Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Meeting up during the year?

MissMac — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:18:58 -0800

Some of us met up every other month last year to chat about current writing projects and I wondered if anyone fancied doing that again this year.

I'll just be redrafting 2 novels (Nano 07 and 08) but it can be handy to have a deadline and you know what you've got to get done before the meet up.

What do you think?
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Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

LiDecWriMo

littlespark — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:39:48 -0800

This is the topic/forum/place to post for the people either interested in or doing my little December Challenge. The title was thought of by free_chiru and it literally means "Littlespark's December Writing Challenge", and I thought it was really sweet of them!

Now onto the rules of the challenge:

1) I, Littlespark, have a target set of 65,000 words.
2) All the words are to be written in the month of December which is 31 days long. This means 2097 words a day to hit the target.
3) Starts on the 00:00 mark beginning the 1st of December, ends on the 23:59 mark ending the 31st of December.
4) Up to three projects can be done, but no school work or work work.

So that's about it for my rule laying out, just a few more words. This is purely for enjoyment, I am not a genius with icons, prizes and such, therefore there would be any of them. However if you want me to thanks to lex-a-like I have the ability to track people's word count.

Thanks for reading and goodluck to everyone. Plus, a very big well done to everyone that took part in NaNoWriMo this year, even if you didn't finish, well done.

I'll stop talking now, Littlespark.

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Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Word Disassociation

Magenta — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:41:42 -0800

It's all gone a bit quiet in here since NaNo ended. Let's try and get something going with a fun little game.

For those who've never played Word Disassociation before, it's quite simple. I'll start things off by posting a word. You have to follow it with another word that has absolutely no connection to the word before it. Then someone else continues with another word with no connection to the word you posted. And so on and so forth. If you think there is a connection between two adjacent words, you can challenge. Comedy challenges are positively encouraged.

And our first word is:

Gherkin
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Claire - ML for England :: York & Leeds
"I read your book and I find it strange"
2008: The Institute (again).
Fingertip score: 21/21 (Woohoo! With bonus points for being in order!)

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

TGIO Party!

Magenta — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:25:39 -0800

It's really time we started organising the Thank God It's Over Party, so we're ready when December hits. Last year we went out to Pizza Hut for a meal, which seemed to go over quite well, so I suggest we do something similar this year.

Since the Kick-Off was in Leeds, the TGIO will be in York. I'm going to say on the afternoon of Sunday 7th December, unless absolutely everyone has a problem with that.

York is replete with interesting eateries, many of them within easy reach of the railway station and not too expensive either. So I'd like opinions on where we go:

1). There's Pizza Hut again (though possibly this time we'd go to the more centrally located outlet).

2). There's Sam Houston's Tex Mex, if people are up for something spicy.

3). There's Red Chilli Asian restaurant, for an Oriental kick.

4). There's Kappadokia Turkish restaurant, for something a bit different.

5). There's anywhere else people can suggest.

We'll go with whatever seems like the most popular option. I'm also going to need to know numbers by the end of November so I can get a table booked.

By the way, for those that are new to NaNo this year and wondering, the TGIO Party is open to all, regardless of whether or not you reached the hallowed goal of 50,000 words. It's not a victory party, it's a party for celebrating the fact that the whole affair is over for another year. : )
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Claire - ML for England :: York & Leeds
"I read your book and I find it strange"
2008: The Institute (again).
Fingertip score: 21/21 (Woohoo! With bonus points for being in order!)

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Working on the second draft

jellywellington — Mon, 1 Dec 2008 02:30:13 -0800

Okay, so the first draft's done. It's sitting there in a big heap, full of ideas and characters and enthusiasm and Stuff Happening, but MY GOD it needs tidying up! I mean, that middle section just stank, there are all those things you thought of halfway through that you wish had occured to you when you started, and you can hardly bear to look at some of the prose you wrote in week two...

