NaNoWriMo 2009 is over! How did you do?

[Lady Falchion]

Hurrah for NaNoWriMo! This will be my third year. I'm going to write the sequel to last year's, but I don't really have a plot for it yet. biggrin

[gingitsune-sama]

I had to find somewhere to talk about NaNoWriMo before I went crazy waiting for november to start. This will be year three for me and I plan to get no less than 30 000 words and hopefully a win.

[Kookei]

Ok... first year - I'm going to give it a go

Any tips for a newbie?

[radioactive alchemist]

Anglais Ro-zu

Ok... first year - I'm going to give it a go

Any tips for a newbie?

I think the most important tip is do not get behind! If you take one day off, suddenly those words are staring you in the face and it makes it easier to say "I can't do this..." and take another day off, and before you know it you've given up completely.

Similarly, don't stop at your daily word goal if you're on a roll. Keep going! If you get ahead and can keep yourself ahead, it will be a breeze; and if you're far enough ahead you can take a break for a day without getting behind. My very first year doing NaNo this is what I did, and I finished my 50k in under 20 days of writing (two break days while writing, three break days after I hit 50k, then I wrote a bit more and slacked off for the last five days of the month).

[Kookei]

radioactive alchemist

Anglais Ro-zu

Ok... first year - I'm going to give it a go

Any tips for a newbie?

I think the most important tip is do not get behind! If you take one day off, suddenly those words are staring you in the face and it makes it easier to say "I can't do this..." and take another day off, and before you know it you've given up completely.

Thanks smile A bit like the washing up then... one day you leave it - then breakfast comes around, then lunch, then dinner, then next days breakfast and so on and so on til you can't face it and when you finally get the courage you've grown your own zoo and need to just bin the dishes....*shudders* - scarred for life.

P.s good advice - thanks smile

[KelseyAnnePotter]

bookworm8720

Has anyone found any good time planning pages for the event? I heard there was actually a book written about finishing it and planning time wisely, but I haven't been able to find it.

Every year I design myself a spreadsheet to keep track of my progress. I punch in the target WC for each day to make it to 50k by the 30th, enter in my actual WC each day and how long I spent writing on it, and it calculates my daily WC, my writing speed, percentage complete, how far I have to go and how far ahead I am. I'd be willing to send it to you if you'd like it.

As to the book, I actually own a copy of that, too! It's called No Plot? No Problem! and costs about $15, less if you get it used or are a Barnes & Noble's member (I just checked their website, and it's available). It's a really useful tool, because it not only coaches you every step of the way, it teaches you how to manage your time and how to keep going when you want to quit.

And I agree--it is DEFINITELY important not to fall behind. However, if you don't meet your WC one day--don't stress over it too much. Remember, this is supposed to be fun! Last year, my numbers fluxuated wildly. The first day I wrote 2883 words in an hour and a half, putting myself about 1200 words ahead. On day three I only wrote 775 words, but that was okay because I was still almost 200 words ahead. After day eleven I had had some very successful days, but also some very lousy ones, and ended the day 1059 words behind. On my worst day--day twenty-three--I missed a whole day of writing, don't remember why, and ended 3492 words behind. I never got ahead again, but I wrote my butt off (almost literally) on November 30 and ended with nineteen "official" words to spare.

That's something else I would point out. MS Word and the official NaNoWriMo word counter sometimes have disagreements, I still haven't quite figured out why or what causes it, but the best way to safeguard against it is to a) always type a couple extra words and b) scramble your story before verification. I'm dead serious. What I usually do is copy-paste it into a new document, do a Find: Replace All for each letter and replace it with the letter A, then do a Find: Replace All for my punctuation. I replace periods, commas, question marks, exclamation points semi-colons, hyphens, apostrophes, and quotation marks with nothing (just leave "Replace" field blank) and em-dashes (--) and ellipses (...) with a space. That's the important part, because otherwise Word--and the official counter--will count only one word where you have two. For example, that last sentence has twenty words (count 'em), but Word will only count eighteen, because of the em-dashes.

Sorry, didn't intend to write my novel now. lol Good luck, everyone!

