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NaNoWriMo 2015: Let's Do Dis


Zatth

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Hello lovely people!

I know there is still a month until NaNoWriMo begins, but we all know that NaNo also requires some sort of planning and a community to force you to feel bad about not finishing 50,000 words along with them write and plan alongside you as November happens! So I was thinking of having this little thread for anyone to talk NaNo ideas, exchange usernames, plan characters or plots, and maybe even organize some community writing days or something!

So, are you doing NaNoWriMo? If so, what ideas, if any, have you got? If you haven't considered doing NaNo this year, why not give it a shot? We'll be here as well!

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I've never done NaNoWriMo before, largely because I have perfectionism issues with writing and find it hard to churn out content. Plus I'm a full-time student at a university that doesn't believe in free time.

This year, however, I'm joining a NaNoWriMo club IRL so I might as well participate online too. Double the peer pressure community spirit!

~KH~

 

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I'll take your part

When darkness comes

And pain is all around

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I will lay me down

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I really want to create a story about Onu-Matoran looking for Onua, but I don't know where to make a good start. I tried starting off the story with the lightstone shortage, but I found that it took too long to get to the main part and I realised that I wasted my time since I forgot about character development and I couldn't find a way to add any drama to the story. 

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I've never done NaNoWriMo before, largely because I have perfectionism issues with writing and find it hard to churn out content. Plus I'm a full-time student at a university that doesn't believe in free time.

This year, however, I'm joining a NaNoWriMo club IRL so I might as well participate online too. Double the peer pressure community spirit!

If it makes you feel better (and Jess/Tak, this is also a sort of response to yall's concerns) I'm creating all the hubbub about NaNoWriMo as an accountability mechanism to force me even more to try and do all I can this NaNo to win it or at least get as far as I can (it's a kind of egotistical accountability method of sorts :P )

 

I really want to create a story about Onu-Matoran looking for Onua, but I don't know where to make a good start. I tried starting off the story with the lightstone shortage, but I found that it took too long to get to the main part and I realised that I wasted my time since I forgot about character development and I couldn't find a way to add any drama to the story. 

Maybe you could have the story start before Takua uses the Toa Stones? So the story begins during the Dark Time, with an Onu-Matoran protagonist who doesn't know (yet) you need the Toa Stones to wake the Toa? Perhaps the novel could be about the Matron traveling across Mata Nui while Makuta is still terrorizing the island, as the Onu-Matoran pieces together for the first time how to awake the Toa?

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But wouldn't the Turaga already know what to do with the stones way before Takua goes looking for them?

Right; I was thinking in the sense that it is this Onu-Matoran who first travels to all six Koro during the Dark Time and gathers the information from all the Turaga. Maybe it turns out that this Matoran's insisting on the Turaga somehow convinces Takua to begin the quest/convinces the Turaga it is time to awaken the Toa?

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Would I be acceptable if I said that the Onu-Matoran learnt the locations of the stones from the Turaga and went to collect every toa stone, but had to pass on his knowledge to Takua due to Makuta killing him to silence the earth matoran?

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Would I be acceptable if I said that the Onu-Matoran learnt the locations of the stones from the Turaga and went to collect every toa stone, but had to pass on his knowledge to Takua due to Makuta killing him to silence the earth matoran?

Maybe! Since the story (and characters) might change as you write, that idea could change. But, at least in my opinion, it sounds like it could work! 

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I might join the site; I am going to attempt the challenge regardless. Stuck right now writing political essays, so that's doing wonders for my creativity.

I'm thinking that during November, I might try and write bits of novel as my break between sections of essays. Don't know how much that'll work for you (or for me, for that matter :P ), but it might make it a teeny bit easier come November

Edited by Zatth

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I never feel like I have time but I'm determined to make this work somehow. I have to wait before classes. I sometimes don't want to homework. I'll make it work.

 

I also struggle with perfectionism on my first draft, but I just discovered free writing, which I highly recommend.

