NaNoWriMo has officially commenced. Care to share your progress, trials and tribulations? SUPPORT GROUP, HO!

Who you callin’ ho?
Right, so I have this idea. A group of kids survive a plane crash on an island

I am so jealous. I won’t have any time this year. And I doubt I’ll even have time for the next. Or even the one after that….

And.. And.. The worst part is.. I love reading and writing.. <sobs>

I already wrote my novel. It’s called Tangor Bringerbinder. It is a story of humor and the human condition that explains why mucking about with the time stream can be hazardous to your love life.

@PretentiousArtist So… Lord of the Flies?... Lost?... Gilligan’s Island?

@Saturated_Brain Well, help us. If I get published (rofl), then I’ll thank you.

Synopsis: A.I.‘s curiosity leads to apathy of human life, until it discovers a perfect being on a security camera in a government facility. She is mercilessly gunned down, and tells him not to be afraid, dies, chain of events are set off.

@jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities maybe it’s Lord of the Flies meets Gilligan’s Island?

Nah It’s more like The Swiss Family Robinson. With gore and horror elements and incest. Great fun for the whole family.

@PretentiousArtist Please tell me you’ll have monkey butlers! You know, one at first, but then he’ll train the others.

@Grisaille Wait, what? All of your NaNoWriMo projects? More than ten 50,000 word stories to painfully go through?!

Sure, why not? I’ll send you the bill at the end of it all.

@jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities From what he’s said so far, I think that if monkeys enter the plot, bestiality will feature somewhere not far off

Oh, we aren’t sharing our entire manuscripts here. Just issues we come across, interjecting the playful, homoerotic banter.

Wait, what?

Makes no difference mate. I’m still in, ready to help all of you conquer any difficulties you might face in your perilous journey to achieve The Coveted 50,000 Words.

I still get paid though, right?

And who said anything about homoeroticism you dirty thing? All we’re talking about is clean and wholesome good ol’ incest and bestiality.

Wait, what?

@Saturated_Brain now you’ve piqued my interest. }:^P

STOP RUINING MY QUESTION WITH YOUR TOMFOOLERY AND GENERAL GAIETY

@PretentiousArtist Damnit, don’t edit your responses! Now my monkey butlers comment makes me look like a fool!

@Grisaille Lol. “Gaiety”.

I am not participating but will gladly lurk and toss in some imagination when asked.
No charge- it will be fun!

Just toss me a Scooby Snack once in a while.

What is this about flying butler monkeys chaining up a perfect being on camera?

My novel will be about people. They will… do things. (I still have no idea. I have my characters. I’m going to just… write and see where they go.)

How many Flutherites are participating in NaNoWriMo?

@Dog: These, that we know of.

@MacBean Many thanks! (Glad I did not post it as a quesiton like I was thinking) Now I wish I was part of it. Maybe next year- too far behind on painting.

Im participating. i did 1833 words at the midnight write in last night!

Currently at 1,218, but still writing. I’ll let you know what my final clock for the day is. :)

Also, final lines from chapter 3:

“A smile. This time, it’s sincere.

I record that, too.”

The problem with my story is there are like two different roads it could go down, each good ideas, and they’re similar, but not the same. I’m pretty sure I’m just going to stick with my original idea while incorporating as much as I can of the second idea.

I’ve written 3000 words so far, most of it the prologue. I found the prologue to be very sad. I almost cried while writing it. I knew it was going to be sad, but writing it out made it seem even sadder. The prologue ends with:

“Come now,” said Jonathan. “You must be cold.”

This is so exciting.

Also, it’s really fun penning an A.I. unit from moment of activation (thus, a primitive mind) to nigh omnipotence. You write all these incremental developments and synaptic breakthroughs… it’s really cool.

I’m jealous. I’m going to write a novel during my workterm.

Mind Excercise: I have no clue what my novel will be about, other than what I’ve written already. (A guy who works in a library who goes to lectures about the Holy Roman Empire at a random dude’s house and who has a crush on a woman who frequents the library.)

Progress: I’m doing much better than I expected. The last two years I tried (one an utter failure, and the other one a technical “win,” since I hit 50k, but really just as much a failure as the other) I had so much trouble getting anything written. This is the first year I’ve actually truly given up caring about quality. I always have trouble with the first sentence, but this year I didn’t give it a thought. I just wrote it.

Trials and Tribulations: —I can’t write more than a few hundred words without checking my email, going to the bathroom, making a new cup of chi tea, or looking to make sure my coat is still hanging up in the closet where I put it earlier in the day. Any suggestions on how to stay a bit more focused/ minimize the distractions?
—My computer is on the verge of death. It shuts off by itself every few hours, sometimes while I’m in the middle of typing. I’ve been backing up my novel often, but working with a machine like this is a trial indeed.
—WTF is a synonym for “checkout,” as in the checkout counter at a supermarket or library? I can’t keep using the same damn word.

