The Off - Season Writers' Thread

Well originally I started this new plot for what I was going to be doing in November... just so I know what I'll be writing about so I don't have to think about it once it comes. However, I thought about it and I think I'm just going to plan it out really hard and actually try to write a full-out novel. I've never done NaNo before so I'm still going to try, but I'm so excited about this new story I've come up with that I just want to jump right into it now. So that's what I'm doing during this off-season.

Aly :)

i set myself a poetry goal for the month of may and kicked it's patooty. took most of june off, but have been writing for a friend lately. he said he needed inspiration to quit smoking, so i made a deal that every week he went without a cigarette, i would write him a short, erotic story (1000-1500 words). so that's what i've been doing lately. :D

Melissa
-----(the poet who would try to write a novel)

I'm working on finishing my off-season novel - I've been writing it since 2003, and it's now five chapters away from completion. It's the first time I've been completely happy with it, so I'm very pleased with how it's turning out.

NaNo '08: East Of Everything (working title only)
In the midst of Australia’s obsession with "Australian Idol", ten unsigned bands are united in an attempt to prove that rock music is very much alive and well.

I am always writing... There really is no off season for me... lol. I kill so many trees, it's not worth yelling at me anymore. I have like twenty projects at this point, all of them slowly chugging along.

>~< * >~< * >~< * >~< * >~< * >~<
~Novelista~
NaNoNewb (but I write A LOT)

I'm not really writing, more trying to deside between three plot ideas for my next NaNo. (Which btw, is really hard, I've never come up with such... interesting plots in my life.)

Good luck to all that are taking part in like JulNoWrimo ect. I'd take my hat off to your if I had one on, I could never write more them one NaNo a year.

100 pages in 30 days, only 3.3333333333333333333333333333333 pages a day... I think 3.5 pages is a bit easy to say. ^_^

Help me deside my NaNoWriMo plot!!

I'm a Julnowrimo participant and my fanfic project is going excruciatingly slowly compared to the year I won Nano. I'm right on target as far as the daily goals go, but I'm getting increasingly frustrated by my story's pacing--or lack thereof, really. I'm doing an AU that incorporates a great deal of canon, so I have a semi-complete outline to work with. Problem is,my fanfics are usually really tight; my two longest completed fics are only 20K. I'm not sure whether I should scale down my expectations (shoot for one long piece of 60K instead of three pieces of 30K each) or if I should just write filler scenes now and cut them later.

Any advice?

I just finished wrestling the plot of my '07 novel into shape for Synopsis Month at NaNoPubYe. Now that that's done, I'm finishing the second draft of the '07 novel for JulNo. Then I'm returning to my '06 novel (the '07's sequel) for AugNo. Also, I'm editing my Script Frenzy manga script and writing 50 songs in the next 3 months.

My '07 novel, I realize now, is basically a mashup of two really insane ideas: "two sisters fall in love with each other and are persecuted for it" and "Blackwater-type company invades America". The working title is "Bad Company", an admittedly common title; but in my hands, it becomes typically ambiguous. Think an updated Scarlet Letter, with consensual lesbian incest replacing mere adultery as the unspeakable love, meets Snow Crash (classic cyberpunk novel), with the latter's VR obsession replaced by government-hijacked cellphones and its villain's bizarre cult replaced by my villain's even more bizarre corporation.

NaNo '06: Black Science
NaNo '07: Bad Company
NaNo '08: Points of Authority
Script Frenzy '08: Spanner
Project Blog: Spanner's World

Ok well I first did nanowrimo in 2006 and was unable to do it last year. I still havn't finished my novel! My writing mood is VERY on and off and I am easily distracted, so I'm working on finishing it now. I havn't got much left to do, which is reasuring, and will then plan this year's novel, if I can do it.

I am working on the sequel to last years' Nano novel, and outlining this years.

I find that if I let ideas simmer, I think of things for the outline that I would not have if I tried to rush it. It seems to be working well for me, but I won't know for sure until November 30th.

NaNoWriMo.
What a novel idea!

I'm participating in JulNoWriMo right now, and beginning to plan for AugNo as well. I'm working on a dystopian novel set in a world where peace has been obtained, but only by reducing humans to something akin to living zombies.

I don't really consider myself an off-season writer, 'cause it's always writing season for me. I have zero social life and I really don't like people enough to spend any prolonged amount of time with 'em, so yeah. I also have to be able to write the stuff down that's in my head, or I might explode.

Writing is my life (and my career) so I am writing steady non stop as I have been doing for 30 years now. November is my "off season", when I put away my professional writing and join in NaNo for writing fast and crazy with no goal other than to write as much as I can in as little time as possible.

