...but is anyone else participating? I'd love to have an Achaean "buddy" to make sure I'm not sacrificing my word count to screw around on the game.

I've been wanting to participate for years, but I've always been too busy. I think I could find the time this year, though.

I'm always insanely busy during November, but I tried to participate last year, and I'm going to actually complete it this year-- even if it kills me. I want to write for a living, so I need to develop some level of discipline. This is the perfect way to do it.

This is my user profile on the National Novel Writing Month site. If you don't see my word count increase by 1,600 words a day or so, nag me until it does!

I'm doing it. Not that I'm really Achaean anymore, but not being Achaean is the reason I can do things like this and actually achieve something. So much more time! I'd like to make more money off writing, and need discipline to do it, too. I've published stuff a few times for money, so I know I can do it...... if I can just get the discipline.... (The extra dots in the annoying ellipses are specially for Amunet, whose avatar both me and my co-worker love.)

I've buddied you, hope you don't mind, you will figure out who I am over there, I am sure. (Name starts with "K")

Why is your word count so low right now! write write write!

As long as we're on the topic... here is my NanoWriMo profile. ._.

This sounds awesome. I've always wanted to write something longer then a news post or a description, but once again the time thing. Does this happen every year? Depending on my living arrangements I might take part next year if it happens annually

Actually, I'm up over 3k. The updater is always a little buggy the first few days. I just uploaded, so it should show up within the hour.



Yes, it does happen annually. The Aussies also have one of their own that got pretty popular worldwide. I might begin participating in that one, too, if I do well this year.

There we go; it finally updated. 3,611 words. I'd have done much better if I hadn't been up and down doing laundry all day.

EDIT: Added you as a buddy, Void, though I've no bloody clue who you are. Good job on your 1,148!

Thanks, lets hope I don't crap out at 1,000, hehe. Congrats on 3k, by the way, I wish I had whatever it is that motivates you.

I've just joined the forums recently, though I've been playing on and off for some years now. My current character is Nirahara, a Shaman.

3,000 words is pretty much the bare minimum for two days, so I'm a little disappointed in myself. If I keep up at this pace, I'll make the 50,000 word goal.

I'm personally not concerned with the word count so much as I am that I write -something- on it every day. I've been freelancing for about a year and half now, so I know very well that some days you write a few thousand words, and other days you can't make it through a paragraph. Just keep trying. If you want, we can proofread for one another and brainstorm to push through the writer's block.

I'm doing it too, and will probably need all the nagging I can get. (Ah, the temptation of using Achaea RP logs to up my word count.) Hope you don't mind if I buddy you - I'll PM you over there if I do, of course.

Not at all. The more the merrier!

I've added you, Void. I HAVE done more that 0 words but it's been longhand on the way to work (long train trip, no working laptop), so it'll be a few days before I update what I've done officially. I am Kiz, BTW. And glad you like the creepy cat.

I'm doing it too, http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/521114. My first year I made it to 50k, but last year I was lazy. Right now my word count is high, but that is because I had to sit around the last two days and this coming weekend is only for partying

Anoshia is kicking my ass-- granted, so are the people I know locally. I'm so lazy! They ought to take away my literati card.

I'm surprised so many of us participate. It's kind of nice, knowing I'm not the only one with a word processor and Zmud open simultaneously!

Is there like a cutoff date to join or something?

Late though I may be, I must confess that I'm intrigued.

There is no cut-off date to join! You should try it out, or else you'll end up procratinating for years on end like me, hehe.

I have more to say, but I have to go to class. Dang college!

Lol, you are all nerds.

I write a lot of adult romance novels..are these welcome on the site? I can be -very- descriptive at times.

I bet if you sat down for another 72 hours, you could come up with something too. Just consider it another Great Hunt!

"Tar ur'vampire;attack;attack;attack;attack;attack" doesn't really make for a good storyline, though.

I have more than a few students doing this, and though I'd likely enjoy the challenge, November couldn't be a worse time for something this time consuming. My Novembers are spent writing college recommendations and editing college essays in an endless train of torture.

Fixed.

On another note, I'm thinking about writing smut to pay the bills while I pen my masterpieces and quitting this crappy day job. Thoughts?

Your students are not worthy of your time. They are all moronic ingrates.

