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Actually, I've seen lots of people motivated past their fears by NaNo. It's not actually about the (usually) craptastic novels it produces, but more about teaching people that they really can write every day, and reach a goal that seems rather far-fetched and daunting.

Those who are serious generally put aside the results for months before pulling them out to edit or salvage the usable bits, and some of the bloated 50,000 word ramblings have turned into quite presentable 20,000 word novellas.

But your approach is good, too.

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hummingfly67.livejournal.com

You can do it. I have faith.

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I think you can do it and I bet the collection of comments will be entertaining to read even without context.

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skypilot-dlm.livejournal.com

50k words of comments will be epic! LOL

I signed up one year, finished on time and everything-- every year since I sign up, and every year epic!fail, lol.

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roeskva

You can do it! And I think it will be funny to read those reviews/comments!

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I'm hoping I can at least READ 50,000 words of fanfic in November, to be quite honest.

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Bwahaha! I'll try not to cheat and leave "TL;DR" feedback to my own fanfic. ;)

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True; I was thinking about how I'd keep track of the URLs to the fanworks I'd be commenting on.

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Maybe I can start a fandom-wide feedback trend? Heh heh heh.

Is it breaking the rules if you write a dozen or so shorter works that total 50,000 words? ;)

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You're giving me ideas. Google Doc ideas, in fact.

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I've done NaNo for 6 years. It wasn't so much about actually creating a novel and more about learning about how I write. I've learned so much doing NaNo. After 6 years I have two pretty good fanfic novels started. I've never gotten around to finishing them but they are very promising. They're not all crap.

Actually the Angel one is almost done and didn't need too much editing, just filling in the gaps. The SG-1 isn't bad but the plot got complicated so it's going to need a bunch of editing. If I ever get around to finishing the story.

I think I'm going with an original fic this year (did one in 2009, too) so I doubt anyone will read it but it's for the fun of it not to have people read.

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November usually sucks for me, so I doubt I'll get far with NaNo. I do have one pressing obligation that will end up as my main NaNo project if I don't get to it sooner -- it is useful for writing 50,000 words of assorted fanfic, to finish up random wips and generally improve one's writing habits. I'd never claim to have "won" that way, but there have been years where it has proven a good tool.

The last couple of years, not so much. But then again, nothing seems to keep my head in the game since the whole illness thing -- I swear I was more productive when I was deathly ill than I have been post-recovery. Pain and puking are way less horrible than constant fuzzy-headedness.

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Everybody breaks the rules of NaNo.

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I didn't know you wrote for Angel. I have a pending project in that fandom, too.

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Lot's of people do weird stuff like that. They even have a forum on the website for rule breakers, lol. They don't police the challenge and people have even written non-fiction, lol. I've seen some strange things. It's gotten to the point it's more about just getting to the 50k word mark with something written, not necessarily a novel.

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I *know* how I write, and forcing a deadline & quota doesn't work for me; my day job is all about fast deadlines, so I don't need it in my downtime.

However, I was thinking the other day about my word count output in Tweets, Tumblr & LJ comments, and figured that 1,667 words/day was close to my average.

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No writing method or writing exercise (and NaNo is, imho, an exercise, not a method) is universally useful.

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"We accept her! We accept her! One of us! One of us! Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble!"

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Excellent. /Mr. Burns voice

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The social aspect can be useful, too, if you want to find writer-types in your area. I've driven to a Starbucks on the other side of the city a few times for NaNo activities, and even as anti-social as I am in the real world, I've had positive experiences.

