Getting to Know You (sticky)

Hi everyone.

I'm Danielle. This is my 1st NaNo and I am excited, nervous, and terrified all at once. I work in real estate, which is incredibly unimaginative, but it lets me save all my creativity for my writing. I have a 10-year old who is a constant source of inspiration and a wonderful boyfriend who says everything I write is brilliant (God love him).

I'm looking forward to this November and getting to know other writers in the area.

As imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them to shapes and gives airy nothing a local habitation and a name.
- A Mid-Summer Night's Dream

Hi again Diann! My name is Van, some of you may know me some may be new. *waves* This is my ... seventh year doing NaNoWriMo, I believe, and I've won four times, and hope to make this five! I tend to veer toward scifi/fantasy of some kind. I did a post-apocalyptic story one year, a time-travel story and last year a future-science fiction/fantasy story. This year I'm doing a pure fantasy story and completely baffling myself because it's unlike anything I've ever written before and a bit out of my depths due to the large amount of world building and politics involved I have sort out. Still, I'm rather excited and have been working on plot, characters, world building and outlining for a few months already. @_@;

I also have a horrible habit of getting to 50k and stopping, despite the fact that my story is only half finished. I always say, "THIS YEAR I will finish it" and never do. So, this year I'm shooting to write 3,000 words a day instead of the suggested 1,667! That'll get me to 90,000 and hopefully a completed manuscript! We'll see if I can manage it!

Hi guys!
I'm Deidra, and this is my second year doing NaNo. I didn't win last year but got really close with 44K words.
This year I'm sticking with fantasy, or maybe it's historical fiction? > . >
It's setting is Victorian Era England, but there are fantasy elements to it like magic, and mythical creatures. But yeah if someone could clear that up for me I'll give them a cookie. :3
I'm hoping to do well this year although I have school, a possible job, and yet another side writing project for a club at my school. I'm going to be quite busy and frazzled, but I'm so excited to start writing again.
Now to just stock up on chai tea, cherry twizzlers, and oh yeah! a writable plot. xP

"When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand"
Raymond Chandler

Hi hi, I'm DeanaLea! I'm a twenty year old writer, twenty-one by the time that November rolls around. This will be my third year doing NaNoWriMo, and hopefully my third win as well. My first year I wrote a sort of religious thriller kind of thing and the second was a fantasy novel that I had been organizing/plotting since high school. This time around I'm back to tackling a new genre with a vaguely questionable plot [at least for me] so I'm a bit nervous.

I go to school as a full-time student with a major in English and a minor in...business. I think. It's all negotiable right now. I have two dogs that enjoy howling all night to prevent me from getting any sleep and a darling kitten that gets into everything...including the linen cabinets.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd, that's about it. Feel free to nanomail me. I love making new friends, 'specially local ones. :)

NaNoWriMo 'o7: Guilty [Religious-Thriller] Won!
NaNoWriMo 'o8: Happenstance [Fantasy] Won!
NaNoWriMo 'o9: The Cul-de-sac [Historical Fiction]

Hi Hi Everyone! It's always great to see new and familiar faces! I'm Katie and this is my 5th year doing NaNo and hopefully my 5th win! I have this horrible habit of procrastinating until the last 2 weeks of the month and doing a mad race to the finish so hopefully with enough planning this time I will not! I'll be writing a modern fiction story this time that ties into one of my previous novels. Like Van, I hope to actually finish my story rather than just stopping when the word count ticks over to 50K!

Great to meet you all! Good luck and enjoy the relaxing month of October! :D

__________________________________________
2005--The Loyal Nine (Winner)
2006--The Wink in the Attic (Winner)
2007--Breathe(Winner)
2008--Bits and Pieces (Winner)
2009--A Shut Eye (Starting Nov 1, 2009)

Hi! This is Cooper3, aka Landon. This is my third year doing Nanowrimo, first year I didn’t win and last year I did. I’m currently working on last years Nano draft right now in time to start on the second book and wasn’t to get it to an agent right away. There are five chapters done and accounted for and still have fifteen to go.

