Hey Wisconsin, it's just around the corner.

I was asleep trying to rectify getting no sleep the night before when the forums came up last night, so that would be my excuse for silence.

The way I look at it, none of us have to be rivals anyway (unless we choose to, that is), so even more reason to all be friends. We're all in this together. ^_^

I go by Rana online, and my main callings are writing and translation (though still amateur in both ^_^). I write fantasy and sometimes science fiction, usually with heavy romantic elements. I'm a full blown otaku and amateur manga translator... and my anime/manga genre of choice is bl/yaoi (guy x guy). ^_^; (I do, however, adore Sailor Moon.) I tend to have a lot of homosexual guys in my stories, especially in more recent stories, and this year's NaNo is no exception. (Similar to you, but completely opposite at the same time. ^_^)

So yeah, that's the short, short version of me. Out of curiosity, what part of "elsewhere" in Wisconsin do you hail from? (If you don't want to say, that's perfectly understandable.) I'm from Appleton.

Hello! My name's Jesika.

I hail from Jefferson, so I'm subscribing to Madison and Elsewhere so I don't miss anything. I used to live in Baltimore, MD, so I had to actually ask someone if I was closer to Madison or Milwaukee. :P

I'm brand-stinking-new to NaNoWriMo, so yeah. I have a solid idea in my head and a general outline, but I'm not much of a planner. I just hope my usual process works for such a deadline!

I love anime, so I guess I'll fit in here, haha. I wouldn't call myself an otaku cause I'm so cheap and never want to spend money on anime/manga.

I write fantasy fiction and some sci-fi-fantasy fiction.

I guess that's it for now... bye! XD

I'm from Green Bay myself.
I've had a few friends from Appelton, but I guess they're actually from Kimberly. Whatever, right?

Hehe, I've spent plenty over the years on otaku habits. I haven't bought any anime or manga lately, but I've been building Gundam models. :P

As for the rivals thing...you're right. :P

Tho...considering you've won every year you've participated and I'm new...you should understand that winning seems to my main concern...besides actually writing something fantastic and amazing, of course.

(I like the (new) threaded comments and all...but I'm feeling too lazy to post twice at the moment. ^_^;;; So here is a pretty flat comment style reply. And...I just realized that I can make this edit box for my post bigger by dragging...! That amuses me to no end. ^_^)

Heh, when it comes to spending on otaku habits... sometimes I wish I had never discovered the fact that I can buy anime/manga off the internet. ^_^;; I buy lots of stuff imported from Japan, and that can get scarily expensive at times.

@Jesika:

Speaking from experience, even if your story isn't completely planned out, if you try you can most likely get done anyway. ^_^ For several of my past NaNos I've had a little idea for a main character or two and a tiny amount of plot floating around in my head when I started writing, but not much else, and things worked out just fine in the end. The big thing is to just keep writing. (And if that sometimes means you put something completely and utterly ridiculous in to push past writer's block a couple times... that's why we edit after November is over. ^_^; )

@Bjerke:

I don't live too far from Kimberly myself, so that makes some sense. ^_^

I feel so at home here already. :D

I'm Jacob, and I hail from Fort Atkinson. I'm a computer junkie, and spend my time watching/making YouTube moving, playing Neopets, and lots of other internet stuff than writing. Hoping to chane that in the coming weeks. Will be making an entiely new story on the fly for this coming writing month, though I'm not too sure how it will turn out. I would like to think it would be fun though. Anyway, I hope this coming month will be good for all of us, and we manage good progress in our projects. to the future! *raises glass*

@Bjerke: I'm new, too, and I want to win. X_X Let's both win!

@Rana: Thanks for the encouraging words. I always thought the successful writers were the ones who had plots and outlines meticulously planned out before the writing started. I think this NaNoWriMo is going to be destroying a lot of my preconceptions about writing. Whee!

@Jacob: Yay, we're neighbors! I live in Jefferson. For the record, I've been here almost a year and I've only met one anime fiend/internet junkie. You guys are good at hiding, I guess. :P

Hey folks! I'm Bradly.

I just moved to the miniscule town of Pound, WI from Wausau, WI. It's quite a switch for me to go from city to country so you can bet that's going to be influencing my writing. Seeing as there's nothing for me to do out here except stare at the cows I am pumped about Nanowrimo and can't wait to start.

My novel(I'm thinking)is going to be sci-fi this year. I've participated in two Nano's already but have failed miserably both times. I'm going to get prepared for it this year though.

Just a side note I love anime as well. I like a lot of yaoi and shojo manga.

Hey, I'm Lindsay, and I currently live in Milwaukee. Moved here from Texas. But my stories all seem to end up taking place in central Wisconsin, where I spent my misguided youth, so I subscribed to this group as well.