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You're having chronic health issues? Ouch. ((HUGS))

Is there an official "finish a WiP" month? LOL

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Oh, you missed all of that. See, back in 1994 a horse fell on me, and I broke my back in multiple places, because horses are heavy. Being a champion of denial, I ignored the intense pain and loss of function for several weeks, not missing a single minute of work or school despite being really sick. By the time I got x-rays, the wrong healing had begun. So basically, nerve damage and pain and loss of function in one leg and weight gain. The usual. For many many years I just attributed any phantom pain or symptom to my back pain -- when I was initially injured, I did lots of barfing-as-a-response-to-pain. So when I started with that symptom again in around 1998, I didn't think much of it. I was sick every morning from 1998 until March 2010, when I finally got so deathly sick that I dehydrated to the point of serious danger, and went to the hospital, where I learned that I'd been ignoring gall stones more determinedly than anyone had ever ignored gall stones before. I had the worst pancreatitis ever (as in, the hospital called in doctors from other freaking hospitals and stuff), and liver damage, and even a giant tumor. Two surgeries really close together meant it took frakking forever to get over all the drugs they pumped into me, and that's what has screwed up my writing. Cause I can ignore pain and do stuff anyway, but this non-working-brain thing really screwed me up.

So the chronic health issues are over, and if I had just gone to the doctor like a normal person back in the 1990's, they would have been basically nothing, and I'm just lucky I'm not dead or paralyzed, so I shouldn't whine, but my writing, dang it!

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You're the poster child of whatever's-the-opposite-of-hypochondriac. Next time one of my friends/loved ones ignores an injury or health problem, I'll tell them not to play Martyr To Pain.

Brain injuries/problems suck. :(

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That was my only one and it's not done!!!!!!

Actually last year I pulled it out and edited the stuff I had done and filled in the holes all the way until the end. I had it up on ff.net but I had to stop working on it to do last year's NaNo. It became apparent I wouldn't finish it so I pulled it from the site.

It's like 90% done I just can't figure out the end part. Sigh.

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Yeah, I don't consider it a method either. I would never write like that on a normal basis. What it taught me was that my first draft didn't have to be perfect and that if I got stuck I could just start somewhere else and go back and fill in the holes later.

the first years I did NaNo I wrote from A to B with no deviation. I only got 21k words. The next two years I barely got more than a few thousand words. In 2008 I did the Angel one and when I got stuck on a part I just jumped ahead to a scene I knew would happen later. That was the first year I won and I learned so much.

I think the point of NaNo is to challenge yourself, to go outside your comfort zone. And it's about the camaraderie... knowing thousands of crazy people are undertaking the same challenge at the same time. It's fun.

I like your idea of compiling all your comments and stuff. I'm sure that alone will be hilarious to read. You could even add word count by putting in notes about what the conversation was about or just commenting on them as you look back over a day of tweets (those are always entertaining).

People "cheat" all the time padding their word count by taking out contractions, adding notes, keeping 2 or 3 potential versions of a scene (I did that with the Angel one), etc. The only real "rule" is that you do all the writing between November 1, 12AM and November 30, 11:59PM.

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I've never had the chance to do that. When I lived in Chicago all the activities were downtown or on the North Side. I lived on the Southwest side of the city and it's a pretty far train/bus ride downtown.

Now in Vancouver they had a few last year near me but I don't have a car and have small kids. And I don't own a laptop so that means pen and notebook. I actually don't write well with distractions so I probably wouldn't get much done during one of the group meetings. But I like the online community.

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My chiropractor assured me the chemicals would wear off -- and they seem to be -- but it's like an uphill battle remotivating myself to write every day, despite being drained by payroll and distracted by petty life things.

Also, my grandmother was a hypochondriac, so I was really trying a bit too hard to not be that, despite being ridiculously accident-prone due to a reckless desire to climb on top of half-wild horses.

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We should writing-buddy some afternoon and help each other through our Angel-fic-related issues.

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The write-ins weren't all that helpful, but the kickoff party is pretty motivating. I haven't gone in years, because I live on the southeast side of my city, and the meetings are on the northwest, so I know what you mean.

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lolmac

Hee! Go for it!

I figure I'll probably do

picowrimo again instead.

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picowrimo sounds like fun! And a LOT more realistic.

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lolmac

I figured a group with that level of pun in its name had to be good!

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cleothemuse.livejournal.com

NaNo's a definite no-go for me this year. Not only will I be working mad-crazy-furious on some final projects for school, but Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be released on the 11th. Any remaining free time (and no doubt quite a bit of I-should-be-sleeping time) will be thoroughly occupied :)

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