United States :: Texas :: San Antonio

[[Sticky]]Welcome!

jamileigh17 — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:54:49 -0700

Welcome, and welcome back!

Ten years... Wow. It doesn't feel like Nano should be that old! I remember when it was still toddling around in nappies and with a security blankie.

*grins*

For those who don't know, I'm Jami, one of your local Municipal Liasons. This year, I'm joined by the utterly amazing Tiffany (Toggy) as my awesome coML, with assistance from the fantastic Emily (Smudge). Any questions, problems, suggestions etc, feel free to contact Tiffany or myself via the contact form at http://www.nanowrimo.org/mlcontact, emailing the san_antonio_TX @ nanowrimo.org, or using any other way you know to get hold of us, and we'll take care of them asap. We have pretty hectic schedules, but we're around fairly often anyway.

Right now, those of you who are new are looking at this all with hopeful grins, probably a bit intimidated, and ready to conquer the world, or at least 50k of it. Those who are veterans are sitting there with a knowing smile, perhaps, and wondering what surprises we have in store this year. We're not quite ready to reveal them all, but we can share a few...

There are special San Antonio shirt designs in the works, different than the ones tossed around last year that never quite got anywhere. We have more events planned this year than ever before! And a midnight kickoff party, because that's just how we roll. ;)

There's a few changes in how things are running this year. Since there are two official MLs, we're going to have a lot more flexibility in events. Some will not be all ages appropriate. We ask that at any "working" session, any non-participants (such as parents, children, tag along cousins, etc,) find something to entertain themselves quietly. If anyone is disruptive, we reserve the right to tell them to shut their yaps, or go elsewhere until they're done. At social events, please try to keep things to a dull roar. No running. No setting things on fire that are not intended to be on fire. Please keep all heads, arms, and legs inside the ride at all times. ;) This will make the experience enjoyable for everyone involved, including the staff of places we invade. See the events thread for details.

I know I'm forgetting things right now. I had all this typed up weeks ago, but hadn't synced my Alphasmart Dana, and it did the yearly crash, so I have to wing it. Boo.

That reminds me. Always, always, back up your writing!! SERIOUSLY! Every day during Nano, I email myself the file when I'm done for the night. I save it onto a SD chip and two separate hard drives! Make sure there are multiple copies of your novel, so that if something happens and one gets deleted, or corrupted, or lost, you have others. It's incredibly difficult to recover from lost writing.

And never, ever give up. Nothing is impossible. My first year? I went into the final weekend with 25k. I locked myself in my room with a dinosaur of a laptop, this ancient compaq with 12K of RAM that had no CD drive, no battery power, and a very outdated version of MS Works, and did nothing but write. I emerged briefly for frantic foraging for food, and that was about it. My fingers hurt, my eyes were bleary, and I don't even remember sleeping much if at all... but when I emerged, I was triumphant! 50015 words!!

My record low is something like 7k.... It happens. You simply have to try, try again. I'm 2/5 at this point. I'm determined to bring it to 3/6 this year, and then 4/7 next year!

Any questions, suggestions, etc, feel free to contact me or Tiffany. You may PM us on here, or email us at the address in my siggy.

I'll shut up before your eyes cross, I promise!! :) (Scary part is? This is shorter than the original by a LARGE chunk!!)
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~Jami~
InSANo ML- San Antonio, TX- san_antonio_tx @ nanowrimo.org
As the lights go down, the hearts go up.
As the lights fade, the imagination grows.

United States :: Texas :: San Antonio

[[Sticky]]AIM screennames

jamileigh17 — Wed, 8 Oct 2008 13:43:25 -0700

So that we can invite you to nano related chats. I will add anyone who posts their SN there when I get a chance, as I tend to get pulled in by others, or I will make a InSANowrimo room for us to use as well if there's desire for it. There are several chat rooms usually in use. Nanowrimo, wrimo, nano, wrimowars, etc. WARNING: Those chats aren't always all ages friendly, and I do NOT moderate the content in those. Enter at your own risk. ;) Neither MLs nor Nanowrimo are responsible for the content or activity in those rooms, and offcolor things are quite frequent in some cases. If anything offends you in a room, take it to IM with the person involved, and try to be mature about it, please. :-P

And for anyone who hasn't figured it out yet, I'm Jamileigh17 there too. ;)
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~Jami~
InSANo ML- San Antonio, TX- san_antonio_tx @ nanowrimo.org
As the lights go down, the hearts go up.
As the lights fade, the imagination grows.

