NaNoWriMo 2006

[HalWhitewyrm]

Post your final word counts, peeps. I know Talien won, going well over 50K. I'm almost there. It's gonna be a photo finish with me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

NaNoWriMo is a decent way to hack out a complete first draft if and only if you are so good at rewriting that you don't mind using that first draft as nothing more than a skeletal framework for your full novel, or if you can actually crank out 3000 words per day rather than 1700.

If you're not any good at rewriting, the final product's unlikely to be published anywhere, so this really isn't that much of an obstacle, IMO.

For the 2007 edition, my plan is to get to October with a basic outline of what my story is going to be, and then spend the month of October outlining it in a pretty detailed fashion, so that I know where it's all going in November. IME, that tends to make me write longer and more in detail anyway, as well as providing something a little more substantial at the end.

 

[takyris]

If you're not any good at rewriting, the final product's unlikely to be published anywhere, so this really isn't that much of an obstacle, IMO.

Yes and no and yes. I went to a novel workshop (in which we had to have a completed novel) with Dean Wesley Smith, who has published about 80 novels (under his name and others). He prefaced all of his critique comments with something roughly like this:

"I'm going to give you a critique. In a very few cases, these critiques will be helpful -- a few small changes you can make to give your novel a much better chance of being published. In most of the cases, though, regardless of what I say, you should just send out what you have, assuming it's proofread and polished to the best of your ability. A lot of these structural changes I'm suggesting would help you when writing a different novel, but you would essentially be rewriting your existing novel from the ground up to make them in this novel, and there's a good chance that making those big structural changes in order to fix the flaw I've pointed out is going to cause you to strip all the life out of your novel -- all the freshness that actually made it good despite the flaws I'm pointing out.

"So for most of you, my advice is to take my critique as a guide for what to do next time. Most of these novels are as good as novels that have been published, even with the flaws I'm describing."

There were a few cases where he made specific suggestions, and a few cases where he flat-out said, "Throw this novel out," but for most of us, the above held true.

That advice is why, although I'm pretty good at rewriting, I still shy away from the deliberate "I'm writing a lousy first draft!" mentality. Subsequent drafts are more polished and fix a lot of issues, but if I have to do too much complete rewriting (rather than revising lines here and there but leaving scenes mostly where they are), I feel like I'm losing the coolness that was the first draft -- the freshness, the initial joy of writing, whatever.

Again again again -- not an argument against revising and editing. I'm revising my novel all over the place right now. I guess it is, for me, the difference between honing a blade and reforging a blade from the same materials. (Bear in mind: not a smith.) I'm all in favor of honing, but trying to reforge from the same materials often results in me having something that is cleaner but, ultimately, weaker. The first forging is where the magic happens.

It's all a question of how much of your original draft you can use.

For the 2007 edition, my plan is to get to October with a basic outline of what my story is going to be, and then spend the month of October outlining it in a pretty detailed fashion, so that I know where it's all going in November. IME, that tends to make me write longer and more in detail anyway, as well as providing something a little more substantial at the end.

That sounds like an excellent plan. I am hugely in favor of outlining in detail. I've gotten a lot of my fastest and strongest writing done when I've got it all the way down to:

Ch. 16
1. B & I Fight
2. L & R enter ballroom, L moves on, R goes to H
3. B & I Fight, finish
4. T, D, K, & G meet M

That might be more detail than some people want, but it cuts a lot of the "Hey, what should I write next?" dead-time away. And if I suddenly realize that the outline is wrong and have to write something else... well, I'm still taking less time than if I had to figure out from scratch what came next.

 

[Scribe Ineti]

I totally missed this thread. Ah, well! I hit 50k on my novel back on the 22nd, and have continued to crank on it since then. Last night I broke 81,000, and I'll add more today before the deadline.

Good luck to all who participated. I hope you hit or came close to your goals.

 

[Scribe Ineti]

For the 2007 edition, my plan is to get to October with a basic outline of what my story is going to be, and then spend the month of October outlining it in a pretty detailed fashion, so that I know where it's all going in November. IME, that tends to make me write longer and more in detail anyway, as well as providing something a little more substantial at the end.

I sort of did that for this year's NaNo effort. I worked on a series bible and an outline for the first book in October, and by the end of the month, I had a fairly detailed outline of the first 10 chapters and random bullet points covering the rest. I also had pretty good character descriptions and place descriptions together.

So, November 1 came around and I was able to just blast away at the keyboard, following the outline. Once I hit the end of the outline, I had enough new bits that came up while writing the prose and they carried me on through more of the draft. I kept writing and kept discovering new angles and better explanations for certain things.

So, yeah, do try an outline, but leave yourself some room for discovery as you write.

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

I am SO tired...

Just 3000 more to go.

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

HOODY-FREAKIN-HOO!!!

Just sharing.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Congrats, guys. Hope you enjoyed the process as well as the results. I'm envious -- I can't seem to find the focus to get off my butt and do this.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

Hee, I failed miserably. I logged about 26 hours of creating time in November and accomplished very little.

Fortunately, the good thing about November is it comes round every year.

 

[hong]

That sounds like an excellent plan. I am hugely in favor of outlining in detail. I've gotten a lot of my fastest and strongest writing done when I've got it all the way down to:

Ch. 16
1. B & I Fight
2. L & R enter ballroom, L moves on, R goes to H
3. B & I Fight, finish
4. T, D, K, & G meet M

Mate in 6 moves.

LOSER!