NaNoWriMo 2017!

Hello. What is your goal for this year's NaNoWriNo?

 

Ooh, we have a thread this year! I'm especially excited because I'm actually writing one of my doll plots! I'm aiming to write 50k (to be lengthened to 80k or so) horror-romance set in a fantasy city dealing with a horrible plague. Here's my summary, if you're curious!

I can't wait to hear about everyone else's projects!

 

Your story sounds pretty cool! What made you pick Otakar as your hero's name?

 

Ahh, it was done years ago! But the main reason is that it was easy enough for an English audience to pronounce it off the bat and without knowing much about Czech, but not a common enough name that it would scan as English/generic "European." His husband's name is Vit for similar reasons. (That, and I bought Vit's original shell near St Vitus in Prague.)

 

Ahhh okay. That's completely understandable. It is kind of hard to find a name that readers would be able to pronounce without a guide, but isn't super generic and common ... like John, Paul, Smith etc.

 

I am excited we have a thread. I will be participating this year too. I only got into the BJD hobby to bring my fictional characters to life, so this is such a lovely thread to have found on DoA.

 

I have an adaption of NaNoWriMo and also started a bit early; I'm a student and have exams coming so I'm summarizing the weekly progress into my 4-day (bless you Uni) weekends. Last weekend I wrote 22k words, which is about 80 pages in my format. It was my personal record.

I have my former high school teacher who helps me with writing and coming up with ideas. Yesterday we went to a bar for a drink while planning the future events, and I think I now got ideas for the next ~40 pages as well as a hangover that prevents me from writing today. But I almost wrote the whole planned nanowrimo progress (30 to 40k) last weekend so I'm good.

 

@Chameleon yay, good luck on your project! Uni students have a tendency to get busy with something creative in order to forget about the exams for a while, at least I do... and imo you are more productive when you know it's either 20 pages of a novel or 2000 pages of scientific text lol.

 

I haven't started yet (waiting for the official start), but I have a story I've been working on for the past few, because for some reason I seem to only make progress during NaNo, and I need to get it out of my system to move on to the other one I want to write. So I'm hoping this year will finish it (I restarted it a couple runs ago because the first shot stalled out and was pretty flawed even for a speed write). And for now, my prep is rereading the previous parts so I can stitch it all together at the end.

 

I am also participating this year...
It will be my first time doing NaNo. I love to write, but I barely get through the proges of a whole story. I decided to write about my dollie universe, since I have already a kind of a plot and a whole bunch of characters. But I am not sure what I got me into xD... My book is called Veve

@Mayhem your plot sounds very interesting...

Do or will you guys share your Novels somewhere?

 

I've participated a number of times, but the only time I've ever successfully competed the 50k word goal was in 2005, back when I was in law school and had actual motivation, ideas and of course homework to avoid.

 

@SapphireStargazer Another law student who tries to avoid their responsibilities here! Lol

@Chameleon lucky you, I wish I could study things outside my specializing area, like creative writing! I would have liked to take creative writing this fall but law students don't have major or minor studies here so I couldn't enrol the way I would have been required to. It's a minor that will require enrolment for 3 years, you can't pick individual courses, and I don't have the commitment for such. So I study 7 languages instead. Trust me that's easier than being creative lol.

To stay on the topic - I made a playlist for theme songs today and wrote 8 more pages. Hangover won.

 

@vauhtikatti hahaha law school did my head in. I needed diversions like writing and my part-time job to keep me sane. It's been a long time since i was in law school, but I definitely remember the procrastination feelings lol. Are you in school right now or have you graduated also?

If I can think of something between now and next Wednesday, I may give NaNo a go this year.

 

Wow. That is awesome. Good luck with your writing and witht he hangover. What formart are you using if you don't mind me asking?

 

Woo! I love this thread! I have done Nano several times over the year, only made it to 50k once. I have also rebelled several times (was really close the year I did a comic instead of writing) and quit halfway through several times. lol

I will not be shocked if that happens again this year. XD

 

@SapphireStargazer I still have 4 years of school left. I have quite mixed feelings about it right now.

@Balthioul I have font size 13 and space between the lines is 1,15, font Calibri, if that's what you meant with format. (Had to really google that word to use it on this thread so I am still not sure haha) Otherwise I still have Word default settings, I haven't done any work on the chapters other than separated them with a page switch. Each chapter is about 10 pages.

@VampireAngel13 haha I too remember giving up last year! I had just finished my finals (in 5 different languages) and was literally dead. Before last NaNoWriMo I didn't really write so I am fairly new to this whole concept. That's why I decided to adapt the word count a little. I am aspiring to publish the thing so I find quality more important than quantity.

