United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

[STICKY] All-Illinois Write-In, Saturday, Nov 22, 1-4 pm - RSVP

NewMexicoKid — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:42:41 -0700

Saturday, November 22, 12:15-4 pm at the Warrenville City Hall will be the first All-Illinois Write-In, which is now open to all Illinois WriMo's. This is the RSVP thread. Because we have a legal limit on how many people we can accommodate at the hall (87), people will need to RSVP--this is a first-come, first-serve event. To commit to attending, just post a reply of the form: VOTE="yes"

NEW: Katherine and I will be providing sandwich fixin's and chips for lunch starting at 12:15 PM (bring your own drinks; there is also a source of hot water there for tea and cocoa).

You can add other comments (such as if you can bring some treats for the hungry writers!). Other options are:
VOTE="no" (you can put this to change your answer from yes to no--the latest post is used)
VOTE="maybe" (to be entered on the wait list)

Please be sure to follow this form closely.

If your status changes, please update our list of attendees by posting the change. This will allow folks on the wait list to move to a confirmed status.

If you are able to bring a treat or help with shuttling folks coming in from the train station (or in any other way), just specify it with
OFFERING="what you are offering"

If you are bringing guests you can note it in the OFFERING as well; e.g., OFFERING="bringing two guests"

Thanks!

There is a Metra stop about 9 minutes (4.1 miles) south of the City Hall. We'll try to make arrangements to shuttle folks--please note if you will be taking the train.

Update: Some folks have offered rides; if you need on, please contact them directly to make arrangements.

--Tim

Wordcount graphs of all who have responded

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Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

[STICKY] NaperWriMo wordcount graph

NewMexicoKid — Tue, 4 Nov 2008 06:20:21 -0800

The wordcount graphs are working! Just reply to this post to be added to the graph:

--Tim

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Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

[STICKY] We Challenge You ! (french style)

Azh — Fri, 7 Nov 2008 23:14:53 -0800

Bonjour Naperwrimos,

We want to challenge you. We want to win against you and a have you sing us a little song. In French. Because there isn't anything as funny as American speaking French. Except maybe French trying to speak English.

So the region with the highest average word count is the winner. Europe::France VS Illinois::Naperville, Naperwrimo vs French Wrimos. The ultimate face off (....until next year).

It's going to be a walk in the park for us.

The charts are at your ML website : http://graphing.teiru.net/2008/wordwar/ and it's not because you're leading right now that it's going to stay that way.

I can't wait to hear you sing for us. ;)

Azh
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2004 : A & W (L)
2005 : Le Baron Kevser (W)
2006 : Les Goules de Paris (W)
2007 : Derrière les colonnes (W)
http://azhureheart.livejournal.com/

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

[STICKY] Introduce yourself!

NewMexicoKid — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:52:19 -0700

Hi!
Welcome back, all returning NaperWriMo's, and welcome all newcomers to our region! Please be sure that you have set us as your home region.

I'm Tim, aka NewMexicoKid, one of the volunteer Municipal Liaisons for our region of Illinois::Naperville. This is my sixth NaNo (and I've been fortunate to be successful every year) and my fourth year as a co-ML of the region. Illinois::Naperville is a fairly storied region, having been involved in three exciting inter-region word wars with Canadian regions.

My five NaNo novels were:

Twilight, the adventures of Giovanna Lee, who tries to come home after finding herself lost amidst the worlds of Twilight
A Return to Twilight
Twilight III: Giovanna Lee and the Crime Syndicate - Giovanna finds herself in a strange, parallel world where she is a supervillain
Giants of the Deep (a SF novel about interdimensional whales)
Mageborn (a fantasy novel about a secretive people with magic powers and conflicts hidden within our world)

As you can see, I love SF and Fantasy.

In real life, I'm a software engineer at Alcatel-Lucent.

--Tim
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Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

[STICKY] Welcome to Illinois::Naperville's NaNoWriMo 2008!

