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[Telgin]

It's a touch early to be starting a thread on National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2018, but in the interest of carrying on the tradition of having an annual threat about it here, I'm starting this one today.  It was on my mind since I was talking to friends about it, and it never hurts to start planning early, right?

I suspect most people who are clicking on the thread here are already familiar with NaNoWriMo, but in case you aren't...

What is NaNoWriMo?
NaNoWriMo is an informal challenge to anyone who wants to write.  The idea is simple: you simply have to write 50,000 words of a story during the month of November.  You don't necessarily have to finish the story, so long as you write that many words, and it doesn't matter what the story is.  This isn't going to be published anywhere without you doing it, so it can be fanfiction for all that the challenge cares.

The point is to just get words down.  A lot of writers agree that this is the hard part, and you can easily get stuck trying to edit or world build.  From experience, I can say that it's very true, and anyone who wants to give this a shot is strongly encouraged to not fret about the quality of your work and just focus on getting a first draft down.  I did last year and hate how it turned out, but I'm still glad I did it since it puts me in a better place to try it this year.

Is this a competition?
Not really.  You're only challenging yourself.  You can certainly compare your progress to others, but it's informal and you won't get anything but a warm, fuzzy feeling for beating someone else.

Is my writing safe?
Sure.  You don't have to publish anything you write, and nanowrimo.org just has a tool for inputting word counts.  They have a word count utility as well, which supposedly scrambles the text so that nobody could possibly steal it, but in seriousness there's no reason to be afraid of whatever you're writing getting out in the wild without you doing it.

Can I win anything?
Only personal satisfaction, which is a surprisingly good thing in my experience.  Supposedly you can get some discounts on software or other sponsored goodies if you "win" by hitting 50K words, but I don't actually know how this works.  I "won" last year, but didn't investigate that part.

Can't I just cheat and enter whatever I want in the word count tool then?
Sure, but you're only cheating yourself in the end.  The whole point is to make something of your own and prove to yourself that you can do it.

Official website:
https://nanowrimo.org/

Links to previous years:
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012


The challenge is still a month away, but you've got time to plan.  I've tried many times in the past and have always failed to plan out stories of any significant length, so I think I'll skip doing substantial planning this year and just discover my story as I go.

I'm currently debating redrafting my attempt from last year, since I hate how it turned out, or just trying something new in the same setting.  Or, as a friend suggested, trying to convert an RPG setting we've worked on into a story.  Lots of possibilities, and not a ton of time to work through them.

Feel free to discuss the challenge or any prospective stories here, and when the challenge starts, note your progress.  I'll post again the day before it starts as a reminder.  If anyone already has a Discord or other chat server set up for it, they can note that too.  I'd link other writing resources, but based on my meandering comments above about getting lost with editing or world building, that might be counter productive. 

[Caz]

Idk what to write this time. The last couple of years I seem to get nowhere with nano.

We should definitely have a discord for word wars or something though

[Rowanas]

I might've written something but it's not my nation, so I guess i'm out. Ah well, back to my previous plan for November - jerking it and crying.

[Telgin]

The US is definitely over represented in the participation, but it looks like a lot of Europeans and South Americans participate as well.  They might as well call it Global Novel Writing Month or International Novel Writing Month, but I guess the acronyms don't really roll of the tongue so well.  GloNoWriMo and InNoWriMo aren't that bad though...

Channel your frustrations into writing instead.

[Caz]

I might've written something but it's not my nation, so I guess i'm out.

What?

[Arx]

I might've written something but it's not my nation, so I guess i'm out. Ah well, back to my previous plan for November - jerking it and crying.

Am from the wrong hemisphere (both ways), try and do NaNo every year anyway.

[Caz]

I might've written something but it's not my nation, so I guess i'm out. Ah well, back to my previous plan for November - jerking it and crying.

Am from the wrong hemisphere (both ways), try and do NaNo every year anyway.

It must be extra challenging given you have to write upside down. :/

[Arx]

Upside down and backwards, even. I just feel sorry for anyone living on the Greenwich meridian, having to swap every other page.

[Caz]

I think I figured out what I'm going to write about. An air elemental/sylph culture and what happens if the turtle people that live on the ground (yuck) cut off one of their citizen's wings due to a terrorist incident.