 

@vauhtikatti there were times during law school when I didn't know how I felt about it, either, to be honest. When people ask me what the law school experience is like, I tell them it was simultaneously the best and worst time of my life. We weren't allowed to take elective courses in law school either, but my undergraduate degree was in sociolinguistics and I had a few creative writing courses then.

@Chameleon I also speak English and French and I can read quite a lot of German (but cannot speak it). I really want to learn Arabic, to be honest. I think that would be a super useful language to know, and I also love how it sounds. I'm learning just the alphabet now, but I'm hoping to take a course in the new year.

@VampireAngel13 I've also quit halfway through a number of times, mostly because I either ran out of ideas or there were more pressing things that needed to be taken care of. I have zero inspiration right now, so I'm going to have to brainstorm furiously if I want to participate this year

 

@Chameleon I have studied German, English and Swedish for 10 years. In high school I picked up Russian and Spanish. In Uni I started Japanese bc I have liked Studio Ghibli movies and a few animes for a while. My native language is Finnish. I developed an effective memory when it comes to text so I thought law would be my thing. I don't really get to use all the languages in everyday face-to-face interactions but I'm here for the internet lol.

 

A Comic? This is cool - what were your goals? pages or words?
Will you write this year?

@vauhtikatti 7? I am glad I can talk in two xD - which languages did you choose?

Is anyone using these NaNo Kits or the book? I wonder if they are really good or not

 

That is quite small, but that is standard format for manuscripts if I remember correctly. Not sure. Well I wish you luck in your goal of getting published. Not sure where you're from, but Amazon does have a self publishing option.

 

@Balthioul we have an own self-publishing system in Finnish and I know a friend who used that. I, however, am trying to do ot the traditional way. Publishers in Finland are far less crowded as far as I know. I have contacted a few with my former version before, and one of them was already interested if I'd write it again keeping certain points in mind.

 

I'm really hoping to someday publish this book. If traditional publishers don't want it, self-publishing will! xD

 

Yay a NaNo thread and I'm just now finding it. This is the first time I'm joining. So much to read from all of you, I'll have to give all of this thread a good look.
I've written novel length books and some short stories. On fan fiction, a pre-Twilight Edward novel and short story and a sequel story about Fablehaven. I've also started writing original stories about my OCs on fictionpress. My husband just reread the Fablehaven series and asked for my book so he could continue reading about the characters. I got into bookbinding about the same time and actually have a hardbound copy of both books (with edits, lol). This was before I found BJDs and had to have something to do with my hands.
I hope to write about the Pointless Lore and Pub and how it came together during NaNo. Here is my synopsis and excerpt.

 

Sorry for the double post but it wouldn't let me add the quotes when I tried to edit...

Sounds very adventurous and a great plot! Good luck.

Scary good plot line. Good luck to you too.

Hopefully we can pull each other through this one.

 

That's pretty much the exact opposite of my record, my failure years are when I was in grad school overworking myself. I did well with it last year, though, since I end up with a lot of tiny chunks of idle time at work (waiting for code to build) that are great for typing away.

I've actually done the comics version in the past! I ran it unofficially, since I didn't sign up, but there is actually a formalized variant called NaNoManGo (which doesn't parse out but does flow nicely). I failed that one, but got a lot done that month.

 

@SteamWitch oh thank you :3 - but your plot/excerpt sounds also very interesting - I love supernatural novels

@vicemage I dind't know there is a comic version - now I am really interested to look up the rules

 

Yep! It's a page a day, if I'm remembering it right, though it may have been pencils only instead of the full blank-to-ink page (which is what I was aiming for).

 

Thanks! Languages are a lot of fun for me. I studied a little bit of Swedish during my undergrad, but I forget all of it now. Today in my Arabic writing lesson, I learned how to write the word for "dog" lol. Arabic alphabet is challenging. I don't think I'll be doing my NaNo in Arabic

 

All my posts in here, I just realized I hadn't mentioned what I was writing about, whoops. I'll be working on the story about what happens to the characters shelled by the dolls in my icon when they start their lives together; since they (and most of the other characters in their group) are my "fan character" group of dolls, that puts me into a fanfic-crossover-AU kind of genre, with a story I really hope to finish this time out. (Please wish me luck, I want to move on next year...)

 

Neat, a thread! I was thinking of skipping NaNo this year because my new job is pretty crazy and I doubt I'll have the energy to write most days. But it also has long and frequent breaks, so maybe if I double time...

