Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related NaNoWriMo Party Thread

Is anybody else having problems accessing the nanowrimo.org page? I haven't been able to open it all afternoon.

It's quiet in here! Anybody else having motivational problems? So far I did write every day but lately I don't even start till 11 pm and then I just do it to get the word count up.

No sure if I have any motivation tonight to even open the document. I can't stay up late because I am heading to Whistler tomorrow and want to leave early...

Any words of encouragement?

Natascha

PS. I kicked myself in the behind and wrote another 1,000 words tonight. Off to bed now that I have earned my right to sleep. <g>

Go Tascha!

I wrote all of 108 words yesterday :p . That was either on my iPhone or Google docs at school. Was just one of those days and I'm afraid today is going to be as well. I have a ton of laundry to fold and a kitchen to clean and 4 kids to take to get their H1N1 vaccines and... /sigh/

And the stinkin' characters [the bad guy ex mainly - not a Lex type bad guy, more a Lana type bad guy] did something about 3 weeks [and 3-4 chapters] before I wanted him to /more sighs/.

Am moving the rest of my info from my old laptop to my new one at the moment. Then need to clean the LR, fold those clothes and then maybe I can write for a bit. I could do the dishes while the kids eat lunch. I have about 2.5 hours before I need to leave. We'll see what I can get done in that time... /sigh/

Only two weeks to go! Who is still with us?

Thanks to Laura's help with my picture I now I have a tentative book cover. You can find it here:
One Day at a Time

I needed an incentive to keep writing and it seems to work.
I will never catch up to Carol but I am proud of my progress.

Natascha

Nice!

I don't even have a title, much less a cover! Though I have thought about trying to find a couple of kids with at least sort of the right looks to take some pics of but... None of my kids fit the bill so... Well, one did until last spring when I had her hair cut... Maybe I can find a picture of her from last spring... Though the story is mostly about the girl after she grows up...

Anyway...

Go Tascha!!! I love the pic!

Think I'm done writing for today though. Hopefully tomorrow...

Crossed the 31,000 word mark tonight!

Now I know why people say to let your characters do something totally unexpected. Mine just baked a cake! I could even use some LnC references for that occasion. It was pretty funny.

Still no clue how to tie it all together but I guess I can still do that in December as long as I reach that word count.

Go Tascha!

It's amazing how little control we really have over our characters isn't it ?

I hit the 40K mark tonight. I would LOVE to have it done this week but am way behind on my betaing and know I will have little brain power tomorrow. Probably enough to beta but not enough to be creative if that makes sense. I'm thinking the whole novel will be a total of about 52-55k words so not too much past the goal of 50K. I'm on the downslope and they keep wanting to say something about how they feel but I've managed to keep them from doing that so far [random power outage as one of them opened his mouth for instance ]. Need them to hold off for another chapter or two.

Tomorrow, I do want to finish the chapter I'm on [about half done] and would LOVE to get another one done, but...

Current official count: 40312

Edit: Guess this didn't post last night...

Ugh.

A friend of a friend has hit 50K. She's 'won'.

However, I happen to know that she had 20K before the month even started and she wants to finish the novel. Well, technically, that's against the rules. To 'win' Nano, officially, it has to be all new. In the grand scheme of whether you can tell others you 'won' or not, I'm perfectly okay with working on a WiP as long as you ONLY count NEW words.

But the thing is... She did not. She counted the 20K towards her total of 50K. It's really kind of annoying me. I really wanted to beat her, fair and square, as I had nothing written on Nov. 1, but when I saw her at 48992 yesterday I knew she'd beat me.

Yes, I'll reach 50K new words before she does, but for some inexplicable reason it's rubbing me the wrong way.

Last year, I did write part of OTOH and counted it towards my total word count but NOT until AFTER I wrote nearly 80K on Unanswered Prayers [which was entirely new] - it didn't count towards my initial 50K.

All that said... I'm over 41K right now . Outline has prologue, 26 chapters, epilogue. I am currently about 300 words into Chapter 21 [goal for each chapter is 1800 or so]. Of course, we all know how my outlines can be way shorter than what it will eventually turn out to be [once I finally sat down and outlined the rest of OTOH, when I was on about chapter 80 or so, I had 125 chapters outlined - when I finished it was 145 [and then I added 3 more to the archive version] - so there's not telling how long it will end up being :p .

