HEY ALL YOU PITTSBURGHERS

Hey, welcome! :)

My name's Milana, I'm 13, and this is my second year. I go to Ellis School, which is in Shadyside, and my mom works at Pitt. I usually write for people a little older than me, between the ages of 15 and 19 usually. I don't really act 13, or look it...haha. My favorite writers include Jodi Picoult, Jay Asher, and Peter Cameron.

I thought it might be cool if a bunch of us could organize a meeting somewhere before the season officially starts. Maybe at the library next to the Cathedral of Learning? I know there's a pretty big group of Pittsburgh people here, they just gotta start posting here.

Okayyyy, you guys can all start replying now...
Cheers!

xox

Well, if this is going to turn into an introductions thread....

I'm Julianna and I'm a junior instrumental major at CAPA downtown. I've technically done NaNo twice, though there was certainly no real outpouring of effort, especially that first year. I write fanfiction because I'm too pathetic and not good enough a writer to actually manage to build my own characters. They never even vaguely resemble realistic.

Almost anywhere in the downtown area, Oakland, or Squirrel Hill is fine for me an, though chances are meetings will overlap with school, schoolwork, school meetings, school nights, school shows, or practicing/other music stuff.

I think there used to be a thread somewhat like this one before the forums got wiped.

philosophical.bunny

Hey everyone! My name is Mike, and this will be my third NaNo. I live in Monroeville, but work in the city. When we ML pops in, hopefully we'll make plans for a kick off party (and since Nov. 1 is a Saturday, I should be able to make it without having to worry about work!).

Hi everyone. :) I'm actually from about 2 hours north, but I lived in the 'Burgh for a few years and I visit a lot. I'm currently at school in DC but I figured I'd join both groups since I'll be coming home for Thanksgiving in November!

...GOSTEELERS!

Hey Everyone. I'm Barb and this is my second Nano! I write just about anything from non-fiction shorts to poetry. Sometimes character building is a challenge for me...who can answer all those questions when your just learning about a character anyway? LOL Last year my daughter (13 yr) and I both finished Nano with a couple of days to spare after a late start. This year it looks like two of my daughters will be fighting me for computer time to do Nano. I can't wait! Any meetings in the Monroeville area are cool with us, I don't drive into Pittsburgh unless I have to! Happy writing!!

Hi all. This is my second NaNo. A bit of advice for those of you looking for computer time. Try contacting your local college or university's IT department. (computer tech) Sometimes they will have old computers they no longer use for sale for as little as $20. Might need a new hard drive in some cases, but the price is hard to beat.

I'm in Oakdale/Robinson area and I don't drive into Pittsburgh if I can help it. (I gotta be desperate)

'Lo. Slippery Rock student checking in, getting ready for my fifth year of NaNoing.

But I'm in the Oakland area very often visiting friends that go to Pitt/CMU/Chatham, so I might be able to make a few get-togethers in the area. :)

That's what YOU think >>:-|

:-P

Hey - call me Lee, I guess. (I'm female, by the way. Just eliminating any later confusion that may occur.)

I'm an 18 year old Art Institute of Pittsburgh student. This is my second (but hopefully first successful) NaNoWriMo. I'm normally a ... actually, I'm all over the map when it comes to genres, so I guess I'm more eclectic.

I have no idea whether or not we have a regional organizing guy, but I'm available to write with most of the time.
As for anything else, I'll be lurking (that sounded less creepy before I typed it out.)

Hey guys! I'm Shayla, and this will be my 4th year of NaNo'ing it up - though last year my attempt was stalled out barely after I started it. ^^; I live up in Ambridge, I'm 27, and I live with 2 of my sweeties and my 18 yr old nephew, and 3 four-footed fuzzy children with tails. I am taking classes online through ITT Tech for computer networking & security, so in THEORY that will give me more time to write.

Then again... I do spend an obscene amount of time playing Final Fantasy XI online, so that cuts into my time, too. ^^

Eventually I should start thinking of a plot, huh? Or at least some characters... Maybe.

Hmm...looks like I'm the youngest one here. Oh well! :)
BTW, I love the suggestion of having a kick-off party on the 1st. Clever idea.
Maybe we should start organizing now, so we don't have to worry about it later?

ML? Do we have a regional person who runs our stuff?

I know I replied to this thread before the crash... and it appears to not be there anymore. Funny. My password keeps having to be reset every time I visit the site, too. Maybe I don't actually exist, who knows.

Anyway, I'm Jessica, I'm 30 and I live up north in Butler but spend most of my time in Pittsburgh over the weekends. I'm looking forward to dragging some of you, at least the willing participants, to some pastry shops and whatnot for writing time at least once this NaNo month. Dozen in Lawrenceville has a ton of space upstairs we could occupy for an hour or so. Plus I missed all the South Side meetups, so if we end up having those again that would be cool.

This is my second NaNo, I normally write horror or "dark fantasy" or whatever you want to call it. My favorite authors are Natsuo Kirino, Francesca Lia Block (I've been revisiting books from my teen years lately), Miyuki Miyabe, Taichi Yamada and Max Barry.

It's really cool to see the mix of familiar and fresh faces this year. Good luck, everyone.

