Do my 100 something Straight Dope staff reports count?
Jill
You just had to post about this, huh?
Don’t expect much of me on the boards this November.
It’s a question a writing instructor might have more insight into than I.
As a rule: write!
As a secondary rule: write intelligently!
As a professional corporate writer/editor at various times, though, I must say that too often people stop at the first rule. Then later they look amazed and hurt when I, the editor, explain it isn’t good writing. (“But I’ve been writing for years!”, followed by a testimonial from their friend “who thinks it’s great!” Sigh. It’s just that no one else does.) My favorite is when somebody takes existing text, and gives it a good rewrite the way they’d like to see it. 10% of the changes are useful, 60% indifferent, and 30% are worse than the original.
If I had to guess, a more useful exercise than writing 50,000 words would be to read “The Chicago Manual of Style” for an hour every day for a month. Just a guess.
That all being said, I expect to see some great sample paragraphs soon. Write, write, write!
I signed up and have been corrupting the people over on my board so that they sign up as well.
Lord knows I’ve been spending that much time staring at the computer screen anyway “No…no… delete delete”
I may do this. I’ve been unable to write more than a paragraph without stopping to think about how crappy it is and throwing it away… succeeding at this might loosen me up a little so I can achieve something.
50K words in 30 days … put me in the Daowajan camp. Hell, I’ve had my input in IM sessions over 30 days be more than that.
No, I’m not kidding. Some people have lives; I have AIM;)
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
Are we ready?
In the past week and a half I’ve…
Put in about 30 hours worth of research on alchemy
Written 2500 words per day of useless, unrelated stuff, just to warm up
Outlined my whole plot, albeit loosely
Described my main character’s entire history
Driven my friends and family insane.
I think I’m ready!
And the heck with tomorrow… I’m at my keyboard as of midnight tonight! Yeehaw!
Oh, and partly_warmer… do you get some sort of wet blanket commission? A fee for each parade you rain on, perhaps? Maybe you ought to shed the “professional corporate writer/editor” mantle, ditch the Chicago Manual of Style for a few weeks, and come on down and much about in the prose with the rest of us. It’s fun! It’s educational! And the worst that’ll happen is you’ll write a crappy novel!
I’m at my keyboard at midnight too… although I’m doing it blind. I wrote out a paragraph about the plot in one of my classes, and I did some character exercises, but other than that, nothing. I didn’t have the time.
This month I have three research papers to write. It’s going to be interesting.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: All you people with spare time suck. 
I’m in. Totally not ready. Have plans for about half the days in November already, including all the weekends. In other words, totally screwed. Woo!
I’m in, but if I get a second job, it will be a wash
I’m not in this time around, because I have an honors thesis due December 11th. Good luck to all of you starting in 30 minutes!
10 MINUTES LEFT!!! has a seizure
Fifty-three minutes here. Going over my plot outline, which is obvious proof that I’ve been completely delusional this past week, and mollifying my nerves by alternating with the Fortean Times Online, just to convince myself that I’m relatively normal.
And, of course, checking the NaNo Boards to see how things are going around the world, where their time zones have already allowed them to get thousands of words down already.
Oh, yeah, and eating leftover Halloween candy and drinking soda, so that my opening sequence will be appropriately overcaffeinated.
Tally-ho!
An hour and a half to go in my time zone.
I’m getting nervous. I have a pretty fair idea of how I want the story to begin, and how it is to end, but the middle section is one great big void.
An hour and a half into it, and I’ve topped 1700 words of bad prose! I can do this! Woot!
Gosh, I guess I’m an old fuddy- duddy, but I am not awake at midnight on a work night. I thought I’d start this morning, instead.
Wow. Best of luck to all you who are doing the crazy writing thing!! I’m not signed up, but maybe I’ll try it as an exercise, just on my own, to try to squeeze out as many words as possible this month. I’ll bet it’s fun to just write drivel and not give a shit that it’s drivel.
Let the scribbling begin!
Love, Kn*ckers
I’m also completely winging it. I’m at better than 1,800 words right now. While I don’t expect every day to go this easily, I’m pleased that things are pouring out at the start.
It may be schlock, but it’s my schlock!
Oh, hell. I had to sign up. Saints preserve us. I’m in.