I know exactly how you feel! And this year, I want to get pretty much straight to work on the second draft, to fix all those problems and make it into something wonderful. No time like the present, right? So from today I'm planning to go all the way back to chapter one, and start the rwrites, with the aim of having a second draft done by the 31st. Anyone fancy joining me, and reporting in here so we can keep an eye on you and make sure you don't stray? :)

Alternatively, if you're planning to write more as you work on the second draft, we could all congregate over in littlspark's LiDecWriMo thread, over here, might make sense! :

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3143012
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2005: fell at the dreaded week two
2006: winner (hurrah!) with 'Loop'
2007: winner again (hurrah!!) with 'Gravestowne'
2008: winner again (yay!) with 'The Murder Club'

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Regional Word War Leader Table Update

Loriba — Wed, 5 Nov 2008 04:46:40 -0800

Hi,

Thought I'd start a new thread for posting when updates have taken place as it's easier to just cross-post across all the participating forums.

The results from the 4th November have been calculated and can be found here:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3095947#comment-3239799

If anyone sees any mistakes (and there were several in the last one) please PM me to let me know. :)
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*Hugs*
Lottie
ML for Europe::England:: Cambridge
http://www.nanowrimo.org/mlcontact
2005: Dreaming of Jack - 83k+; 2006: An Ordinary World - 84k+; 2007: Rising Angels, Falling Apes - 121k; 2008 - White Shadows - ??.

Europe :: England :: Brighton

Winner!

wirette — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:14:04 -0800

I have been declared a winner.

This is a good feeling. XD
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Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Weekly writing meet-ups in Leeds?

Zacharias Masters — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:52:47 -0700

I know there's a studenty write-up in the pipeline, but I'm assuming that's going to take place on one of the campuses. Is anybody up for a weekly write-in somewhere in Leeds city centre...? I've never quite forgotten gospel rapping at Birstall two years ago.

There must be some warm, unsuspecting little café/Borders/etc that we can inconvenience and concern for a month, if anybody's up for such a thing.
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Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

So far, so good?

agentcooper — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 02:08:57 -0800

Just wondering how other people are getting on so far? I appear to be be lagging behind a bit but should have plenty of time to hopefully catch up a bit on my word count today.
I seem to still be riding along on a tide of impromptu invention at the moment though, hopefully it will last for a while longer yet.
How about you?
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Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

York contingent??

RubyGoddess — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:02:03 -0700

Just wanted to say hi to Nanos in York. I am in Fulford but if you are in Strensall, Newton on Ouse or even on the fringes of the wolds, you might just be able to hear my literary brain clicking into gear for this challenge. Am keen, keen, keen. This is the year, yep indeedy!

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"If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me." --Shakespeare

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Beach Hut Write-In!

Magenta — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 04:45:05 -0800

As has been vaguely mentioned in this forum already, MissMac is the proud owner of a beach hut in Scarborough and willing to let us invade it for a write-in at some point this month. However, it's going to take some organisation.

One We can't set an exact date in advance, because it's entirely dependent on the weather. It'll be pretty horrible out there if it's raining. So I propose that anyone who's interested in coming, as well as posting in here, drops me a NaNoMail with a mobile number. Then when we decide to go for it I can send a text around everyone to let them it's on.

Two It's going to be a Sunday afternoon. We'll be driving across, so it'll be a case of meeting at the station in York at 1230 if you want to come.

Three There's enough seating available for eight people (two of whom will most likely be me and MissMac). More people can come if they want, but they'll have to bring their own chairs.

Four It's going to be cold. It's November. So make sure you've got coats and gloves and hats and several pairs of socks. A kettle will be available to make hot drinks (or even Cup-a-Soup) and there will be facilities for making bacon sandwiches, but still, you will get cold so be prepared.

Five Sand plus laptops may not be a great combination. You can bring them if you want, but neither I nor MissMac nor NaNoWriMo will take any responsibility if they get sand inside them and break.
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Claire - ML for England :: York & Leeds
"I read your book and I find it strange"
2008: The Institute (again).
Fingertip score: 21/21 (Woohoo! With bonus points for being in order!)

