Anyone else going from nothing

I'm not doing it exactly the same, maybe in the middle of an all out outline and winging it.

I have a couple, very bare character outlines.

And I had a rough idea of my "plot" in my head with a note or two of events I wanted to happen.

That's pretty much the extent of it. I have a lot in my head, which is where I need it to stay if I'm going to keep my steam up over writing it. My characters have changed the tone, had new things happen, and shown themselves to me in ways I hadn't expected. I'm enjoying every minutes of it!

I sat down and started writing without any plans, but unfortunately I've found myself unintentionally planning as things go on.

I did very little planning in advance. I jotted down a few lines - maybe a third of a page in Microsoft Word. That was it. Oh, and I picked a few character names. Other than that, I didn't bother to plan or plot. I've found that, in the past, when I do come up with a plot, I *over*-plot, and it all goes horribly, horribly awry - that is to say that the story never gets finished.

Evidently, this whole 'not planning' thing works for me - I'm sitting at just over 7000 words, and that's the farthest I've ever gotten on any NaNoWriMo ever. I couldn't explain why it's going that well, it just is. I'm hoping to be caught up to 14,000 by the end of the weekend.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who's in this position. When I hear other writers talking about how much they've planned, I feel like such a slacker.

I had a plan for a novel. Several plans for different novels actually, and at zero-hour I discarded all of them and went with something completely different that I didn't plan out. Yay me. -.-

~End Transmission~

i started with a title and that was it.

stupid computer made a double post, sorry.

I always do it that way.....I have never been much of a planner, even when writing essays and such for school..I would jot down a few pieces of information that I needed to include and I was off.

The same with NaNo..I usually come up with a basic story plot in my head and a couple of character traits but mainly I let the characters tell the story, because sometimes they just know what works for them better than I do...