NewMexicoKid — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:55:19 -0700

Welcome to Illinois::Naperville, where we are typin' away. As the old song says:

Typin' away again near dear ol' Naperville
Searchin' for that lost chapter of plot...

Representing the western suburbs of Chicago, we are a storied region, defeating Ontario::Toronto, Quebec::Montreal and Ontario::Ottawa in 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively, and we have terrific partnerships with the Naperville Public Library and with Barnes and Noble. Last year we introduced the Pledge to Publish that goes beyond the November madness of NaNoWriMo to help people prepare to submit their work to publishers and agents. We have many events planned for 2008.

Your co-Municipal Liaisons are:

NewMexicoKid (Tim)
KatherineWriting (Katherine)

Let us know if you have any questions or need any help.

Just joined our forum?

Please make sure you are affiliated with Illinois::Naperville:
1. Go to My NaNoWriMo
2. You should be in the Regions directory
3. Search for Illinois::Naperville and click on Affiliate
Set Illinois::Naperville as your Home Region (read this humorous explanation why and how or these region-specific step-by-step instructions)
Add yourself to our 2008 frappr map so we can see our geographical distribution.
Introduce yourself to the other Illinois::Naperville WriMos in our Illinois::Naperville forum
Send NewMexicoKid a NaNoMail to request your very own free jabber account so you can participate in our jabber chatroom write-ins this year.

2008 Events

See our 2008 calendar of events.

Other Resources

NaperWriMo.org, our blog. Subscribe to stay on top of all the news.
NaperWriMo wiki -- there are many links to valuable resources here. Help us grow our collective knowledge base.
Visit our Cafepress shops. All purchase markups will either go towards reimbursing the MLs for expenses in organizing all of these events or directly to NaNoWriMo (to reimburse them for their expenses).
Thanks to Melinda, we're on Facebook and MySpace

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Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Useful online resources -- share them in this thread!

NewMexicoKid — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:43:02 -0700

Let's use this thread for posting resources useful for completing NaNo.

I'll kick it off with a thread in the reaching 50,000 forum with links to beautiful desktop wallpaper of calendars with the numbers of words you need to meet.

Neat!

--Tim
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Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

What was your first year like?

buriedwreckage — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:04:23 -0800

So this is my first year, and I'm behind, but I haven't given up hope.

I was just wondering, mostly because I REALLY don't want to give up, how the rest of you did and felt during your first attempt (or win!) at NaNo?

I've told too many of my friends that giving up would be a really horrible idea for me. Too much ridicule and disappointment :(
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- Ashley

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Finished!

bookgrrl — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:07:38 -0800

Has anyone else finished the novel? I managed to tie up the entire at exactly 50,000 words- counting the title, author, entire novel, author info, and, of course, "The End".

Of course, I should probably start work on another novel tomorrow seeing as it's only the fourteenth and we want to win against France. But for tonight at least, I'm done!

How are other people doing?
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United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Let people 50,000 years from now read your words!

cableshaft — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:19:16 -0800

In 2010 or 2011, a time capsule will be launched into space, with enough information on it for every single human on the planet earth to send a 4 page message, completely uncensored, to our descendants(or whoever might encounter it). The KEO will reenter the Earth's atmosphere in 50,000 years.

I'm a total nerd for this stuff. In fact, a similar project, Operation Immortality, inspired the idea for my Nano novel this year. That project only allowed about 3 sentences, though, and I wasn't satisfied with what I ended up sending. But my words are now on the International Space Station, which is still kinda cool.

It doesn't have to be a message to people, you could put a short story or poem in there if you like, obviously.

So if you're interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KEO (more info about the project)
http://www.keo.org/uk/pages/message.php (direct link to send your message, not sure if you can change it once submitted, though, so give yourself some time to be sure it's what you want to send)

There's also other ways to help as well. They're planning on sending up a digital 'library of alexandria' up as well, so you can help contribute to that if you like.

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http://www.briancable.com

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Halfway there...?

NewMexicoKid — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 14:47:00 -0800

Today is the halfway point in NaNoWriMo... In the other thread, it sounds like a few people have given up (but I have to say, Becky, that I liked your story idea and characters very much!), some are in trouble and others are sailing through...

