General chat

Hi folks,

Someone left a writing pad in Mono last night. It's pink with lots of various coloured circles on it. I have it so if anyone has discovered they've lost their writing pad just let me know. Probably the best idea would be for me to bring it to the next write in we wll both be able to make, unless of course it's urgently needed in which case just let me know somewhere in time and space and Glasgow that you'll be able to make and I'll pass it on.

Alan

The trouble with the world is everyone is a few drinks behind

Hi! I hope it's ok to introduce myself here?

I'm a newb to Nanowri - wanted to do it last year but my dissertation got in the way, boo. However this year I have graduated and don't have a job (something I';m trying to rectify) so I figured why not!

I definatly want to try and get to some of the offical write ins, but not sure when I'll manage to get to one as this week is already prebooked for other socialising things.

So...any hints and tips for a first time nanowri writer?

~Susie

I find it helps to be organised. I have a section of writing planned for each day and a sentence written describing what will happen. Also, I make sure I write at least 1667 words each day, even if I don't feel like it. And I write as much as I can on days when I have the time and/or inclination.
Oh, it's almost midnight.....countdown..... :)

Everyone writes differently, it all depends on what works for you and how you find your groove. Personally, I don't like planning things too much, as they never really turn out exactly that way anyway. Although when I do get a great idea I do write it down and from time-to-time involve myself in a bit of planning. But I'm usually a chaos tornado.

I also find it helps to write a little every day, no matter how much.

I'm liking the stats so far on this site though, it all seems very motivating. Should also help going to the write-ins and meeting others who are doing the same. We can do it together! My first NaNo too.

~B

Hi, my first NaNo too :). I'm 16 and doing 5 Highers at school = a lot of work. But I've always used writing since I was wee as a stress outlet so hopefully I can combine the two successfully...

Am I an idiot? Yes. Will I do it? I hope so xD.

Happy writing!

I'm new too!

Seems to be going okay so far (a bit of an ambitious statement seeing as it's only day 2...) wrote 1,686 words last night, which was quite an achievement seeing as though I only decided what to write at 1.30am on Sunday.

How's everyone getting on? Who's going to be at Mono on Tuesday for the write-in?

Katie

http://thedisappearingangel.blogspot.com

i'm on track for hitting day 2 word count, sneaking in the odd paragraph at work.
should be at mono tomorrow, all going to plan. :)

red fever
when gretchen met sally
survivor
no surviv

I'll be in Mono tomorrow night.

I still have the unclaimed writing pad that was left on the tables from the pre start party last Thursday. I'll bring it along to see if anyone who turns up recognises it.

The trouble with the world is everyone is a few drinks behind

Alan, I've been thinking about it and I think I actually remember whose writing pad that is...but I'm not sure if she's actually on the forums or not. We shall see I guess?

Glasgow ML 2009
Denver ML 2007-2008

2002 Lost
2003-2005 WINNERS!!!
2006 Changechildren-100K
2007 Embers of Espionage-121K
2008 How Not to Get the Girl of Your Dreams-165K
2009 Nightmares and Cityscapes-TBA

@Ultragreen- I'm also juggling the 5 highers an nanowrimo, and I agree with you it's hard work :/ It also probably looks suspicious that I took my first day of school off after the start of nano, so I'm glad I didn't tell anyone I was doing it. I actually am quite ill though.

So for me it will be juggling the 5 highers, nano, and keeping up with everything I miss while I'm feeling sick and yucky. But I agree that it's a great stress outlet, as I say on my 'author' page- I'm not aiming to be a writer I just want to be DISTRACTED :P

Why Always Boris?

^
haha totally, so far I'm doing OK and I got "sent home" from school today (I genuinely felt like my insides were going to come up, and I still feel quite queasy) and have been doing writing :P. I'm coping OK with the subjects, but I'll feel very accomplished if I complete this rather than passing a Modern Studies NAB (thats really bad xD).

Haha, I'm doing modern studies too. It's the exam bricking it about tbh, so many essays. I've got a Nab for it sometime this week, I don't know when (it could have been today) and I'm just not prepared. :/

And that bug could turn out to be what I've got, it's going around. I had a day of straight vomiting, so you might have that to look forward to. The day before I'd been up drinking with my family and playing dingbats (happening Friday night maaan)- so my mum was convinced that there was nothing wrong with me and that I was just hungover.

It was halloween too, so my plans went down the pan in a second :/

Why Always Boris?

unlike most people here, i'm not at school or work atm, taking a year out of school due to illness. so while i'm really quite chuffed that i've stayed ahead of the 1600 words a day, i can't feel good about it because there are people doing much better than me who actually have responsibilities.

my life.

Farfetched, don't worry about how you're doing compared with other people. Be proud of what you have done! You're doing better than I did my first...*thinks*...three years, I think? I know my first year it took me almost a full week to get to 5K and my second year I just barely stayed right on track the entire month, and you're ahead of the "safe" writing curve right now only three days in!

Remember, everyone has different writing styles. Some people do better once the story gets going, others write a lot right at the start and then stall out later on, some people just know a lot of dirty tricks to get their word count up without actually saying anything (*cough*thatwouldbeme*cough*) and some people actually can put out quality work even under the pressure of a deadline...it takes all kinds. So if you think you should be proud of your word count, then be proud!

Glasgow ML 2009
Denver ML 2007-2008

2002 Lost
2003-2005 WINNERS!!!
2006 Changechildren-100K
2007 Embers of Espionage-121K
2008 How Not to Get the Girl of Your Dreams-165K
2009 Nightmares and Cityscapes-TBA

Woo, 3241 words today!
I've fallen behind a bit, but I'm hoping to get about 3k done again tomorrow & tuesday, which will pull me back on track to something catch-up-able, and even without that I only need to do 2k a day to get the big 50k by the end of the month.
So, after a shaky start, I'm feeling a lot more confident today!

How are the rest of you doing?

Second attempt at Nano, lets see if I can get it to work this time!

Not too badly! I've been going to the Weds and Sun write-ins, and that's helped a lot. So has my shiny netbook, something I got in the January sales last year - it means I now have no excuse for writing anywhere.

I'm floating around the 15k word mark, as I quite like having a day or two's "cushion" in case real life issues pop up and I can't write.

Interestingly though, I write using MSWord on the netbook and using OpenOffice at home. Using the exact same file, there's a 1,236 word difference between the two word totals (OO thinks it's that much bigger than it is). I have no reason to explain it - I'm not using that many contractions (such as it's instead of it is) and hyphenated words!

I once discovered OpenOffice added 100 or so words on every time I pressed return. It was a real pain as I was writing my final assesment for Social Science at the time and needed to know exactly how many words were in it. I think I'd been transefering between MSWord and OpenOffice at the time too but I can't be sure. I did manage to fix it simply by saving it, closing it down and opening it up again. Not sure why that worked or if it would work for you.

I've been ill the past few days so despite only sleeping for 3 or 4 hours each day, I wasn't able to focus enough to write, or speak, or do much except stare at the walls and make up stories in my head. Thus I am well behind schedual. Hoping to catch up this week though.

While the upmost off care has been taken while producing this post, please forgive any pselling/grammer errors that our correctionsystem may has missted.