Week One: And We're Off!

So, how's it going? Did anybody manage to stay up to midnight and write their first word at the stroke of 12:00? I have not started yet but can feel the need to turn on the AlphaSmart and write, even if I don't have my synopsis finished yet or even know the names of all my main characters. I write better in the evenings, but I'm going to try to get some writing done at work today on breaks.

Well, anyway, just want to wish everyone good luck and to remind you to have fun!

I managed to cram in an hour before work (midnight is late for me), and a couple of hours after dinner. Then worked a little on my outline some more. I feel okay with the start, but the sense of how hard this will be is creeping in on me. I caught myself editing a few times, I will have to devote a few maybe an extra hour a day to meet my daily word count goal with how slow I write.

still thinking of names for characters too!

I probably won't start until tomorrow. Nov 1 is my husband's birthday and I feel that since he supports me so much during NaNo, the least I can do is give him my undivided attention on this one day.

I'll be starting this afternoon -- once I figure out what, exactly, I'm writing. I'm still tossing around a few ideas in my head. Time to pick one and go with it!

I started at midnight. My husband in New York stayed with me via Skype to see me get started, which was nice.

I saved a document from my laptop to my flash drive. I couldn't seem to open it at work (during break time; not using company time) so I guess I'll have to wait till I get home.

Hi! I decided - at the last minute - to participate in NaNo. This is my first time, and I'm both excited and nervous about it. I'm planning on writing a bunch of crap, which is okay. ;-) I've been thinking and talking about writing for a long time, so I'm using NaNo as both my motivation to get going, and to get all the junk out of my system.

I did 2500 words today, which I wish I could post on the NaNo web site, but I can't get on! :-/ No big deal - I know what I did, but still . . . .

It's my first year doing this but I'm not starting properly until Wednesday because I've got a biggie of a job interview on Wednesday afternoon. May try and sneak an hour or two that takes me away from the interview swotting up but otherwise I'm launching into it in a couple of days.

I stayed up til midnight to start. Always do. I banked extra today since I'll be tied up at the polls tomorrow all day. Then back to NaNo on Wednesday!

I started at midnight, kind of, I was able to write the title but I couldn't really write the first sentence until I calmed down a bit. ;)

After a day I'm at 2100 words, but it was more difficult today than right after the start. There are some things that need to happen but my characters are already rebelling by not being at the right places at the right time. Also I locked my "inner editor" in the basement but I can hear him scream and I think he's trying to escape.

Okay, I got 1874 words in, though a good bit of that is a plot summary that I wrote down to expand upon later (I wanted to get the ideas down while they were flowing). I tend toward fairy tale retellings, and it looks like this year I'm going with the story of Cinderella's wicked stepmother, looking in to why she was so nasty. We'll see if I can stick with it this year!

So, on breaks at work (I swear I only wrote on breaks, not on the clock!) I managed to get in 800 words, and I STILL don't know what the darn book's going to be about exactly. lol Now for another hour of writing, or as long as it takes for me to get 2000 words down today.

Foggie ~ That's a really interesting idea for a novel!

Codexus ~ LOL!!! My evil I.E. is beginning to behave a little better after spending the last four NaNos tied and gagged with duct tape and stuffed in the back of the closet to keep it quiet.

ETA 2044 words today! Yay me! (Best I've ever done on Day 1. I'm not sure if I should be pleased or terrified. lol)

11: I do that a lot during NaNo, writing down summaries and babbling "this is what happens here, I will expand on it later" type of stuff. It keeps the flow going so I don't have to stop and think!

I wasn't going to do NaNo dangit! I had it all planned out: Participate in group wordwars with my friends by editing or prompt-writing, but NO real NaNo (bipolar is KILLING me lately).

Tonight at 8:30 I gave in and started typing. I'll prolly still be a Rebel 'cause it's just free-writing random prose, but I've got 970 words so far. I refuse to even try for 1667, that's what stressed me out so much last year 'cause I was consistantly behind.

