I waited a bit too long to post this partly out of not realizing how close to November we were, but it's almost that time of year again.
Given that we've been getting less than two full pages of posts in the last few threads, I've been considering if going forward I should just necro the thread each year as the time comes around, but for this year at least it's a new thread.
Obligatory copied content from the last few years:
In case you aren't familiar with NaNoWriMo:
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.
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:2022202120202019201820172016201520142013 2012201120102009
Following on from my last few years, I'll say that each year continues to get easier on a technical level. Setting the time aside to write 1,667 words per day is pretty easy now during November.
The hard part continues to be getting ideas for stories. I've spent a fair bit of time this year trying to revise and recycle older ideas to get something to a state that I would consider self-publishing it, but so far that hasn't panned out.
At the moment I have two ideas that I'm debating between:
- A space fantasy story based on a failed RPG setting. The story would be about a vezel, which is essentially a space kobold / space velociraptor, who was genetically engineered into a magical super soldier but who decided she didn't want to be part of it. She was going to be fleeing from the government that originally hired her, taking her genetically engineered son (or maybe just egg) and trying to find somewhere safe to stay. I unfortunately have little more to work from than that.
- Continuing a solo RPG game using the Starforged rules, which was based on the setting of Stars Without Number effectively crossed with Star Fox. I've already written about 160,000 words so I have plenty of material to work from, and committing to 50,000 more words would probably get me jumpstarted again.
So, the vague new idea, or the sure thing? Tough choice.
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Topic: National Novel Writing Month 2023 (Read 2390 times)