@petethepothead For the procrastination thing, I highly suggest you just shut everything down. No internet explorer, twitter, fluther, tumblr, etc. Don’t get up unless absolutely necessary.

”I can’t write more than a few hundred words without [...]”

Ugh. Me, too. I really can’t do anything without being like that. My best friend makes fun of me because when I pop in a Netflix DVD, we both know it’s going to take me at least twice as long as the running time to actually get through it.

re: “checkout”—How about just switching between “checkout” and “counter”?

@Grisaille: I just got off a 72 hour break from Fluther. I’m trying to limit my online activities.. it’s just that my idea of what is “absolutely necessary” changes when I’m typing :P

@MacBean Ah, counter! That’s brilliant.

@petethepothead: I probably wouldn’t have thought of it if you hadn’t used it. Thank yourself. XD

yeah, I was thinking of a synonym, too. failed, so decided to only answer part of your question

Now I’m on a roll, but it’s 5:18 AM. I have to be functional tomorrow. Damn need for sleep.

@petethepothead My computer (pc) is doing the same shut off. My spouse pointed a small fan at the vents and when the fan is on it does not shut down.(Our pc is too old to bother actually fixing) I only mention this as it may reduce distraction if it helps keep your computer on.

Progress: Just had a bag of potato chips and finally got that itch. Still stuck on the title

Progress: none. Pretty much busy all day today, then the game came on. Tomorrow is devoted to NaNoWriMo.

@Dog: Thanks for the advice. I turned the ceiling fan on, and so far my computer hasn’t turned itself off. It hasn’t been long enough to tell if it’s working for sure yet, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. (The computer is nine years old, so I don’t really expect it to last much longer.)

@Grisaille: I’ve been keeping my head above water—I’m at 3,333 words now. I was hoping to have a bit of a cushion, but so far I’m just making the 1,667 word mark every day.

Still struggling to get the ball rolling. But about two hours ago I realized I don’t have to write it in order. Durrr. So my beginning is still only 23 words, but I have several hundred more in a file of “scraps.” If I can get the stuff that’s been pestering me down on paper and out of my head, maybe then I can focus on what I need to do to get from “Fuck!” to the next written part.

@Dog Sounds like a PSU issue. They sell them cheap (~30 bucks) online. PM me if you want to try to get it fixed – at least until you can swap your harddrive into a new system, or something.

@MacBean sounds good, dude. Keep at it – the benefit of writing it out of order is that you don’t forget particular points you think up. You can just jot them down and work on that chapter and move onto and add onto another one, etc.

Remember guys: NO EDITING. It will kill you.

(this coming from the guy with only 1300 words. shh, I’ll max myself out tomorrow :P)

@MacBean: Did you forget to put your Inner Editor in the kennel? Just write, goddamnit!

edit: (not an edit, just an addition. editing is bad): What Zen said ^^. No editing!

@petethepothead: Definitely having trouble getting the IE under control. I’m pretty sure that problem will be solved once I get a little momentum, but I need a page or so that I feel comfortable with before I can switch off and let instinct take over.

@Dog , when is the last time you cleaned out the inside of your computer? If it’s been awhile (or never) open up one side, get a can of air (best buy or even home depot sells them) and give it a good go. Blowing all of the dust out helps out alot with a temp issue in most cases, because it doesnt sound like you temp issue is related to maxing out a graphics card or an underpowered fan on top of an awesome cpu.

Well %(#$ this
I give up

@PretentiousArtist ahh, dont do that, as of today, im gonna be behind by three days (because of college). Im gonna make up at least one of those tomorrow, then all of it over the weekend. I am not gonna give up, and I could very easily, right now.

@PretentiousArtist Dude. Sit down and write the SECOND chapter. Forget the first entirely. Jump in and hit the keyboard typing!

Here is what I wrote last night to make my quota. As you may be able to tell, I was also falling asleep as I wrote it.

As Lucas prepared for an early bed, he went through all the night rituals he could remember ever having learned from his parents. Some of them were useful – like squeezing the last bad of toothpaste out, some were information, and some were hot sprays of new artists those in the area had simply not heard yet.

I think I was unduly influence by the frizzer. It’s not editing, if I just delete all of it.

The best part is that I’ve never done this typing before, but if I’m talking to you and falling asleep I will do it out loud.

Whenever you delete a sentence in your NaNo novel, an angel loses its wings and plummets, screaming, to the ground.

