Thread: NaNoWriMo

Ugh. I partied a lot last night so my beginning is crappy "hang over" writing. But that's okay, I'm sure it'll get progressively worse as the days go by About time to head to my kick off party!

Cheers,
Linz

Finished about 4,200 words before I went to bed at about 3:30 this morning. Haven't written anything else, but I did get to go to my regional meeting/get-together. Got to see some new faces, it was awesome.

Now, I think I'm going to go burn the War Path once again.

Hope everyone haven't gone completely insane yet.

~Rodney

Here it just ended the first day, and I wrote about 2400 words.
I'm kinda new to this so I'm leading the characters with caution. I see what Kidstaple meant there, one of my characters already started acting rebellious, and I don't want to give much power to them just yet.
I think if I can keep this writing pace through the month I'll be fine.

Well, I was pleased with my first chapter, more or less, but I do believe my second chapter is turning out to be shit.

Originally Posted by Tiamat10

Well, I was pleased with my first chapter, more or less, but I do believe my second chapter is turning out to be shit.

I know how you feel, although right now, after going back through and editing my first chapter (I know, I shouldn't of had, but if I didn't there would still be a voice in the back of my head calling me very, very bad names.) I am pleasently surprised to find that I am happy with them both.

~Rodney

That might happen if I were to read them over. But I'm not going to do that. I'll just keep making notes of things I think of and chugging on.

What I want to know is if the Nano site is going to be this slow the whole month or if it's just this way at the beginning. (I think someone mentioned that already but I couldn't find it when I looked earlier.) Any help, Nano veterans?

Originally Posted by Tiamat10

That might happen if I were to read them over. But I'm not going to do that. I'll just keep making notes of things I think of and chugging on.

What I want to know is if the Nano site is going to be this slow the whole month or if it's just this way at the beginning. (I think someone mentioned that already but I couldn't find it when I looked earlier.) Any help, Nano veterans?

I was told earlier today at my local region meeting for NaNo, that it has been like this for the last few years. They're never prepared for the large increase in first year writers, (Such as yours truly) that flood the website and slow it down. Supposedly, this normal.

~Rodney

That's kind of what I figured. Thanks.

Yep. Anytime.

~Rodney

It'll pick up, Tiamat. The forums begin to load faster as people start to focus on actual novel-writing instead of novel-planning. They also move faster because a lot of people quit during the first two weeks.

I'm off to a respectable start. Nothing snazzy or showy--3740 words--but more than the 3334/day I need to reach the 100k goal.

EDIT: Umm, actually, kidstaple, if you read the reports from Chris Baty, they do estimate the number of new people flocking to NaNoWriMo each year (they were within 5k on estimates this year) and upgrade the servers. It's normal for the boards to be slow, yes, but it'll only get better if more people donate. It's a non-profit organization, and so they're dealing with limited funds. Considering there have been over 1000 members and 2-3000 guests online at any given time in the last week, I think they do alright.

Is the site actually down? I can't even get it to come up....

So I've come up with a strategy which may or may not work. Since I am an editing nazi, I am saving my story by days. So my first document is "November 1st" and the next day and so on. I am not allowed to open any documents previous to one day before the present document. So once I've reached day 3, day 1 will no longer be accessible to me. That way I can still read up on one day to get jiving for the next, but I won't be able to obsessively rifle through previous days and chapters trying to "get it right." We'll see how it goes...

I'm at 1,700 words and counting. Doing a little writing before I ship off to bed.

How do you get your word count on the NaNo site?

It won't let me upload anything. I want to see my little bar change colors.

I've spent (wasted) an hour trying to get 2 little chapters uploaded, and it won't let me copy them.

What am I doing wrong?? Anybody? Please? Bueller?

Not that this will likely be of much comfort to you, but I can't do it either. I can't click on the box where I'm supposed to paste it. It's disabled. I figure it's a problem on my end, but damned if I know what.

I haven't even tried. The stuff can sit on the cd and on my hard drive until the site slows down enough to post. Really, for the amount of money they already have from donations, a server overload is inexcusable. That part of things is disappointing, but whatever. Reality is what it is. I'm at a little over 4000 words and refusing to look back. I have a growing stack of printouts that I'll look at maybe early next week.

edit: Just took a look at the setup.

Originally Posted by PSFoster

How do you get your word count on the NaNo site?

It won't let me upload anything. I want to see my little bar change colors.

I've spent (wasted) an hour trying to get 2 little chapters uploaded, and it won't let me copy them.

What am I doing wrong?? Anybody? Please? Bueller?

Go to the novel info:edit page. Way down at the bottom of the page is the entry box for "novel excerpt". I just threw my title, byline, and a chapter heading in there.
The wordcount validator box doesn't seem to be working though, you're right about that. The FAQ says that they'll post step-by-step directions in mid-November...ah, here's the answer, from CelestialWolf in the forums:

The Word Count Validator field in your profile, not word count, is by design grayed out until Nov 25. At that time it will be opened so people can validate that they've reached their 50k mark. Until then, you'll be typing in your number manually in the Word Count field just above it as well as the the the Word Count field on the site's header (when it's fixed on Sat sometime). This is completely normal and happens every year.

I now have 11 words counted

Ooooh. That's easy. Gosh, how dumb am I for not figuring that out lol. Thanks.