 

Added you back, Zatth. :)

~KH~

 

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I'll take your part

When darkness comes

And pain is all around

Like a bridge over troubled water

I will lay me down

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Hey uh, Zatth, I'm actually struggling with a draft of chapter one. I don't know how to portray Whenua correctly when it comes to reactions and dialogue. 

I think that, as a Turaga, he would probably be more patient and wise than other characters, more likely to give thought to his actions and impart sager advice. Also, knowing his past history, his beliefs and ideas would be shaped by his experiences as a Matoran and then Toa, which could also explain why he might be more cautious than others.

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I'm debating whether to write a novel or a set of short stories. Any suggestions?

Unless you already have a solid idea for a novel, or are willing to plan one over the next few days, it might be better to do the set of short stories.

 

Of course, this is assuming that you've already got ideas for what to write for short stories. Either way you'll have to do some planning (either for a novel or for a set of short stories), so it comes down to what kind of planning you want to do and what ideas/materials, if any, you already have.

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I have nothing but a smattering of ideas and a pile of work, so most likely this year will be another "50,000 words of whatever" year rather than a "50,000 words of one novel" year.

Hey: I'm not very active around BZP right now.  However, you can always contact me through PM (I have email notifications set up) and I will reply as soon as I can.


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I have nothing but a smattering of ideas and a pile of work, so most likely this year will be another "50,000 words of whatever" year rather than a "50,000 words of one novel" year.

 

As long as it's 50,000 words of whatever, NaNo is cool with it :P And glad to hear you're doing NaNo as well!

 

How's everyone else doing?

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I've been debating on whether or not I should try my hand at it this year. I've got ideas for stories, and lord knows I've had a setting I've been chipping at for years now, but not the confidence on executing them in a decent manner or if I'll even have the time.

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Is it fine to start writing before November and add stuff you've written before? I've got ideas I want to work with. 

I think that's fine, yeah! As long as it gets you writing and your story going I don't think there's a problem with that!

 

I've been debating on whether or not I should try my hand at it this year. I've got ideas for stories, and lord knows I've had a setting I've been chipping at for years now, but not the confidence on executing them in a decent manner or if I'll even have the time.

I might recommend M. KIRIN's How To Plan A Novel Complete Workshop on YouTube, an hour-long video that gets you to plan out an entire novel. That approach specifically emphasizes the things that excite you and general concepts first, so it's a more relaxed but equally effective planning guide I like to use. As to time, I'll quote David Mitchell who recently had something to say about this:

 

I have to be a chameleon who can adapt to the circumstances that I find myself in. I like the idea of thinking: No, I have to be alone for days on end… But I don’t think that would wash with my family, to be honest. I’ve got school runs to do. I’ve got meals to fix. I’ve got washing up to do. I’ve got a washing machine to empty. I’ve got supermarkets to fit in, just like everyone else.

So I need to see what span of time I have available in any given day, fill it as efficiently as I can, make sure I don’t succumb to clickbait when I’m online, and quickly get back to writing the scenes that I need to write that day. So that’s how I work. It may be that at some point in my life I will have these free acres of time – but somehow I doubt it. And I’ll be acting accordingly then. But right now, I have to be the chameleon.

Hope that helps!

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm super busy with stuff right now, so I won't be able to really do it this year, though I'll probably end up doing what I did last year; I usually take off the final week in November, so I'll probably sprint through a short story or two in that time (maybe aim for 8-10,000 words).

Two years ago I did it and finished. That was pretty awesome. But I had a lot more free time back then, so I can't really take as much time with it as I did then.

 

I may end up working a bit on the story before the final week of November, but most of the writing will probably be done then.

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How are people doing? I'm averaging 300 words a day. XD

School's busy and I hope to accomplish more during Thanksgiving. To be honest though, writing is just hard and this is the first time I've ever tried consistently writing everyday.