[Telgin]

That sounds lovely, although I pictured it as literal turtles cutting off the wings of fairies for some reason.  That description leaves enough room for many interpretations and could almost serve as a fantasy story writing prompt, or at least material for redrafting it on a subsequent attempt if you don't like how it turns out.

I'm still debating between two options:

1. A slightly futuristic fantasy story about sapient horse-deer things, and specifically something vaguely political, told from the perspective of a palace serf to the local goddess.

2. A futuristic but not really sci-fi (more science fantasy in a way) story about a robotic cow woman (not to be mistaken for a cowgirl) space trucker who wants to launch an interstellar cruise line, except that FTL technology makes it impractical and interplanetary cruises aren't as interesting.

Kind of leaning toward the second one.  The first is set in a universe I've cobbled together over the last 10 years or so and I have personal attachment to it as a result, but that brings a corresponding lack of interest among my friends and prospective readers.  The second one has broader appeal among my friends, but I have less details on the actual plot, which is going to make writing it harder.  I could also publish the first on the Kindle store if I really wanted to and thought it would be worth it, but the second one is based on a modified version of an existing RPG setting, so that would bring issues.

Decisions, decisions.  I'm setting a hard deadline of October 15th for me to make up my mind on which to write, so I can spend the rest of the month composting ideas.  Not going to bother seriously outlining though, because I know I won't do it even if I want to.

[Arx]

I'm strongly considering this year just winging everything including setting to avoid overengineering the universe, like I tend to. Current idea is the not-necessarily-very-original but kinda interesting to me

<Name pending> is, to all appearances, a regular university student. Tuition fees loom larger every year, though, and she has turned to a lucrative, but dangerous, night job: taking on bounties on the local criminals and demons. With an arsenal ranging from a well-maintained Karabiner to a dresser full of cosmetics and a few wickedly sharp scalpels, she stalks, lures, traps and cashes out... usually in time to pay the rent.

Might turn out bland and monster-of-the-chapter-y, but hey.

[Caz]

2. A futuristic but not really sci-fi (more science fantasy in a way) story about a robotic cow woman (not to be mistaken for a cowgirl) space trucker who wants to launch an interstellar cruise line, except that FTL technology makes it impractical and interplanetary cruises aren't as interesting.

A lot of the draw of cruises is being able to stop at every country port you come across, FTL seems like it would be great for that, sightseeing across the universe. "Interstellar cruise" reminds me of the Doctor Who episode "Voyage of the Damned" that had the interstellar cruise ship Titanic. Dunno if you've seen it though.

With an arsenal ranging from a well-maintained Karabiner

fighting crime.. with a metal climbing hook! wild.

[Arx]

Or a German carbine, but yeah, the latter is the more common use of the term.

[Telgin]

Roughly two week notice today.  If you don't have a concept nailed down yet, it's probably time to get to it!  I've mostly got my space trucker idea worked out, but the ending and some of the second half of the book still eludes me.  Since I write by the seat of my pants, I'll probably just have to discover it as I go.

[KittyTac]

Something about the World State, a slightly socialist, slightly totalitarian technocratic world state that I made up as a setting for forum games. Here's a little intro to explain the setting:

Ever since the Third World War of 1962, the world has never been the same. The USA's government has shifted its ideology from Democracy to World Materialism, a political ideology encouraging scientific progress above all else, overseen by an authoritarian party which employs all-pervasive surveillance over, at first, about 20% of the most dangerous citizens. The United States, now renamed into New America, has been signing treaties with neighboring countries, assimilating them into what would soon be called the World State. Meanwhile, the USSR never quite recovered from the traumatic effects of atomic warfare. Seeing it as pointless to try and fight back, they signed the assimilation treaty. Thus formed the World State, a technocracy ruled by a committee of engineers, scientists, and gubernators of "regions" -- such as Western Europe, Central North America, Eastern Russia, et cetera. The working class has been almost completely replaced by robots. The State created a massive chat network called ModNetChat that serves as this timeline's version of the Internet. This network is constantly monitored for dissident activity. The Internet is not the only thing under constant surveillance -- the World State's Ministry of Benevolence employs devices called "telescreens" (televisions with CCTV cameras embedded in them) to constantly monitor its populace with the aid of image recognition algorithms.

It's slightly inspired by 1984, I guess? I really didn't intend it to be that way. Anything I write ends up getting derailed rather quickly.
It'll be a violent action-y book with sociopolitical commentary elements. And some comedy.