NaNoWriMo Ate My Soul

Serendipitous, humorous, prolific, erroneous verbosity, NaNoWriMo Style!

Part 1: http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/3263721
Part 2: http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/3384438
Part 3: http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/3431462

Moderator Note: this is part III. View the past discussion on Part I and Part II

It's a little weird. It's a little strange. It's definitely lots of crazy. But weird and strange and crazy are all hardly out of place for NaNoWriMo. And for some of us in the "I Hate Myself and Want to Die/NaNoWriMo Ate My Soul" veterans, it's almost a tradition (FIVE years this year, sporkers!).

It's the Sporks! Tissues! Chocolates! Sporkfetti! Postzillas! Woobies! Sporkage-on-demand! and of course, (((HUGS))). It's the NaNo Spork Room (thread), and we're BACK!

So, come on in, throw your troublesome Inner Critic/Inner Editor/misbehaving plots and characters into the Spork Pit, grab a spork of your choice (custom sporks and spork upgrades are available!) and we'll have a sporky massacre. *evil grin*

And no matter what, it's always okay to cry in here. Bawl, stomp, wail, get it all out, grab a tissue and blow. Then have a whole room-full of these: ((((hugs))))

Because you can do this! By spork, you can!

Spork on!

====================

Some FAQs:
What IS a spork?
Simply: it's a fork + spoon. :-) Have an extensive look here (Wiki Warning!), complete with a picture of a TITANIUM spork.

WHY a spork?
The combined spoon-fork=spork is a versatile choice of weapon: Three--sometimes more/less-- points at the end offer great satisfication for those inclined to jab-jab-JAB-STAB-POKE! * their annoying writing entities.

Its wide concave surface is perfect for those moments when you take a deep breath, collect your pent up frustrations/anger/etc, and let it rip as you swing the wide part at your literary foes! WHAP! SMACK! FWAP!Inverted, the convex curve is also suitable for scooping or 'herding' the writing entities (or otherwise) where you want them.

And lastly, when holding spork, strong and true and proud, .. it's been reported that somehow-- someway-- people can't resist to smile.

Newbies aren't the only ones who need help. I dunno about any of you, but I'm not feeling terribly optimistic about this year's NaNoWriMo. For everyone who feels similar to me, but isn't necessarily a newbie, come here to find a match to help you get through this year. This follows the same format as Adopt a Newbie, so you should post:

• Age
• Location
• Genre
• A little bit about your novel (Although, naturally, some pessimists may have the root of their pessimism in their lack of an idea, in which case you don't need to fill this out).

Don't, don't, DON'T post your e-mail here. Your adopter should contact you via NaNo Mail.

So, I'll go first:

I'm Aaron, I'm 16 years old, and I don't have a clue what I'm going to write about this year. Among other ideas, I've had sci-fi elves (elves that are aliens, it's kind of a long story), magical pirates (a thinly veiled knock-off of the Pirates of the Caribbean setting), and real-world superheroes (although I used that last year so I'm not inclined to use it again). Most recently, I've come up with the idea for a murder mystery from the perspective of the murderer; I doubt that's original, but I've been watching Castle recently and it got me inspired.

Good luck finding an adopter!

I woke up on the 2nd in silly amounts of pain, have been in and out of the doctor's, survived the month so far by taking too many tablets.... and this morning I went for blood tests to try and find out what's actually wrong.

I'm still going to get to 50k. (I *will* get there!) I just needed to vent :p

Sympathy/tissues/hugs/virtual soup all much appreciated...

O_o tell me I am not the only one!

This is my first time doing NaNo. Going in, I didn't really have any expectation of hitting 50k. I know how I write. However, it wasn't my inner editor that has tripped me up (although he has cringed and screamed and ranted quite a bit). Rather, I find that I'm getting bogged down in figuring out "what happens next" and trying to make it all into a cohesive story.

So, I think what I've learned is that I need to plan better. I need to figure out the entire plot before I sit down to write. The words flow more freely when I know what is supposed to happen in a particular chapter/scene and how the characters are supposed to react to it. I've been able to write short stories that started with a basic idea and I figured it out along the way, but a novel is just too big and there are more plot lines to consider. I need to plan the book from start to finish and THEN write it.

Unfortunately, that won't help me this year, but is hopefully a strategy I can employ next year.

So, what have you other first-timers learned from doing NaNo?

My two mc's have decided they need to leave the safe house which was established for them and their friends. It is the only thing that makes sense dramatically for there is not really all that much anyone can do when they are absolutely protected from the bad elements out there.

However, I am feeling a strange sort of guilt because I am afraid I am encouraging young teens to solve their problems by running away. How can I help this so that my word count does not leep lagging behind?

One day my characters were talking to me and then they left. I can not hear them any more. Any ideas as to how the heck I can get them back.

I don't mind torturing my characters about their love lives, it's fun and can be funny; I've always been much to much of a coward to write the kind of stuff where I need to kill anyone except "off stage".

But I've just discovered that breaking one, actually two in a way, of my MC's hearts in one fell swoop is horrible! I don't like writing this scene and I have to!

*cries*

so the last few days, i've had my internet off to concentrate on my nano.
then!
boom.
my computer decided it needed a master reset because my anti-virus ran out.
and it's gone, all gone!
i had close to 35,000 words as well.

i think it's now impossible to win this year.
unless i move to america and earn 6 free hours.

anyone else had this trouble?!