Dobar dan! Ja ne govorim hrvatski dobro (I don't speak Croatian very well), so I'll be doing all my writing and communicating in English. If anyone out there is from Croatia, lives in Croatia, is married to a Croatian, or just loves to eat Croatian food... then let's support eachother while we write, write, write during the month of November.
I'll be starting a new novel of women' fiction. Haven't got a title yet, but I'll be ready by midnight October 31st.
I'll be writing from Zagreb this year....and probably spending some time at the Profil cafe on Bogoviceva where I can think about my novel while staring at all those books!
Happy writing!
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....with literary abandon...woo-hoo!
1,775 / 50,000
Oct 20, 2009 - 00 18
Hey,
I'm glad to see there's someone from Croatia here aside from me. And Zagreb, nonetheless. I'm here, too. :)
And, well, though Croatian is my native language, I think I'll be using English as well. Especially for the novel-writing. Changing the language helps me with focusing on what I'm writing, and takes the focus off me and my surroundings while enabling me to be more honest, so it makes sense.
This is my first year participating in NaNo, and I'm only 17 and an atrociously slow "writer" so I'm prepared for an epic fail - but it'll still be fun to just let go and write for one month. I'm gonna be failing my classes, but who cares :)
So, good luck. We should be in the final stages of preparation, hah.
Good luck!
p.s. I love the transition from Croatian to English.
8,057 / 50,000
Oct 20, 2009 - 02 21
You're not the only one in Croatia (native too and also in Zagreb, btw. Hi! :) . This'll be my second attempt, though I'm still not too sure if I'll participate. I might try and then just fail like last time. Mind you, looking back, my first attempt was horrible. But I still loved it.
And epic fail or no fail, at least you'll have tried. Any idea what you're going to write about? I think I'll be going with fanfiction again this year. I seem to work better like that, although that's really not saying much.
Good luck to both you and yippee123 :) Let's hope we all make it this year!
20,570 / 50,000
Oct 20, 2009 - 12 31
Best of luck to both of you too! Let's hope that November is a winning month for us all...
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....with literary abandon...woo-hoo!
22,322 / 50,000
Oct 27, 2009 - 18 27
Hello, people! One more Croatian here, although not from Zagreb but Split :) This is my first NaNo attempt, and I'll be also writing in English because I feel this way I could find someone to actually read it later :D
I wish us all the best of luck!
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32,074 / 50,000
Oct 28, 2009 - 01 24
Dobra dan! (hope that's correct)
I just wanted to pop in here and say Hi! I was born in the USA but am half Croatian (my mother's side). I still have cousins in Croatia, outside of Opatija.
In 1984 my mother and I visited them, and were able to see a lot of the country: Dubrovnik, Split, Pula, Bay of Kotor, Plitvice Lakes, and Sveti Stefan, among others. It was a terrific experience.
Good luck to you all! This is my fourth or fifth try at NaNo, and hopefully my first win!
----------20,570 / 50,000
Oct 29, 2009 - 13 52
Welcome everyone. We have just a few days before all the fun and madness begins. Be sure to get lots of good sleep. Fill up your kitchen with healthy foods. Get your favorite music ready. And bookmark this page so that we can keep track of our amazing progress. Let's be positive. Let's dream a little bit for one whole month that we are great writers, dedicated writers, happy writers, and successful nanowrimo writers.
My goal is to write about 2000 words per day for 30 days and to reach 50,000 words by the end of November.
I won Nanowrimo only once, and I did it by writing every single day. Here is my experience: week 1 is amazing. Writing is easy, exciting, and fast. Week 2 is a little bit slower, and each day writing gets slower and slower and harder and harder. At the beginning of week 3 I wanted to give up. I hated my story. I hated my characters. I hated many of the plot decisions I made early on in the story and it was now too late to go back and fix those problems. So I lost confidence in my story and thought it was terrible and not worth finishing. I WAS WRONG. A first draft of a story is supposed to be imperfect. It can actually be quite terrible in the first draft, but then emerge like a beautiful butterfly after the second or third rewrite. So, in week 4, I got back into action and finished my 50,000 words. I did not finish the entire novel....because a full length novel is usually 75,000 - 100,000 words. But I got most of the novel finished, and I knew what parts I needed to finish, and what parts I needed to rewrite to make it a much better story.
Winning nanowrimo is about getting through that first 50,000 words. It is the hardest part. Once you get to 50,000 words, it is easier to keep going and going to finish your brilliant novel.
The month will be filled with many ups and some downs. We will feel great. And we will have times when we feel just terrible. Let us be happy and supportive when we feel great. And please, let us be very kind, and supportive and motivational to one another when we are feeling like everything is terrible.
Best of luck to everyone!
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....with literary abandon...woo-hoo!
50,148 / 50,000
Oct 30, 2009 - 09 27
Wow - thank you so much for sharing, yippee123!
Be well,
Xiri
P.S. I am not from from Croatia, but this was a wonderful post.
50,556 / 50,000
Oct 31, 2009 - 20 17
Hello everyone, another Croatian here, although living in the USA. I am fluent in both languages, writing in English now.
----------Good luck to everyone and let's catch up when we find some time.
poetic soul
50,556 / 50,000
Oct 31, 2009 - 20 19
Nice to see someone who mentiones Opatija. I attended school in Opatija, some of the best years of my life. I am from Rijeka
----------poetic soul
50,556 / 50,000
Oct 31, 2009 - 20 19
Nice to see someone who mentiones Opatija. I attended school in Opatija, some of the best years of my life. I am from Rijeka
----------poetic soul
0 / 50,000
Nov 2, 2009 - 01 59
Hi there everyone
Another Croatian here, currently in Zagreb.