Anyway... Had to vent my frustrations . Never mind that this lady is retired, while I have a 2, 4, 6, 8yo and am working 3 days a week [plus schoolwork at home - though I'm way ahead on that]. Am hoping to do another miniwrite in [or go to the one with the folks from my area] on Saturday and finish this puppy up on Saturday if I don't get it done tomorrow .

Thanks for letting me vent! Because you know you had a choice =D.

Carol

Don't forget... if you 'win' you get a FREE proof copy of your book!

If you choose the cheapest shipping, my understanding is that it is free anywhere in the world .

Check it out.

Carol

I just signed my 8yo up for the Young Writer's Program. I know it's late in the month but she has a project she's been writing for several weeks. She MAY have started it in October but I'm not sure. I don't think so. She's writing a chapter book about a bird family and the new baby brother .

She's even illustrating it!

As a 2nd grader, her word count goal is only 2000 words and while she's not home so I can't look at her notebook, it would surprise me if she's not close to halfway there already.

She loves to read and write and I'm going to talk to her as soon as she gets home about whether or not she wants to do it. If so, she gets to go with me tonight when I go to a local restaurant and have my own mini-writein [though she may get brought home early as I'm planning on staying till 10 =D - or I could bring an extra laptop, a movie and headphones for her if she gets tired of writing]. She doesn't type but as I should be done in the next couple of days, typing it up for her real quick shouldn't be much of an issue. You can enter your word count manually but you only get the cool prizes if you validate with their validator and for that it must be typed.

She could even get a free copy of her book too . And I could set it to sell on Amazon . Okay, probably not, but I could get a few copies for grandmas and grandpas for Christmas!

Anyway... I'm off to write for about 40m before she gets home, then clean the LR, then make dinner etc, then go to my own little write in .

Well, she had about 500 words when she got home.

She now has 897!!

I am so proud of her!

We went to a local restaurant [not fast food but not sit down either] and stayed for about 3-3.5 hours. She wrote about 20% of her goal for the MONTH. That's like 10K for us! I wrote about 4K today total but only about 1600 while sitting there [for a variety of reasons].

And now... bedtime .

Go Carol! You are sooooo close! And your daughter is awesome too! Congratulations.

I should be writing now and I am wiped after packing and cleaning all day. It is only 5:45 here but feels much later! Heading back over the Rockies tomorrow since I couldn't find a job here either. That means I will be on the road for the next two days. Let just hope the road conditions aren't bad...

Maybe I should take a power nap now and continue writing later?

BTW, I too think that your friend was cheating! How uncool is that? Would bug me too.

Yes, it would be great to get a free copy of the book, which is one reason why I am already designing covers.

Natascha who needs 15,372 more words

I'm doing NaNo for the second year. I wrote a romance last year and it got requested and rejected by Harlequin. Great experience though.

This year I'm doing more of a women's fiction. I'm currently at 45000 words. This rough draft will be much rougher than last year's. I have written chapters out of sequence and I know I have contradictions and discrepancies. But that's what the revision process is for.

I feel your pain, Carol, about the woman who counted the 20K she already had written. But she's only fooling herself and you know you've written all of your story during November.

Yay Tasha! Keep going!

We can all celebrate together when (not if) we win!

YAY!

I hit 50K last night! And I finished the book to boot!

Okay - still just a rough draft and I know, like Marilyn, that there's inconsistencies and stuff [like I changed one guy's job halfway through, etc], but it's a ROUGH draft.

I also started the sequel last night. The sequel is what I set out to write in the first place and then a friend convinced me that no, I had to write this one first. Which kinda stinks as I like my female romantic lead from the first one and she sort of um, dies, before the second one. Before she was just the guy's late wife, you know?

Makes me almost want to not write it. ALMOST .