It is also my first year as a Co-ML for Riverside County. I do live in Big Bear, but that does not stop me from attending a write-in down the hill. There will be write-ins in the Redlands area by me, specifically at one place, but I’ll give you the details later. I go to school at ITT Tech San Bernardino for two days of the week and hoping to get a job at Snow Summit or Bear Mountain in the coming weeks.

Hope to see you all next month!

Greetings to all,

My name is Jeff and this is my first time with NaNo. I saw an advertisement on a play-by-post site I frequent. After reading through what this is al about, I thought why not. I am by no means a writer. Dabbler maybe. I always thought about writing a novel. I have two of my friends that are published. Sometimes I feel that this computer teacher may not have what it takes. But as I always tell my students, "You will never know unless you try." Guess I will take my own advice.

Here's to putting an idea together and seeing where it gets me.

@Deidra--- Hahaha! You have a cool name :P

Hey, everyone! I'm Deidrea. This is my first year of NaNo and I'm not sure how well I'm going to do, because it's rather difficult to find information on samurai.

Anyhow, I just got a job as a video game tester in LA, so I'm not sure how much time I'm going to be spending on my computer on the weekdays!

My novel this year is going to be a YA fantasy about ancient morals in present day. It will be a romance, but I"m hoping not to do the YA romance of who-makes-out-with-who and a seriously weak plot that will end my book in the 99 cent store.

I just want to tell all the first time NaNoers not to worry too much about getting to 50K. You can do it! Thousands of people around the world have done it. The key is turning off your inner editor and just writing. You can always edit, massage, revise, reword or even rewrite later. Just keep typing. Keep moving forward. That's the key to success.

Diann

~*~
Jamal: Women will sleep with you if you write a book?
Forrester: Women will sleep with you if you write a bad book. (Finding Forrester)

I'm Kathleen, and I am addicted to writing.

(Hi, Kathleen.)

Okay, seriously. I'm a senior at the University of Redlands and lack a car, which is why I basically won't be attending any events unless I can talk either my really-too-awesome roommate into lending me hers or a dear friend of mine into trying NaNo this year. This is my...seventh year doing NaNo, I think, and hopefully my fifth straight year as a winner! I look forward to getting to know all you lovely people in whatever capacity I can manage.

I write fantasy almost exclusively: last year it was Epic Fantasy with a capital Epic, the year before it was wannabe epic, the year before that it was a fantasy romance, and this year I'm going for urban historical fantasy with a dash of epic and maybe a pinch of Tamora Pierce. I cannot wait for NaNo to start.

And, if I may be permitted a little bit of bragging, I sold a story yesterday.

Nice to meet everyone!

~TigerKat~
“A good bookshop is just a genteel black hole that knows how to read.”

2006: Confidence (winner)
2007: Anywhere But Here (winner)
2008: The Only Things That Echo (winner)
2009: Firestorm

Hello everyone,
I'm Theresa..this is my second year. last year, I started off pretty well and then life took over and everything went to heck. This year I am going to start a new idea and finish it before November 30th! aaahhhh...the power of positive thinking. I hope to attend some of the write-ins and meet some of you. Good luck to all of you.

::waving:: Hi everyone, both oldtimers and newcomers! I'm Lisa, and this is my fourth NaNo. I finished the prior three years and want to encourage everyone that You CAN Do It! I'm excited to announce that both my 2008 NaNo projects (my first wound up complete at less than 50k, so I started another!) are due for publication, tentatively right smack in the middle of THIS year's NaNo. Should make for an interesting month.

I can't wait for NaNo, though once again I have zero idea of what plot I'll be working on. Hey, that's part of the fun, right? I'll definitely be doing my best to make the Stell's write-ins again, too. And I'm toying with bringing back my Best NaNo Line Written contest from last year...it was a real blast.