So, is essence...no, you are not the only crazy one doing this.

~~~~~ DEE ~~~~~~

NaNo winners:

2007: "Lifelines"
2008: " The super amazing Steam Punk Novel ( for lack of a better title )
Coming soon:

I'll think ahead about the possibilities, but then I try to forget about what I might have planned out and just go with what pops up on the mental viewer. It's much easier for me to write that way, though probably a lot more editing will be required. I started the novel by typing in the first phrase that came to mind, which happened to be "Winter starts on Halloween," and just went from there. Here's hoping!

Yeah, I started with nothing at all... a couple of vague ideas on Halloween were all I had. I did the same thing (the one time) I got all the way through NaNo in 2006. I still only have a couple of vague ideas I want to throw in later- my characters seem to be coming up with everything themselves as I go along & I think it's fun, too. Whenever I write anything else, I am meticulous with planning and wording everything correctly. Letting go and letting the writing flow is the only way I can get up the wordcount in time, and have fun.

<3 Lauren
"When all else fails, there's always delusion." -Conan O'Brien

I normally don't do anything in life without a plan, not even write--but this time, stuff just popped into my head and I had to start writing it down. It's a little weird for me, but a little fun too :D It's been years since I've been so passionate about any of my creations....

I've found myself planning a little bit ahead as I go on; I've also included previous "floating" characters (ones that I never got to use in anything yet) and I was considering incorporating a plot I came up with a few years ago that is beginning to sound complimentary to the direction I'm heading in.

Anyway, glad I'm not alone XD

Yeah, I usually have a half-outline to follow, but this time I had no clue what I want to happen beyond one vague set of events surrounding a generic 'bad guy'. The only reason I have a story idea at all was because I started a story a while back, got a bit into it, then forgot about it. I recently (three days ago) found it after discovering it was NaNoWriMo, read it, and rewrote it. I've got past the three chapters that I had written and now rewritten, and now I'm completely jumping into the dark.

haha i just found out about this last night so i was up with vault and i just randomly started typing and now im coming up on 1000 i think? i cant remeber anyways, writing like this is driving me crazy....i have so much in my head but i casnt type fast enough! i have a whole story plot that appeared in maybe 15 min tops, i dunno i get very involved with my characters i think...im excited but my grammer what lack i had before has completly died hopefully that wont be an issue cause oh my god it looks awful!
im about to take a break but good luck to you all
sarah~

i had a very vague idea when i began that got completely thrown out i. i only kept a tiny portion of the idea i had and now my characters are leading the way.

Dance like no one is watching,
love like you'll never be hurt before,
sing like no one is listening,
and live like it's heaven on earth."-

I've been trying to get a start and running into a wall on every idea starting from midnight on the 1st.

Started a different story an hour ago and am already 790 words in. This one's flowing. It feels right.

I have written many outlines and short stories over the years, nothing is ever really finished though. This is my first NaNoWriMo and I'm really excited, mostly to have a finished piece. I actually just started from nothing as well, I'm just letting the characters and plot reveal themselves organically.

So far I really like where it's going.

I've never been good at writing and following outlines for...anything really. All my ideas started up in my head and were swimming around in there for a month or so before I started. But in the end all I brought to the table when I started was: a vague idea of the style of the world, a few peculiarities about the world, and about four rough character archetypes. The rest has just come to me while I write. It's actually quite fun to be unsure for yourself how the story will unfold.

The only sad part is I still do not have a title and I'm almost halfway to 50k. I guess once I actually figure out what the main conflict of the novel is, then I can get a title from that. First I need to get the last two character archetypes into the story...

But I think this reflects how I've always written papers for school and whatnot, just get everything down the first time, then go back through and sort all the information out and add details.

I never outline or plan ahead, i always wing it and I generally get better results just letting the muses tell their story. I know the entire story in my head but never make notes, I know where the story is going but I have no idea how it is going to get there. I know characters and how they are related or connected but have no idea of their backgrounds, it all just comes out as I type. I know friends who plan and plot outline and seem much more organised than me which on one side freaks me out because then I wonder if I will fail but on the other side I shudder at having to reach a certain goal etc, I don't do well with restrictions or goals or deadlines etc.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost

Usually I plan ahead, or more likely I have a single scene or piece of dialogue or just some even I want to write, and everything is written towards that goal. More plans bloom out from that, plot lines, side plots, quests, relationship triangles, rivalries, enemies... which are all carefully planned to support the main thing as the story goes.

Not quite so this year. November comes like a smack, and I've forgotten whole thing. A major panic for well over a week, trying to come up with something, anything, to write. Ten days goes without a single idea lasting more than five hundred words, until I get an epiphany. I'm still not quite sure what sort of epiphany it was, but I think I had one. Now I have no idea what I'm writing, and it's wonderful. It's almost like I'm reading a book written by someone else, rather than writing it myself. I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed that the characters at least know where they're going.

I learned about NaNo two days late and was not able to start writing until the 3rd. I had another story that I coincidentally had been plotting for months now but decided not to use it since I was not finished with all the little details and back history for that. Funnily enough I had been thinking of writing a webcomic for a friend the same week based on a song by Angela Aki and I liked the idea of it. But I did not feel the premise I had for the webcomic would work for the novel and took the title alone: ~Letter~ Greetings To My 17 Year-Old Self. Changed the main character from a guy to a girl, and started from there. Did not have a name for the main character nor her best friend. Only thing I knew was how I wanted the novel to end and one of the major conflicts that I needed to happen. Other than that, everything just flows from the spur of the moment. And now two sub-plots that I had no plans for have cropped up at pretty much the same time that's helping me keep this going.

What do you wish for when you fall from the CloudS?

Hell. Yes.

Well actually I've only done NaNo once (I've somehow never got round to making another attempt) but that's how I did it and, while I wouldn't tell anyone how they should approach their NaNo, I personally would feel I'm cheating if I did an outline or whatever in advance. To me, 'write a novel in a month' means exactly that; write the whole thing from scratch within the confines of the month - including conception, ideas, characters, the lot.

For the first few days I had nothing. Then, maybe three or four days into November, the word 'harlequin' popped into my head on the bus home from work (probably because I lived near a housing estate inexplicably named The Harlequin). It felt portentous, so I sat at my cheap word processor with that word in my head, and saw what came out.

I didn't plan but now my characters seem intent on dying and that doesn't work for me and my 50,000 word goal so im having to plan whilst I write

I had the vaguest bare bones outline ever going in. I haven't written a story with no outline since my first ever Nano in 03, and I forgot how much fun it is. Every time one of my subplots runs down, a new one manages to turn up, and my characters have changed in all kinds of ways I didn't expect. It will need a lot of editing, more than most of my Nanovels ever have, but I'm having so much fun it doesn't matter.

I am! I had basically no planning, all I knew were the races I was using and the name of my MC (Sarla). About eight days ago I was on a train and the whole plot hit me like a tone of bricks, a plot I'd been building up to and hadn't known it XD. I think starting from nothing is brilliant because then you get the twists and turns that you wouldn't have if you forced a storyline. Your characters have to be able to build.

"Tiger Tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry"- William Blake