On day 15, the halfway point (or wherever we are when you read this thread), how are you doing? Where are you in your story? How have your characters developed? Any surprises for you?

I write this after the Warrenville write-in (when we were treated to freshly made caramel apples from Jenstasi, 72% dark chocolate and hot cocoa (from me) among other goodies (thanks to everyone who brought them!) + word war prizes courtesy of KathyB), where I managed to make it within about 1200 of today's wordcount goal. I'm not quite halfway there, my characters are still wandering out in the wilderness, but things are starting to happen plot-wise and I'm just now starting to feel the beginnings of some acceleration. One of my would-be villains is turning out to be a sympathetic character (surprise to me!) and I have yet to mention my title character (the Witch of Andvarra), which is troubling--will need to hint at her existence on the rewrite, I think; or maybe change the title!

Still have maybe 60% of the story ahead of me. Have encountered some days where I've despaired at more story but am feeling a bit more positive today.

Come share with the rest of us where you are.

--Tim
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Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Looking for a miracle for a writer who's too ill to NaNo this year

cyprienne — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:08:18 -0800

I'm lagging way behind in my word count this year because my dear friend and fellow writer Erik Brandenburg was just diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome, and told that his only chance of a cure is a bone marrow transplant. He's been too ill to NaNo, and we haven’t been able to find a matching donor among his family members or in the NMDP Registry.

We're holding a bone marrow donor registration drive from 10 - 3 on November 15th at the Downers Grove Public Library (1050 Curtiss St, Downers Grove). Volunteers need only complete a consent/registration form, a health questionnaire, and a simple cheek swab to determine if they could help save a life. For what it's worth: due to advances in medicine, doctors can now extract cells Erik needs from circulating blood, rather than needing to tap the bone marrow directly. This means that saving someone's life could be as easy as donating blood. As tissue type characteristics are inherited, people from similar ethnic backgrounds have the greatest chance of being a match. For Erik, this would be someone of Northern European ancestry – especially German, British, or Swiss. Feel free to drop by before the write-in tomorrow if you'd like, or to drop an encouraging word to Erik Brandenburg via facebook or via the ErikBrandenburg page at www.carepages.com.

I'd also be grateful for any ideas from NaNoers on how to extract your head from worries and re-immerse it in writing. And any tricks people use to catch up instead of giving up if they've gotten off course?

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United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

POLL: How are you doing?

NewMexicoKid — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:45:48 -0800

How are you doing thus far in NaNo?

Instructions
This is an AutoPoll. To participate, post a reply with your answer exactly in the format of VOTE="option". Here are some possible answers (feel free to choose your own. For this poll, only one answer may be submitted per person.

VOTE="I've already won!"
VOTE="Way above the curve"
VOTE="I'm confident I'll win"
VOTE="It's day to day, but I'm ok"
VOTE="I'm below the curve, but I'll still catch up"
VOTE="I'm way below the curve. HELP!"
VOTE="I already opened my message in a bottle :-("
VOTE="I never really got going and have given up"
VOTE="I'm only in NaNo for the TGIO"
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Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

How fast do you type?

NewMexicoKid — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:49:50 -0800

I found a neat free typing test online today and managed 73wpm with one mistake. How fast are you? And do you touch type?

--Tim
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Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Regional wordwar what ifs...

NewMexicoKid — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:28:00 -0800

Our regional word war with France is going swimmingly... In fact, we're quite a bit in front. So much so that I was wondering if we should explore challenging a second region to war...

What do you think? Here are some possibilities:

Ottawa: last year's big push was scary; and they are bigger than we are, but maybe we could take them this year (as we did last year). On the other hand, they never gave us the mp3 of their recording of our regional song...
Indianapolis: I accidentally developed this graph while putting together the one for France. It is like they are our twin! But their ML says that they are too wrapped up in their primary wordwar vs. St. Louis (even though St. Louis is trouncing them by as much as we are trouncing France)... She did say that maybe a rivalry might develop here at a WriMo level...
And, dare I raise the spectre... Edmonton: they are bigger than we are and led us for a long time, but the Katherine and Sabrina (and others) have lifted us to a place where we might be competitive. SarahJanet's crew is tough and they are renown throughout the ML community as the region to beat...

