[Competition] National Novel Writing Month 2013

When: November, 1-30

I realise this is off-topic from game development but writing is an important part for some games.

Who's entering NaNoWriMo this year? Add me as your writing buddy if you are! http://nanowrimo.org/participants/fengol

Comments

  • It'll depend on how our deadlines go here at QCF, but I intend to do this this year too, I'll post when i find the old profile :P
  • I'm hoping to release SC by the end of October, if I manage that I'll be doing NaNoWriMo this year.
  • I've done NaNoWriMo for the last 3 years. Each year, I start off thinking I can finish that month, and then something else comes up. I want to try again this year, but I think it's more likely to be National Thesis Writing Month for me :/.
  • I've created anew account there, when I realized I don't even have the email account they wanted anymore. I'm now http://nanowrimo.org/participants/damousey although still not yet officially joining
  • I always mean to do this...and then don't.
  • Ok, so I have absolutely no idea how to write any form of story/novel. I was just thinking about something that might help some people to at least get something done for this.

    I keep wanting to do this in some sort of jam form. Basically book a weekend with yourself and your laptop where no-one else can interfere and just write. Any crap that you can think off...just write it. Then after the 2 days, you can use all the bits and pieces of time you find to iterate on the novel you have and spend time polishing things. I don't know if I'm totally off base here, but it seems like the way I would want to do it.
  • Um. As far as I know, the 50,000 word minimum pretty much forces you to write a crapload of stuff with no real room to iterate and polish anyway.
  • Ok....NaNo is not what I thought it meant. :D
  • "National Novel Writing Month" is an exercise in 'getting it done'. Doesn't matter how well or not, as long as you hit the word count in the allotted time. The time afterwards, if you want to continue, is for editing and polishing, stressing that the actual 'writing' phase should be editor-free. A lot of writers struggle with keeping their inner editor in check and it can really disrupt the writing flow if you're polishing your writing a paragraph at a time as you're writing it. In my experience at least, NaNo forces you to just get content out and to actually FINISH something - even if you don't finish the novel, if you hit the 50,000 words then it's proof to yourself that you CAN write something novel-length - which is a wonderful experience if, like me, left unattended you don't usually manage four chapters before your attention drifts to something else.

    And of course the more you do it, the better you get at writing quality content off-the-bat that requires less editing afterwards. ^.^
    Thanked by 1Bensonance
  • edited
    I did this once for music (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL436756647058CA3C) writing one song every day (I stopped at 60) [I also called it a "writer's block exercise"). Although most came out bad, it was very satisfying to know I could write on demand, and dispel some crazy myths of having to need motivation or inspiration. (Also, it levelled-up my skill for the stuff I wrote afterwards). What I found was applying this idea works very well with other endeavors (even programming!) There is nothing that like this type of thing to make you lose fear for the white page (of any form!).
  • @hermantulleken: Whoa! I had no idea you played like that... Wow.

    I'm... I'm just gonna let this channel play while I'm doin' mah things.
    Thanked by 1hermantulleken
  • @dislekcia I was just letting your nice comment linger for a while before admitting that sadly, it is not me playing, but the computer --- I still have to put in a few hours of practice before I can play most of those pieces;_; But glad you enjoy the music though (at least the computer did not help me there!)
  • Because this is my first attempt at NaNoWri I'm using the Young Writer's Program high school workbook to help me work out my story.

    3 days to go!
  • I'm not starting with you guys, can't really spend deadline type energy anywhere other than DD. I might do an outline or or break down plot things, but I'm probably going to just be playing catchup from whenever I do start :/
  • RL stuff the last few weeks meant I couldn't get SC out by the end of this month, so I'm out I'm afraid.
Sign In or Register to comment.