Philotic Web

I am in the process of editing and helping to write my grandpa's memoirs, but I've been lacking in motivation so I'm hoping to use this as my motivation.

I think I'll give this a shot again. We'll see if I can beat the 4,000odd words I got 4 years ago

I actually went to my area meeting this year, mostly because free things were promised, and it was ridiculously stupid. The ML was really cool, but then all the stereotypes of super self-important amateur writers poured in, happy to tell anyone who would listen about their awesome, original plots, super-cool characters, and how bad Twilight is. I'm happy to say I'll never go to one again.

Of course, it wasn't as bad as the one my ex-roommate went to when I talked him into doing this crazy thing two years ago (he never got past two days). Apparently half of the people at the Boise one dressed up as their main characters.

In any case, one day remains of not-novelling! Prepare yourselves! Now that I've finally edited and revised my novel of '07 and firmly agreed never to complete my novel from '08 (though it's nearing a climax at the 60k mark), I'm ready to go, and you all should be, too, ladies.

How are you all doing on word counts? Keeping up with the suggested daily minimum?

I'm so far behind already, it's almost laughable. I'm at 2,503 words, which puts me about 2,400 words behind at this point.

I'm way behind, but I hope to catch up this weekend. I really don't have that well developed of an idea at the moment, so it's going to be a terribly written tale, but I'll make something of it.

As usual, I'm pretty much right on schedule, whether the words I put out are crap or not.

I mostly don't understand the people who go into it without a major plot idea or anything. They maybe have a character, but they don't have anything for them to do. I'm assuming this is where "plot dares" and such come from, people who don't have a major spine for their novel, if you will. Anyone do that? Care to let me on your reasoning for starting a novel without any actual novel ideas? I'm not meaning to sound rude, because I'm really just curious, but I'm afraid it makes me sounds snobbish, which is why I'm asking you guys instead of anyone on the NaNo forums that participate in those things.

Besides, I don't post on the NaNo forums, I post on P-Web!

My reason for starting a novel with any actual novel ideas:
Honestly, I just wanted something to get me writing again--it's been too long. I have some characters and a very general view of what I want to happen to them. But mainly, I like the idea of letting them tell the story. This being my first NaNoWriMo, I wanted to try just letting the ideas flow and see where the story takes me.
I have no clue how effective this strategy will be (it's not looking very good so far), but I think it's worthwhile to try and see how it works for me. Will I ever venture on a novel with this undeveloped of an idea again? Who knows.

I've actually been writing various stuffs most everyday this month. mostly polemics, ideas, phraseologys and whatnot, a few movie thoughts, and so on. Haven't set down to write steadily on novel/script though...

I'll get you next year, NaNoWriMo... Next year!

NaNos ASSEMBLE!

You all have one more day, but I believe in you. And if you can't believe in you, believe in me, who believes in you!

...I finished earlier today. Hooray for a day ahead of schedule!

I failed. Miserably.


At least I like the story I'm telling and can keep going at whatever pace I want now.

I also failed miserably. And I don't even know if I like my story enough to continue or not. I'll probably work on it over Christmas break and see if it goes in a more lovable direction.

(technically a day late, but I meant to do this yesterday)

Prepare thyselvevs.

I think I have a serious problem with coming up with novel ideas that I'm not clever enough to write. Despite winning NaNo for the past three years, I've only ever really finished one of my novels, and it was the first one. It was easy to write because I could just make fun of everything, and I'm pretty sure I rushed the end just so I could be done with it, but I think it all makes sense. The other two got away from me: '08 I realized that my original purpose of writing it had gotten lost and it had no aim or structure and I had no idea where to go with it after the 50k mark, despite the characters being in binds. My '09 one had a more definite theme, but I think I tried to hard and ended up repeating it, over and over again, pounding it into the heads of any readers, so by the time I hit the 50k mark, which is probably 1/3 of the way through the story, I don't have anything to tell other than just flat events that I've had planned since the beginning, but won't be very interesting.

This year it shall be different! Maybe I'll even get more people to read it than one person who reads the first few pages, says they like it, and then never brings it up again.

and I'm pretty sure I rushed the end just so I could be done with it

Why rush? You can just play the song of time at the end of the month to get your month back, right?

I've been saying I was going to do this for the past 4 years, and this may be my year. 2 years ago, my roommate was very in to it and was friends with some of the staff so I was so pressured to do it...I've never made it past the first 3 days...

I've been saying I was going to do this for the past 4 years, and this may be my year. 2 years ago, my roommate was very in to it and was friends with some of the staff so I was so pressured to do it...I've never made it past the first 3 days...

DOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOIT

Just do it for yourself, and ignore everyone else's status updates, unless they help you feel encouraged. But if they make you feel insignificant, inferior, or pressured (in a bad way) ignore them!

And write things!

I've been saying I was going to do this for the past 4 years, and this may be my year. 2 years ago, my roommate was very in to it and was friends with some of the staff so I was so pressured to do it...I've never made it past the first 3 days...

DOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOIT

Just do it for yourself, and ignore everyone else's status updates, unless they help you feel encouraged. But if they make you feel insignificant, inferior, or pressured (in a bad way) ignore them!

And write things!

HMMMM. I had been considering doing a modified version of it, on my own terms, back in September, but it slipped away from me. (But left its mark on my planner, reminding me of it, haha, and how many words I could have if I started then!)

I just was very turned off by how she was very "I AM DOING NANO (on top of going crazy under the weight of her other commitments) and I'm going to inflict my freaking out on ...everyone around me."

For the first time since I've known about NaNoWriMo, I have an idea that I THINK I like enough to keep me motivated. I'm super excited!!

Are you all ready for this?
The madness is about to begin...

I <MIGHT> do this, this year. Maybe. We'll see. I say this because, it seems Nano is much like a two month early New Years resolution for everyone. They start out the month with the BEST of intentions: "I'll totally write this 50,000 word novella this month, and finish Nano!" -- and by December 1st they are filled with self loathing and disappointment in themselves.

Also, this is a pretty handy website: http://litlift.com

It helps you track chapters, characters, items, etc for your book and allows you to access it and write anywhere. Pretty handy, I think.

Oh damn, I went ahead and signed up.

Just got my first day done! Whew. I never got around to doing, oh, anything that I had planned to do beforehand, but I'm jumping in, anyway. It's going good, so far.

Are we losing you for a month, boss?

Pssh, naw. It doesn't take me all day to write.

One day left! Woooo! Who has lasted?

Spotlight On just reminded me: Let's rev up those word processors, kids! Only 40 days to go! SHANNON THIS IS A DIRECT MESSAGE.

Plus, you know, everyone else. Wil? Claire? Kelly? Come on, kids! This is your year.

Also I met the girl who set up the "30 Days 30 Covers" thing last year. She's pretty cool.

I have always loved this thing, and especially this thread. I don't write very much, so I'm trying to think of a sister project.

Spotlight On just reminded me: Let's rev up those word processors, kids! Only 40 days to go! SHANNON THIS IS A DIRECT MESSAGE.

I can't do it. I don't have the skills.

I do have the skills and I still can't do it, so I say: to hell with that, Shannon. Man up!

Everyone can do it! EVERYONE. Even if it's only 1000 words! Because then what's only 600 more? Not that many! About five paragraphs! And then you're done with that day, and you say "Whew, that took some time, but this is something, at least." And then you come back the next day and say "No way am I meeting that" but you press onward. You make your characters do stupid things because it seems mildly interesting at the time and it counts as words. You go on rants about the absolute absurdness of eating hamburgers and how lovely baths are when you're aching despite the fact that you're essentially boiling in your own filth and why the same episode from that show you never watch is always on when you happen to flip on the television. Because it's always awesome when you're done. And even if it isn't, the feeling of having something done that's taken so much effort is awesome in itself. Out of the four NaNos that I've completed, I've only gone on to complete the actual story once, and even then it was crap completely riddled with passive voice (which seriously, who cares about passive voice other than journalists?) and run on sentences and way way way too many parentheses, and I'm still proud of it. And it's going to continue happening and I'm going to keep posting in this thread and you're going to keep feeling motivated to do something awesome with that brain and fingers of yours that you've never done before because you have something that needs to be said. Maybe not to me, maybe not to some people I've never met, maybe not even to yourself, but to the world of non-existent people that you will write into existence with the very nature of starting a NaNoWriMo project. Those people, repeat it with me, they do not exist without you. And this isn't a guilt-ridden post to make you feel bad for not doing it, because there are plenty of good reasons not to. This is purely an appeal to your better, no, your awesome nature. An appeal to your ability to create something great and to just run with it, even with spelling errors and idiotically experimental narrative games. You'll edit it and worry about it being crap later.

Not that anything I write needs editing.

Oh, and also:

Wow Mich. I think your pep talks are better than the ones the NaNo people send out from all the famous people.

Seriously. That was downright inspiring.

This is the year. I will write something.

Wow Mich. I think your pep talks are better than the ones the NaNo people send out from all the famous people.

Pff. I keep the Neil Gaiman one in my inbox because it's so good.

But yeah, everyone! We can do it! YOURS IS THE PEN THAT SHALL PIERCE THE HEAVENS.