I do have an idea I think might work, and giving it a shot would give me something fun to do without internet, which might be spotty there. I've won two years, and lost the last one (it was for a story I lost with during Camp too, why is that story so difficult to write?!) so I am hoping that doing a story that isn't as tightly plotted and will allow me to toss in random stuff at will due to its current looseness will help.

 

I don't really write either - other than snippets and comics. I try to do Nano every year unless something happens (the convention last year took up way more time than i could devote to Nano so I didn't even bother). My big problem is I get inspired to draw and would rather draw than write XD

It wasn't too exciting. I didn't finish, I didn't really have a plan either. I did a page a day, the whole thing - pencils, inks and colors. I colored with marker and only used shades of blues and black\greys. It wasn't great lol because doing a whole page in one day is a lot of work. I mean for real. I work full time, so I don't have the whole day. But it was fun. I'd do it again if I had a better plan.

You can do it!! *cheers*
But yeah, me too. Life is more important. Distractions sometimes become more important too XD

Page a day! I really should have tried for a page count for the whole month....because drawing and writing takes way longer than just the writing D: but I didn't plan it out well lol

I hope so too! I feel like there is more of a community here. And I could probably use all the support I could get XD

I didn't realize there was an official comic-page-a-day thing! That's awesome! I need to try to keep up on all the month challenges....



I will be working on a story with one of my doll's characters. I have a vague idea of what will happen....but nothing totally concrete. This is what i wanted to do last year, but I'm glad I had to wait because I kind of rethought everything. What I'm doing now will work better. I hope so anyway lol

 

That is great to hear (read)! If you every release an english version or are willing to teach me finnish, I'm game to reading it. The concept is interesting.

 

Glad to see a thread for this! I've done NaNoWriMo every year since 2011 and have "won" every year (at least in terms of meeting the word goal...only one could maybe sort of be considered a novel since the rest never got anywhere near close to being done). This year I'm hoping to write about characters inspired by my dolls...not sure if they'll be helpful to the writing process or more distracting. xD

 

@Balthioul I actually had 20 pages of an intense scene translated into English some year ago, but sadly lost that one when my tablet broke. I have written 1000 pages using only touch screen and as as a result I can't really use computer to write. It just feels... not right.

I'm surprisingly bad at teaching anyone languages haha. Seriously though, if my book ever gets published, I will do my everything to get it translated into English. The publisher that was already interested is actually translating Finnish fantasy.

So far my efforts to break my image of a childish fool (many publishers may think I am too young at 19) only include that one night of getting drunk with my former high school teacher, but I promise I'm trying hard lol. My teacher, as he teaches mainly Finnish, actually has taught many people who later became writers, and I have gotten to know a few after he organized meetings for me. I wish he only knew a bunch of publishers as well haha.

 

Oh, I keep forgetting about the camps! I've done a few of those too, though not very consistently. I'm really wordy, so the word count isn't usually a problem...it's just ending up with something that isn't a rambling mess afterward that I struggle with.

Acting out scenes sounds like fun - I'll definitely have to give that a try in November!

 

An awesome major! I have a hard time writing action, so kudos to you. :3

Ooo, I hope you don't have to wait forever for them! Glad you found the perfect sculpts for your characters, though.

 

That sounds like a really spiffy concept for a book! (It also sounds like a nice balance and a mirroring of conflicts between mental and physical.) I'm not sure if the stakes are going to be high enough for this upcoming story yet or not...guess I'll find out, and if they're not, figure out a way to raise them.

Having a visual representation of a character is definitely a different experience for me. Some of the sculpts have so much character of their own just on the screen, but having the doll here in person has been really interesting. I didn't think about how much influence they'd have on the character. xD

 

That does sound like an interesting challenge! Good luck with your prequel!

I think I had some Polly Pockets when I was small, though I have a hard time imagining acting out any of my scenes with them (if I recall correctly, they were extremely minuscule and not really very posable). My dolls are definitely helping me picture characters more clearly. Hopefully I won't overdescribe them. xD

 

I want to read yours so you have to finish. Lol
Mine is a little similar actually - retired assassin, mental illness (though not the focus of the story in any way) and fantasy.

I only have one character shelled as a doll for this story. Mostly I expect he'll just hang out and inspire me. Or I'll forget all about writing and just mess with him all the time since I do that when he's within reach. Or I'll end up drawing. I do that too. Anything to not write. sigh.