Jumping over from 75 Book Challenge
This will be my first year with the challenge. I got my daughter to do it last year since she is an aspiring writer. This year I read more about the Young Writers Program and started a novelist club in the H.S. where I work. I asked one of the more charismatic English teachers to be the front person if I did all the organizational work. We have seven kids signed up so far. I am up to an even 2000 words already!
It's been a long time since I've done any creative writing and using the H.S. workbook really helped me build my characters, setting, and plot. I am so impressed with the work that the Office of Letters and Light has done for young writers.

Starting my first NANO this year... and was home late last night after a long work night so I won't be able to start until tonight (after I vote of course!). Glad to see LT has a NaNo group. I should have known!

Good luck everyone and Keep up the good writing!

I'm off to a much better start than last year and I'm excited to see if I can keep up the pace. After two days, I'm at 4799 words. Last year I only got to 20K total, but this is a completely different kind of story. One big plus is that I'm letting my snarky sarcastic voice out to play.

*shakes the pom poms and passes out chocolate (or the non-allergic equivalent.)* Let's go team! Write those words! :>

*Tea and coffee available on the table to the right, red bull and other energy drinks on tap. I hear they got us twenty keg-like containers of each drink.*

Just discovered there is a librarything NaNo group (well was kindly informed). So glad there there are lots more people on here to stress at! I'm up to 4,000 after 2 days but it's taken a very odd turn...

Up to 6,000 words at the end of day 3, but i'm putting in time now that I won't have later. Outlining has helped tremendously.

Ack! I had to work a little late last night, then vote, then shop for groceries (for an unexpected visit this coming weekend by my niece, and also I was almost out of milk). By the time I got home, fed the bird and had a quick bite myself, I was so tired I could barely see, much less write. (All these excuses to explain why I did only 528 words yesterday, bringing my total up to about 2,500.) Also, I don't like the last couple 750 words or so, so may change them. Or not and pretend they were just a dream my character had so I can keep the wordage. Decisions, decisions. Stress, stress. lol

Today I plan to write on my lunch hour and then for a couple of hours tonight after work. Should be able to get in another 2,500 in that time. *crosses fingers*

Great job, everyone who's writing. And Gilroy! *takes a big gulp of coffee and bites into some sinfully delicious dark chocolate* You are a lifesaver!

I only did 967 words yesterday. Had a horrific ache right between the shoulder blades and just couldn't work through the pain any longer. This is definitely not how I imagined getting out of the gate. Maybe I need to peruse the selection Gilroy mentioned... do we have any PGGB's? That will make the pain go away!

>20 Storeetllr: Put that inner editor away and don't change anything now! December is for editing . . .

Seriously, folks, keep the stress to the minimum needed to get you writing. Last year I only got to 20K words, but they were 20K words I didn't have written before that. This year my goal is just to do better.

But the 50K for NaNo is arbitrary! I think the great thing about the NaNo approach is the idea of just going forward without stopping to worry about what you've already written. How many of us have fifteen versions of first chapters with no second chapter?

I'm at just over 6,000 words which amazes me!

I even had an interesting revelation about one of my characters while I was writing this morning.

I'm really enjoying myself, just hope I can keep going.

I really wasn't going to do NaNo this year, but I think I might end up being glad I am. I'm behind wc-wise and I refuse to get stressed or even think about the 50k goal because I doubt I'll get anywhere close this year... But the free-writing I'm doing has somehow turned into a few perfect scenes to add to my 2008 NaNo that I've been trying to polish/edit. I had jotted down notes about needing to add a few "teasing, less intense" scenes, and I think without even realizing it I wrote the perfect ones while wordwarring last night.

>22 ejj1955: My Evil I.E. has been wrapped in duct take and tossed at the very back of my closet, behind my suitcase and boxes of financial records for the past 5 years. lol

Really, the 50k word count isn't what I'm after so much as bright, shiny THE PURPLE BAR I'll get after I make it to 50k! Yeah.

Pass me summa that Red Bull that gilroy's been so nice as to provide for us, would you please?

I also just reached 6000 words.

I managed to find way to bring the MC's best friend back into the story. It would have been a problem if he had not been there when the MC leaves the city.

