How's everyone doing thus far?

Haha.. I'm having a harder time than I thought I would... I'm at almost 2000 words, and can't believe people are already at 5000+! I'm planning to go to the meet up tomorrow at Jitters, I'll be there after work around 4:30-5ish, and writing until everybody else gets there around 7:30, then hopefully, I can get a LOT done tomorrow.. I'm hoping that locking myself up at Jitters will help... :P

Who else is planning to go tomorrow? I'll be there early and probably going to be there until they kick me out (unless someone gives me a ride home) cuz my boyfriend has work from 5-10.

Gonna get at least 2000 words in tonight, then hopefully I can break in the netbook at jitters tomorrow :)

Seeing as how I only knew I was going to do this about 12 hours ago, I'd say I'm doing pretty well. I managed to get 2000+ words written (most of them entirely irrelevant) before lapsing into detail-oriented perfectionism and self-censorship.

My plan is to make sure I hit a good, high word count early in the day, then come back later and fuss with the detail stuff later if I still want to. That way I know I'm actually getting my work done & not getting bogged down in the details.

I, too, am trying to pour on the words early as I know I'll be busier later in the month. I am amazed that some people are already past 12000 words. Insane. But, compared to last year--at this point I hadn't started writing yet--I'm doing much better.

Thanks for asking!

"I tried to pass for nothing, but my dreams gave me away." --C. Oberst

Good to hear that everyone is plugging away! I haven't written yet today, but as I drove my oldest son to school my plot line started to become slightly clearer to me, which is good. I won't be writing until this afternoon, though.

twitter: www.twitter.com/jszehr
blog: http://blog.jeremyszehr.com

Neither will I, but I'm hoping to get more done at Jitters later today.... for me it's counting down the days until I leave this job, and have so much more time to write... Of course I finished a chapter last night, so I'm almost clueless on where to pick it up... Don't you just love it when that happens?

I'm writing, but I'm still spending more time plotting than writing. I always want things to come out perfectly the first time, so I catch myself going back and editing too. Ugh. That's why I'm doing NaNo this year, though. I need to learn how to just keep going.

I'm glad to see ppl getting to the 5,000 word mark already too. Congratulations! Keep it going!

Kelley

Hi All,

I'm not worrying to much about the editing phase of the writing right now. I'm concentrating on actually getting a First Draft with everything there first. When I have done such work in the past, I've done it this way and it seems to pay off. If you get on a roll but are worried about punctuation, wording, or other things you stop and look up in your nifty books, you risk losing the original train of thought you got going on. So I suggest getting your thoughts out first and worrying about corrections later or set different times for the two. but what do i know? I'm a newb

Yeah, I agree with you Bear.

I hate to keep pointing out Stephen King, but I like his metaphor for the writing process - think of the story as a fossil, if you use a jackhammer to find it (ie excessive plotting) you can destroy it. Just let it reveal itself through the first draft and THEN edit. Even the folks who run this hear writing event say that "editing is for December", so just let it all out. Clean up later. :)

twitter: www.twitter.com/jszehr
blog: http://blog.jeremyszehr.com

I don't know if you guys did it at this year's inaugural get-together, but those of you who are editing...

STOP!

NaNo is to tell your internal editors to get lost. It's supposed to be messy and bloated and it can be what your internal editor would call total crap. The important part is to get your ideas down. Be silly. Be crazy! Take a dare or two if you get stuck. There are 11 other months that you can spend rewriting NaNo's first draft. That's what this is: a first draft. And you know what they say about first drafts. :p

My first four years doing NaNo, I always sprinted out of the gate running, and would always burn out by Week 2. This year I'm going for slow and steady buildup until hopefully a landslide at the end of the month.

Raking my yard was a bad idea. I ended up "laced up" on Aleve yesterday which caused serious brain fog. So I'm going to have to kinda race to catch up.

-Cathie

2006: Dragon's Lineage (loss; injury to hand) http://destined.to/dragonslineage
2007: Owin: Land of Spelloyal (Loss; Hand pain)
2009: Atlantians

Ugh...Life got in the way for me today, so I'm not sure I'm going to hit my goal of 9000 by the end of the day. I have two freelance gigs that need attention, and THEN the NaNoWriMo.....kicking around the idea of running to the convenience store to pick up an energy drink in about an hour to get the blood pumping. All Nighter? Methinks it's not out fo the question....

twitter: www.twitter.com/jszehr
blog: http://blog.jeremyszehr.com

I have yet to hit 2k. D8
Moving, Halloween, having my boyfriend over, and working B shift do not good writing time make.
Then I spent precious writing time this morning talking to my sister on the phone and reading a trashy romance novel as I waited for my ride to work.
And I forgot to bring my notebook along, but I did manage to get some 400 words written on my cell phone.
I fully intend to get caught up this weekend. Hopefully.
Wish me luck!!

~*Defy Gravity*~

Things aren't going too well over here. It's the end of my academic quarter and I've been crazy busy with projects. I hope I can catch up this weekend!

DRACULINA - On your cell phone? Now that's dedication. LOL I can't even imagine it...