----------
Publishing Methods
How to Start a Publishing Company
Creating Character Profiles
Secrets To Writing Success
How To Make a Lord Sesshomaru Costume

I'm continuing work on my series of fantasy short stories about a guy with an obsidian broadsword who goes around knocking off fantasy-stereotype-characters. :D It's kinda my therapy.

Janowrimo 2007: If Everyone Cared (Won!)
Nanowrimo 2007: Hell Hath No Furies (Won!)

http://www.freewebs.com/soulcollectors/index.htm

I'm working on my '06 NaNo, which got to be about 25,000 before I fizzled out *sadness*. Despite the failure, It's one of my favorite projects. rewriting it, I'm doing a lot more fleshing out - I'm at 10k with just the prologue and the first chapter! Now I fear I'm accidentally writing a trilogy, or a series, lol... It might have to be split up just to make it a decent reading length. For now, however, I'll just keep plugging away at it like one book and worry about that stuff when I've got the final word count ;).

I've got a bunch of things that are fluttering around in my head that I want to write, but I've been too much of a lazy idiot to do much actual writing this summer. Done a bit of planning, though.

And now I just want it to be November, and I'm praying I'll have enough time. *grins*

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are
wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

-C.S. Lewis

Nano2006 :: When You are Followed :: Hit 50K, story complete.
Nano2007 :: Benton Broken :: Hit 50K, story inc

I always write (or edit) off-season, as long as there's a story to tell.

Right now I'm editing two parts of a story temporarily called "Destiny For a Dream". Even the title needs editing. The story is sort of cliched anyway (at the moment), and that title isn't helping. Oh well, I could've still called my story "The Dream". That's just blah. And if I feel any inspiration to write, I do a few sentences on the third part. I'm such a lazy writer. But I was actually ready to give up on this story until I did my second part editing, so it's okay that I haven't as of yet done much work on the third part.

Sometimes if I get a particularly promising idea, I write it down in a little 7X5 inch notebook. Right now I have an interesting idea for a fantasy story about a girl trying to wake her friend in a coma using her dreams. It's a little undeveloped, but once I start typing it it'll begin to make more sense. In fact, maybe I'll do that.

I am debating about a story I've "finished" a long time ago. I do like the title, which is "Lavender Eyes and Happily Ever Befores". It's had minor editing to the first twenty or thirty pages, and while it's a little less embarassing to read, I'm not sure where it's going to take me. Because it's longer than a short story but not as long as a short novel, I really don't know how I would publish it. If that's a remotely possible idea, I would have to get back to editing it. I was thinking I'll keep character names and location names but rewrite the whole story. I wrote it when I was in tenth grade, probably with the intention that I would use it in creative writing class. Now that I'm older I want it to be more. I'm just not sure if I could dedicate myself to it.

Lately I've been trying to churn out poetry. I'm trying to write a poem every day, but most of it's crap because inspiration didn't really hit me. Oh well. Eventually I'll get better...someday. =)

Also, I'm editing my 2007 NaNo with limited results. I've only gone through once and managed to make things worse, so I'm leaving it for a time.

-----
'The true mind can weather all lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can touch the poison of hatred without being harmed. From beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light.'
Avatar: the Las

Not sure if I'm going to do AugNo or not, but I did my first JulNo (and won!! :]) I have two more chapters to write until I have my first completed first draft of a novel! Yays!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"you did what? for how long? for HOW many cocoa pebbles?!?"

JulNo 08 - Adagio (winner!)
Romantic encounters: 2
Fainting spells: 4
Fights with BFF: 2
Deaths: 3
Un-deaths: 1

I'm doing AugNoWriMo because I didn't win JulNo. The reason: over two straight weeks of writer's block so severe I couldn't even write posts to forums and my blogs. That left me with a word count of just over 17,000. I'm sure I'll do better this month. However, first I need to write down the plot ideas I'm using...

NaNo '06: Black Science
NaNo '07: Bad Company
NaNo '08: Points of Authority
Script Frenzy '08: Spanner
Project Blog: Spanner's World

I've been doing better than usual this year as far as writing goes. I haven't done too much specifically, but I feel more accomplished than usual. Maybe because since July 27th I've been writing at least 2k a day (only one day with 3k so far though), and I finished last year's NaNo in June (ended up with about 92k), and the other day I finished another related story, a prequel I guess, and it came in about...41k I think. That's just way better than I've ever done before so far. I'm pretty sure most of it is crud, and because of file issues and procrastination I have yet to actually read through my NaNo yet, but the first draft is down, which puts me ahead of my usual self, which is unfinished stories abandoned to maybe be picked up again later.

All in all, I'm having more fun in the off-season this year than ever.

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing noise they make as they pass by"
-Douglas Adams
My blog