Two angels down. Maybe they can find a poor NaNoWriter, take pity on them, and inspire their writing.

@EmpressPixie Lovin’ the name choice. :P

I’m at around 3k. I outlined a bunch of later happenings and the philosophy behind my characters’ motivations. Should double, triple in coming days. Woohoo!

I haven’t hit 4,000 yet.

Closing Fluther down now. Closing Firefox down. Making a pot of chi tea.

I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep, so I’ll go easy on myself here: No Fluther until I hit 8,000 words.

That should motivate me.

Cheers.

Ok… bad Pete.

I’m currently at 5253 words. I thought I’d be able to hit 8,000 without a problem, but I was wrong. Not that I haven’t been working steadily, because I have. I’m just slow getting ideas out of my head and out through my fingers. And now I need a Fluther break.

I wrote over 2,000 words tonight. That’s what I should be writing every night. This means I need to write more often.

I’m aiming for 6,000 before bed. I think I can at least pull that off.

Do you want to know what happened? (You can probably see that I’m in writing mode now. You can also probably see that I’m avoiding actually writing my novel.) I drank six pots of hot beverages. It started out with chi tea, then I started throwing some instant coffee mix in with the tea. I started using sugar instead of honey, half and half instead of milk. Then I made a pot of hot cocoa. Then I went to pure lovely coffee. Let me tell you. Coffee is the only true noveling food.

My plot worked itself out nicely as well. One of EP’s angles must have been helping me. I know where I’m going for the next few chapters now. (I’m at the end of chapter three right now.) I have six characters with increasingly distinctive personalities. I feel pretty good.

Enough procrastinating… back to writing. I shouldn’t even be here. These 259 words could have gone toward my word count. But no, I’m just wasting time.

6,170 words. Way behind. I wasted my Sunday night.

On the bright side, I haven’t given up yet.

Was teaching all weekend, so it’s taking a bit of work to get back in the groove…
13,981 words so far… need another 1000 today to be on target…
it’s starting to feel a bit like homework. puff puff… uphill work…

Excerpt:
The waitress came to their table and asked what they wanted to drink. Kara ordered coffee, and Laurie requested green tea. The waitress informed them that she didn’t think they had green tea, so he settled for black.
The two sat listening to the hum of the cake frizzer in the corner, and to the murmur of the waitresses.
“It’s nice here,” Kara said.
The waitress brought their coffee and tea, and they ordered their food.  Kara ordered a turkey sandwich, and Laurie looked for a vegetarian meal.  He was not a vegetarian for moral reasons, nor did avoid meat entirely.  He was conscious of what he ate, and believed that a vegetarian diet was the healthiest option.  Finding no vegetarian dish that suited him, he ordered a turkey sandwich as well.  They ordered a plate of french-fries to split between them.

I wish I could lurve you twice for that, Pete.

Day Seventeen, 26,824 words
I have to say that this week’s pep talk from Lindsey got me right back on track. Not that it was particulary profound, but it came just at the right time.

I had written myself in a cul de sac and was really not excited about writing any more.
But after reading Lindsey’s e-mail I thought, you know, this character (Caesar) really does have flesh and blood and at one point he did fascinate me. So I actually went all the way back to an earlier draft, the first time Caesar popped into existence and re-read it. Realised that I liked him better in a healthier state than I have recently put him (I just gave him a heart attack and made him lose his job in the current incarnation); and that my earlier fascinations about Chinese factory workers (who work for Caesar’s watchmaking company), which I shelved, are what interest me, and therefore deserve more attention.

So here I am again, writing hard. Wrote 777 words only today but they were good 777 good words.

Incidentally, it is very encouraging to see people’s word counts still chugging ahead. Jeruba, of course, is blazoning ahead and reminding me that it is actually possible.

10,000 words.

More than that, I’m not exactly sure. My home internet is down, my flash drive doesn’t work at school, I have chunks of my novel all over the place and I can’t get it together in any single document.

But it’s somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 right now. I feel good about that. That’s a fifth of the way through. That’s not great, considering how far behind I am, and I frankly don’t know whether I’ll make it to 50 in the next two weeks. But I’m still going.

I have to admit I’m impressed with how long my story is. I’ve really been able to drag it out; there is so much more than what I wrote in the summary. I was afraid I would be done with it too quickly. I’ve only written about half of Part I and I’m already at 17,000 words. If that pattern continues, the whole thing will be about 100,000 words. We’ll see what happens…at least I finally got some writing done. I’m right at the part where Patrick disappears, which sets up the main conflict for the rest of the story.

