I’m in and have managed my planned 1500 words per day so far each day. To my surprise I am finding coming home from work and sitting down knowing I have to write actually relaxing. I think the key for me has been to write, not agonise over the quality.
I signed up to encourage and challenge my son, who at 23 is a gifted writer and has some time now in his university break. I doubt I will make the word limit, but I will give it a good try.
Sam Catte on NaNoWriMo
Aww man, now I want to do it but I wonder if it’s too late to start?
I did it and “won” in 2005. Attended the local meetups too, which were really fun.
OK, you got me in. I have no plot and no ideas, but I’ll start cranking out something tonight. That gives me a whole day to come up with a plot! Couldn’t remember my old handle there so I set up a new account. chiroptera44 on NaNoWriMo.
Oh and if anyone wants to friend me I’m Phrasework.
I’m at 6,994 words. But I’m cheating and using some bits that I already had. I’m okay with that.
I had to bow out this year; It’s rather frustrating, since last year nerve problems in my hands prevented me from getting anywhere with my story! At least the one I started last year I’ve been slowly working on throughout the year, but I did want to participate again with a healthier hand.
I need to type up everything I’ve written so I have some idea of the word count. But last night I half finished the first script (it’s way too short the way I numbered pages and panels, but I wasn’t planning layouts so it’s probably better than it seems).
I reread No Plot No Problem for inspirations, marking stuff as I went. I don’t know how much I can get written today, between supposed to be working and going to taijitsu, since I usually come home wiped out, but we’ll see. I want to at least get everything typed up.
I’m hoping to go to a write-in this weekend, but it’s super windy and it’s supposed to rain so I may not.
Sorry, the Ball of Bad Plotz rests squarely (more or less) atop my neck. An actual crowdsourced plot generator could be kind of cool, though. Maybe a project for later.
What genre would you like to write in? Maybe I can give you a nudge.
2,880 words yesterday. This has, I hope, given me the butt-kick I need to finally get this party started. I’m more excited about writing again than I have been in a couple of years.
I’m winter123hawk, btw (remove the 123–added it to foil search engines)
About 4600 words done. Not everything is typed up though. Working on a Dvorak keyboard is slowing me down, but I have a hard time using QWERTY for long passages now (my brain switches in the middle.)
I’m elfkin477 there too. Year 6 for me.
A bit over 4000 words in, I’m already at the “I don’t know about this idea…” stage. This is early for me, it generally takes about a week before doubts set in and/or I change POV. I think I need to sit down and read over my local mythology notes (I did a ton of research for a story that went no where a couple of years ago, and I think it could be useful with creating the supernatural students rather than the fantasy characters they were once going to be) and start creating more secondary characters, or I’m going to get stuck real soon with only the protagonist, a fellow orphan, and a nun as characters in the intro.
Thanks, Mr. Bad Plotz Generator! I wrote my requisite 1,667 words last night; started with a fed-up officeworker loudly and spectacularly quitting her job (an unintentional but in retrospect obviously autobiographical fantasy, disguised only by changing the gender of the officeworker), but then got bored with that and had her decide to hook up with her ex, an Indiana Jones type currently battling snake-handlers in Appalachia. That’s as far as I got. Sooo, I guess it’s going to be some kind of adventure tale. Any thoughts?! 
There’s this really creepy drawing on AOL sometimes. Monkey are like hanging off of each other. It makes me think of spiders too since their limbs are hanging all over. Make some Spider Monkeys that are literally part spider, part monkey, for your heroine and her ex to encounter.
Ooh, Appalachia is great for folklore and quirky characters. Manly Wade Wellman devoted a significant chunk of his career to the setting. And serpent cults are something of a specialty of mine. Let’s see what’s rattling around in the Ball…
The snake-handlers aren’t your garden-variety loons. They’re the degenerate remnants of a secretive Ophite sect that fled to the mountains long ago. Their belief in the Serpent as the bringer of the gift of knowledge has fallen into idolatrous veneration of snakes, but they still hold a clue to the location of the Apple: the primal source of knowledge.
The clue’s meaning is obscured by the passage of time, of course, and your protagonists must seek out a wise woman who remembers the old landmarks. Her nemesis, a hoodoo man, learns of their visit and their quest, and sets out to claim the Apple for himself. He sends strange creatures after them and lays traps.
Meanwhile, they become aware that they are being followed–even stalked–by something. Rustling in the bushes, marks left in their camp by night, and so forth. (Their stalker is a Behinder, a creature that can never be seen, because it’s always behind you.)
The climactic confrontation occurs in a cavern under a serpent-themed mountain. The hoodoo sends his demons after them as they struggle to reach and open the chest containing their prize. The solution proves to be the markings left by the Behinder; they provide a guide through the traps and the key to the chest.
When she seizes the Apple, your heroine suddenly knows the names of the demons, and the charms to take away the hoodoo’s power. (Whether this is in time to save her adventurer boyfriend or not is up to you.) Once the hoodoo is defeated, a ghostly serpent (an ophidian) uncoils from within the Apple and strikes her, taking back her borrowed knowledge.
She still knows where the Behinder is, though–behind her, of course. He’s the last of the original Ophites. Contact with the Apple gave him the secrets to a long life, and his uncanny knowledge of precisely where people will look, but it also bestowed the bitter knowledge that he could not use its full power without being corrupted. With his people fallen to twisted mockeries of their former selves, he had decided to entrust the Apple to someone worthy to use it for good.
Is she that someone? Only she knows.
Try here - Seventh Sanctum.
Hey Balance, can the Ball of Bad Plotz come up with some outrageous crazy crimes for my superhero to solve?
