It's October, in case you weren't paying attention. Which means in less than a month it will be November (keep up!) Which means a number of authors and hundreds of thousands of insane people all over the world are going to once again attempt to write 50,000 words of a thing in the space of 30 days.
Are you insane? Do you have ideas hot off the steamy coals of your imagination? Have you been "writing" a "novel" since you were fifteen which is still mostly in the abstract brainstorming phase? Do you hate yourself and need a new method for causing yourself suffering? Well then NaNoWriMo may be the thing for you!
For anyone who doesn't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's actually international, and you don't have to write a novel, but the month bit is accurate at least. The goal is simple: write 50,000 words of atrocious grammar and shoddy punctuation between Nov 1st and Dec 1st. That's an average of 1,667 brain melting words a day. It's a rollercoaster of emotion soaring over an ocean of coffee and tears. The great part is if you lose it doesn't matter and nobody cares, and if you win you have a crummy novel and can also get some neat things from the sponsors.
Here is the official website where you can sign up and throw your metaphorical hat into the metaphorical ring. There are forums there for many different regions around the world so potentially you can talk to, and even meet up with, people doing NaNo in your local area. Fair warning: they may be weirdos.
Here are some helpful things that I came up with all by myself and totally didn't steal from Fearghaill's last NaNo thread, which he totally didn't steal from Quoth:
So, yeah. Are any SE++ers planning to NaNo this year? It's still three weeks away but I thought if we had the thread now while there was planning time it would spur people to give it a go.
I wasn't going to do it. Now I'm thinking I will probably at least start. I just signed into my NaNo account for the first time since last year and apparently I won last year? It says I got 50,200 words. I was pretty sure I lost! So now I need to try and find my story from last year and see just what the hell I actually wrote.
Are you insane? Do you have ideas hot off the steamy coals of your imagination? Have you been "writing" a "novel" since you were fifteen which is still mostly in the abstract brainstorming phase? Do you hate yourself and need a new method for causing yourself suffering? Well then NaNoWriMo may be the thing for you!
For anyone who doesn't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's actually international, and you don't have to write a novel, but the month bit is accurate at least. The goal is simple: write 50,000 words of atrocious grammar and shoddy punctuation between Nov 1st and Dec 1st. That's an average of 1,667 brain melting words a day. It's a rollercoaster of emotion soaring over an ocean of coffee and tears. The great part is if you lose it doesn't matter and nobody cares, and if you win you have a crummy novel and can also get some neat things from the sponsors.
Here is the official website where you can sign up and throw your metaphorical hat into the metaphorical ring. There are forums there for many different regions around the world so potentially you can talk to, and even meet up with, people doing NaNo in your local area. Fair warning: they may be weirdos.
Here are some helpful things that I came up with all by myself and totally didn't steal from Fearghaill's last NaNo thread, which he totally didn't steal from Quoth:
Seven Steps to the Perfect Story: http://www.the-cma.com/news/seven-steps-to-the-perfect-story
NaNoWriMo Blog: http://blog.nanowrimo.org/
NaNoWriMo Forums: http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums
NaNoWriMo Forums – Writing 101: http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101
The Snowflake Method: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php
Worldbuilding Questions: http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/
The Art of Dramatic Writing – Premise: http://www.writerswrite.com/fiction/egri.htm
Jim Butcher – Story Skeletons: http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/1308.html
The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot: http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/dent.html
How to write a novel in three days: http://www.wetasphalt.com/content/how-write-book-three-days-lessons-michael-moorcock
Fun plot generator: http://fictiongen.inky.me/
Writing.com’s NaNoWriMo prep calendar: http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1998261-October-Nano-Prep-2014-Calendar
A map to get out of writer’s block: http://nybookeditors.com/book-editing-copy-editing-proofreading-self-publishing-blog/2013/3/12/a-map-to-get-out-of-writers-block#sthash.AuWOZpt7.dpbs
Jeff VanderMeer’s Wonderbook site: http://wonderbooknow.com/
Stephen King on imagery: http://www.wordplayer.com/pros/pr13.King.Stephen.html
The Emotion Thesauraus: http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/p/the-emotion-thesaurus.html
Stuff from Chuck Wendig’s blog, which is generally NSFW due to saucy language:
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/09/25/25-things-you-should-do-before-starting-your-next-novel/
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/01/17/25-things-writers-should-start-doing/
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/05/14/25-things-you-should-know-about-outlining/
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/09/14/25-ways-to-plot-plan-and-prep-your-story/
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/11/27/how-chuck-wendig-writes-a-novel/
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/10/08/welcome-to-nanowrimo-prep-school-word-nerds/
A massive conglomeration of random characters, premises, generators and challenges for the folks who need some inspiration: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13xS8Klc7HdTI5vC2nisrys_ixQgh6sp0d5Szq4TUJ5g/edit?usp=sharing
So, yeah. Are any SE++ers planning to NaNo this year? It's still three weeks away but I thought if we had the thread now while there was planning time it would spur people to give it a go.
I wasn't going to do it. Now I'm thinking I will probably at least start. I just signed into my NaNo account for the first time since last year and apparently I won last year? It says I got 50,200 words. I was pretty sure I lost! So now I need to try and find my story from last year and see just what the hell I actually wrote.