Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

The year ahead

Ben-M — Fri, 5 Dec 2008 21:22:40 -0800

Congratulations! The excitement has died down, you managed to keep your job, the family didn't disown you, you scraped through exams and you've rediscovered sleep. Yes, now the madness of stressing over your wordcount bar has finally died down, have you considered your writing plans for the new year?

I was surprised by my first NaNo. The deadlines it helped me set pushed me past the habitual procrastination and I wrote at a length I'd not have previously thought possible.

Crap as it may be, it's still just a rough draft - I've realised I've a lot more writing practice ahead of me before I ever dream of writing a query letter. To that end I hope to write a fair amount in the coming year - outlines, short stories, and another novel draft or two. If I can pull all that off I might just find next year's NaNo a lot easier.

Life won't stop though - young kids, work and other hobbies will keep me going and hopefully provide me with the ideas for new writing projects. It will be a full year.

You?

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Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

"Thank God/dess It's Over" get together

anita13 — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:02:22 -0800

Is anyone else's vision blurring? Even a little bit?

Have knocked heads (in a friendly way!) with the NOR ML Elaine and we've decided to have a joint TGIO (Thank God/dess It's Over) bash-a-roonie.

Sorry, I tried to get an SOR location with convenient parking, but "tradition" won out.

When: Sunday 7 Dec, 2pm
Where: Dome Cafe, 149 James St, Northbridge (table at the back)
Bring: A sample of your work if interested in reading it at the park later on. I'll also be bringing my own T/A coffee as I HATE Dome coffee. But what you do is up to you ;-)

Congrats to all the winners. I have vague memories of winning once, a couple of years back. Sadly the failure is becoming less and less shameful every year for me... must find a new way to punish myself for losing (or rewarding myself for winning, ha ha).

See you all next Sunday
xx
Anita
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SOR ML
(South of the River Municipal Liaison, excuse me) ;-)

Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Anyone finished??

ozedge — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:01:07 -0800

Hey just checking in to see if anyone else has finished?

I stayed up till midnight to validate mine.. was hard work :)

While i have hit my 50k im actually going to do a fair bit of writing as of wed.. 6 hr plane ride here i come :D
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Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Nov 30: post-mortem meet-up

anita13 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:05:50 -0800

hi all,

Anyone interested in a afternoon gathering on Sunday 30 Nov to celebrate / commiserate our NANOWRIMO efforts 2008.

I'll be in Fremantle area that day, so happy to meet somewhere in that direction. Venue / location suggestions are welcomed.

My word count is still under the 10,000 mark, so I have a feeling I'll be commiserating... never mind, there's always 2009 - yikes!

:-)
Anita

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SOR ML
(South of the River Municipal Liaison, excuse me) ;-)

Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

The Magic Million

kartanym — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 04:08:10 -0800

Come on guys, let's see if we can break the million mark word count for SOR! I think that would be an achievement in itself.
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Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Remainders

HalSpacejock — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:23:26 -0800

Heh - a word guaranteed to cause shivers for any author. But not in this sense.

I just noticed I only have to write about 1100 words a day for the rest of November, after setting a gruelling pace (for me) of 2000 words a day so far. I'm going to stick with 2000 a day for as long as possible, because I'd much rather end up with 60k than 50.

(I'm not a fast writer, and I tend to shape and edit sentences on the fly. I'm also writing to a fairly detailed plot outline, so the scenes generally have to make sense and fit in somewhere, which makes it harder to sit and write at random.)
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Simon Haynes, programmer of yWriter.
Author of the Hal Spacejock series.

Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Novel Titles

Brightbear — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:03:17 -0800

I just thought it was interesting when talking to Anita today, that she says she frequently starts from a title and works from there. I find the title the hardest thing to do and usually leave it to the very last thing. I have such fun with my characters that the story is usually very different to whatever plans I try to make in advance, so any title I start with quickly becomes irrelevant. Trying to reduce the whole story to a couple of words has always been really difficult for me.

Ironically, on the way home from the write-in today I did manage to come up with a title for my story. I'll probably change my mind later but I'm happy with it at the moment.

How does everyone else deal with titles? Before or after you've written the bulk of your story?
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Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

WEEEEEEE! Back on broadband! SOR Meet-Up Info

anita13 — Sun, 9 Nov 2008 17:24:23 -0800

hi all,

SORRY I haven't been in touch to let you all know about the SOR write-ins. I moved house late October and it has taken this long for Telstra to sort out our phone lines at the new house.