It's so fun seeing that people are gathering in this forum. Woohoo for us!

To be honest, I've got an idea for a story in my head, but I'm not sure if I'll use it.
I've got characters. Yes, lesbians.
I've got a plot. Inspired by a previously written story, but not based on it at all.
I've got no real setting.
And. . . Every day it seems less and less like what I wanna use.

But, ya know what? Throwing together things last minute is part of the NaNo craze, isn't it? Heh heh heh!

Gosh you guys are such a ways from where I am. I suppose I'd be closer to the Madison forum, but Madison is an hour from here... I signed under here in hopes that there'd be someone from my end of the state around here.

Anyway, I'm working with a historical paranormal mystery this time around (this will be my second year for NaNo.) I have most of my plot, and most of my research done (this will be my sixth month of research) so I guess that means I'm in fairly good shape. With the exception of filling in some gaps, last minute research and some more character profiling I'm good to go.

A side note here, my husband has family out in Appleton and we'll be out there on the 27th ghost hunting :-)

Yay! Wisconsin WriMos!

I'm Lurking, obviously. (Lurking is the king of cats in my story. With cats being a sentient race of my world. And I don't mean cat-people, like in manga. Oh, and I'm a girl.) I like writing, also obviously, and languages, and drawing, and tae kwon do. And I am stuck in sad Green Bay as always, just waiting for the icky weather to settle in.

Anyways, having missed last year's NaNoWriMo by about two months time, I'm attempting a very very odd fantasy novel that isn't really like any fantasy I've ever seen before, involving trees that are like people, rocks that are like trees, and five seasons: Water, Summer, Golden, Fire, and Winter. So it should be an interesting November.

My friend has also signed up as Soulkeeper, who shall be attempting to write a novel on top of reading Julius Caesar and other Dreadful Survey English things.

And I'd like throw my hat into the pot of anime/manga fans. =^_^=

Hey, everyone!

I'm from the northwoods area, an hour or two north of Eau Claire, if you know where that is. I'm a junior in high school this year, and I'm anticipating NaNo to be a challange, with school and work (Kmart!), but, hey! I did it last year and won a day early. :)

Anyways, I dabble in many genres in my writing. Last year I wrote a fantasy novel, and I wrote one other novel, fantasy also, in that same world. This year's going to be a sci-fi thing, full of flying cities and techno stuff I have no idea about and plan to bluff my way through. What fun!

Hello all! I'm JP...I would be in the Milwaukee group (I live in the general vicinity), but then I realized I would be doing all my writing from here in Beloit (whee, college!)

I write mostly fantasy with some romance mixed in, and my Nano idea started with the simple phrase "a post-apocalyptic faerie tale." So that's what I'm (hopefully) writing, so fingers crossed it works out!

Ghost hunting?! That is so cool... and scary.

Whoot for Wisconsin!

We're a small state, but we really know how to represent (sometimes lol). Anyways, I'm a high schooler senior and this will be my second year doing this and well, I'm super excited again, because this year I'm determined to finish despite the odds. Better characters, better plot, better writing skills.

And while Kimberly and Appleton are close and you can go from one into the other without even realizing it . .. they are not the same! I stand by it.

But not too strongly, because it's almost like they are.

At last, I'm in and have time to post!

It's good to be back. This will be my third year at NaNo and I'll be doing another middle-grade or YA fantasy story. It's supposed to be a sequel to last year's but I haven't opened my notes yet to see if I can even remember where the last one ended (a trilogy is planned).

I'm in Green Bay and I know there are at least two others who haven't posted here yet. The three of us have been meeting on NaNo weekends for encouragement and caffeine. We even meet at times other than November just because we like each other. :D We're thinking of using The Atlanta Bread Company this year. One of us will post details when we get closer to that first weekend.

Good luck to you all!

Okay, so this is my region . . . but how do I make it official? the e-mail got printed out so I could follow the instructions at a more opportune time, but I managed to lose it. Don't know if that's my fault, or the cute three year old sister's. Anyway, when I click on "Regions" or even "My Regions" it says I'm not subscribed to any, but doesn't give me the option to remedy that. Help?

Okay, I'm going to start from the absolute beginning of how I would add a new region affiliation, so apologies if I'm covering anything you already know/have already done.)

-Go to My "NaNoWriMo" (from any page on the site, I'm pretty sure... It's in the gray bar toward the top of the page. This should take you automatically to "My Regions," but since you're saying you aren't affiliated with the region yet this page won't be of much help.

-Right underneath the "My Regions" title, there should be two tabs: Regions and My Regions. Click on "Regions," and this should bring up the Regions directory.