DD8 wrote with me for a while yesterday. Not as much as she did the other night but she's at 1375 out of her 2000 word goal. She can so do this! That's closing in on 70% done . Next year, we'll do it right and plot it out and all that. Am sure my now-6yo will want to give it a shot too but at this point in first grade... Writing isn't their thing yet - in fact the minimum goal for a 1st grader is only 300 words. I'm not sure why - maybe because they don't write much yet? I'd think it would be a lot of transcribing on my part - or rather dictating on her part you know?

I'm so proud of DD8!!!!!!

Have a sick 6yo home today - just sick enough to not be at school not sick enough to be glad she's not at school :p .

I really want to get a good start on the next one. I've got a week... let's see what I can manage... And if I can actually manage to convince myself that I'm insane enough to submit it to publishers someday...

Woohoo! I just passed the 40,000 word mark! And that's despite driving more than 700 miles in two days and very little sleep these past two nights.

I am back in Alberta with my brother and at least here I won't have to worry about coming up with the rent money for next month. That's a relief.

Congratulations Carol for finishing (even if it is just the rough draft). You did it!

Go Marilyn, I am rooting for you too! I would like to add you as a writing buddy but can't find you on nanowrimo.

7 days to go and I still have so many loose ends and no idea how to time them up. Where should she meet her future-husband? At her new office? Could he be the electrician? Too many choices and I can never decide. ;P

Carol, I can totally understand about having to go back for revision. I am pretty sure I keep using wrong names all the time because I can't remember the ones I used! Pathetic!

Natascha (who is not giving up)

Natascha - there is no rule that it HAS to be done in 50K words. That's just what it takes to 'win'. And you've done great given everything else!!!! Go you!

A discussion in IRC just now seems to indicate that once you get past Harlequin/Mills and Boon etc., books tend to be much longer anyway [which is a bit depressing as mine finished up at about 51.5K - while I'm sure it's going to be a bit longer once I'm done and do a better job describing things [like a skirt and nice sweater needs a bit more ], but it' still not going to be LONG. But the story is done. To try to stretch it out would destroy it I think. IF something comes to me in the editing process, great. If not, oh well.

I did get the prologue and first chapter of the sequel finished tonight. My DD8 is up to 1462 of 2000 .

Ugh - am feeling like blech so am going to bed...

Just passed 45,000! I am babysitting my very active 11 months old niece tomorrow who doesn't like to take naps anymore, so we will see if I get anything done then. If I could get her to take a nap, chances are I might reach the goal tomorrow. But I wouldn't be surprised if this project ended up being closer to 60k.

Does anyone here know anything about a company opening an office abroad? The legal ramifications must be complex and I have just been skimming over it. Maybe my character should have taken them up on the franchise idea instead of becoming employed by the company and expanding to another country...

Off to bed now.

Happy Thanksgiving to all American FoLCs. Enjoy the turkey and sent left overs my way, please! I especially love gravy!

Natascha

Just past 25K last night. On the one hand, I know I'm probably not going to win this time (my 3rd year writing L&C fanfic novels). On the other hand, I'm going down kicking and screaming. This is the first year that James isn't writing with me and it makes all of the difference in the world. I've also had out-of-town company for more than a week. James' Dad will be staying with us until Sunday and my Dad will be in town (he spent a week in my house and now he's at my sister's) until December 3.

Both of my kiddos are set to win young writer's program nanos. I'm proud of watching their growth over the last several years. This is the first year they haven't dictated everything but have instead started each day by writing on paper. While that may not seem like a big deal it is to my LD daughter.

In the past I've also always won Nano but not actually finished the book. (Translation, more than 50K words but not at the end of the story) This time I'd like to see it all of the way through.

Anyway, I logged onto the boards just to congratulate Carol since I noticed yesterday that she finished. Well done, sista!


Elisabeth

BTW, Natascha, since practically nobody knows international law it's okay to make up your own. This is just fiction after all.

Elisabeth -

How old are your girls again? My 8yo is set to win as well. Can she friend them? She doesn't know anyone else doing it. I found them and buddied them but I think they have to approve it... I haven't transcribed what she wrote last night but she was less than 300 words away from her goal.

We've missed you two around here - at least I have and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Been wondering how you guys are doing .

Carol [who has only been up about 15m and needs to feed the kids then get them down for naps then write]

ETA: after transcribing what she wrote last night, she has 231 words to go .