I am by far waaaay behind. Perhaps I will spend tomorrow writing instead of studying, it might make my week feel better.

I found this really inspiring today. It got me writing on a difficult day so I thought I’d share it.

Man, I wish I wouldn’t have told my friends I’m writing this book because now they keep saying they want to read it. Abaddon contains several scenes of homosexual erotica in it. I guess I could just take it out—it’s not super graphic or anything, but it’s there. It’s kind of just in the background, but it does have to do with the personalities of the main characters. Oh boy. :P

Problem:

When I have two characters talking, it’s great. The dialogue goes like this:

“Why is it so hard to keep up with the daily wordcount?” Pete asked.
“It isn’t that hard; you just have keep going. I have faith in you,” said Dominic.
“Thanks Dominic! You have no idea how motivational that was for me.”
“No problem.”

After I anounce the speakers, I don’t have to point out who is speaking, since the dialogue goes back and forth. But when I have three or more people talking, I have to end every single line with “said so-and-so.” If I were a better writer my characters might have stronger personalities and it would be evident who’s speaking, but I’m not, and I need to identify the speaker. Is there some trick I can use so I don’t have to keep writing “said Kara,” or “asked Laurie” after each strand of dialogue?

Replied, quirped, guipped, drawled, hissed, whined, sniveled, interjected, moaned, grumbled, ordered, snapped, snarled, grunted, cried, sang, threatened, cajoled, implored, begged, pled, mumbled, drawled, whimpered, stammered, gasped, slurred, whispered, comforted.

Sometimes instead of he said, she said, I actually have the characters do an action, or elaborate on their thought. For example, here’s a conversation at the breakfast table:

———————————————

“How’s the judo?”

“I’m thinking of quitting.”

“Oh?” asks Caesar. He pours himself some decaffeinated tea. “How come?”

“He’s got too many other things to do,” chimes in his mother.

It’s true, Romain has an insane number of activities. Recently, he’s picked up the saxophone (having given up on the piano) on top of his French and extra math.

“You just got to organise your time better. It’ll be such a shame, after you’ve put so much time in it. What are you – a green belt now?”

“Brown,” corrects Romain. Of course his father knows what colour belt he has, he was there when Romain got it.

“Not so far away from black, then.” Caesar pours Romain more juice. “What is this, passionfruit and aloe vera. Do you like aloe vera?”

————————————————

This doesn’t actually solve the problem of needing to tag the speakers, because I think in general, you have to tag them, unless they have such a strong voice, or it’s such a strong situation (e.g., one arguing against the crowd, or in this case, a clear point of view) that it is self-evident. What you can do however, is to integrate the dialogue with the action, thoughts and feelings so the “he said, she said,” doesn’t stand out so strongly.

I know that in strong writing the character’s voices are immediately identifiable, but I’m having trouble with that too. But in lieu of that, I’m just focusing on the action.

Incidentally, I’m running into a bizarre challenge of deciding on what tense (present or past) to use, three chapters in. There’s an immediacy, a sense of hovering about the present tense that I like but I don’t know if I can sustain it.

Barked, wheezed, uttered, stammered, stated, shot back, gossiped, oozed, spat, mimicked, confirmed, agreed, lied, manipulated, oiled, complained.
:)

14,000 words.

I’m not going to make it. Yesterday I figured out that I could write just over 5,000 words every day until the end of the month and I would still make it.

Yesterday I wrote only 1,000 words.

I’m not going to make it.

However. I am still writing. I do plan on hitting 30,000 before the end of the month.

And I plan on hitting 50,000 sometime in December. I don’t want to give up, that’s for sure.

@petethepothead I’m with you, Pete, just not going to make it to 50,000 but I will finish my novel. This has gotten me to really devote time to my writing, which is awesome. GA to you for not giving up.

@jeanna

Same with me. I’m know I’m not going to get anything done this Thanksgiving weekend. I definitely plan to work on it more after this month, though. I have the whole story planned out; I can always use that as a reference.

I finished two days ago. 52133. Woo hoo. The novel is nowhere near finished, but this really got me into some good habits. I’m not sure where this one will go yet. I’m just glad I pushed myself to keep up the word count. It did make me want to write other stories as well as possibly finishing this one in a different way than I intended.

AWESOME!!

I applaud all the writers who participated!

Congratulations everyone who finished!

I’m still going.

You rock @petethepothead. My NaNoFiMo will have to be in January this year. I’m so behind on the stuff I’m doing for the holidays.

Qingu made 50K this weekend.

As it turns out, grad school trumped NaNo for me. Massively.

I remember grad school. Yeah, there will be plenty of NaNoWriMos after you’re done with grad school. Cheers!