Hush, Mathlete. You're simply jealous that your only expertise lies in the frigid, sterile realm of numbers instead of within the smouldering, sybaritic, orgiastic euphony of well-constructed sentences. Advanced calculus will never get you laid.

I always sort of assumed that writing smut as a side project whilst perfecting the master piece was really the only way to go for most authors. I would write smut to pay the bills if it seemed like a reliable enough source of income. The only thing I would worry about is getting burnt out by so much writing. Personally, I can only write so much in a day before I have to just do something else. Which is why 3k seems like so much to me - I think I will shoot for 1,000 words a day. I would love to proof-read for you, Amunet, but I'm not so confident about letting you see what I have so far. I haven't taken any time to fix all of the obvious problems with it as I've just been concerned with writing as much of the idea down as possible. If you still want to proof-read for me, that would be great! I could benefit from an opinion other than my own.

I'll be gentle, I promise! I was the president of the Creative Writing Club back in high school. I'm sure nothing you can be writing is as terrible as some of the emo crap that I had to sift through there.

Rofl, okay, I'm sold. I will send you what I have so far in a PM here, I guess - the NaNoWriMo site is acting up.

Holy mother of -, I wrote a lot last night. Once I transposed my bus writing after work, dissatisfied with my mediocre 2,094 words for the day, I sat down and started to read Osvaldo--there is a bit of a story to this, so bear with me!

Osvaldo is the name I gave the first dictionary I ever fell in love with. He's a 1939 Funk and Wagnalls unabridged dictionary of the English language. We met in my junior year creative writing class, when I discovered that the brittle pages between those ragged viridian covers were the only pages in any dictionary in Joel E. Ferris High School that held an entry for the word "dapocaginous", which had confounded my teacher and her spell-checker, leading her to believe it couldn't possibly be an actual word. It was love at first sight.

When I was eighteen, I finally got to make Osvaldo mine. I had used that dictionary exclusively over the next two semesters, as I took and re-took the third period creative writing course in order to get the most out of it that I could. By that point, I had amassed a following of underclassmen who found my writing ability, my vocabulary, and my eccentricity to be charming to the point of emulation. They were my own little fan club, and God, do I miss them!

It happened that on my birthday that year, a convocation was scheduled during third period for the graduating seniors about caps, gowns, class rings, and other nonsense that could have easily been taken care of in April instead of October. It was mandatory to attend, so of course, I hopped off campus with some friends to have a smoke and grab coffee. All of us who left were technically subject to the Becca bill, so we returned prior to the start of fourth period to avoid unnecessary legal repercussions for our truancy. I returned to the creative writing classroom to retrieve my books, and there, in the middle of the room, was a gift.

Instead of writing anything that period, my fan club had convinced Miss Rhodes to let the class throw me a miniature surprise party, with Osvaldo as the guest of honor. They had discovered some time ago that Osvaldo, by then christened and known by the title of "the Dictionary God" was not listed in the database of the school's property, and thus, was not the property of the school. They had adorned him with origami flowers--a few of which I still have--and a card wishing me a happy birthday. The love of my life was finally mine to take home.

Today, Osvaldo sits on my desk. He is placed right next to the old 1970's typewriter that my grandma taught me to use, which is no longer particularly functional but still holds the sentimental value necessary to provide inspiration. Every time during National Novel Writing Month that I've found myself hitting a plateau, I flip to a random page in Osvaldo and read until I find something interesting. Last night when the muses betrayed me, there he was-- and like the benevolent God that he is, he didn't fail to do right by me. I wrote for five hours, from eleven until four this morning, and ended up with a grand total of 18,051 words that I decided to keep.

Do any of you have any peculiar items or rituals that help keep you writing?

No, but I bet it is this type of thing that gets people deeply in to religion in the first place. Your love of literature surpasses mine to the point that I am beyond jealousy. I'm gonna go cry now and find some way to wring a few more words out of my brain.

Try putting on a bathrobe, lighting some candles, and chanting, "Ia! Ia! Osvaldo fhtagn!"

I find it strange that I've never had a use for a bathrobe until now.

And I hit 2.4k words today, yay!

