United States :: Washington :: Spokane

Sign In-- Introductions [STICKY]

Dichotomy6958 — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:53:29 -0700

Whether you're a new participant, a returning Spokane author or a visitor form afar, please take a moment and introduce yourself here.

Share as much or as little as you like: How many times have you done NaNo? How many wins do you have under your belt? Do you know what you'll be writing yet, or are you like me and tend to wing-it once November starts? What genre are you attempting this year? If you're visiting, what brings you to the Spokane lounge? If you're local, what part of town (or zipcode) do you live/work in? The biggest hurdle you must overcome to complete NaNo? Your proudest NaNo accomplishment? How did you discover NaNoWriMo?

I'll start: I'm Samantha, one of your friendly Municipal Liaisons. I've participated in NaNoWriMo and won every year since 2003. This will be both my 6th NaNo and my 6th year as a Spokane ML (and I'm hoping my 6th win). Each year I've increased my word count from barely over 50,000 my first year to over 72,000 words last year. I credit all those extra words last year to the 5+ write-ins per week I attended last year. I live in Browne's Addition and work on the South Hill, but you'll find me all around town during November, attending write-ins all over the area.

I had the opportunity to be a beta-tester on the NaNo website this past month. In order to test all the features, I had to fill in all the areas in the Author profile -- on a whim I picked the Satire/Humor/Parody genre and came up with a suitably silly-sounding title. Since I have no better ideas I think I'll stick with that for now. But don't be surprised if mid-November I switch to Horror or Erotic Fiction.

For the first time in years, I have nothing except NaNoWriMo scheduled for November, but I'm not getting too complacent about it. In the past, I've attended non-novelling retreats; travelled to Missoula for focus groups; organized and attended my son's wedding in Salem, OR; and took a freelance assignment in Everett in mid-November. It's still too early to tell what this November will bring.

Who's next?

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Samantha

Spokane, WA - Municipal Liaison (2003-2008)
Age Group: 50-Plus - Moderator

United States :: Washington :: Spokane

NaNoWriMo Spokane -- 10th Anniversary, 2008 Season [STICKY]

Dichotomy6958 — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:17:00 -0700

I see a few of you have already snuck in early. It's great to see Spokane authors, both new and returning, so eager to get started on NaNo Season, 2008. I'm Samantha, one of your two Municipal Liaisons for the Spokane Region, along with Dana (Jayce_Grae). This is my 6th year participating in NaNo, hopefully my 6th win, and it's also my 6th year as a Spokane Municipal Liaison.

NaNoWriMo takes place on two levels -- 1) online, through the regions and general forums, and 2) local events. A few notes on the online forums and regional lounges:

Regional Participation. If you're reading this post, you've found the Spokane regional lounge. You may even be affiliated with Spokane and receive periodic ML Messages from Dana and me. But if your profile does not show United States::Washington::Spokane as your home region, your word count won't be tallied along with the Spokane region. During November, it’s fun to compare word counts and see how our region stacks up against all the regions in the world. For these stats to approach reasonable accuracy, we need YOU to affiliate with Spokane and set Spokane as your Home region.
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- To affiliate: Click My NaNoWriMo, and then click My Regions (on the left of the screen). On the Regions tab, locate United States :: Washington :: Spokane (top of page 5), and click Join. Then, click the Join button on the next page.
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- To set Spokane as your home: Visit the Home Region tab, select Spokane, and then click the Set Home Region button.
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- Even if you belong to ONLY one region (Spokane), you must still select that region and click the Set Home Region button.
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All-Ages Posts. All regional lounges and many general forums (those marked with a sun icon in the topic list) are rated all-ages. Content in an all-ages forum should be on topic and not contain any strong language or sexual themes. In addition, be nice, no name-calling or picking fights. You're free to disagree with a stated opinion, but don't denegrate the poster. Remember, we're here to support each other.
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Do not double post. If you post a message and it doesn't show up, do not post again. The website has a 15-minute cache and it may take up to 15 minutes for your post to appear. If your post is still missing after 20 minutes, contact an ML (in the regional forums) or Moderator (in the general forums) for guidance.
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Signatures Signatures appear intermittently. If you added a signature to your profile, please do not also type your signature, this will only result in duplicating your signature within the post under the conditions that signatures do appear. For an explanation of how and when signatures appear and disappear, see: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3000040.