Lisa
Writing in My Wildest Dreams at http://lisalogan.net

HI, I'm Donna, I live in Murrieta, I'm a SAHM with three kids (18, 18, & 8), one husband (41) and two cats (both about 9) I have never won nanowrimo, but this year my twins are now out of high school, and my 8-year-old is more independent, so hopefully I won't let life get in the way like I have the past 7 years.....siiiiiggghhhh....

I have several story ideas, I am not sure what genre they fall under. Perhaps a bit on the chick-lit side of things. I keep telling myself I'm going to outline and do some research before I begin, but so far I haven't. I just start writing on Nov. 1 and see what comes out. So I guess we'll see....

I like to crochet and knit and play games on Facebook--which I will have to put on hiatus for the month of November.

Donna Leonard
http://writinginmyhead.tumblr.com/

Writing that springs from the surface of existence--when there is
no other way and the deeper wells have dried up--is nothing,
and collapses the moment a truer emotion makes that surface
shake.

HOW do you get a job as a video game tester??? That sounds like a dream job!
Donna

Donna Leonard
http://writinginmyhead.tumblr.com/

Writing that springs from the surface of existence--when there is
no other way and the deeper wells have dried up--is nothing,
and collapses the moment a truer emotion makes that surface
shake.

Rob here, and I never have any idea where the bloody hell I belong in these forums, so I'm replying everywhere I might fit. I'm up in Lake Arrowhead; my plan this year isn't to make a new novel, but instead to use the NaNo month to put another 50k on the back of a novel I've already been working on. I do have a second novel plan sketched out, though (based on a 20k-word short story I wrote a few years back), so if I reach the end of this one before the end of NaNo, then I'll just start working on that one; either way, my goal is for 50,000 new words during this NaNo!

This'll be my third roll of the NaNo dice. I did okay in '07, but last year wasn't so good; I got to about 30,000 before I faded out mid-month, because I'd lost interest in my novel; I'd started out with what seemed like a good idea, but nowhere near enough planning. The whole thing became a shallow, ridiculous mess in short order, and by the time I had strung together 30,000 it was just not good enough for me to care anymore; it was stressing me out, and I didn't feel like I was getting anything worthwhile to show for my effort. So, I put my time towards other things, and my NaNo effort died.

So, hopefully, it'll be better going this year...

"In the grim darkness of the far future, I still haven't finished my novel."

Good luck this year. :3

"When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand"
Raymond Chandler

Hi,

My name is Caroline. I'm 39 -- a Russian history major turned tech writer turned oral historian turned blob. I've only recently rekindled my love of creative writing, and it's brought me back to life.

I'm a recent transplant to French Valley from the Bay Area, but I grew up in San Diego. This is my first year attempting NaNo -- found out about it last year when a friend of mine participated. I was profoundly jealous.

I know I can handle the word count, at least in theory -- I churned out more than 50k words on my first novel last November (not on NaNo), and I wrote about 30K words in two weeks on its sequel. However, that was in the throes of new love for the story and its characters, and so far I don't have that love for my new idea. Let's see how it works out.

Mostly, I just want to get some practice writing like mad to remind myself how great it feels to fling all sorts of crap out there as raw material so I can sculpt it into a masterpiece later on. I miss that now that I'm carefully fitting the final scenes into last year's novel. I've grown too meticulous and nervous. Gotta break that habit and flex those imagination muscles. I've been taking online writing classes to strengthen my skills, but they demand that I create meaningful genius in 500 words or less. I suppose it's useful -- teaching me to make every word count -- but it's like mincing my way through figure-eights when I'm really longing to get out on that ice and speed skate, wind in my hair, penguins in my teeth.

So, if my first love doesn't get jealous and tear me away from this new upstart, I hope to join you all, maybe attend a few meet ups at the Temecula Library.

Hello everyone!

My name is Ronni, and this is my second year participating, hopefully my second win. Last year I started with a basic idea but, having never written anything over a 10K before, didn't expect the plotting to be so hard. This year, I'm planning out most of my novel beforehand, and I can't wait for October to end and November to start already! I'm a minor, and I live in the Coachella Valley, so I probably wont be attending many of the write-ins, but I'll be with you in spirit, I promise!

