Thread: Looking forward to 2011

This November is going to be my first time doing the NaNo contest. Can anybody tell me what to expect?(other than people calling my crazy for trying to write 50,000 words in one month.)

It isn't crazy, it's actually rather easy to do. Just break the 50,000 words down into smaller sections. It boils down to @1500/day. That isn't so much. It's just getting yourself to DO that makes it hard.
I've entered (and successfully finished) three NaNoWriMo events. And I'm such a procrastinator that my second novel took 20 years to complete. My third nanonovel is now over 600,000 words, most of which will end up on the cutting-room floor if I decide it's a viable property and do an edit.
Plenty of people from this forum will be along for the ride...we usually have a little group where we can all huddle together. There will be coffee *chuckles* Some of the other folks (like the dude what heads up this section) are experienced, and even published, novelists.
Didn't do nano last year cuz I didn't have the time. Planning to this year-in fact I need to finish my current novel to make room for the new set of ideas and misconceptions that cause a long-form piece of prose to happen.
Best of luck to you.

Done it once, loved it, and may be doing it again this year. It's not really crazy, as Moderan suggests. 50,000 words in a month is very doable. To be precise, it's 1,650 words a day.

Expect at least two to three (maybe more) hours' worth of writing every day. Try not to slack on the days where you can't think what to write. 1,650 is your goal, but if you can make 2,000 it'll only help in the run-in.

And good luck.

Right after I completed NaNoWriMo this year, I blogged what I'd learned. First and foremost, there is no room for perfectionism in your initial draft. Pound out the words. I was shocked to find out that I could write 500 words in about 15 minutes if I focused totally and didn't let myself off the hook.

If you're interested in reading what else I've learned from the experience, go HERE.

Nice one. I'm thinking of going in the children's book direction...weird, huh? But it'll be Norton Juster/Dr. Seuss territory, I'm sure. We'll see how that works out-I have a lot of unfinished ideas.

So far I have three ideas fighting it out for supremacy. A cyberpunky idea, a modern fantasy, and a story for girls about my oldest's age.

Another thing I'm considering is working with a biggest-game hunter, not awful dissimilar to the mc in Zelazny's The Doors..., and putting him into the Carcosa setting from my last nanonovel. I'm just thinking that superimposing some sort of quest over the main story of the man from earth becoming this hideous rocklike, almost completely sessile creature might give the thing some weight and thrust. The time-sense of the character is really problematical though. It lives a REALLY LONG TIME (eons), so events don't move terribly quickly on Carcosa, a frozen gas giant that revolves around Antares....
As you can probably tell, I have it pretty well-thought-out, but I dunno if I'm up for something that heavy/inventive and might settle for 12-year-old-ish wordplay.