United States :: Texas :: San Antonio

[[Sticky]]Advice on Nano from your Co-ML

Toggy — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 13:49:45 -0700

Hello Insano-wrimo-ers. It is about time that your friendly neighborhood Co-ML wrote her introduction letter. At long last I have official ML status (w00t). Jami took care of a lot of the official ML business inher letter, so I get to do some of the fun stuff (though I do not know if she intended it like that or not. But I will use it to me advantage. Bwahahahahah) I thought I would talk about some aspects of winning at nano. Since I know we all want to. And it seems that we have a lot of newbies here. I do not have a lot of experience, this will be my third year. I epic failed the first year, coming in at a stellar 22k (what – that’s not so bad you might think) and won last year with an official work count of something like 75k. So I know how to win. And I know how to loose. This year who knows. The boss and graduate school and PhD candidacy are all on cahoots on how to make me fail at nano. But I will give it a valiant effort. With a tried and true story idea of mine.

I think, personally, that Nano will be difficult if this is your first adventure into writing. Or if you write a lot of drabbles and short stories. But here are my tips.

1) OUTLINE. And outline more than you think you will need. I ran out of outline about 10 days into nano and nearly panicked. What – how did I write to much already??!?!?1 It was a bit of a predicament. So outline more than you think you will need if it is a multi part story, or outline the entire novel. You don’t want to break stride and have to pause to plan things. I know everyone’s writing is different, but I don’t profile my characters. They seem to develop well enough on their own. Outline what you need, but really, outline.
2) The alternative to outlining. Have one fantastic character whose story is ready to burst forth. And so with it. I cannot work like that, but I know that others do.
3) Nano is a wonderful time to see what you are capable of, but don’t try and change genres. I did that the first year. And that is why I got stuck. If you write fantasy, don’t try to switch to horror, or scifi or romance. It probably wont work. Maybe fantasy to urban fantasy, but write what you know. This is about producing many many words in a short amount of time. It is easier if you stick with the familiar.
4) Own your idea. If you are wishy washy about the idea, it will be harder to live and breath it for 30 days and 30 nights of literary abandon
5) Try to stay ahead of the curve. Maybe not on the daily word count, but at least for the end of week goals. If you get behind, it just seems to be insurmountable. If you are even, or ahead, nano is a lot more fun.
6) Come to events. We are nice people. Some people can win at nano as a lone solitary island of nano participantship, but what fun is that? We are a support group, and a brainstorming group, and just cool people. And really, it was due to a group of nanoers that I got some of the names for my nano last year. And some of the names I even kept. Asligarh is such a good name ☺
7) Sometime or other there will probably be a thread wherein we divulge the secret screen names and do nanochat. JOIN IT!. Word wars occur there and in the write ins. Word wards are fantastic ways to boost your word count. Especially when you realize that your buddy/competitor wrote five more words than you in that 10 minutes and that is just not acceptable.
8) Routines are your friend. Or at least my friend. Try to write at the same time each day. That way you know that is is always nano time during those times.
9) have fun. this is about having fun, challenging yourself, and creating something in a month that most people never create ever. So enjoy yourself. We are all winners here, cause we rock for trying this, but some of us just get completion certificates at the end.
10) Remember that your muse has a pet plot bunny. Embrace where they lead. The road that your characters try to take will probably deviate from the outline, but that will lead to some unexpected awesomeness.

I think that is about it for now. Let me know if you need anything. Contact me any way you need to, through the ML email or PM me or something. I will try to help as best I can.

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United States :: Texas :: San Antonio

[[Sticky]]EVENTS!

jamileigh17 — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:23:31 -0700

This thread is critical to your noveling.

It is the thread that may save whatever shreds of sanity you actually want to retain when the month is over.

Every year, we have events. Each year, lots of candy is eaten, goodies are given out, crazy, zany things happen, and writing occurs in massive amounts. And we realize, newbie or old timer, we're all in the same boat.

The schedule of events will be available on our Google calender that is linked to at the top of the page as soon as possible. This post will be updated with that information at that point, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up as to what to expect at the different events.

There are several different types of events:

There are kickoff and TGIO (Thank Goodness It's OVER!) parties, loud, boisterous events. There have been mock sword fights, real life flame wars (Who me, try to blow out the candle of my friend across the table? Neber!), costume parties... Details on this year's will be up soon in it's own thread.