A first try at doing the NaNoWriMo thing for me.
8,312 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 02 52
Hello to all! Nice to see people from Croatia are participating. This is my first year doing NaNoWriMo! I'm also from Croatia, Rijeka. I see some of you will be writing in english that's impresive.
Well I wish you all the luck, hope we all win or give our best trying. :D
Igor
----------..jer radje bi usao u povijest kao pisac koji je napisao najvece sranje ikada i bio nepismen pritom, nego vise nikad ne napisao nista!
I'd rather go down in history as a writer who wrote the greatest shit ever, then never write a single line again!
20,570 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 14 31
Welcome to week 2 of Nanowrimo!!! I hope everyone has been successfully meeting their goals. And I hope everyone is still working hard on their stories. I am getting some writing done everyday, mostly at cafes around town. It was getting too hard to carry my computer everywhere, so I now bring a workbook with me and I write with a pen! It is very nice actually, and I get lots done. The trick is to find paper that is nice and smooth, and get a pen that is also nice and smooth...I got one of those pens with gel ink. It feels good in my hand and makes me want to write and write. It also makes me want to draw little cartoons in the margins of my pages....but I try not to do that too often.
Good luck to everyone during week 2.
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....with literary abandon...woo-hoo!
11,770 / 50,000
Nov 10, 2009 - 08 26
One more Croatian here. :) With really bad luck this year - couldn't activate my account from last year, the password arrived a couple of days after I created a new one. >_< I started 2 stories and couldn't stick with them so I started a bit later than everyone, plus my own computer doesn't work so I can only write on my sister's laptop or brother's computer. >_< Not my lucky year. >_> I am surprised and glad to see some Croatians in here. :D I'm from Zagreb btw, but I'll speak in English since I am a newbie at writing in Croatian online. >_<
20,570 / 50,000
Nov 13, 2009 - 07 29
Hi and welcome. Don't worry about starting late, just do your best and see how far you can take your story!
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....with literary abandon...woo-hoo!
16,184 / 50,000
Nov 16, 2009 - 12 19
WOW!! Great thread!! :)
Wonderful tips, Yippee!! Thank you so much for them!
True, week one was good, week two I basically stopped writing, so hopefully now I'll start writing every day again!
I found too that it's easier to write on paper, with a nice pencil (I think pencils are a bit more eco friendly:) and then transcribe on the computer!
I am not Croatian but your 'neighbour' from Slovenia, and remember many wonderful days by the seaside in Croatia as a kid!! :)
Happy writing!!
20,570 / 50,000
Nov 18, 2009 - 04 55
Writing with a pencil on nice smooth paper is very pleasant. A pencil is also handy for making little sketches between your paragraphs. Sometimes a little picture of your scenery, or a picture of your character's house or car or shoes... it helps to feed the imagination. Makes it more real as you are writing.
Slovenia has really pretty scenery. And excellent coffee too!
Keep writing everyone. Even if you are slowing down. Even if you think you've got nothing left to write. Even if you think you are too tired (like me!) Keep writing. Don't try to judge your work until December 1st.
Think of November as one entire month of hope. Maybe, just maybe it will all work out......beautifully....
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....with literary abandon...woo-hoo!
16,184 / 50,000
Nov 18, 2009 - 15 34
Thank you Yippee!! :)
Glad you like our coffee & scenery! :)
I love Croatia and Zagreb - it's a beautiful city!
You are so right about 'What to write?' and getting bored and sticking to it..
I actually used some tips from the NaNoWriMo hints&tips lol.. It turned out a little bit different from the prompts, but that's part of the fun, right?;)
Do you have an outline and write according to it or just 'wing it'?
(I have some outline and have a bit o' a mess with scenes jumping ahead and all over - do you set these into place or just let 'em be till December?)
I think it's beautiful to write in a cafe! Live in a small town so would get mostly stares though lol!
Wishing you all happy writing!!
32,074 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2009 - 07 53
I'm pretty much following my outline, but occasionally a new scene pops into my mind that begs to be inserted. So I've been setting those off with a row of asterisks (*****) at the top and bottom, so they'll be easy to see when I go back to edit.
But otherwise I just leave them be for now. If I were ahead of the word count, or over 50,000 already, I'd poke at them, but for now, their placement is not important. (So I keep telling myself.) All that matters is word count.
Best to everyone here!
----------20,570 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2009 - 08 01
Hi again,
When I write fiction on a regular basis, I always do a ton of work up front with plotting, story arcs, character biographies, scene outlines, and then I do a chapter in various voices to see what works best (first person, third person, etc). Then I write. Then I edit. And I rewrite 4 or 5 drafts before polishing everything off. A novel takes about a year for me to start and finish.
But....nanowrimo is different. For nanowrimo, I use a brand new idea that is in my head, and plunge into just writing a first draft without any sort of plotting or any type of work up front. I want to just write everyday, without knowing how things will turn out. For me, it is like a writing vacation. For fun. No worries. No deadlines. No problems. At the end of November, I will read what I have written and decide if this is a story that is worth rewriting as a novel. If it is good...then I will examine the story and then do all my normal work involving plot, etc. If it is a story that I do not want to finish writing, then I take out the really good stuff (like maybe a great character, or some good plot twists,) and I store them in my Great Ideas file on my computer.
So no matter what happens at the end of November...I will take something good from the experience.
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....with literary abandon...woo-hoo!