A good regional wordwar can be exciting... What do you think?

--Tim

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Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Meet Up

KatherineWriting — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:50:31 -0800

Anyone who would like to talk about their writing, their novel, or something else entirely, is welcome to join us at Rock Bottom in Warrenville (near Diehl & Winfield Roads)

4:20 (or so) on Saturday, Nov. 15th.
(After the write-in at Warrenville City Hall from 1-4, although you don't have to go to the write-in to attend the meet up.)

KatherineWriting
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United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Challenges

KatherineWriting — Tue, 4 Nov 2008 05:29:30 -0800

Bookgrrl (Sabrina) mentioned that there is a 10K in five hours challenge. We're going to attempt this on Sunday. I'm surprised how motivated just that idea has made me. (I've written 10K in a day before, but have always given myself lots of breaks.) I need more breaks that she does--older body can't take too much hunched typing--and she's been working on her typing speed for the last few months--so this will be interesting.

If 10K is too daunting--challenge someone to 2K in two hours, or 1K with no dialogue (challenge me to that, and you'd probably win--I'm slow on non-dialogue stuff.)

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United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Anyone going to the write-in today?

ZaNeesee14 — Sun, 9 Nov 2008 07:46:46 -0800

I was just wondering if any of you were going to the 95th Street Library today for the write-in? My daughter who is signed up for the Young Author NaNoWriMo and I are going to come. Just wanted to know if anyone else would be there. :P
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United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Help! What do I do?

muselolita — Sat, 8 Nov 2008 13:57:55 -0800

I'm a little over 11,000 words into my novel and I absolutely hate every word I've written up until now. I really don't know what to do at this point. Do I...

Admit defeat and hope for better luck next year?
Keep pushing on even though it's agony to write?
Try to make up the 13,000 words with a new story? or
Start a new story and combine the word counts?

Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

~ D
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United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

ML Appreciation Day!

TimSimms — Sat, 8 Nov 2008 14:11:20 -0800

I just wanted to stop in to wish the Naperville ML's Happy ML Appreciation Day!

They work so hard to make your November as awesome as possible - and on top of that, NewMexicoKid goes above and beyond the call of duty all too often for so many other regions - my region included.

Thank you for all your hard work! And good writing the remainder of the month!
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Tim
Co-Municipal Liaison for
NaNoWriMo::Illinois::Chicago

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

I'm out again.

Vickth — Sat, 8 Nov 2008 17:46:49 -0800

OK...I am cursed when it comes to completing nano. My computer has just died....Along with it my novel. I am about 8,000 words in. (I know I am behind but still had hopes of catching up.) This morning I turned on my laptop and the hard drive died. I am using a borrowed computer just to check my email and check in here. I am going to be at least a week while we see if it is only the hard drive that crashed. (My husband is concerned about the motherboards as well.) I am pretty sure that the weekly backup happens Sunday night so I have pretty much lost my ENTIRE novel. I am just sick because I was actually liking it so far. It felt good!

By the time I get the computer back and am able to start again it will be way to late to start over...Even starting over tomorrow seems impossible.

Anyways good luck to all of you! Keep writing!

Vicki
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United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Running into problem, need advice

missalynn730 — Fri, 7 Nov 2008 13:35:27 -0800

So I'm a little over 15,000 words right now, which I am very happy about! However, the last 8k words or so are starting to read more like a screenplay than a novel just due to the amount of dialogue that is coming to me amongst my characters and I"m flowing with it with the intentions of going back and adding the prose and descriptions etc later.

My dilema, later is beginning to turn into now interms of those ideas. Do I try to go back now and start inserting essentially the "novel into the screenplay", or continue on with how I have been and save that for editing? I can really go either way right now interms of ideas I have for both, but I also don't want to get so caught up in "revising/adding" that I never finish and lose the rest of the story ideas.. I really have a detailed screenplay minus camera shots lol. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Backup your Novel!