But I'm get dangerously close to the "plot horizon", the limit after which I have no idea what will happen, I need some new ideas or I'll be in trouble soon.

Good work and good luck to everyone!

Do you want a quick trick to help you get through a day's writing?

Write down five things that can next happen in your story. For instance:

1. Goes for walk in woods

2. Comes home to find house open

3. Goes to neighbor for help

4. Finds neighbor dead

5. Heads into the woods to hide

Now write 400 words for each of those little points. You'll have made your word count for the day. If you find that you make your word count total by #3 because what you're writing is more than you imagined, put #'s 4 and 5 on a list for tomorrow.

This kind of mini-outline is really flexible because you're never very far ahead of where you're working. Be sure to think in terms of description, too. Description can really help to fill out the story.

I started in the morning because I make no sense late at night; going OK but I think I'll be a rebel this year because what I'm doing is semi-autobiographical and isn't really a story either. Anyway, the rebel forum is a lot of fun. So far, so good, but am going to be away for a few days next week (bad) and a weekend is coming up, and my family tend to fight me for the computer.

Nice idea about the mini-outline.

Does anyone else find week 1 much harder than week 2?

I used zette's mini outlining technique to map out the thirty days of writing (read her PDF book off her site, great stuff). So far so good, it keeps me moving.

#29 --

Good! I hope it continues to help!

Some tips from the cheerleader as I wheel about carts of muffins and other pastries:

1. Early on, description is your friend.
a) Find a mirror and let your MC describe himself to the reader.
b) your scenes where the character finds themselves could also use lots of verbage to see what place the character is in.

2. It is still early, so this might be a desperation move right now: Kill a character. Seriously, you never know where the book will go when the MC's side kick, henchmen, or otherwise semi significant character drops dead.

3. (for a more adult oriented viewpoint) Write a love scene. Descriptions abound when the characters are enjoying the company of another.

And remember: This is a first draft. You can pull things out easier than having to put things in.

*passes over red bull to Storeetllr*
I can get introvenious versions for later in the month. But the company tells me the pieces are on back order for at least a week. :>

I wrote almost 800 words today describing a dog one of my MCs rescued from a shelter. I LOVE description during NaNo!

Yes, descriptions and dialogue. I write dialogue almost as fast as I can speak it (in my head). This includes inner dialogue. Rules of grammar and even punctuation can be tossed out the window when you write dialogue, depending on the person speaking and the situation (formal, informal, during a sensual encounter... ;)

Today I wrote only about 500 words, all of it descriptions I inserted into something I wrote last night which was barebones. That and some of what I hope is humorous dialogue to move the story along. I only wrote for about 45 mins, because I fell asleep on the sofa when I got home from work today. Exhausted from the week from hell.

*Raises can of Red Bull in thanks to gilroy.*

Gah I wish I could red bull my way through this! Don't think the baby bump would like it though...

I seemed to be on quite a roll last night - I'm up to 7,537 now and managed not to kill off anyone last night either (it's been a problem so far).

I'm up to 6850 and 9 students in our club. I don't know which is the better success!

I didn't do any yesterday but am up to 5938 overall and finding that it's going pretty well. So we'll see how tonight goes . . . but am enjoying this NaNo a lot so far.

Monday and Tuesday were okay, but I didn't so much as look at mine yesterday or the day before. Just over 2800 words so far today, though, so with any luck I shall be nearly back on track soon.

The 400 words my character spent deciding whether to use a fountain pen or a biro didn't hurt.

I had my middle schooler check through his schedule before he left home to make sure he had everything for his classes. Good thing he did or he would have gotten in trouble for forgetting his T-shirt for P.E.

I've kept up to my word requirements tonight, but it was a struggle. I think I wrote some properly awful narrative today :( Ah well... hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. Serves me right for trying to write it with an evil headache.

So, I'm watching an episode of "House" right now, and the dang episode gave me a wonderful scene idea. I guess I won't be waiting until nighttime to write like I usually do!

I am reading Jasper Fforde's A Well of Lost Plots, part of the Thursday Next series. In this book Thursday hides in an unpublished book and in this excerpt ponders how many day-to-day things never pop up in books. It occurred to me that these are just the things we can keep up our sleeve to insert into our novels where they need a little plumping.