Haha. Really, trust me...try the dictionary thing. I know it sounds nuts, but not only will you find things you never knew there were words for, you find yourself very eager to use them. I'm making my local writing buddy come with me to the library tomorrow to try it with the OED. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm crazy at this point, and we're only four days into NaNo. Poor -er had no idea what he got into when he agreed to team up with me.

2,400 words is good, at this point! The first few days, I find, are always the worst. Unless you're used to integrating writing into your schedule, it can be difficult to make time or feel inspired. I planned ahead this year instead of jumping in without an outline, which actually made things better. Generally, I don't pre-write; I just pick up a pen. Still, writer's block happens.

Are you writing in chronological order? It might be easier to motivate yourself to write if you write the exciting parts of your novel first. Then the only thing left to put in is filler. I tend to write one or two of the more climactic scenes first, followed by one or two of the filler scenes, and so on. It makes numbering the chapters kind of a bitch, but I was never much for organization. Lolchaos and all that.

I will certainly try the dictionary thing, and nuts to the guy who agreed to be your partner. If he can't handle it, he doesn't understand what "literary abandon" means.

I'm writing in chronological order at this point, mainly because that's the order that I'm making up the story. I did not pre-write, I hadn't even remembered NaNoWriMo until I found this thread. And I hadn't even thought of chapters. I will try to work out an outline tomorrow, probably sometime during class when I have nothing else to do.

I'm doing NaNo. Last year I failed miserably. This year I'm working on two books simultaneously with the goal of hitting 50,000 words on both. My combined word count is 20,103 words.

I've also decided that I'm insane.

I've decided this summer, I'm going to do this. It makes NaNo look like a lovely garden party.

Um. I'd heard of that... I don't know about every attempting to partake in that madness though.

Coward.

Oi. That sounds like a challenge now...

I'm not going to pay the registration fee or any of that craziness. But I will give it an attempt. If I remember.

Both of you are effing insane. ._.

Generally, in my adult romance novels, a large majority of the scenes are climactic.

No, they aren't, honey. Trust me.

He doesn't mean the writing is climactic.

Ugh, we are way over her head, Gorly.

Thanks to Osvaldo, my protagonist is now lentiginous.

Going to the Spokane write-in tonight from 6-9 at the Service Station on Nevada, up by Northpointe. I don't think any other Spokane Achaeans are participating, but just in case. Hopefully I'll be able to accomplish something tonight, but I'm not so sure-- my local buddy, henceforth to be known as "Wheels" in order to clarify his purpose in this temporary alliance, has had a hard-on for me since the first grade and maintains a penchant for staring slack-jawed at my chest while breathing obstreperously through his gaping mouth. I've actually incorporated a character based on him into my story due to this unfortunate habit. I hope he doesn't take to reading over my shoulder.

It sounds like the only thing he'll be doing over your shoulder is looking down

Ha. Actually, he kept his eyes on his laptop the entire time, like a good little basement-dweller. I hand-wrote 25 more pages that I have to transpose tonight, and am now officially broke thanks to my penchant for Ethiopian coffee and soy chai lattes.

There's another write-in tomorrow at Forza coffee, which is only a few blocks from my house. I'm on-call at work, but hopefully I won't have to go in so I can make it.

Way to keep writing!

One of the NaNo-ers in my town sent out letters to different businesses just stating that we'd be in and if they wanted to encourage NaNo-ers they could put signs in the window, etc...

One local coffee shop has offered us 15% off all our purchases. So that's where I'll be heading to do most of my writing.

The local Spokane businesses have been very nice to us, and our municipal liaisons kick ass. I met them for the first time tonight, and they are amazing ladies, going so far as to provide power strips and surge protectors for those of us whose dinosaur laptops have about two and a half minutes of battery life.

I'm up to 24,362 words, and it's only day five. I'm not really going for the word count, though. My goal is to finish the novel, which will probably be much longer than 50,000 words. Then during the rest of the month, I want to edit and revise. December, I'm going to write the second draft, and hopefully by January I'll be pleased enough with it to start pitching it to publishers. I doubt it will ever be a bestseller--in fact, I'm hoping it won't, because I'd rather not be grouped in with anonymuncles like Stephenie Meyer. I just want to see my name on a book cover in Barnes and Noble. When that day comes, I'm going to need a change of panties.