An official welcome from your ML here. Yet another year of novelling madness is here in less than two weeks.
As you can see, the NaNoWriMo site cover everything from genre specific forums, age specific forums, celebration forums, help forums, writing groups.... So many to choose from when you have a problem or you just want to chat.
So what's this local forum offering?
These are your regional forums (join officially by going to My NaNoWriMo>My Regions> Set home region to Europe :: England :: Derbyshire.
By doing that you will be able to receive emails from me! :) These'll either contain info about upcoming meets or be cheerleading messages urging you on to make it through to 50,000 words with some tips and advice along the way.
Okay, so you've done that? All signed up? So what do you get apart from emails from me?
Well you get the use of this here forum. Here you can congratulate yourself, moan, whatever you want. (Within reason of course, don't forget this is a family friendly forum and any posts with swearing, name calling or anything rude will be reported. I don't like sending people to the naughty step so please play nice while you're here.)
We have an intro thread, feel free to say hi to everyone. A dares thread for when you're stuck for plot and want ideas. A google calander with all upcoming events on. Oh and a picture of me so you all know what I look like.
You want help - ask here.
You want to celebrate some success with your novel - do so here.
You just want to know other people from Derbyshire are doing this too - start up a conversation here.
If we really don't know the answer, we'll know where to point you.
A little about me - I'm the official ML for the region and this'll be my 4th year in this role. Also my 5th year writing a novel, all of which are in drawers, on hard drives or gmail docs. Editing some of it from time to time, but most of all I do this for myself, as the challenge. I also run a writing group in Derby, and to make things simple for myself, the first two of the meets are combined NaNo/Scribes sessions. I'm a freelance proofreader and editorial assistant for a mag. Mum of two and lots going on in life at the mo. Which brings me on to...
My unofficial co-ML this year is Beccalicious. She would be official had we realised there was a cut-off point for MLs signing up for this year. So, apart from not being able to send emails and do the secret handshake, she will be acting as second go to point, helping with meets both online and in person.
I will be adding to this thread with answers to commonly asked questions and such over the next couple of weeks. For now, pull up a chair, make yourself comfy and join in the chat.
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mlforderby@googlemail.com
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I can not stress this enough. Back up your work. Every way you can think of.
Set up a gmail account and make use of google docs.
Buy a memory stick.
Send your manuscript to yourself via email.
Save a copy on your laptop and your pc / external hardrive.
Every year someone will loose their work. It doesn't matter too much when you're a thousand or so into it, but imagine loosing it all when you're in the second half of the month.
----------mlforderby@googlemail.com