What’s your superhero’s theme and powers? Is he or she angst-driven?
Okay, okay, I’m in. (BethCutter on Nanowrimo)
So I’m two days behind. That means I need to do, uh, 1786 words a day rather than 1667. What’s another 119 words? A snap, right? Right?
Oh, and Ball of Bad Plotz, can you come up with a McGuffin for me? I semi-have a plot: one group of people desperately what to reach/find/conquer/do something while there’s another group of people who just as desperately want the something not to be reached/found/conquered/left undone.
I figure this makes for easy pacing to finish my story at the right wordage: the sides just trade move/countermove chapter after chapter until I reach, oh, 45,000 at which point one side or the other finally wins (or loses) in a End Of Game way.
But I have no idea at all what the 'eck the something should be. If it helps, my story starts in present day America, aboard a bus in Boston. Where (or when? hmm) the story goes from there…
She’s called the White Knight. At least at the beginning people think she’s a guy (she’s heavily armored). She’s a badass normal and besides the first issue, there is no angst. Since the crimes will probably be more influenced by the villains, here are the ones I’ve come up so far:
Techrat - computer genius. Has a phobia of being restrained and doesn’t like being touched. Wants computers to take over the world. Somewhat delusional (computers talk to him).
Wild Rush and Deuce of Hearts (aka Daisy) - a couple, Daisy generally uses her real name. They have luck powers and will do anything they think will be cool and fun.
Gimmick - genius for hire.
Jill - animal behaviourist. She uses ferrets. Somewhat of a vamp.
Magpie - general thief. Kleptomaniac as well. She likes shiny things.
Swordcat - he looks like a human lion and has a sword, as the name might indicate. Without getting into too much of the backstory, the sword is from space and wants to kill all humans and uplift cats to replace them.
Silver Dollar - gang leader. Nasty dude. There’s several other gangs as well, which I should name at some point.
Dr. Animus - controls emotions. Not nice fella. Is going to get killed, but not for some time. (At the moment, he’s basically Scarecrow, except not limited to fear.)
Shaitan - another gang leader. Sells a lot of gangs. Worships a death goddess. Has big ol’ wings. Very horrible person. Is going to get the shit beat out of him a few issues in and go to prison, but he can always break out…
Dr. Noone - mysterious dude that seems to come back from the dead. Don’t know what I’m going to do with him, except have him be mysterious and awesome.
The Bartlett Twins - hit men that usually work for whatever gang hires them
The Dufilhi - assassin cult from overseas.
At some point somebody, probably the Captain America equivalent, is going to show up from the super hero watch group to make sure the White Knight is following the rules. She can also partner with heroes that wander through (she’s about the only one that isn’t nomadic)
The ultimate beer. Or candy.
A mysterious book. Maybe it tells all the secrets of the opposite sex.
The world’s cutest dog. Or cat. Or hamster.
A talking critter.
Hm. The first McGuffin to pop out was a quit-claim deed to one of the most wretched pieces of real estate in California, but that doesn’t quite fit your group that doesn’t want it found.
Ah, try this one one for size: Your McGuffin is a set of missing pages from the journal of one Father Martin Matthias, a Catholic priest who stumbled across evidence that the Church was helping to cover up a terrible crime. (Do avoid the obvious clichés, though, if you please.) He struggled with the question of going public too long, and barely managed to hide the pages before the conspirators eliminated him. Your protagonists learned of the existence of the journal by chance or by something a conspirator let slip, but they don’t know what secret it holds, so they set out to find the missing pages. The conspirators (including the obligatory reluctant one, who may have been the leak) try to stop them.
Dr. Noone and the Dufilhi are deadly enemies; the very existence of Noone, the man who cannot die, is an affront to their religion. They have played cat and mouse across several continents for generations, and the White Knight is merely an annoyance who gets in the way of their latest gambits. She will mostly be involved when the Dufilhi try to kill Noone or one of his associates. It’s not clear if Noone is actually up to anything illegal, but he’s surely up to something. He may even permit her to “rescue” him occasionally.
Dr. Animus puts up a front as a “spiritual consultant”, using his projective empathy in superficially positive ways–suppressing grief, inducing feelings of peace and joy, and so forth. He’s actually systematically addicting people to his power, both to insure a steady supply of seed money and to prepare them for use as pawns in a larger scheme.
Which brings us to Techrat, who gets talked into visiting Animus and becomes addicted to having his phobias suppressed. Animus convinces him that together they can build an emotional suppressor that will blanket the entire city, making the people emotionless and logical, like biological computers. In reality, Animus is just trying to get Techrat to build him a power amplifier that will enable him to manipulate the whole population at once.
Swordcat–well, if he and the sword are in agreement, there’s not much subtlety here. Sounds like an old-fashioned rampage villain, best used to present the heroine with distractions and dilemmas.
Of course, he might take an interest when Magpie steals Grimalkin’s Eye, a spectacular emerald with a flaw that makes it look like a cat’s eye. It also has the less obvious flaw of a curse: anyone who takes the stone without the consent of its owner will become a werecat, transforming into a rakish alley prowler by the light of the moon, and slowly taking on feline traits even while in human form.
Wild Rush and Daisy strike me as sort of comic-relief villains, not really doing anything too dastardly. The general populace might even sort of like them (except for the ones personally injured or inconvenienced by their shenanigans). They could be a never-ending source of Noodle Incidents–picture a distracted Chief of Police yelping into his cellphone, “They did WHAT?..I don’t know…look, just call Public Works and ask them if those street-sweepers will pick up Jello.” They could occasionally be seen in the background, skiing down the side of a skyscraper with paint rollers in hand.
Any of those tempt your fancy?