I lived in Japan for a while. In Japan there is an entire, dare I say, genre of stories written entirely on the authors cell phone. - Here is an article about it http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/25/japan.mobilenovels/index.html

As for me I only have 3,000 words but I now know where my story is going. I hope to up my word count quickly, though to be honest I can't imagine getting anywhere near 50,000 words at this point. The finish line looks so far away.

Not great. I've managed to keep my inner editor to a minimum, which is a first. So far I have more than I did last year, but I lost a couple of days this week to errands, yard work, a couple of bad migraines and a lap dog who really doesn't like it if I'm on the computer. Hopefully I'll get more done this weekend.

Check out my blogs: www.thedailywag.blogspot.com
www.thedizzycrafter.blogspot.com

I've been behind and getting further behind every day, but at least I've managed to write SOMETHING (though I think I haven't updated my wordcount on here every day--sometimes the site doesn't like me).

However, today's gonna put my wordcount straight down the toilet: The power just died, AGAIN! I can only post this because the of the backup power for our router, but that'll run out in about an hour and a half, and my lappy battery (ancient thing that it is) will die even sooner. Nooooo!

I guess I could hand write some... I've got a flashlight and plenty of candles in case that battery dies too, but the problem with handwriting is that it's a lot easier for me to get distracted actually counting my words instead of writing.

And this could have been avoided if I NaNoed in the morning (as I prefer to do, actually), but I've only got so much time in the morning to get ready for class... At least classes are almost over. And I will definitely be going to the next write-in/meet-up/whatever, so I'm not completely doomed! (Optimism for the win?)

-----
Title: N/A (Don't even have a working title!)
Actual Research Done: None! (I have the feeling I should be ashamed of that...)
Words Written: Not Enough
Lame Plot Devices: 1 (How it starts)

Hmm, well. I'm at 0 words XD I have 2 ideas I'm trying to choose from. I'm going to make the final decision and get started on the writing today ^^ Just need to add a few new songs to my iPod, take the dog outside to play, then I can start!

Such a vast array of progression for everyone. I'm still stuck at under 6700 words, couldn't write much the last two days due to freelance work and family obligations. If I want to stay on track, I have to write 5000 words by tomorrow night.

Thankfully, and this isn't usually the case, my wife is going out of town for a conference tomorrow and Monday, so once the kiddos go to bed, (after 8:30) I'll have at least four - five solid hours both nights to write up a storm. Hopefully I'll catch up and even get ahead. Hopefully.....

twitter: www.twitter.com/jszehr
blog: http://blog.jeremyszehr.com

I started a couple days late on a whim. Never participated before. I'm at 8,300 right now. All dreck (OK, maybe not ALL) but I am not going to get too caught-up in quality. I want to hit goal and then I'll circle back around and edit.

I think you guys are all doing great! I'm shaking invisible pom-poms for you and everything! Don't worry about being behind, you can catch up, we still have a full 22 days!

I'm slowing down. Something happened on Friday and I hope it goes away. Last year I broke my finger in but it was fine come Nano. Friday evening all the pain came back as if I had just broken it again. Looking at how I type, sometime after the break I stared typing without using my pinky (a side-effect of having a splint on it) so I think I may have just over extended it and that with the speed and the cold weather the other day I'm a little rough for wear. I only ended up writing for about 45 minutes today.

Robin, ML - Rochester, NY

"Fact is there's nothing out there you can't do. Yeah, even Santa Claus believes in you." - Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

Well, I have an enV2, so cell phone writing isn't bad in a pinch.
But I fell into the trap of plotting too much in October, and was starting to loathe my narrator, so on the 6th I ditched my sci-fi and started anew. I now have roughly 2,000 words about a British spy in Nazi-occupied France.
Third person perspective and I get along much better than my narrator and I did. :D

~*Defy Gravity*~

I just hit 10,000 words tonight which puts me like 16,667 words behind. Oy. I'm going to try to get a LOT of writing done tomorrow, and if I can, go to the Panera Bread thingy.

I'm doing better than I had thought I would... but I think I'll be in trouble soon. In about 5-10,000 words, I have absolutely NO IDEA where my plot is going.

I'm almost at 12,000 words, which is good but once again I feel like I've hit a brick wall....aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. Anybody else going through this?

I managed to start last weekend and got to 5,000, largely thanks to the write-in and doing word wars :) I haven't gotten a word down since the work week started :(

I'm also at a spot where I have some idea where to go next, but I'm not particularly fond of the current plan. My plot has also gone nowhere near where I had planned it to, so who knows XD

Argh I'm still behind by 12,000. But I just pumped out 2K words in less than an hour. If I can just keep up that pace I might be able to catch up! I hope I have time to go to the write in on the 15th.

I'm behind, running at a 12,000 word deficit now. Thinking of giving up, but we'll see where I am in another week. I would literally have to hit 3000 words a day for the next week to stay on track.

Man, I get depressed just thinking about that....

twitter: www.twitter.com/jszehr
blog: http://blog.jeremyszehr.com