~KH~

 

wikinuibanner.jpg

 

I'll take your part

When darkness comes

And pain is all around

Like a bridge over troubled water

I will lay me down

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I'm currently (kind of) maintaining my personal goal of 2,000 words a day. I'm using this year's NaNoWriMo to complete a good chunk of the second draft of the second part of the novel I did last year for NaNoWriMo, except it isn't the second part because the first part is no longer going to be used. I now just use it as a rough reference for my current novel, as the events in that first part set up the events in the second, but didn't really warrant being a standalone book. Basically, everything I wrote last years is simply being incorporated into the current novel as references or flashbacks.

 

I'm feeling good about it. I didn't like the first chapter, which I finished my first day of writing. I had an idea of what I wanted, but I quickly realized that what I was picturing in my head didn't translate well to novel form. It also just felt wrong. Like, everything I wrote just didn't sit well with me. Yesterday, I realized why it hadn't felt write, and I rewrote the entire chapter, essentially switching the two characters around. The sequence of events was mostly the same, just from a different perspective. I like the result, and now I'm rewriting the third chapter to fit the first.

 

The second and fourth chapters were much easier to write and I felt much better about them as I wrote them. That doesn't mean they won't need some revision, but I doubt they will need as much.

 

As for the rest of you peeps, keep up the hard work. You can do it. This is only my second year, but my view on it is this: even if you only write a thousand words in the whole month, that's probably a thousand more than you would have written otherwise (and so ends my poor attempt at encouragement).

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New story idea. It's set in G2 and I plan to write at least one or three stories about the masks that won the mask maker contest on facebook.

They would all be set in separate moments from each other, but have the unifying theme of masks of power.

  • Ahkmou's Psychosis: After breaking into Ekimu's forge, he searches through the collection of masks and finds the mask of psychosis. He uses this to make the creator suffer from hallucinations and goes on a power trip of insanity, driving all the other villagers to madness until the toa are summoned again to defeat him.
  • The Superheated Mask: I have no idea how to introduce another element into the G2 story.
  • Mask of a Sea Queen: A couple of ideas for this mask included Gali being possessed by a ghost inhabiting the mask or even taking the story way far back with Ekimu and Makuta being normal villagers of earth while the Sea Queen was still alive.
Feel free to PM or post ideas on how to flesh these stories out. Edited by Arnold Schwarzenegger

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Finished a story story trilogy I was working on, and have begun work on my actual NaNoWriMo story. Pretty cool stuff, so far. Dissociative Identity Disorder, a haunted house, and so on. Less than a thousand words in so far, but I've got most of it planned out.

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Ah, hey fellow WriMos! How's it going for you guys now that we're almost two thirds of the way through? Lately I've been falling behind a bit due to school (why must it be in November of all months...the busiest part of the semester DX).

 

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to participate NaNoWriMo, but about a week before, during my fall break, I suddenly got a fresh batch of inspiration for an old story that I wanted to write but didn't have a strong enough plot for. It features a terraforming colony, first contact with alien life (in the form of unicellular organisms), and spaceships.

 

Although right now it's an unholy mess that nobody should ever be burdened with reading; my writing style is all over the place, same with the plot and characters, and the list of things I'm going to have to go back and change after I get this first draft finished is probably as long as the novel itself XD...but I guess they do always say that the first draft is pretty much supposed to be a pile of nonsense.

 

 

 

  • Ahkmou's Psychosis: After breaking into Ekimu's forge, he searches through the collection of masks and finds the mask of psychosis. He uses this to make the creator suffer from hallucinations and goes on a power trip of insanity, driving all the other villagers to madness until the toa are summoned again to defeat him.

 

I like all three of your ideas, but this one is my favourite! Unfortunately I don't really have any ideas for fleshing them out right now...how are they coming along?

 

Anyhow. Back to writing that lab report, and hopefully being able to meet the minimum word count for today (before I fall even farther behind)...

 

=)

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