I am expecting the head of the antagonist to show up today (I have the head of one other main in my possession but no body - ordered, not arrived, and probably won't for a while), and she has a body waiting for her. So that's fun. But also bad since I'll be wanting to complete her and won't have time if Nano.

I'm hoping she'll at least help me focus on my "villain" in the story since that's what I often have a problem with. I can do my Protagonist well enough, but they need stronger bad guys to help them do the things. This woman is new for me, I was going another direction but changed a couple weeks ago...

 

LOL Both of the characters I tend to use as "leads" started out as the antagonist! Way back in their infancy as my OCs, but that's what they were. Since I write from their POV I can't call them the villains anymore. So I struggle to come up with new ones that are interesting and have points beyond "villain of the week". I am so rooted in comics I struggle to get past that.

Comic writing is so different. Especially since I'm the writer and artist, so I sort of half-ass the writing part and fill it in with doodles. I can't do that in a novel....(but I kind of want to illustrate parts of it....so I might anyway. Send me back to the rebel section of Nano, yet again.)

We seem to have the same tastes in the character dept!

hey, general question: Anyone have a hard time with the genre of their novel? I can't decide if I belong in Urban Fantasy or horror most of the time. I lurk in both just to be sure.

 

@VampireAngel13 I have problems with genre! When I first wrote my novel in the first year of high school, it was just fantasy and magical creatures and what not. It still has some fantasy elements, but I am struggling hard to make it as much of a realistic dystrophy as possible and make all fantasy features disappear in this version I am now writing. To be honest this one is almost going to be a whole another book. Only the main character (a 17-year-old woman who is very talented in understanding technology and who is bound to a wheelchair due to getting shot by her own not yet known father) remained the same, and ofc Ludvig lol.

Finns have a way of avoiding fantasy books, and fantasy really has no future here unless the story is really mind-blowing. I'm striving to make something that sells, after following my heart for 3 years and seeing it leads me nowhere in the end. So I am bringing in a lot of elements from history to make the story feel less distant to today's reader. Milon's army is almost fully planned to be like Nazis, they also have special "SS" soldiers and desperate souls killing in the name of their ideology and striving to become like them, never succeeding.

I read a lot, and my favourite inspiration books yet are the Hunger Games (bc the heroine is about the same age), Hannibal trilogy (the plot is just ingenious and I love puzzles), IT (King has a way of describing the events so beautifully) and Charles Dexter Ward by Lovecraft (don't know the name in English, but anyway just a great inspiration. Because my heart burns for eccentric souls.)

 

Buffy is my inspiration for everything.

I need villains who stay villainy. Or at least who become well-rounded characters I can use. I have a few that are long-term, but I can't out them yet. So I need small-time threats. If any of that makes sense. I'm really like the one I have right now, and I hope she'll do the trick. Her BJD head did show up today. So tonight I get to rummage through my wigs, eyes and clothes to throw something together for her until I can get her permanently done. Which is great timing for Nano. lol

I love comics. I did one for several years, but hit a snag and haven't gone back. I miss it. My secret goal of Nano is to just get this character's story in order so I can start his comic. If an actual written thing happens, that's a bonus. I'm an artist first so I'm not disappointed when I fail XD
I will post any art I do on my flickr, so if it happens I'll link! (though I've drawn my MC a million times already XD)

I went to Nano's site to post my novel but i can't decide on genre and Urban Fantasy isn't an option since it's a sub-genre....so I just didn't do it. I wish they'd give UF it's own category, but that'll never happen.
And you write about all my favorite things, just fyi

Genre is so hard these days! Especially with all the subs. There's almost too much to choose from.

Your story sounds so interesting! I hope to read it someday!
And seriously IT is one of my favorite books, as is the Hannibal trilogy. I just re-read IT (i need a new one, mine is about to fall apart), and pulled the Hannibal books off my shelf for a re-read after I finish the book I'm reading now.

 

When it comes to genre, I'm almost grateful that I'm still cheesing out with my fanfic entry. I don't have to pick a specific subgenre there, so I can be super lazy when I set up my novel. (I'm really not very serious about my story, in spite of my efforts to make par every day; one look at my profile should be proof enough of that!) If all goes to plan I will have to pick a real genre next year, but I'll enjoy my cheapness this year one more time. As far as the forum, I mostly lurk the one thread in the Fanfic section for the main part of my story; I don't think I've ever seen anyone write in any of the other three fandoms I've also been using.

I really do love the sound of the stuff everyone else is working on! It's inspiring to see all the different concepts people have for their starting points. I wish I had more to say about it than that, but I'm getting inspired to work just from the discussions. I'm glad November's almost here so I can get started!