-Find the region you want, "United States :: Wisconsin :: Elsewhere" in this case. They're in alphabetical order, so this region is on the last page. (Or you can just plug Wisconsin into the search box and bring up the three Wisconsin regions.)

-Once you've found the region, click on "affiliate" next to it, and this should affiliate you with the region.

I hope that helps. ^_^ And good luck with your noveling!

I am located in Fort Atkinson as well.

I have a feeling my primary interaction will be in Madison, but if you two are interested, we could start a month-long "writing clutch" kind of thing.

We are kind of so-so for coffee houses along the lines of what is in Madison (although there are a couple), although I could suggest a nice amount of space at Planet Chaos -- the local comic and game shop in Fort.

Interested?

The fact that my post disappeared does not bode well for me looking like a technophile.

I am primarily in the Madison grouping due to the amount of time I am in Madison, but I am also local to Fort Atkinson. In other words, I live there. Three of us there, and there may be another person or two interested in joining in the challenge. You two interested in starting a weekly meeting to bounce ideas, proof-read, etc in Fort Atkinson?

There are a couple of decent coffee shops, or I could also suggest Planet Chaos the local comics and games shop. Plenty of space and they let me steal an Ethernet cable when I need one. ;)

Interested?

Hi my name is Charles and I'm in Monroe (somewhere south of Madison and north of Beloit I think). Just a bit over 2 weeks left to go til the big night of Nov. 1st. How time does fly. I'm still cogitating ideas at the present. Hoping things like http://www.tiddlywiki.com/ and text block writer will help me keep things organized enough to get some good work done this year. :)

Thanks!

And another (dumb?) question: does anyone know where my signature went, or how to get it back? I'm very NOT tech-savvy, and I have no idea what I'm doing.

(Apologies for replying to this post... I'm having issues with not being able to see new replies to this thread (and others) while logged in, which makes it impossible for me to reply to your latest post. >_<)

The missing sigs are a recurring issue with many people. It's not you. It's the forums. From what I've seen the tech help forum, they're aware of the issue and will get to it eventually. So hopefully if we just wait, the sigs will be back eventually. *crosses fingers*

Hello!

I'm SoulKeeper, and located with Lurking in the depths of darkness of Green Bay. My novel this year is a fantasy (I think) but with very realistic elements in it. This is my first NaNo, so I'm stumbling my way about here.

Um...I am involved in Tae Kwon Do, piano, I love to sing, and I can speak a bit of German. Favourite novels? As of right now I'd say Kite Runner, The Book Thief, etc. But it's bound to change soon. I never though so many writers would be located in our general area...it's fantastic!

I'm looking forward to November, though it'll be a challenge balancing this with my overloading schoolwork!

~The SoulKeeper

Nooooo! I just typed a mini-Nano for you guys, and it hasn't posted...

And if it has posted, and I'm just blind/my computer's acting up again, someone just bash me. Got it?

Well, I'm the SoulKeeper, located in the dark depths of Green Bay with Lurking. First time Nanoer, here, so I'm stumbling around a bit. My novel is currently titled Redemption, and it's a fantasy (but with realistic elements.) Should be great fun!

I'm hyped to see so many writers in our general area, and here we were thinking we were a minority! Some sort of group gathering would be an excellent idea...

Um...I enjoy Tae Kwon Do, piano (composing and playing pieces), reading, singing, attempting to speak German. Current favourite novels are The Book Thief and Kite Runner, but it's bound to change soon.

I'm looking forward to November, although it'll be a challenge balancing this with my schoolwork!

(And yes, I'm going to look like a complete idiot if this has already posted, but I'm a bit too tired to care. ^_^)

~The SoulKeeper

Lurking and I are from Green Bay, and although we can't make a commitment, we'd love to hear the details of your meeting point.

Best of luck for the 1rst of November!

~The SoulKeeper

Edit: Oh god. Apparantly they did post, but there was a problem with the forums earlier. *reddens* Oh no. Oh, no no no no no. I've shamed myself,. Oh, no, no, no, no....

I'm very sorry.

~The SoulKeeper

^_^ Don't worry about it. I've seen other people doing the same thing in other threads. (Including in a thread about the problem itself.)

Anyway, good luck with your first NaNo! ^_^

Hi everyone. I'm from Green Bay and this is my first time attempting to write anything beyond a short essay. I'm not really sure what I want to write about but I have a few vague ideas.

Welcome, AppleLIly! Be sure to check out the GB Get-together topic for some local happenings in November. Until then, I think it safe to say that all the Elsewhere-ers are ready to be sounding boards for story ideas, "battle" plans and advice.

See ya 'round.