I'm proposing the following days/times for our write-ins:

WHERE: Millpoint Book Caffe, Millpoint Rd South Perth (plenty of parking)
WHEN: Thursday afternoons, from 2pm - whenever you fall over from coffee overdose
BRING: A fully-charged laptop - no guarantees of power points in the outside area. Also bring a couple of goldies for your coffee.
LOOK FOR: A "NaNoWriMo" sign of some sort on the table.

love love love,
Anita

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SOR ML
(South of the River Municipal Liaison, excuse me) ;-)

Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Word Count - One Week In

skgillespie — Sat, 8 Nov 2008 15:50:19 -0800

I started this thread just so I can show off the fact that I've done over 20,000 words*.

What is everyone else up to? Is it as much as you thought you'd be at? Am I inspiring you to write more while muttering curses at me under your breath or are you smugly smiling because you have written WAY more??

*This would probably be more amazing if I was actually doing anything, but I'm 7 months pregnant and not working so technically I have all day every day to work on my nano. Apart from the immense amount of time I spend sleepinga nd complaining about how sore my back is. I should have written a novel about sore backs - LOADS of inspiration there!

~shannon
skgillespie.wordpress.com
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Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Soundtracks are fun!

paperheartzz — Thu, 6 Nov 2008 15:54:02 -0800

Curious, I was up late but my NaNo page decided to crash before I could ask you wonderful people: Do you have a Soundtrack/iTunes playlist/CD/Retro Vinyl for this year?

There's a post on this in the main room but... you'll all be individual in a local way :)

I find that my novel is taking sharp turns to fit with the music that I ended up writing them into it:
The Beatles - Blackbird
The Spaniels - Goodnite Sweetheart

-- PHzz
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:) PHzz

Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Try again...

HalSpacejock — Thu, 2 Oct 2008 18:00:59 -0700

Hopefully this server will stay up long enough to keep the posts ;-)
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Simon Haynes, programmer of yWriter.
Author of the Hal Spacejock series.

Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Early morning writing...whee!

sassamifrass — Wed, 5 Nov 2008 04:55:40 -0800

I'm writing while preparing for my first ever solo dance performance, attending web development conventions and events, running some training sessions and working full time... *pants*

Am I insane? I hope so, I think it will improve my novel ;P

Anyone else writing by getting up ridiculously early before the chaos begins?

Most of my novel thus far has been written in the wee hours between 4am and 6am while I'm half awake. This is going to be an interesting first draft.

Are we going to have a SoR/NoR after-nano party? :P

I'm in Queens Park.... DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT :P
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Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Pre November Meet Up

skgillespie — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:18:46 -0700

So should we have our own or just crash the NOR river one?

The NOR one is 26th Oct (this Sunday) 2pm-ish at the Dome in Northbridge. If anyone wants to suggest a place for a SOR one I'm all ears (or eyes, given that it's a computer screen...)

~song
skgillespie.wordpress.com
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Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Checking how everyone is going

ozedge — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 03:51:43 -0800

So people... 3 days in.. how are we all going???

Personally i am going exceptionally well.. considering that last year i had to write 20k words in my last weekend to get over the line i decided to do it on my 1st weekend to give me a good headstart :)

Story is going well.. def cant complain.. hand is getting cramped tho (stupid handwriting of novel)

Good Luck everyone!!!!
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Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

So what Genre you writing this year?

ozedge — Sun, 5 Oct 2008 04:33:46 -0700

Thought i'd put this out there as im curious :)

I'm writing SciFi.. specifically a supernatural cyberpunk thriller
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Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Facebook Users

KosmosStar — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:37:12 -0700

There is a group formed on facebook for this year's participants.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204585636

In case anyone else is interested :)

regards Kosmos
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Location : Somewhere on the far side of crazy, past the dark side of the moon, and on my way to becoming comfortably numb.
visit my blog : http://kostopia.blogspot.com/

Australia & New Zealand :: Perth :: South

Motivation trick

HalSpacejock — Tue, 7 Oct 2008 06:53:04 -0700

I do this every year and it works a treat. Before Nano starts I go out and buy something I've been wanting for a while, usually in the $50-$100 range. (In other words, not your everyday casual purchase.)

I stick this item on the shelf above my monitor, still in the packaging/shrink wrap.

Then I get started on Nano, knowing that I can only have the reward when I hit 50,000 words.

If you're on a tight budget, make the item a favourite bar of chocolate or a voucher for your favourite food - it doesn't have to be expensive, just a treat you'll really enjoy. And after four or five days of Nano, when you're 2000 words behind and are about to give up, the treat should catch your eye and encourage you to do another 300 words a day for a week to catch up.

(That's the other secret - as long as you stay more-or-less on track it's easy to do just a little bit extra now and then.)
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Simon Haynes, programmer of yWriter.
Author of the Hal Spacejock series.