Making one's home in an unpublished book wasn't without its complications. All the day-to-day mundanities that we conduct in the real world get in the way of narrative flow and are thus generally avoided. The car didn't need refueling, there were never any wrong numbers, there was always enough hot water, and vacuum cleaner bags only came in two sizes - upright and pull along. There were other, more subtle differences, too. For instance, no one ever needed to repeat themselves in case you didn't hear, no one shared the same name, talked at the same time or had the word annoyingly "on the tip of their tongue." Best of all, the bad guy was someone you always knew of, and - Chaucer aside - there wasn't much farting. But there were some downsides. The relative absence of breakfast was the first and most notable difference to my daily timetable. Inside books, dinners are most often written about and therefore feature frequently, as do lunches and afternoon tea: probably because they offer more opportunities to further the story.

Breakfast wasn't all that was missing. There was a peculiar lack of cinemas, wallpaper, toilets, colors, books, animals, underwear, smells, haircuts, and strangely enough, minor illnesses. If someone was ill in a book, it was terminal and dramatically unpleasant or a mild head cold - there wasn't much in between.

When I read this I knew I would have to include as many of these items as possible in my story.

ETA - It also made me think of how people on TV always find a parking place right in front of the place they are driving to.

Added another couple of thousand, bringing me to a total of 4723 words today and putting me back on target - but my novel is turning fluffy and morphing into something that looks horribly like chick lit. Which would be fine if that was what I was trying to write. But since it's not, I'm a tad peeved.

That'll teach me to think I have a plot outline worked out. The next few days could be ... interesting.

Mamzel - I love that quote. There are definitely some usable things there, and I am feeling a little smug that I have already written about my main character eating breakfast! And browsing through a library and appreciating the smell of melting butter, for that matter. Thursday Next obviously should have hidden inside a NaNo draft belonging to someone who's been padding their word count. :)

#41 This is great mamzel! Thanks for posting it.

I have broken my 12K target for this week but am now feeling a little burnt out. So I'm thinking I'll take a day off Sunday and hopefully launch myself back into it with renewed zeal on Monday.

I'm taking the weekend to catch up. I've only written 3,900 or so words so far ~ sadly behind most of you. Have a great weekend of writing, everyone ~ except LadyClare, who definitely deserves a day off!

BTW, catym ~ that comment of yours about Tuesday obviously not hiding out in NaNo novels made me laugh right out loud

Reading more of TWOLP makes me think that Thursday is probably very familiar with NaNoWriMo books. The Well is where books that never get finished or published end up. I think this could be the mascot book for this challenge!

Hey, all ~ final count for Week 1 is 7,084 words, I still don't have a plot to speak of, and NaNo Stats tells me that, if I continue to write at this pace, I will be finished on December 20.

Holla!

Isn't that annoying? -- I'm right on target but the official count shows me about one day short, so the counter predicts I'll finish in December. But I've got all the words there in my notebook, just not typed up yet. I guess I'm one of these people who shouldn't go near the stats -- they just stress me out.

Pressed some odd button that posted this before I was finished -- wonderful quote Mamzel -- I believe I'll go back and insert a few long breakfasts -- for the Americans writing, a bunch of people going out to breakfast is always a good source of dialogue and interesting new plot twists. To say nothing of decriptions of butter melting on the French toast....

I gave my main character a "minor illness." He got hit by a car and broke his leg. At least that gives me the opportunity to create a few more characters and a new venue. And more angst. Love that angst!

Getting hit by a car is a "minor illness"? What do you consider a serious illness? lol

I managed to write a tad over 1k today while being utterly bored at work. (Thank goodness my work is so laid back)

I'm starting to lose it! I have massive building issues going on and I haven't managed to do any for two days. Starting to get demoralised :(

Don't get discouraged, BekkaJo! Or, if you do, know that you are not alone! This is, after all, Week 2, traditionally the very most difficult week of all. Keep going, you'll get through it. To help you with it, come over to the Week 2 thread and share in the Week 2 woes with others. :)

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