NaNoWriMo 2009 is over! How did you do?

[The Mysterious Gunslinger]

Commander Oblivious

I feel like the scenes I'm writing are in too short of chunks. I'm working on backstory right now, but I'm less than pleased with the results I'm getting. It feels almost too impersonal, but I'm not sure how to really bring one character's personality to the surface, given that I don't really know what her personality is. I know basically everybody else- except her.

Any suggestions?

Just go with it, with things like this, you can't really get too far into them during NaNoWriMo. And if you don't know her, all the more reason to just write it and see where it gets you.

You'll discover some things, regardless of how it goes. And in December you can always edit, no worries. Just get it down, it might be crap and it might be gold, you never know. And how to get to see her personality-- write the situation and just go with the flow.

It's what I do, and it seems to work out. And when I have the time, most likely in December for you, I'll re-read it, see if I like it, and if I don't, hit the backspace key, and redo it a different way. But you can only do that if you have the time-- until then, go with the flow...

[Morigale]

Commander Oblivious

Morigale

I've been stalling for about 300 words to keep from having my main character read the mysterious notes she's just picked up because I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT THEY SAY. Silent Hill has to have spooky notes around but, nooo, I can't think of s**t. I suck so hard.

*headdesk*

"We're right behind you lololol"
"It's actually the cat"
"I swear I had nothing to do with the doors"

Haha. I actually have this chatbot thing, Megahal, that I threw a bunch of ghost stories into the training file so it says really weird s**t. I'm thinking of just feeding it random lines and using whatever it spits out to fill the notes.

... no, I still haven't gotten to the notes. Or written anythign since I posted about the notes.

I have too many places they have to go (hospital, carnival, sewers, apartments...) and too little brainpower to write it. stressed I am so, SO far behind.

[Shaded Whisper]

Just woke up at four AM to word war with somebody because I think I'm something like 5k or 6k behind. Aghhhh. >< *passes out* On top of this, so much schoolwork.

[Morigale]

*bonks head on desk* I'm trying to find some ghost stories I've read before so I can feed them into the database for this thing and get creepier responses.

I'm especially looking for this one I read where this guy's friend dies but he keeps seeing him on the road he lives on, so one day he goes out and the thing he thought was his friend turns around and it's clearly someTHING wearing a skin suit and it says 'You thought I was John? Stupid - John is DEAD' (except I can't remember his friend's name) and he passes out and wakes up several hours later and never sees the thing again. sweatdrop

Is it cheating if I paste in responses from a chatterbot? It probably takes me more time to get them than it would to just make something up, really.

Also I've decided that after I play out this one puzzle (she's already picked up two pieces to it) I'm not going to bother doing puzzles where she has to gather things from around the area and then use them because I can barely remember what I'm doing in a single writing session, much less carry over from the previous ones. I'll add multi-part puzzles if I decide to edit this in December. (Hint: I won't.)

[Airelesanya]

Okay since I epic failed at writing the past two days, I'm going to try to make up a lot of ground today. *brews a ginormous pot of coffee*

Here goes nuthin. :3

[Airelesanya]

Commander Oblivious

I feel like the scenes I'm writing are in too short of chunks. I'm working on backstory right now, but I'm less than pleased with the results I'm getting. It feels almost too impersonal, but I'm not sure how to really bring one character's personality to the surface, given that I don't really know what her personality is. I know basically everybody else- except her.

Any suggestions?

If you're really, really stuck, find one of those questionnaire thingers and answer them the way your character would. It might give you a bit of insight into what's inside her head. 3nodding

[LadyEladrin]

This too is sacred

Eee! So pretty today, Aire. heart Good luck with the writing. I'm doing homework for a while first, then Nanoing. There's a write-in today but I'm not sure if I want to go, what with the homework and studying I need to do. Plus, it's all the way across town; I could be gone the whole afternoon! gonk

love as thou wilt

[LadyEladrin]

Gail Carson Levine, author of Ella Enchanted

Now I tape my list of rules and advice (culled from friends, my mom, the buried writing books, and, mostly, my own hyped-up imagination) to the wall next to my desk.

-Sleep at least once a week.

-Eat at least once a day, but not constantly. Don't forget the essential fatty acids (Mom).

-If my fingers freeze from carpal tunnel syndrome, I have ten perfectly good toes, a nose, and quite a few teeth.

-When I'm not happy with how things are going, turn off the screen and keep typing. Don't turn it back on until the crisis is over.

-Don't check my word count more often than every fifteen minutes.

-Dream sequences can eat up a lot of pages, and they shouldn't be logical.

-Short words count just as much as long ones.

-The perfect is the enemy of the fast. The good is the enemy of the fast. The halfway decent is the enemy of the fast.

-When I run out of plot ideas, write about setting and what each character is wearing, in exquisite wordy detail. When I run out of setting and apparel, write about the voice quality of each speaker, speech mannerisms, facial ticks, body language.

-Keep my music loud enough to drown out my thoughts. Thinking is the enemy of speed.

-Remember the infinite-monkey theory: Endless keystrokes will eventually produce Shakespeare or at least words and maybe a story.

-Never edit.

-Never ever go back.

[Commander Oblivious]

Nobody on my Facebook friends list is doing NaNo, so I can't get a group together and do a write-in. This is annoying. And my town is too small to even register on the NaNo regions.

[Steampunk Lullaby]

Mine, too, Commander. We're linked to the nearest city, which is 25 minutes away from me.

It sucks to be from a small area.

[Commander Oblivious]

I've got you beat. Nearest city is an hour and a half away. We're under "elsewhere" on the regions.

[Commander Oblivious]

Dear god, the urge to rewrite this into chapters instead of chunks is nearly overwhelming. I think I'm going to start doing Write or Dies in larger time limits, which should help, I think.

I'm outlining from the beginning, so I know where to go when I rewrite this, and doing bits of research as I go.

-is actually procrastinating on my novel-
It's better than last year, though. I just wrote little one-shots and shared them with the NaNoers in here and derailed everybody.

[Morigale]

I'm writing a horror novel, right? So I'm reading a lot of creepy stories and I watch a lot of true crime shows just normally anyway. So last night I had this bizarre dream where I was trying to track down a serial killer who kept leaving corpses in iron cages buried along the sides of roads. Very cinematic dream, lots of flashes over to the killer and his current kidnap victim for drama...

Halfway through the dream I stopped and said 'Wait, this is absurd! Wouldn't someone have noticed him buying so many goddamn iron cages?'

And I immediately switched over to another dream.

... wish it had stayed on the first one, which was at least interesting. The second one was just me being chased around a circular corridor by some kind of alligator thing. Punishment for doubting dream logic, I guess. xp

... to make this less off-topic, I got over a thousand words written in one go last night. Go me! I'm still way behind, but go me!

[Miss Saffy]

This is so cool! 3nodding