There are working sessions, held at the Barnes and Nobles at I10 and De Zavala (12635 W Ih 10, San Antonio, TX 78230) These write ins are for productive writing time. We use the study lounge area at the back left of the store, just look for the purple pumpkin. Seriously. I have a plastic purple pumpkin that I haul things around in during Nano. XD I usually wear a Nanowrimo shirt, but if we get any chilly weather, I'll be wearing something warmer.

Rules for Write Ins

As these are meant as productive times, we do ask that they be used as such to the best of your ability. I know it's hard to shut up sometimes, we get excited, but that's why we have separate events for socializing.

-When asking a question, ask quietly or whisper to minimize disruption, or go to another area of the store.
-There are never enough electrical outlets, even when we bring power strips with us. Please make sure you have enough charge in your laptop, or be prepared to wait for an available plug. You may also bring your own power strip, and we'll juggle things around as needed.
-There are only so many comfy chairs. Get there early if you want to snag them. We share this area with a lot of students from UTSA often, so again, courtesy to other people is appreciated!
-Non-participants are welcome to tag along, but the same rules apply to them. If your crazy aunt Sally is driving you up a wall, she's probably annoying others too. Send her on a hunt for something shiny in another part of the store. ;)

Then there are Social Events. These are far more laid back, and not really meant for writing at. We'll go out to eat, go out for drinks, things like that. We are more than willing to accommodate any special needs, as we have a couple of people who we routinely do so for anyway. Just let us know what you need, and we'll do our best.
If you have a place that you want to go to and hang out, maybe get some writing done, feel free to post. We'll add it to the calender, though due to the rest of life, we can't always guarantee an ML will be able to show. Informal events will be marked on the calender as such. If there's a place you think would be just perfect for a social event, feel free to suggest it. We're picking the event locations ahead of time, but we reserve the right to change our minds and the location.

The only thing we ask at the social events is that people don't act like utter dolts. We want the restaurants we go to to LIKE us, so don't run around like 5 year olds while screaming at the top of your lungs.. even if you are 5 inside. You might think it's funny/cute, but I guarantee not everyone else agrees. And even those who agree at first may find it trying of the patience after a while.

So add that calender to your daily tabs, and see what we've got going on!
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~Jami~
InSANo ML- San Antonio, TX- san_antonio_tx @ nanowrimo.org
As the lights go down, the hearts go up.
As the lights fade, the imagination grows.

United States :: Texas :: San Antonio

Random chatter and semi-un-official procrastination thread

AnnieColleen — Wed, 8 Oct 2008 19:07:57 -0700

So I don't go poking around the rest of the boards when I ought to be outlining.

So why is it that this story (like from before I knew it was a novel-length story) is bursting with worldbuilding? One alternate history (on hold), one "original" fantasy world (last year's NaNo, on hold), but it's the fantasy-in-space one where I think "But what is she wearing?", and *poof* there's an outfit. That's not (so far as I can tell) either a stereotypical fantasy outfit or a steretyopcal (ok, I'm leaving that) space outfit, that totally fits her. As opposed to, on the previous ones, shying away from the question because, shoot, I've gotta research, and I don't know what their textile sources and technologies are, and what dyes would they have had, and... None of that this time around. Weird.

Back to outlining. I'm still a little nervous about what happens when they get to the planet (end of this chapter).
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United States :: Texas :: San Antonio

Have a calendar!

Christian Writer — Fri, 3 Oct 2008 15:00:17 -0700

My original post disappeared, and I'm not counting on it coming back, so here's a re-post.

I created a calendar for NaNo'08. It has the minimum wc goals for the day, a nice quote, and several inspiring pictures. The quality is not perfect because it was made on ... well ... erm...*coughpaintcough* I am not qualified to work on anything better as of yet. But here's the calendar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30970609@N05/2902573684/

The pictures represent the different weeks of NaNo, and they include:

Week #1. a picture to symbalize NaNo's geekiness.

Week #2. a picture of writing "like a rabid ferret." (Yay for the race that is upon us.)

Week #3. a picture for your mid-nano blues.

Week #4. a brilliant picture of the purple winner's bar and golden crown. : )

Please let me know if this calendar is nice (or terrible) because I'm trying to figure out where I will post it on this site next, and I want it to be nice for all the wrimo's of the world. If you like it, feel free to print it out. If there's a problem, let me know.

*~*Laura*~*
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Writers are dreamers with good grammar skills.
Psalm 55:22a "Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you."
I want to survive my sopomore NaNo and my senior year of school! Must survive!