Anyone doing Nanowrimo? -

[Pinkamena Diane Pie]

Since it was close to November, I needed to ask. Anyone willing this year?

 

[BOLDYSPICY!]

Not @Connor Bible .

 

[SpessCaptain]

I try but fail every year

 

[Silver]

I haven't done it since 2010. Part of me really wants to but I'm also applying for grad school and I'm not sure I'll be able to juggle NaNo with that and classes without getting overwhelmed.

Not that I have a lack of material; I've got a fanfic I'm slacking on that I'd love to put words to paper for with NaNo. I just don't know that I want to risk a burnout with other things.

 

[Ravenor]

Pardon my ignorance but what's Nanowrimo?

 

[Sanae Kochiya]

Pardon my ignorance but what's Nanowrimo?

National November Writing Month.

And yeah, I mentioned it to some other Kiwis off-site, but I'm gonna see if I'm literally insane enough to attempt it. I'll probably post what I do here in Art & Literature so you guys can see that I'm an even worse writer than Connor Bible!

 

[Evilboshe]

Tbh I've been thinking about trying. I tried to do it back in 2011, but that ended up being a really rough time in my life, and I didn't get very far. The only problem is I don't actually have any ideas for what to write. So I guess it'd be a dumb idea to try. I don't know.

 

[PacSol]

Tried a few times, never got anywhere. Maybe this is the year?

 

[SpessCaptain]

Re-alliterating I just found one of my NaNo ideas I was forming a few months back - I think I wrote it after a dream I had.

I worked on ten ideas, most being sci-fi, but this one stood out.

After the death of the protagonist's grandfather, the protagonist gains the property of a lighthouse in a small isolated village and a lighthouse, the protagonist finds the place to be a beacon to those lost at sea. The protagonist is visited by a young man who conceals a dark power.

Spppoooookky

 

[OfflineCyberBully]

I'm thinking about it. I've done NaNo a couple of times but never bothered to edit and submit whatever I wrote for those months. Perhaps this will be the year.

 

[Pinkamena Diane Pie]

National November Writing Month.

And yeah, I mentioned it to some other Kiwis off-site, but I'm gonna see if I'm literally insane enough to attempt it. I'll probably post what I do here in Art & Literature so you guys can see that I'm an even worse writer than Connor Bible!

I`m ten times worse. I come up with a vague idea but i can't run with it without an outline. I couldn't do nano for 3 years cause I didn't realize that until later. (I couldn't make a novel out of the ideas originally. However, I am reworking the old ones)

Now, I actually got a massive binder for a 3 book outline. I had everything squared but then the outline just had to change. Hence why I have perma binder.

Tried a few times, never got anywhere. Maybe this is the year?

Same. Sad thing was, my ideas weren't all that crappy

 

[Slurms McCorgi]

I took Shia LaBeouf's advice and finally decided to commit this year. My plots and characters are all on PurpleKecleon levels of originality, but that's what first novels are for...right...?

 

[Pope Gregory IX]

Oooh thanks for the reminder. To quote every miscer ever, I'm IN.

 

[P.A]

I've done it twice before, succeeded both times, but only in the word count sense. The first time, I at least had sort of an idea of what to do, even though the whole thing ended up making little sense at the end. The second time, I literally just made shit up as I went along, right from the beginning, and it was an absolute chore to get through.

More power to ya guys if you're doing this, but I don't think I have the patience to power through this shit a third time.

 

[Pinkamena Diane Pie]

Oooh thanks for the reminder. To quote every miscer ever, I'm IN.

I hope your better than me at this lol.

I took Shia LaBeouf's advice and finally decided to commit this year. My plots and characters are all on PurpleKecleon levels of originality, but that's what first novels are for...right...?

Meh, mine are special snowflakes, at least in certain aspects. (Each can claim they have a mental illness. I swear to god I didn't mean to make one of the characters sound like someone with BPD. The only character that I planned to make have any illness, at least main character, would be FMC1. Turn out the whole family is screwy AND FMC1's best creepy friend.)

 

[Ace_Reloaded]

This will actually be the first year in a long time that I haven't done it. Things are just too crazy rn and I have no plot at all. It feels weird not to be participating at all so I'm planning to edit an old story next month instead. No word count goal, just the challenge to re-write my way out of the plot hole/dead end that it turned into.

 

[Slurms McCorgi]

Spoiler: pep talk thing

Happy NaNoWriMo, Writers!

Writing stories is hard work. Don’t let your friends or family tell you any different. From the outside, it looks like sporadic tapping on the keyboard, distracted sips of coffee, and long stares out the window. But inside, you’re wrestling demons.