For our local events, we're still organizing our schedule, but here's a preview of what you can look forward to:

Our Kick-Off will probably take place the weekend of October 25-26. This will be a combined introduction to NaNoWriMo for those looking for information and a chance to reconnect for those of us returning for another round of November insanity.
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There will likely be a Midnight Write In, gathering in the final moments of Halloween as we prepare to begin our novels once the clock ticks over to November 1st. We'll write for a couple of hours to set the tone for the upcoming month.
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We will have a 4th Annual All-Night Write-In, date and place yet to be scheduled. Typically, for the all-night event we gather around 9:00 pm and write the night away, ending around 7:00 am.
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We are scheduling regular Write-Ins, for various locations around the area. Last year we had write-ins scheduled for the Northside, Airway Heights, Downtown, the Valley, the South Hill and Cheney every week. This year's schedule will not be identical, but we'll do our best to accomodate those who want a change of scenery and a little camaraderie from like-minded folks while rushing toward the finish line.
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We'll have our TGIO Party in early December to celebrate our month of writing accomplishments, whether your wordcount totalled less than 1,000 words or over 100,000 (it's been done!).
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This year we have a Spokane Virtual Chatroom set up and ready to use. You'll find it at Chatzy Spokane Wrimos. Please use your NaNo username as your login in the chat room. Let us know if you need the password and either Dana or I will PM it to you. We'll probably log in officially during those write-ins where we have internet access, and we may schedule separate virtual write-ins via the chat room during the month. Watch the calendar for more details.

While it's not required to take part in any of the local events or participate in the online forums -- all you really HAVE to do is sign up, start writing after midnight November 1st and verify your wordcount online before 11:59pm November 30th -- you're more likely to successfully complete NaNoWriMo if you take part in both the online and local communiites. It's certainly more fun that way -- now your challenge is to find the balance that works for you.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Dana and me through the ML Contact form: http://www.nanowrimo.org/mlcontact or contact me, Dichotomy6958 or Dana, Jayce_Grae using the private mail system on this website.
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Samantha

Spokane, WA - Municipal Liaison (2003-2008)
Age Group: 50-Plus - Moderator

United States :: Washington :: Spokane

New Region?

Jayce_Grae — Wed, 8 Oct 2008 09:46:12 -0700

Hi guys!

Samantha and I have been talking about the possibility of breaking the region in two, making the Cheney/West Plains area its own region now that we are getting more participants who live there. For now, we are keeping things as they are, but I've created a poll via Survey Monkey that will give me some feedback on the issue.

If you live or work in the West Plains area, including but not limited to [don't you love that phrase? ;) ] Cheney, EWU, Medical Lake, Four Lakes, Airway Heights, Geiger please follow this link and post your answer. Who knows, if we get enough Yes answers we may just have a new region! =)

Click Here to take survey
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~ grae
NaNoWriMo:
2007 - The Flash Pointe Cafe (win!)
2006 - An Advanced State of Shock (win!)
ScriptFrenzy:
2008 - attempted

United States :: Washington :: Spokane

Welcome Back!!

sadiqah — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:50:21 -0700

Woohoo!! The site came up early :) I checked in out of boredom... talk about surprised!

Who's excited for November? I can hardly wait! Of course I still have no clue what I'm writing... though ideas are percolating.

Now: How does one get to the "archives"? I want to get back to the "Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things Together" topic.
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Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put on an orgy in my office and I wouldn’t look up. Well, maybe once.
- Isaac Asimov