NaNo '08 - Princess Kate [WON]
NaNo '09 - The Burden of Proof

Thanks! I've actually abandoned plotting for the story I'm working on, although I had one for my 2007 NaNo, which I finished; this time, I'm letting the story's characters take me wherever they're going. That said, I do plot a little; just in bursts. When the characters get from plot point A to plot point B, I'll pause, and I won't write again until I find the next step that feels natural, that feels like it flows right. So I have days when I don't write at all, and other days when I write a lot, depending on whether or not the characters have found their path...

"In the grim darkness of the far future, I still haven't finished my novel."

Hey everyone! It's so exciting to see new faces around here this year!

My name is Crys, and this is my third year doing NaNoWriMo. I've won both times I attempted it, usually with a 10k marathon on the 30th, and I've yet to actually finish either of them, but yeah. My first year I wrote chick lit, last year was fantasy, and this year I'm going the easy route of writing fanfiction ;-)

I'm really looking forward to write-ins with the group in Riverside and Pomona Valley this year, so I hope to meet some of the new faces!

Hello, my name is XXXX XXXXX, though I will answer both online and in real life to Wolf. Live near Palm Springs and go to school full time at College of the Desert. This is my first year trying for NaNo.

A brief summary:

ETHICS

Mankind's Greatest Invention Will Be Its Downfall.

The year is 2114. The twenty-five year long World War IV has left the world torn up and destroyed. A recently declassified "R&D" group based in the American States of the United Nations have agreed to let the cream of the croup of the recent graduate students go back to view various times in the past via a device code-named Phoenix Project. Through this device, a person can see anything in the histroy of the world if they follow a few simple rules.

1) No interaction with the enviroment.
2) They do not take off their time displacement shields.
3) They do not interact with anyone in the past.

The device is crowned as the greatest invention and the crownstone of both the digital age and of all human history. The use of the device for a study of history is the large idea behind the project, and the reason all the graduates are going through the Phoenix Project. All but Eric Hilan.

He has different plans...

Hi guys, my name's Oleene and I'm a UCR 2nd year. This is my first time writing for Nano and I'm scared even though I write a lot in my spare time.

My story will be adult in theme, running along the lines of mob life, portrayed in a fictitious land. The violence will be less than in The Godfather and there will be a lot to do with cars and motorcycles and a new type of desert racing. I have no idea how to categorize this piece - perhaps just adventure because it will showcase quite a few events(not sure about the time frame yet), that the unlikely pair of characters will go through. I'm developing them right now! I have lots of notes. I hope to cross the finish line. Nice to meet you all!

I'm so excited to see everyone posting here and to hear about your ideas for your novels. Maybe we should have an auction of ideas at the kick-off for those of us still attempting to come up with a viable plot.

Diann

~*~
Jamal: Women will sleep with you if you write a book?
Forrester: Women will sleep with you if you write a bad book. (Finding Forrester)

Hello my name is Cyrus, and I live in Riverside where I currently attend the Inlandia Institute’s Creative Writing Group. That writing group is led by Ruth Nolan, the Associate Professor of English at College of the Desert. It is a fun group of people, and I invite anyone here to join us at 6 p.m. at the Riverside Main Library downtown. For more information about the Inlandia Institute and the writing group please visit inlandiainstitute.org.

I’ve talked to Diann about posting NaNoWriMo event updates on the Inlandia website.

One of Inlandia’s authors actually published a book that they started on NaNoWriMo!

This is a great opportunity to get going on that book you’ve always wanted to write.

Good luck everyone!

Keep writing!

Cyrus

Hello. My name is Cassandra this will be... um... my fourth? fifth? year participating. Between college papers (which don't qualify for word count) and student teaching and my general inability to plot, I haven't won yet, but I've gotten to about 40k.

This year, I'm not in college, I have only a part time job, and my social life is very limited. Now all I have to contend with is the lack of plot! I wasn't sure if I was going to participate this year but I think I'm going to make myself.