Hey, Amber signing in. I'm a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh and this will be my third year doing nanowrimo. I can't wait! :D

Hey there everyone! My name's Steph and I'm 22. This is my first Nano but I've been planning for it since I heard about NaNoWriMo back in July. :P For the moment, I'm stuck in Norway but I intend to be back in New Castle by the end of this month (or die trying). Anyways, just like a lot of others, I have to be pretty desperate to drive into Pittsburgh, and I always get lost when I'm there anyways. Monroeville's quite a hike away, but hey, I'm up for it. (Anything's better than driving in Pitt.)

Hullo all! I'm a sophomore/junior (gotta love being one semester off) at Geneva out here in Beaver Falls. This will be my third attempt at Nano... fingers crossed! Getting into Pittsburgh isn't the most convenient - no car of my own, so I have to rely on buses - but if there are enough people in Beaver County, maybe we can work something out. :)

Might want to try setting something up in the Robinson area. All you would need to do to get here is take 60 south past the airport and then exit 1. I'm from New Castle as well, but go to school in the Oakdale area.

Yo! I'm Taiga, not really, but that's all you're getting from me, from Freedom, PA. We're about half an hour from Pittsburgh. I'm a senior in highschool and this is my... fourth or fifth Nano, can't remember at the moment. It's gonna be harder this year because November is the month when colleges are like, "OMG DEADLINES" and teachers are like "OMG PROJECTS" and work is like "OMG MORE HOURS", so I'm mainly trying to see if I can do this without going crazy. *twitch*

(Go Penguins!!!!)

I'm from Beaver County... if anything gets set up, let me know. ^_^

Hi. ^_^ You look familiar. :-P

I guess I can introduce myself. lol, I'm Carly, i'm 16, 17 in like 13 days. I live near the tiny town of Russelton, but address is Saxonburg. This is my first NaNoWriMo, but I don't know how successful it will be. I normally write romance/supernatural stories, I'm in the process of writing one on FictionPress, but haven't written in months.

Hello.

I'm a professional writer, and this will be my 8th Nano. It's good practice and an excellent chance to play with a PoV or a genre that wouldn't otherwise see the light of day. I've won every year. How do I do it? I tend to sit down and just start typing cold on November 1st, and I adhere to the 2000-words-per-weekday method (usually first thing in the morning), leaving my evenings and weekends free for other pursuits. It works for me. The forums are/will be full of what works (or really really isn't working) for others. Hope you all find a method that works for you.

Based on sad experience, I highly recommend investing a few bucks in a USB keychain drive to backup your work, and to transport it to work, school, wherever. They're getting stupid-cheap on websites like Buy.com and they can really save your literary life.

I don't traditionally pay much attention to the forums, so if, for whatever reason, someone needs my attention, shoot me a private message.

Alia/moonpook

We did last year, I thought we would again this year. Maybe he or she is just waiting for the best moment to pop out and yell "suprise!"

Or maybe they got lost in the server crash!

I AM SOOO Excited to participate, my friend Emily told me about it, so i guess i will find out!!

GO PENS!!

Thumb drives are great. Sony Micro Vault Tinys have never done me wrong, and they're surprisingly sturdy. I don't really have much experience with any other brands, since I keep to what works for me indefinitely, but I can't second the suggestion of picking one up enough. I have no idea what I did before I had them.

Actually, I probably used floppy discs.

Oh, god, I remember those things...haven't used one since elementary school.

As for jump drives, I third that. I actually keep things on my desktop computer and backed up on two separate jump drives, and sometimes I have a fourth copy on my laptop if I was working on it there. This is what I finally learned to do after two separate hard drive crashes on whatever machines were then my main computers. For NaNo, I'll probably Google Docs it and back it up three times every night, mostly because I want to be able to access it really easily anywhere.

My intro got lost in the server crash...*sadness* I'm Kelly and a senior writing major (fiction and nonfiction tracks) at Pitt. I don't drive out of the city if I can help it. Freaking construction EVERYWHERE. Anyway, this is my second Nano and I'm trying to rope all my writing-inclined friends into doing it with me. For all you inside-city-limits-where-the-buses-don't-suck-quite-as-much people, I'm totally down with getting together either before Nov. or after it starts.

As far as I know, we don't have an ML yet....

Okay, I go by Liz online because my parents are paranoid, so, that's what you can call me. I go to Shaler where I am a junior. This will be my second year, technically, but I started on November 10th and ended on November 13th once I realized how far behind I was... Hopefully this year will be better, but I'm not counting on it as I'm in my school play this year, and we're going to be performing the week before Thanksgiving.

I read everything, even crap, hence the username. Thus, (note to self: love that word and must make it into novel) I don't have a favorite author. My genres for reading tend to be classics, fantasy, teen chick lit, and modern class types. I tend to write either teen lit or fantasy because of my overactive imagination and lack of real world experience. I have no idea which of my gazillion ideas is going to carry on long enough to make a novel, so I am scared;I haven't picked on yet.

I don't know how I'm going to make it through this with my job, AP classes, and the play, especially since I hate coffee, but I probably will end up with notebooks filled but not counting in my word count because I have no time to type. I also use Vista and dialup. Enough said. I do have a history of pushing myself to the limit, though.

Hi all, my name's Jen. I go by Harlem. Nice to see some of you again and meet the rest! This is my second NaNo and I'm a pitt grad in archaeology and now I teach art class because there are no jobs in archaeology. I generally write fantasy or magical realism, which is what my book will be this year. Good luck to all and let's dooooo it.

Have you tried tea? I love it and it keeps me pleasantly alert without all of of jitteriness I get from coffee. I worked nights for almost five years and it kept me going through all of that.