You’re about to bring a new story into the world, which is both incredible and incredibly important.

Why are stories important? Writing coach Brian McDonald says that stories are our most efficient carriers of survival information. (If you’re not familiar with Brian McDonald, you need to get familiar. Pick up his book Invisible Ink at your local independent bookstore!) A good story can mean the difference between life and death for a reader—usually the death is spiritual rather than literal, but spiritual deaths can be just as painful and just as consuming. Storytelling is a part of every human culture because every human needs survival information.

As you set out to do this incredible, important thing, I’m going to share a few lessons I’ve learned on my journey, lessons you might find useful for yours.

Work on your factory.

When the folks at Toyota design a new car, they don’t just design the car itself. They also design the factory that builds the car.

You need to think the same way. When you write a novel, you’re not just working on the novel itself. You’re also working on the novel-building factory: your life. You have to create a life that is conducive to writing. That means scheduling regular time to write. Weekly is okay, daily is better. Writing must become a habit. If something gets in the way of your writing habit, seriously consider cutting it out of your life. You have to write even when you don’t feel like it simply because it’s what the factory does.

By being a part of NaNoWriMo, you’re setting aside a month to make a state-of-the-art, novel-building factory. Get to it.

Fight writer’s block with research.

Writer’s block can kick the wind right out of you. When I was just starting out, a serious bout of writer’s block would make me question my worth as a writer. Maybe the ideas weren’t coming because I wasn’t creative enough, or clever enough. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a writer.

Now I realize that I just didn’t have enough input. Your brain doesn’t generate ideas out of thin air. It generates ideas by taking what it’s already experienced and reshaping it in new and interesting ways. If you’re not getting good output, maybe it’s because you haven’t taken in enough input.

When writer’s block hits, do research. Flip through old photographs. Watch a documentary. Read a nonfiction book, preferably one that’s been out of print for years. Visit a place you’ve never been and talk to people you don’t know. Gather input.

Embrace your day job.

Most writers have day jobs because most writers need day jobs to pay their bills. There’s no shame in that.

Some writers even like their day jobs. I certainly did. I left my day job this past June. I’d been a high school computer science teacher for seventeen years and honestly, I miss it. I miss my students and my co-workers. I miss having to put on pants to go to work.

And I miss the inspiration I got from being on campus. My day job was research—story ideas were in the halls, in my conversations with the other teachers, in the morning announcements over the intercom.

I’m guessing ideas are all over the place at your day job, too.

Tell Fear to shut up, at least in the beginning.

Fear is my main demon, my big boss at the end of the last level. When I’m writing, Fear tells me I’m getting things wrong. And sometimes Fear is right.

I’ve learned to power through it. Fear will always be there, a constant companion, a backseat driver who won’t get out of the car. I have to turn up the radio and go.

After I get to the end of my first draft, I let Fear have its say. Like I said before, sometimes it’s right. I try to get a friend I trust to corroborate Fear’s concerns, so I can figure out how to approach my revision. But before then, Fear needs to shut the eff up.

Find a community.

When I first started writing and drawing comics in the mid-90’s, I found a small community of cartoonists who all lived near me. We used to get together once a week to write, draw, critique, and talk shop.

Today, almost all of us have been published. I count some of them among my closest friends. I learned both the art and the business of story through that community. Writing can be lonely and individualistic. Narcissistic, even. All the more reason to seek out a community.

The best part of National Novel Writing Month is that my last bit of advice is built right in. Even when you’re alone, tapping away at your keyboard in the dead of night while the rest of your family sleeps off their turkey coma, you know for a fact that there are hundreds of thousands of writers out there doing the exact same thing you’re doing: wrestling demons.

So let’s get ready to rumble!

Gene Luen Yang

P.S. Just so you know, when it’s you versus demons, I put my money on you every time.



Gene Luen Yang is an author and artist whose graphic novels include American Born Chinese, Boxers & Saints, and The Shadow Hero.

Link to this or read more author pep talks.

 

[Pinkamena Diane Pie]

Mine will be so bad.

 

[Evilboshe]

I still have no words and no ideas. Got a ton of homework and tests this week, which makes it hard, plus some of my college apps are due this month.

I still have the goal of getting further than I did in 2011, which was about 4 pages, so that should definitely be doable, if pathetic.

 

[Golly]

I'm going to actually give it a half-assed whirl this year. I know I won't make the word count considering how spotty my approach is, but it's as good an excuse as any to buckle down and see how things go.