As for what I'm writing, it will probably be fantasy-ish. I have a few characters bouncing in my head, and a possible, vague plot line. As for whether its enough, we'll see. When I decide, I'll get a synopsis up. I'd love to meet anyone in the area that is writing in a similar genre and would like to discuss plot and help me get on my feet., or anyone up for writing dates. This both expands my social life AND makes me work. Win-win situation. My schedule is largely open!

[Edit: I realize I included virtually nothing about who I am, so I'll add a quicky version. I majored in creative writing, and used to consider myself a poet until I found myself quite burnt out on writing. I am a credentialed teacher, but yet to have a classroom of my own. Currently I'm living at home and tutoring autistic students. In my free time, I am a mixed-media artist, or rather, I think about how I SHOULD be doing more art. Other than that, I read, or more recently, to my embarrassment, I let the kids game "Wizards 101" suck out my soul. ]

How come everyone else got plot bunnies, and all I have are plot gophers?

Edit: Now I have a plot ninja too, so all is well.

Hi, I'm Lisa. I live in Yucaipa, work FT in Redlands. This is my first attempt at NaNoWriMo, though I have been thinking about trying it for a couple of years. I have no idea what I will write, just toying around with a few ideas. I'm getting organized right now so that once November rolls around, I'll be able to focus on the writing. I work just down the road from Stell's so I definitely plan to attend the Wednesday evening write-ins. I'm a little nervous about the project, but I think I can pull it off. (Of course, if writing projects from my school days are any indication, I'll probably be writing 45,000 words the night before deadline. Never do now what you can put off until the last minute...)

"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - Colette

Hello all,

My name is Aaron and I'm a raucous youth from the low desert hoping to rise to the occassion and write a novel.
I think I will attempt to write something within the Steampunk genre or something along the simplicity associated with Bukowski, minus his Patriarchy and alcoholism.

Peas and Carrots,
Aaron
1201

"If I can't dance, I don't want to be a part of your revolution."
-Emma Goldman

My name is Lael and I live in the city of Riverside. I have a book of poetry that just came out. I am in the first rewrite of a 112,000 word novel that no genre can quite contain. I tend to cross genres at the drop of a sneeze and like it that way. Why get held down to just one if you find that you really fit four or five?

I've decided to put aside the rewrite (if not finished by Nov 1st) and get a jump start on another novel that is waiting in its file, shivering, lonely, sad, just waiting to get written. The prologue is sort of more along the lines of notes as of now, an awesome outline is complete and a 2 page synopsis to keep me on track is done. I plan on starting at chapter 1 and going until the 30th, however much that is.

I tend to write out ideas as they come, getting in the way of current projects. They get stuck in a folder so that I don't lose them and when I need to start something fresh, I can dig and root around in it until something yells loud enough to get heard over the others. This process has worked well for me so far.

This is my first NANOWRIMO. When I started my first novel, I had a 1000 word a day goal that I kept up for almost 60k. So, this is doable for me. Just round it out to 1700 a day and I am pretty sure I can manage it.

Hello everybody,
My name is Marianne. Earlier this year, somebody told me about this “Novel in a Month” event, I decided to do it and promptly forgot about it. Yesterday at a meeting, somebody mentioned it again, and here I am, hoping my life has calmed enough (closing a business, moving, house hunting…) that I actually can do it. I live in Hemet now, know pretty much nobody and am hoping some writing get-togethers will form close to home.
Take care
Marianne

Take care and create
Liz

Hi guys,
My name is Ginny, aka Beanie-Copter. This is my 5th year doing Nano, and I've completed my novels each year. One year I actually got ambitious and wrote two novels (about 65K words each) just couldn't decide which story to write, so I did both.

I work doing analysis in municipal bonds (yawn!) So I NEED an outlet like writing just to stay awake!

For anyone new, don't stress this... just enjoy your writing, and enjoy the ride!

Good luck to you all!