Oh, man! I hadn’t even thought of going that way. Nice to see there’s an escape hatch if I get stuck…
I think I will be doing this now. I was wondering when it would roll around again.
So, uh, whatcha gonna write about? 
I wanted to since I first heard about it last November. I haven’t made any preparations or done any planning whatsoever.
Maybe I’ll just sit down and start typing and produce the next great American novel.
I’m in. Got a plot I’ve had in my head for a loooong time and the main characters. Now for the hard part.
Has anyone out there been thinking of their story? I have had one that I haven’t had time to write. I hope the deadline will get it out of me. Basically, it will be a light fantasy story on an original world. The world will be serious but the main characters won’t be. I won’t put out more until I get a live journal or something to keep it on. Anyone have one or know where I can get one?
Try blogger.
http://new.blogger.com/home.pyra
I think they’ll provide you with space if you don’t already have it.
I’m doing space opera–sequel to last year’s, actually. I’ve been sort of chewing over the plot and such for the last month or so. I’m not too worried. Last year I found the trick was just to keep writing, no matter what. Sometimes what should have been inane blather turned up some very useful stuff, and it didn’t hurt the word count any.
I am… at this point I’m trying to decide if I want to set the story in the traditional setting for the subject- which would be back in days of yore when knights protected the land - or to set it right here in modern times. I think the latter might be more compelling, but less believable given modern beliefs. Oh well, I’ve got until Saturday to figure it out, right 
If you don’t get a livejournal code, there’s always open diary (which last I checked still offered free accounts) or sign up for a geocities account. If you’re writing in MS Word, all you need to do is save as HTML and upload the document, and you’ll get a pretty nice page people can read. Or you can do that and add html codes to it in the HTML editor and get a page more like this
http://www.geocities.com/mulderscreek/btt01.html I have a live journal (no codes to give away unfortunately) I don’t think I’ll be posting my story there.
I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to give NaNoWriMo a whirl this year, but I’m tempted to do it just to spite this writer, who is vigorously defending her scrap of pie:
Okay, it’s last year’s rant, but I just found out about it this year.
I’m doing it. I have no idea what I’m going to write, but I’m gonna write it anyhow. Yeehaw!
My gracious. She seems to think that everyone doing NaNo is getting published or something.
Wow. That’s quite a piece of work. That did it for me, I am going to sign up just to spite that humorless, self-important turd of a person.
Details are still sketchy at this point, but I’m thinking that my main character is an embittered hag who is so bent on getting validation that she loses all sense of humor or irony. The next few chapters elaborate on the idea of her basic hypocrisy. The climax comes as she’s torn apart by wild dogs. It’s the classic tale told time and again, but I think it could work. The inspiration just came to me suddenly, and now I can say “I am a NOVELIST!”
I’ve done it every year since its inception, so this will be my fifth NaNoWriMo. I’m hoping, now that I’m not working outside the home, that it’ll be my first NaNo win. Onward and upward to 50,000!
As for that humorless woman, she needs to get herself in check; the majority of NaNo’ers, even the ones who win, never make what they’ve written open to the public. Only three or four people have gotten their NaNo works published (by non-vanity presses) in the four years, and that’s after major (personal and professional) editing, and they were all writers by vocation prior to NaNo anyway. It’s about a personal challenge and self-inspiration, and if she can’t get that, I’ll suggest that she’s not much of a writer herself. Being able to express oneself in words generally requires more connection to human realities than she’s demonstrating with her vitriolic bluster.
My problems with the writer’s attitude boil down to three things:
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“Novelist” isn’t an honorific. Neither is “sculptor,” or “artist.” You write a novel, you’re a novelist. You make a statue, you’re a sculptor. You may be the crappiest novelist or sculptor or artist on the planet, but someone has to be.
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Poetry seems to have survived the efforts of greeting cards, self-absorbed high school students and Jewel. “Real” poets – the ones who keep at it – survive. “Real” novelists will, too. They may not thrive, but every art form has its day.
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She’s so humorless.
In other news, I have no outline. I have three competing premises. I may sign up for this madness yet.
I’m very committed to it at this point (before having written a single word) for two reasons.
First, to prove to myself that I can do it. To demonstrate that I can complete a long piece.
Second, to get a rough (rough, very rough, extremely rough) draft down on paper (electrons?). Any work that November produces will be assumed to deserve massive editing.
And as for that humorless, self-important shrew? She has got to be kidding. This is helping me motivate myself to create a work of art. It may be a lousy work, but it’s mine. Who the hell is she to judge my motivations? A “novelist” is a person who writes a novel. If I am able to complete my novel in November, I’ll be a novelist. Maybe I’ll be a novelist in the same sense I’m a golfer (that is to say an extremely lousy one…) but I’ll be a novelist just the same. That’s all I want to accomplish in the next 32 days.
I remember the humorless, self-iimportant shrew from last year. Perusing what turns up when you search for her on amazon is enlightening.
Hear, hear! I think someone gets off on feeling she’s an “artist,” which is, in her own delusional fantasy world, something better and more noble than driving trucks or waiting tables or auditing accounts or what have you. If you aren’t called to such elevated status, you should content yourself with serving the noble, gifted creatures that are born into this creative aristocracy. And since she hasn’t got much to show to prove she’s part of it, she’s hanging on to whatever status she can get. How dare we think we’re as good as she is?
Do sign up, Interrobang!?, it’s loads of fun. If one premise fails you, you can always switch in the middle. Nobody said your NaNo novel has to make sense.
My story is a fantasy comedy about 4 characters. There are the following characters: the bard (a musical prodigy on the theorbo), his elven stick in the mud manager (yes that pun will be used), and his two gay dwarven bodyguards. Of course since it is a comedy, it is about their misadventures. I don’t want to write too much more about it since I will feel like I would be giving away the surprise to anyone else who may possibly read it.
I have my outline finished and character notes. I only have one of the dwarves named so far and need names for the side characters. I hope to get those down today or tomorrow so I can start this weekend.
Marry me.
We do seem to be punctuationally compatible, but I don’t think my wife would like it.
I really will try to write a novel his year. I tried NaNoWriMo last year, but never even started.
This year, I can’t even start until November 9; The Elephant Man at our college is going into tech week tomorrow.
Oh well. Only 2500 words a day. Doable.