[Kyhaar]

I'm going for round two this year. I have the beginnings of a plot... that's all I had last time, so I'm just going to write whatever comes to my head using Write or Die.


Lol. I started on the 15th last year (forgot) and ended on the 25th with 53 000 words. I was so happy! (I wrote over 5000 words a day. It was intense.)

[radioactive alchemist]

Yay, my NaNo hoodie just arrived in the mail! blaugh

[gingitsune-sama]

I think that a good tip for first timers is to stop thinking about it. While having a plot can be a good thing, don't get caught up in trying to make it perfect. That's what happened to me my first year, I didn't even upload any of my 500 words.

Write and then keep going.

[moosemousse]

The whole point of NaNo is to write 50k words, even if it's utter rubbish. Two years ago I had several parts where I'd be writing and I'd be thinking 'this makes no sense at all, it's so bad I don't know whether to laugh or cry'. I kept going with it though and I ended up with over 50k words so I won. So yeah, don't worry about whether or not what you're writing is good, just get it written.

Also, some good advice is to aim for 2k a day, that way you have a few days where you can sit back and not write anything and still get it done. The more you get done in the beginning, the less you'll be rushing at the end.

[Alanora Calaran]

Ahh, this will be my second year of NaNoWriMo. My first year turned into a 145,000 word monster even though I only got to about 32k/50k; to be honest, I'd always wanted to write this book series and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I couldn't just write and not edit a little. Nine months later, however, I wrote my last word and this year I plan to continue NaNo by getting some serious work done on the second novel in the trilogy! I have both the second and third book outlined (well really the third is more like a fluid, ever-changing list of crap that happens than an actual outline XD), and plan to rock it out when the month comes along! Don't get me wrong, though, I've already started writing the second novel. I figure I'll just mark my current spot when November comes along so I can keep an accurate record of how much I've actually written.

Oh, yeah! Some tips!

Since NaNoWriMo's goal is to get you off your lazy arse and make you a novella-pimpin'-wordsmith, I've done a little math to help you along in your endeavor. 50,000 words divided by 30 days turns out to be about 1667 words to write a day. Now, we're all going to have good writing days and crappy writing days. Here's what my sister did. She clocked in at 68k words:

• Set a goal of around 2,000 words a day for yourself. That way when you have that crappy writing day, you can allow yourself a little slack and still have some leeway, not falling too behind. Actually, if on the days that you write you write 2,000 words exactly, it allows for exactly five days of not writing anything at all. But don't let that fool you into thinking you have five free days to slack off!
  
• Keep a special notebook/sheets of paper in a binder/whatever for writing spur-of-the-moment when you're not at your computer. Even if it's just a lightbulb moment, it will help you tremendously!
  
• Plan out your story ahead of time. October is the planning month. Use it wisely. Nothing makes you write faster than not having to sit down and wonder what comes next.
  
• Make use of things that inspire you! Music, movies, whatever!
  
• If you make a mistake, keep on going. Nothing will hold you back like trying to edit as you go. As long as you accept the fact that you're going to have to go back and edit it at the end of the month, probably heavily, don't let your little mistakes bug you too much.

Guilty as charged... >_>

I hope that helps! heart

[Kookei]

I wish Gaia Forum's had a 'thank' button - because I would if C ould =P

Thanks peeps

10/100

[Gerald Roy]

Great!

[WickedScientist]

Thanks for all the great advice everyone. I am going to be using write or die on the slow days but setting a goal of 2000 words a day is brilliant. I set the minimum last year at 1667 and when I started to fall behind I lost all hope. emo

I really can not wait for it to start. I also hope to go to the meet ups around my area. I wanted to go last year but I had a class at the time they were meeting. Does anyone else go to the meet ups in there area? If so, are they helpful or not really worth the time?

[moosemousse]

I wanted to go to a meet last year but it never happened. There were a few people who said they were interested but they didn't show up on the day. As for whether they help or not, that depends on lots of things. Personally, I think it'd be great to go out and meet others who are doing it too, that way you can b***h and whine and the other person knows what you're going on about. If anything, it seems like a great way to relax and wind down for a bit. You could even take writing stuffs and have a word war (set a time limit and see who writes the most).