be a writer, maybe this is my chance. This was... November 1 of that year, I'm pretty sure. So I started off by being behind, and managed to pull 50k out even so. Ahh the adrenaline! Ahh the pens and paper (yeah, I'm a bit of a luddite)! It was almost instant addiction.

/drifts in the memories...

Trebuchet Club member
--------
It's the end of November and you're still twitching? Come over to www.ToBoldlyNano.com ; we've got what you crave.

Hi, I'm Leigh. I'm from Greenville originally, but my sister needed a roommate this year so I moved down here. I'm just out of the Army and taking classes at MTC full-time.

I'm writing science fiction this year. This is my second attempt at NaNo. If all goes well, it will be my first win. Fingers crossed!

NaNo '07: The Syntax of Things--Failed
NaNo '09: Billy Nolan and the Bane of Olympus--?

Hello! Did my first Nano this past summer and I "won." My novel is called Shelter, is a work of speculative fiction, and clocked in at 50004 words on the 30th day. Loved doing it. I teach, and November tends to be a deadly busy time. Does anyone happen to know of people who novel during months aside from November?--Angel

Hi!

My name is Marissa and this is my VERY FIRST year to participate in nano. Christy invited me to join y'all, and I'm looking forward to all the fun.

I probably won't be attending any of the pre-nano events, but come November 1, I'll be thrilled to meet you all.

I write MiddleGrade fantasy and plan to get a complete rough draft of the second novel of a trilogy during nano.

http://marissaburt.wordpress.com/

http://oratiocontemplativa.wordpress.com/

You're not the only one! I know there are a few other people who have done April Nanos, June Nanos, and so on. Some people Nano'd during Script Frenzy instead of scripting, so you're far from the only one who Nanos the rest of the year.

Euphemia (2008)
Heir of Solland (2009)
Need to waste some time this Nano? Check out Subeta!

Hello, my name is Vincent King.
This will be my 2nd time entering NaNoWriMo, and my 2nd time keeping up with the daily word count (I hope)

When I'm not writing, I'm training in the pool for the 2012 Olympics, singing and acting at rehearsal, or acting like a goof with my friends.

I write a strange blend of realistic comedy, fantasy, and mystery. Last years novel was a jumbled mess of amusing ideas that I need to expand on sometime... But for the time being, this year's novel will be the first one I have succesfully made a name for: "Catalyst" I hope it will be entertaining to me while I write it and to you when you read it ^_^

I also hope to be much more involved in local events- so look for the tall blonde guy!