Monday, October 18, 2010

NaNoWriMo

I've seen the talk increasing over the last few weeks, and think I might actually sign up for NaNoWriMo this year. I never "officially" join in, but the last two years, I did participate on my own. Last year, I wrote almost the entire story of Lily and Aidan (Healing the Mage), even if I did end up cutting a good third of it. The year before was a huge chunk of In The Devil's Arms (won't even mention how much of that got cut!).  I've been toying with which ideas to focus on this time around.


This year, I think I'm going to focus on my sci-fi-ish ms, Prince of the Universe ( a little Highlander influence showing up there!). I'm about 25 pages in with it, and the characters there are really calling to me. Since I'm losing a nice chunk of November this year (family Disney trip, little guy's b-day, Thanksgiving, though I don't host, thank God!, and very busy at work), I've decided that I will, for the first time ever, see if I can write something less than 100K words. Actually, I may shoot for half that with this story. I'm hopeful, even if my last "short story" ended up at 113K words! I figure the lack of available days may help in that goal.


So we'll see how it goes with this, for the first time, I have a basic, relatively simple plot, though we'll see how long that lasts. And, the hero in this story also has a brother, but he's been patiently waiting for me to get to him. Good thing. He's got plenty of time to hang out, as long as he doesn't make a mess of the place, or get too demanding. Because otherwise, I'll have to banish him to the dark corners of the basement until I'm ready to deal with him.

Authors, are you planning to participate this year? If so, what are your plans for the month?

4 comments:

  1. Not doing it this year or any other year. My writing style doesn't lend itself to the format. I remember the bit you read from the sci-fi story and really liked it.

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  2. Thanks Janet. I'm looking forward to getting this story going - I've had some ideas I really want to play with, and this is a good way to do it without worrying about the minutia until the draft is complete. I'm hoping to contain this one to a shorter work this time around. We'll see if I can do that!

    I've had such success on my own with getting a first draft, or the bulk of it, down in November lately, figured I'd give myself something to focus on. A little pressure is good for motivation.

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  3. I did NaNoWriMo last year and had so much fun! I joined a local group (the closest to me is the Poughkeepsie one) and I made a bunch of new friends. I'm signed up again this year. My screen name is ShanaWriMo if you want to follow me :)

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  4. I will definitely follow you Shoshanna! I've done well in November the last couple years even if I didn't officially sign up, so figured might as well this year. I'm looking forward to it.

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