National Novel Writing Month 2015

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Sstavix
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I'm rolling along! Who's rolling with me?

I'm continuing the novel that I started in 2014, and just barely managed to break 50,000 words then. Now I'm writing "part 2," as it were, and I'm hoping to break 100,000 words total by the end of the month (maybe more - we'll see!)

Once I have the first draft finished, I'll probably go through it and edit. Then I'll try to hit up some people with a critical eye to take a look and see what needs to be improved. I know that there are a couple people here on the forums that have expressed an interest (no, I haven't forgotten about you! ;) )

I know it needs work, but I'm feeling pretty good about this particular project. But enough about me - how are you progressing?
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Deepfreeze32
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I'm feeling really good about mine.

It's a Gibson and Stephenson-inspired Cyberpunk story set in Boston about 100 years from now. Government surveillance is common, as are cyber implants, drones, and so forth. The story right now is about a programmer from Vancouver who moves to Boston, and gets caught up in a political struggle involving corporations, government, and other entities when a senator is assassinated by a cyborg. Joining him are a cast of hacker outlaws.

The story is so far shaping up good, but I keep devolving into Stephenson-esque tangents on things like encryption. Nowhere near as long, thank goodness, but they do happen.


I'm also (As of writing this) over 5,000 words in!
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Sstavix
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Great job, and ahead of schedule, too!

And don't worry about going off on tangents. If you find yourself adding extraneous explanations, conversations, or even entire scenes, shrug it off. You can revise or cut it in edit... sometime in December. :wink: Keep it in to get closer to that 50,000 words, and don't look back!
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Deepfreeze32
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Right. I'm planning to just dump everything onto paper (Or digital paper, as it may be), and then embellish descriptions and do additions, cuts, and revisions after the month is over.

I envision this story being closer to 100,000 words when it's "done," so I suspect I will continue adding things long after I've hit 50,000.
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Sstavix
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Great! Sounds like a good game plan.

Race you to the end? ;)
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You're on. :D
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JOJ650s
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Oh it's that time of year again.
I really want to join, but I know it wouldn't work for me this year. XD

Ah well, I'll be watching the progress on the race. :mrgreen:
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Sstavix
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JOJ650s wrote:Oh it's that time of year again.
I really want to join, but I know it wouldn't work for me this year. XD
It's not too late. The month is still young!
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Deepfreeze32
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Sstavix wrote:
JOJ650s wrote:Oh it's that time of year again.
I really want to join, but I know it wouldn't work for me this year. XD
It's not too late. The month is still young!
It's true! I banged out two and a half thousand words tonight alone! Your writing doesn't have to be good, or publishable. Just get something on paper. You can re-write and edit later. Goodness knows I'm going to cut or edit a lot of my stuff.
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Sstavix
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Exactly. I've used this analogy before, because it works. Let's say you're an artist and you want to sculpt something that you know will be a masterpiece. The first thing you'll need will be that block of marble or lump of clay. Once you have that, then you can start carving, molding and shaping it into your vision.

As a writer, that's what this first draft is. The thing you have before you at the end of November is your lump of clay. It won't look like much. You may not even want to show it to your friends or family because, frankly, it's embarrassing to look at. But now you have that lump of clay. You have your materials to work with. Now you can go back in and carve away, sculpt the words, and reshape the work into what you really want to present. Through careful editing, you can change that embarrassment to something worthy of praise.

You can create a masterpiece. First, you need the right materials. That's where NaNoWriMo comes in.
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Well, I've taken the plunge. You guys inspired me into giving NaNoWriMo a shot again. ^_^ I know I'm late in the month, but I've got 6742 words done and I hope I'm jumpstart it through the weekend.

It's an action/superhero tale I've been toying around with in my head for about a decade, about an amnesiac man who wakes up on a world where monsters are real, ships can fly, and Space Pirates frequently attack. XD

I'm hoping I can at least get a rough draft done by November's end.
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Sstavix
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Chozon1 wrote:Well, I've taken the plunge. You guys inspired me into giving NaNoWriMo a shot again. ^_^ I know I'm late in the month, but I've got 6742 words done and I hope I'm jumpstart it through the weekend.
Great to hear! That's a good start!

Chozon1 wrote: I'm hoping I can at least get a rough draft done by November's end.
That's what all of us hope to have by the end of November. :) But then you'll be one step closer to having a finished, publishable work!
Last edited by Sstavix on Mon Nov 09, 2015 2:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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JOJ650s
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Haha, I guess my main problem is that I shouldn't really do it this time. XD
Although I fully intend to join next year.
Chozon1 wrote:Well, I've taken the plunge. You guys inspired me into giving NaNoWriMo a shot again. ^_^ I know I'm late in the month, but I've got 6742 words done and I hope I'm jumpstart it through the weekend.
Awesome! :)
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Deepfreeze32
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I'm really struggling to pad my writing, since I'm a little over a quarter of the way to 50,000, but I feel more like halfway through the plot points.

I can definitely re-write and expand earlier portions, which would probably pad the word count some more, but I don't know if it's better to move strictly forward, or occasionally jump back and expand earlier sections which were glossed over in favor of moving on to the "real" stuff. I won't really be "editing" so much as "Adding more content to a skeletal few chapters."

Hmm. Not sure what other NaNo participants think. :P
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Sstavix
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I wouldn't go back and insert the additional content there. That would lead to too much temptation to start editing, and the next thing you'll know, you're stalled at 30,000 words on November 29.

If you want to, make a note for yourself in the text. Such as, in big bold letters, GO BACK AND FIGURE OUT HOW TO SQUEEZE THIS INTO CHAPTER TWO. Then write your scene from there. I know that there are some who like to take the linear approach (like me) and write a story from beginning to end. But there are a lot of other writers who take more of a scene-based approach. They write the major scenes they want to appear in the novel, then they rearrange them into whatever fashion they want. Once they have their scenes laid out in the chronology they think would work best, they go back and add in the filler details to actually connect the scenes. Occasionally, they may rearrange the scenes during this process so it seems more orderly to them. This approach is actually analogous to the idea of the movie producer or director that we discussed earlier, since it's similar to the way they work.

Here's one example that I just completely made up. Let's say you're writing a mystery novel, where your main character is a detective, but she's a bit of a slob. You write a detailed explanation of her messy apartment, and have her sitting on her loveseat watching a movie, by herself. She accidentally drops her steak knife, and as she bends down to pick it up, she kicks it under the loveseat. "Meh, I'll pick it up later," she thinks, and goes back to her dinner and movie. In the climactic chapter, the serial killer is in her apartment and punches her in the face. She collapses on the ground... right in front of the loveseat. She remembers the knife that she had kicked under there, manages to grab it, and uses it to subdue the serial killer.

These two chapters could be several hundred pages away from each other. But you could write them back-to-back so all the details are fresh in your mind... and so you don't forget that important plot point of the lost knife. What started out as a minor depiction of how much of a slob Miss Detective is becomes critical later, but it's something that you don't want to overlook - especially since you might forget about that knife after several hundred pages yourself!

Don't get into the mindset that there is only one way to write a novel. After all, there's not just one way to paint, or sculpt, or film movies. Don't be afraid to experiment a bit and see what feels best for you. :)

Addition: You're well ahead of me in the word count department! I need to try to catch up to you. Don't slump now and let me pass you in the race! :lol:
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