Thread: YAAAY!! Who's doing it this year?

<----- Katastrof

Aight, K, I'm adding you too.

Originally Posted by Selorian

Writingforums.com Group on the NaNo forums.

Just a reminder, folks. Let's hear about your novels!

My novel is a future dystopia, where an catastrophic climate change has decimated the human population and destroyed much of our infrastructure. The affluent and rich barracaded themselves within "Supercities" and enjoy rudimentary technologies. They also hoarde the books, texts, and knowledge of the past, barring the "Outside World" from reaping the benefits of this knowledge. After hundreds of years, the Supercities become heavily inbred and their culture has stagnated, instilling a heightened sense of paranoia about the outside world. Isolation is complete, but for one group of traders they contract with to go into the outside world and gather spices and resources that are unavailable due to their isolation. But isolation cannot exist in peace. The Supercities are constantly attacked by rebelling forces on the outside, forces who demand the dissemination of knowledge and equal access to the resources that those inside enjoy. To protect themselves the Supercity, Niahera, contracts with the vigilante scourage of the outside world, a band of Raiders, who rule with an iron fist of violence and exploitation.

But when Hadi, renowned for his ability to procure everything Citizens need, stumbles across an enslaved woman and decides to bring her back to Niahera, everything begins to change. The Head Senator is passing on his rule to Fadia, the youngest member of the Senate, and she has a new vision for the future of Niahera: the unification of the Supercities and the return of power to the Outside. But they cannot do it alone. The Outsider, Aisha now stands in the chasm between the civilized world and the fringes of humanity.

....or something like that

My novel, working-titled Milk, is also dystopian, though it is the near-future variety. I'm attempting to do with the insurance industry and certain medical fields the same type of extrapolation/satirization that John Brunner did with overpopulation (Stand On Zanzibar), environmental contamination (The Sheep Look Up), and that C.M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl did with advertising (The Space Merchants).
The story concerns one Tim Searcy, who receives an email asking him to appear at a clinic to have himself scanned, at the behest of his primary insurer. The purpose of this scan is to record the nature of his genome. Tim doesn't understand that the results of this scan can and will be used to deny him benefits in many cases, along with many of the other insureds. When benefits start to become denied, the legal profession gets involved.
During the course of these proceedings, it is revealed that one of the main pharmaceutical houses has developed several "miracle" drugs that were synthesized from chemicals secreted by ants, amazingly resistant to bacilli and viral contagions, and have been distributing these cure-alls to the uber-rich and influential.
At this point, the Grey Panthers begin to riot...their numbers have increased to the point that they're a political power, and they're a tad upset at their benefits being cut down a bit more every presidential term. When it turns out that the same R&D firm that developed the "Ant Milk" also has a line on anti-agathics, things begin to get really interesting.
All of this except for the email and Tim's office visit take place offstage-Tim watches it on 3V. It isn't until he himself is denied benefits that Tim decides to get involved, as the costs involved with his short hospital stay would bankrupt a small country.
Mild-mannered couch potato Tim becomes a wild-eyed revolutionary...though of course he's still a tool.
That's enough for starters. You can read the rest after about November 6th

Some really cool news for last years winners:

Dear NaNoWriMo 2007 Winner,

Last November, you and those typing fingers of yours did something amazing. And while you were busy bashing out your novel, we were frantically trying to line up a prize worthy of your feat.

Our goal was to find a self publishing company who would give every NaNo winner a free copy of his or her winning manuscript in paperback book form. It's taken us until now, but we've finally found them.

CreateSpace, an Amazon.com Inc. owned company, is generously offering every NaNoWriMo 2007 winner a "free proof copy" of their 2007 manuscript. What this means: A free proof copy of your manuscript in paperback book form–just by following the instructions below. They'll even cover the costs of basic shipping to you.


It's good for six months from today. Here's how you go about using it:

[instructions omitted]

NaNo did something similar in '04 with Lulu.com, but the sheer volume and cost was too much for the company and they didn't offer it to winners outside of the US in following years, which left me out.

I have the proof copy from my first year, and I'll definitely be taking advantage of this prize!

Hopefully they'll be offering something similar for this year's winners. Something to keep in mind in week 2 (notoriously the most difficult week during NaNo).

A little digging turned up this for this year's participants:

Get your novel in print and on the market in just a few short weeks! CreateSpace provides free self-publishing tools, which enable authors, like you, to self-publish and sell your book on Amazon.com and other channels - no setup fees and no inventory needed. As a 2008 winner of NaNoWriMo, you will be eligible to receive a free proof copy of your trade paperback book. Details will be posted here and on the "I Wrote a Novel, Now What?" page on December 1.

No promises, but there ya go.

Looks pretty good. CreateSpace has been advertising on MySpace for a few months and I keep forgetting to look into them. Amazon has a lot of interesting things developing for writers and musicians. Another notable effort is SoundUnwound, which is done in conjunction with imdb. Like a wiki database for bands and solo artists.

My novel is about a seemingly cold-hearted assassin that gets himself caught in a war between two guilds... One of these guilds procure a summoning book that holds secrets of black magic. The assassin has to take down an obsessed guild member that has unlocked the secrets. At the end, the killer takes interest and uses the book himself. He makes a deal with a demon in exchange for black magic powers, in exchange for a life.

But he was not told how many lives.

When the assassin is instructed to kill children, he refuses, and the demon possesses him. For a couple months, he is controlled against his will, until a cleric finds out about the possession. He drives the demon's spirit out. In the following battle, the demon destroys the cleric, but the cleric also banishes him.

The cleric's daugher, a fledgling priestess, nurses the assassin back to health, in body and soul. Then they quest out to take down that demon, even if it means descending into the depths of Hell.

My story is about an 11 year old boy who is sexually abused until he is 15, and how it affects his teen years. I hope. Working title: Lost Innocence

My story is about a boy trying to adjust to life in a detention centre. He gets involved in helping out the gardener in an attempt to be released back into foster care. However, he starts uncovering some of the mystery surrounding certain disappearances and a murder. He figures the only way he help is to become one of the gang he suspects is responsible. Hopefully it's psychological, but it involves some urban fantasy as well

This is pretty cool. I had no idea that this even existed until I saw this section of the forum. I'm already 15,000 words into my first novel so won't do it this year (probably too late anyway) and since it's my first I'm a little tentative and want to take my time, but I'm definitely interested in doing this in the future.

I'm a really slow writer anyway and I'm a notorious procrastinator who does well in crunch time, so I think this will be really good for me. If I finish my novel by next October you'll be hearing from me.

Well, good luck with your 1st novel. I'm already mulling next year's project.

Originally Posted by moderan

Well, good luck with your 1st novel. I'm already mulling next year's project.

Still the show-off!!

Wait, how does a person go about winning NaNoWriMo? Make it to 50,000 words or more? I'm confused. (Granted it doesn't take much to make me confused.)

~Rodney