Cholma — Tue, 4 Nov 2008 20:06:13 -0800

When I shutdown the laptop this morning at 4am, my NaNo count was at 12,026 words. Pretty good for four days of work I felt. I even gave myself a virtual pat on the back.

Now I've fired up the laptop to put in some more work on the novel. The gremlins decided to punish me for my hubris.

"A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart"

NO! No no no no no no no no no no no no! It appears the hard drive has shuffled off its mortal coil. :( 12,000 words sacrificed to St. Dogbert.

Let this be a lesson to us all! Backup your novel after every session! USB key, floppy disk, network drive, etc. Just do it. Don't be like me and suffer the horrors of a lost novel.
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United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Intro and a unique problem with novel

Ockham — Wed, 5 Nov 2008 10:22:36 -0800

Hello, please forgive my lack of posting. I am still getting my mind around how large NaNoWriMo is and where everything is located. A bit overwhelming actually.

To sum up my problem is my protagonist is going to be traveling back in time to help himself with a problem. This will occur several times.

Any ideas how I can differentiate the different protagonists that are all named the same without getting too confusing?

Thanks for your help.

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United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

POLL: Regional word war challenge

NewMexicoKid — Thu, 6 Nov 2008 05:14:42 -0800

sean.vanhal wrote:

... Do we have any word wars with other regions coming up?

Good question! Let's have an open vote on who you want us to challenge. As a reference, check out the regional wordcount list and especially those regions whose total wordcount is close to ours or those regions whose average wordcount is near to ours.

Instructions
This is an Auto Poll. To vote, put your vote in your post in the form of VOTE="option" -- it is very important to follow this format exactly to have your vote count (case of the word VOTE, double quotes, no spaces around the =).

Some options to consider (feel free to add your own and to vote for more than one option):
VOTE="Ontario::Ottawa (average wordcount)"
VOTE="Colorado::FortCollins (average wordcount)"
VOTE="Europe::France (average wordcount)"
VOTE="Colorado::ColoradoSprings (total wordcount)"
VOTE="California::SanDiego (total wordcount)"
VOTE="England::Manchester (total wordcount)"

--Tim
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Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources

United States :: Illinois :: Naperville

Oh, let's talk themes: what's the point of your novel?

tinygreyhound — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:43:51 -0700

This was something that helped me a lot last year and I'm using it again this year.

There are two types of "themes": Personal Themes and Novel Themes.

Personal themes span across novels--they are things that repeat themselves over and over in an author's writings.

For example, Brett Easton Ellis (American Psycho) clearly has issues with materialism. Carl Hiassen believes that everyone gets what's coming to them in the end (good or bad). I think if you look at any author you can identify over-arching themes.

Novel themes: this is specifically for the particular novel. What ideas did you want to explore? What points did you want to make?

Believe it or not, identifying these themes and keeping them in the back of your mind while you're writing in November can really help.

Here are my "Personal Themes": 1. Unexceptional people can do truly exceptional things (in all my urban fantasy, the Main Character has no supernatural powers) 2. Normalcy is overrated (I try to include as many strange people as I can) 3. Family is what you make it (many of my characters have "families" made up entirely of friends) 4. Diversity is the spice of life (I tend to include as many different ethnicities as I can in my novels).

Here are this year's novel themes:
1. How does loss change your perception of the world, of other people, and of morality and religion?
2. At what point is a person past redemption?
3. What if doing good doesn't result in good? How do you choose between two bad options?
4. Does the devil exist if you are an athiest? (I'm not a religious person but I thought this was an interesting idea).

Feel free to post themes or just work out ideas for themes here.

Meredith
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"I'm getting out of this business." "And go into what?" "Anything. Insurance underwriting, like Garland was supposed to be doing. Or I’ll emigrate. Yes" he nodded. "I’ll go to Mars." Rick Deckard, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Philip K. Dick).