Finally signed myself up for the first year & wondered how many other people here are doing it/have done it.

If you have, did you enjoy it?

ps... please feel free to laugh at me if I don't make my targets, my user name at NaNoWriMo is me - apparently it's a good way to make your target - fear of public failure :-)

Shame, the great motivator!

Now all I need is a plot, a clue, a few extra hours in the day...

Wish me luck

OK, you prompted me into doing it too. Hope I don't come to regret this. ;-)
I was thinking a nice Max Mann mystery might be the way to go, but I've never gotten one past novella length, so 50K may be hard to meet. I've been tumbling a plot line around in my head for a week or two, so I thought, what the heck - this might just force me to get it out. Even if it falls short, at least I'll have another novella for the filing cabinet. Thanks for the prod.
~jon

Hi Jon,
nice to see a familiar name in here as the forum seems a bit quiet :-)

I think this NaNoWriMo stuff must be infectious as I went into my local library today & had one of the librarians signing up as I left the building.

From reading the NaNo forums I get the impression you'll be able to get a free copy of your book printed off by Lulu.com if you verify you've done 50,000 words but that may be from other years.

Not sure I want to have written proof I can't keep the same thought in my head for more than an hour at a time but there we go.

Best of luck to you & your fingers.

Yes, it's been a bit quiet of late, but we've had some nice entries in recent challenges. I think SusiQ did NaNoWriMo last year. If I remember correctly, she even made her goal. Way to go! Good luck to you too. And good to see you back at the writer's forum. ~jon

Hey, Shoshanna, come up with a plot yet? I was up till around 2:30 last night drawing up a map in Paintshop Pro for my effort. It always helps me to visualize my setting if I map it out. I've spent today doing a bit of Internet research on cabin prices in South Carolina, and routed Max from his home to the cabin with Google Maps. I just finished writing up my outline (something I don't usually do), and so now I'm itching to get started. November 1st seems a LONG time away. Best of luck!
~jon

Wow, the NaNo board really makes you appreciate Renderosity. The response time over there is downright painful. I can see that I will only be checking in there to submit my word counts. What a shame. I would have liked to participate on their boards. But don't let that discourage anyone from signing up. It would be a blast to see some other Rendi regulars over there. What a great motivator. It's only a hundred and sixty-six words a day. Heck, you can probably do that in your sleep! Right?
~jon

 "It's only a hundred and sixty-six words a day. Heck, you can probably do that in your sleep! Right?"

I'm such a doofus. It's one THOUSAND six hundred and sixty-six words a day, not 166! So, maybe you'll need to hit the snooze button a few times to finish it in your sleep.

~jon

I really should peak into this forum more often, I almost missed this post.

3rd year doing nano. phoenixwaller over there if anybody is interested.

yep 1667 words/day to be on target. I'm once again aiming for around 2k/day personally.

forums are slower than molassas over there, but oh well, tabbed browsing is great. Read other stuff while waiting for threads to load.

Personally I have come to love nano. I write anyway, but it's a different sort of feel, lol.

good luck on the word counts.

looks at the clock and wishes that the 1st would come faster

So, how did the first day go for everyone. I knocked out Chapter One, for a total of 1784 words. The first line of my novel is:It's days like these that make me want to quit this job.

Anyone care to share their word count and first line?
~jon

My story begins..

"So you sprawl in the muddy street not knowing which of a million shadows is the one you need..."

Well, I work on my own stuff at night so my first nights work is spread over 2 NaNo days.
According to them, it's 1,764 for day 1 & my new total currently for day 2  is 5,426  :-)

I'm not sure why, but a massive story just sort of fell out of my head and splattered all over the desktop, so all I've been having to do is try and catch the words and stuff them into the computer all night.
Hopefully it will keep on coming.

The draft I finish up with by the end of the month won't be the whole story and will definitely not be fit for sane humans to read, but I've actually got a cracking good story in there so I'm feeling really inspired.

Here's me at NaNo by the way.

www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/214410

If you add your user link I can add you to my buddy list and spy on you :-)

I've got to say, I wish I had one of those word counter banners on my own computer now.
They really are a powerful motivator.

ps sorry I took a while to reply, I've been busy practicing for the day I finally get to become an official tyrant and bossing someone around that much takes a lot of time. (My first employee)

I'm about halfway through my first chapter, though I finished 3 subchapters (ya, I write weird)  and my total for day 1 was 3061 words.

respectable start :)

my first line: "Robert turned to where he could hear Eugene’s breathing coming from"

and my profile link: [http://www.nanowrimo.org/user/86405

](http://www.nanowrimo.org/user/86405)

Looks like everyone is off to a pretty good start.
My profile is http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/215644
Well, back to the story.
~jon

It's funny how it works sometimes. I wasn't making much progress on my Max Mann novel to date and then this morning I came up with a minor character, Gayle Salinas, a wino who had been involved in an accident. In my outline I simply needed some minor case to crop up in order to throw a wrench in Max's big vacation plans. I hadn't really given much thought to what type of case, or the people involved. Then I cooked up Mr. Salinas and things really took off.

As I created poor Mr. Salinas and developed his back story he became a very sympathetic character. Still minor, mind you, but someone in real need of Max's aid. As Max started investigating the accident all sorts of things for later in the story started to fall into place. So, while Mr. Salinas remains a minor character, he is at the same time a lynch pin that holds the whole thing together.

It often amazes me how characters, even minor characters, can sometimes take on a life of their own and turn drudgery to joy.

Hope you all are doing well on your stories. Good to see dialyn over there too!
~jon

Woo hoo! I hit the half way point tonight. I know I'm running behind schedule, but things are really starting to fall in place now, so I think I'll make it. The long Thanksgiving holiday ought to help, in that regard.

Here I am, halfway through a murder mystery, and no ones been killed yet. Hmmm.

Keep on writing, everyone.
~jon