is this your second-watever time?

This will be my first time at NaNo, but my suggestion would be to just write every day.
50K words in 30 days comes out to just under 1700 words a day.
I plan to do all of my pre-planning this month, so that next month I can just concentrate on getting words onto the page.

Visit AstonWest.com to check out my various short stories, and my novella Heroes Die Young

This is my third year. ^^

My suggestions? Long chapter titles. Table of contents. Avoid contractions as long as it doesn't make your writing sound strange. Long winded characters...

This is my third time. I found out that the year I didn't have any plot and was terribly busy was the hardest to finish. The year I had key events I knew would happen at some point in my novel went much more smoothly.
This year I am plotting fanatically because I know I won't have enough time in the heat of things, and because I can't help it.
Other than that-- write every day, even if it isn't the whole word count. A mere 100 words will keep your mind percolating the story in the back of your consciousness, and the next time you sit down it won't be so hard to dredge up memories. And I don't know if it would work for anyone else, but the more suspense I have in my story, the faster I write that section. When in doubt, throw in something horrible and deadly and suddenly your story will be very exciting.

"Foxhunt" 2006
"From the Waters' Edge" 2007

Exactly what she said. Write EVERY day. Skipping even one day just kills you, even if you only write like 100 words. Just keep it fresh in your mind. Write on everything, keep a notebook with you.

Two time winner shooting for year three!

Realm of Dreams: Inherit the World - 2006
I'm With the Band - 2007
Catchers of the Sky - 2008

I can attest to that. I know that's why I stopped every year. I wouldn't write every day and it was that much harder to continue.

This is my second time, and my biggest mistake last year was that I tried to make my story "meaningful". It turned out depressing and boring.

So you don't have to try to make it meaningful. It's very likely that meaning will show up on its own time. :)

This is my third time, my first under my new handle. :3

My weakness is editing. Constantly. I would start each day looking at EVERYTHING I had written (not just the stuff from the day before: everything!) and I would change and remove parts of my story to make it "make sense". Not only would this kill my word count, but it would keep me from adding new material to my novel.

I haven't "won" the last two times, because of my compulsion to edit.

What I recommend is write. Just write and keep moving forward. At the end of the month, when you've hopefully hit 50K, THEN you can go back and edit to your heart's content! Until then, just write.

We can do this! :D

This is my second time. I've got a title. I've got some characters. I've got the skeleton of a plot. I'm going to write like inspiration is coming from somewhere else. I'm going to "go with the flow" and allow the story to lead me, like a dog on a leash, and go wherever it takes me. I'm going to have fun and not worry. This is great. I wish all of you the same enjoyment as i experienced last year.

This is my second year to do it and I was SO surprised where my story took me. I was aiming for a kind of thoughtful, soul-searching kind of story, but I think I ended up with something more like "Lake Wobegone"....I even laughed out loud once because it just blind-sided me. I didn't finish it, but I still drag it out and tinker with it. This year I'm trying for something a little more predictable. But you never know....

This is my third time. My plan is to crap out an epic sum of text, then set about editing down to something tolerable. I'm just going to write and write and write, even if it doesn't make sense. It'll probably end up a collection of unedited, nonsequential short stories, entirely by accident. Quantity over quality! ^^;

You have a very correct approach in mind. To think too much as you proceed to NANO is only going to bog you down. Letting the story (or, in your caee, as you have suggested, STORIES) just simply flow may actually point the way later to something coherent and actually good.

You have a very correct approach in mind. To think too much as you proceed to NANO is only going to bog you down. Letting the story (or, in your case, as you have suggested, STORIES) just simply flow may actually point the way later to something coherent and actually good.

You have a very correct approach in mind. To think too much as you proceed to NANO is only going to bog you down. Letting the story (or, in your case, as you have suggested, STORIES) just simply flow may actually point the way later to something coherent and actually good.

This will be my third year, and my best advice is to type out everything that runs through your head, even if it seems silly or out of place. Editing can come later. My story from last year actually jumped around chronologically! I'd get bored with that part of the story, throw in a couple of page breaks (to identify the sections easily later) then just start typing whichever scene I felt like writing. I just rearranged the scenes back into the proper order after the month was over.

I also used the "Find and Replace" feature in Word to lengthen all of my character's names by adding titles ("Belinda" became "The Lady Belinda", etc.), since I was writing a story in a fantasy medieval setting. I also used the same feature to eliminate contractions from my story entirely. Those two functions actually added a couple thousand words! It made the writing sound a little funny, but I fixed it later. Word count by hook or by crook, I say! =P

Also, some of the best advice I got was to disable the spelling and grammar check so you don't see those little red and green squiggly lines. They make you want to stop and fix things, which wastes valuable writing time! Spelling and grammar errors are a-ok during NaNo. It's kind of liberating, really. ^_^

2006 The Path to Pandora | 2007 Queen of Hearts | 2008 Toccata: A Zombie Fairytale

This is my third time also. I failed miserably my first year, but last year was completely different. I found, for me, having accountability (in my case, my students) is the most useful tool. "Failing" in front of them was just not an option for me. We will see if it works again this year.

Side note: I have some students from last year who are going to try NaNo again this year, completely on their own and because THEY want to. Now, THAT is inspiration!