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

40,000!

jellywellington — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:37:12 -0800

You know the drill ;)
If you're on word count, this is where you need to be tonight (though some of you are leaping ahead now!) Come in here and brag - you're nearly there! :)
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2005: fell at the dreaded week two
2006: winner (hurrah!) with 'Loop'
2007: winner again (hurrah!!) with 'Gravestowne'
2008: winner again (yay!) with 'The Murder Club'

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Donating!

Magenta — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:37:34 -0800

I know you'll all have had an email from Chris Baty already doing some gentle prodding about donating. So I'm not going to repeat what he's said, particularly.

First of all, I'm actually going to thank those who have donated. I don't know if you're aware of this, but if you look at the Word Count Scoreboard over in Fun Stuff, you can also see stats for donations by region. According to that, we're currently ranked 79th out of 444. I think this is tremendous, so yay!

On the other hand, we could shoot up by more than 10 places if we had just 50 bucks more to our total. So if you think that the NaNo experience has been worth paying for, please consider donating something (and if you do, make sure you give them your username so it can count towards our regional total. : ) )
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Claire - ML for England :: York & Leeds
"I read your book and I find it strange"
2008: The Institute (again).
Fingertip score: 21/21 (Woohoo! With bonus points for being in order!)

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Sheffield People

bluberfish — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:39:53 -0700

Not strictly Leeds but, I didn't want to be elsewhere...

Anybody reppin' the Steel City?

OK, never using the word 'Reppin' or refering to Sheffield as the 'Steel City' ever again, I promise.

ARGH! 1/11/08
So excited. And nervous. And... don't know what to write about yet!
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Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

30,000! yay!

jellywellington — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:13:19 -0800

Okay, a few of us should be reaching this today if you're on schedule (though I know a few of you are already beyond it). Come and brag in here about how well you're doing! :)
And if you're not quite there yet - keep going!!
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2005: fell at the dreaded week two
2006: winner (hurrah!) with 'Loop'
2007: winner again (hurrah!!) with 'Gravestowne'
2008: winner again (yay!) with 'The Murder Club'

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

25,000 - Halfway!

wirette — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:06:44 -0800

I've just hit it! Feels so good to get this far halfway into the dreaded week two. XD
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Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Help!!!

ceejay — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 04:06:10 -0800

Good morning all. I've also submitted this to the 'Questions' forum, but thought I'd ask here as well, after all, this is my spiritual home.

I have an integral character involved in a road traffic accident on a busy cross roads in West Yorkshire. Three cars are involved, one is sat in the middle of the junction, driver clearly deceased. Other two vehicles are buried in a stone wall to one side of the junction. Driver and passenger of one are alive, just, driver of the other (my integral character) is dead. It's rush hour, and the traffic is building up.

I'm looking for advice on how the work of the Emergency services would be coordinated, all three will be needed, no fire, but bodies and survivors will probably need cutting out of the wreckage. How long might it be before the single corpse to the side of the junction is identified as a cop (he's driving his own car by the way, not a force vehicle)? Who would take control of the overall scene? Police, Fire Service or Ambulance service? And how would the recovery be carried out?

Finally, how long would it take the rescue services to find the mobile phone in the cop's car. I suspect not until the next day, when the specialists start to check the cars for signs of mechanical failure. Would they check the calls record, and how long would it take them to realise from the calls that this could be murder, and not an accident?

Convoluted I know, but important to the plot. The cop was doing a runner and hadn't got around to disposing of the mobile which stores some vital information.

Please... can anyone help???

Chris

Chris
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Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Have you checked your Time Zone?

Magenta — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 04:42:07 -0800

Just a quick reminder to everyone to remember to check that they've got their time zone correctly set. This is important because the Word Count validator switches off at midnight local time on the 30th. If you've accidentally got your time zone set to Australian time then you'll find it switches off rather earlier than you're expecting, and you might miss out on the shiny Winner's Certificate as a result. And that would be a tragedy.

You can find the setting under 'My NaNoWriMo' and 'Edit User Settings'...
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Claire - ML for England :: York & Leeds
"I read your book and I find it strange"
2008: The Institute (again).
Fingertip score: 21/21 (Woohoo! With bonus points for being in order!)

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Wordcount validator

contrarymary — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:34:03 -0800

Akk! I just thought I'd test the validator, and it's counted me as having around 500 words less than the wordcount in Word. Bit depressing as that represents the sum total of all I've managed to drag out of my brain tonight!
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Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Bugger, oh no, crap, and every other swear word I won't be using on here.....

wirette — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:27:54 -0800

I've just typed up over 1000 words on a computer at work, locked the computer to go for my lunch, and then when I came back to go back on I couldn't log back in because the person who used this computer yesterday didn't log out and I didn't notice because there were a million problems with our fax machine this morning that I had to sort out so I couldn't log back on and I've lost all that work.

BUGGER.

Anybody else done something that has royally buggered up their word count, or is it just me?

:(
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Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Word War Banter

Magenta — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 07:27:49 -0700

And this, finally, is the thread you are allowed to post in. : ) This is where we can discuss the war, trumpet our greatness and fend off attacks from other regions.
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Claire - ML for England :: York & Leeds
"I read your book and I find it strange"
2008: The Institute (again).
Fingertip score: 21/21 (Woohoo! With bonus points for being in order!)

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

20,000

Evilfilia — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:33:00 -0800

Just hit 20k. At least 4 days earlier than last year. WooHoo! Way to beat the Week 2 blues.

How is everyone else doing?
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Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Anyone else from Hull?

Yuka — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:48:53 -0700

It seems there's no thread for Hull yet... am I the only one? :P
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Remember: you are a salmon!
[url=http://tinyurl.com/4f4r9a][img]http://tinyurl.com/3quz5j/.gif[/img][/url]

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

Regional Dares

Magenta — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 08:31:51 -0700

This is the place to suggest dares for the region. They don't have to be specific to residing in Yorkshire, but they allow us to have smug in-jokes that no-one outside of the region will get. : )

The two traditional dares for the region are:

The Fruit Dare You've probably already noticed a reference or two to fruit in the region. This is because, as will become clear, everyone who attends the Kick-Off party is requested to bring a piece of fruit with them (it helps you to find the group, since you know you're looking for the weirdos with the fruit). Having brought a piece of fruit to the party, you may then officially refer to yourself as a Fruity Writer and must make every effort to include said piece of fruit in your novel. It doesn't have to be in the form of the actual fruit - it could be something described as being the same colour, for example. I believe once someone named a boat in their novel after their fruit...

The Pablo Dare Hang around in the region long enough and you're bound to run into Pablo. Mostly he sits on top of the fridge and watches people coming and going. He's originally a character from my first NaNo novel, but he's since taken on something of a life of his own. The dare is to include a flamboyant character named Pablo in your novel - it doesn't have to anything more than a walk-on part, but the wackier the better.

Feel free to suggest other dares in here. If they're popular enough, they may even get to be traditional next year. : ) And if you take on any of the dares in November, do post in here and let us know how you did it.
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Claire - ML for England :: York & Leeds
"I read your book and I find it strange"
2008: The Institute (again).
Fingertip score: 21/21 (Woohoo! With bonus points for being in order!)

Europe :: England :: York & Leeds

To try or not to try, that is the question

sal1610 — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:55:05 -0800

Started Nano all happy and optimistic, hit the target for the first day, was getting there for day two .... then Laptop decided it didn't really want to function, and I only got it back this morning! Arg!!! Am thousands and thousands of words behind. Is it worth trying to get going again? Especially as I hav a ton of work to do, i.e. "proper" work, the job I actually get paid to do.

Was really hoping to turn out something good for Nano this year as well, and was all set to hit daily targets instead of doing my usual "get 3 days behind and give myself RSI catching up" thing. Pah! That'll teach me to be optimistic

:(
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