1. This just in: I have won NaNoWriMo 2009. I can now officially add on to my writing portfolio that I’ve written a novel (though I still have about 2,000 words left until I’ll be satisfied with the book myself). As of now, I’m feeling a crazy whirlwind of emotions, filled with joy, confusion, accomplishment, and tiredness*. It’s a great feeling, one that makes me feel as if my brain has shut off from the thirty days of pain I’ve enforced upon it. But it’s a beautiful feeling nevertheless, knowing that I’m in a small group of people who have written 50,000 words in one lone month. I couldn’t have done this without the support of my family, who at first thought I was crazy for trying to take under such a large task, and the Internet, who is much crazier than me, so they convinced me it was doable. In the end, the Internet was right. This is the first image I saw on the NaNoWriMo winner’s page, and as soon as I saw it, I filled up with joy. It’s an amazing experience, with an amazing community, that I’d suggest for any writers in a slump. Pushing yourself to write is a major pain in the ass some days, but in the end, you feel like you’re on top of the world. All right, I’m going to get some sleep, and finish this homework. Thanks once again to everyone who encouraged me to do this project. I wouldn’t be here without all of you. * Mainly the tiredness. But, who knows? I could just be crazy.

    This just in: I have won NaNoWriMo 2009.

    I can now officially add on to my writing portfolio that I’ve written a novel (though I still have about 2,000 words left until I’ll be satisfied with the book myself). As of now, I’m feeling a crazy whirlwind of emotions, filled with joy, confusion, accomplishment, and tiredness*. It’s a great feeling, one that makes me feel as if my brain has shut off from the thirty days of pain I’ve enforced upon it. But it’s a beautiful feeling nevertheless, knowing that I’m in a small group of people who have written 50,000 words in one lone month.

    I couldn’t have done this without the support of my family, who at first thought I was crazy for trying to take under such a large task, and the Internet, who is much crazier than me, so they convinced me it was doable. In the end, the Internet was right.

    This is the first image I saw on the NaNoWriMo winner’s page, and as soon as I saw it, I filled up with joy. It’s an amazing experience, with an amazing community, that I’d suggest for any writers in a slump. Pushing yourself to write is a major pain in the ass some days, but in the end, you feel like you’re on top of the world.

    All right, I’m going to get some sleep, and finish this homework. Thanks once again to everyone who encouraged me to do this project. I wouldn’t be here without all of you.

    * Mainly the tiredness. But, who knows? I could just be crazy.

  2. NaNoWriOhNo

    I’m behind by about 9,000 words from where I should be today, and have five days left to write about 15k words.

    This won’t end well, will it?

  3. Currently, this is my NaNoWriMo novel.

    Currently, this is my NaNoWriMo novel.

  4. minimalmac: OmmWriter is a new full screen and distraction free writing environment for the Mac. The best way I can describe it is that it is what would happen to WriteRoom if Brian Eno got a hold of it. It features a resizable input area, text size and style options, background options, and ambient music and keyboard sounds (which can, thankfully, be turned off). It can save either in it’s native format for easy relaunching or as plain text. It is still in beta so there may be even more features coming. It’s worth a look for sure. I could easily see it being part of a perfect “writing mac” setup – just leave it up and running and set the default save location for your Dropbox or a server. Make sure to click through and watch the video on the site to get a better sense of how it works. Perfect for people behind in NaNoWriMo (not that I would know about that or anything…)

    minimalmac:

    OmmWriter is a new full screen and distraction free writing environment for the Mac. The best way I can describe it is that it is what would happen to WriteRoom if Brian Eno got a hold of it. It features a resizable input area, text size and style options, background options, and ambient music and keyboard sounds (which can, thankfully, be turned off). It can save either in it’s native format for easy relaunching or as plain text.

    It is still in beta so there may be even more features coming. It’s worth a look for sure. I could easily see it being part of a perfect “writing mac” setup – just leave it up and running and set the default save location for your Dropbox or a server. Make sure to click through and watch the video on the site to get a better sense of how it works.

    Perfect for people behind in NaNoWriMo (not that I would know about that or anything…)

  5. Maureen Johnson’s NaNoWriMo Pep Talk

    I have a very good friend who is Australian. I’ve never been to Australia, so she is constantly selling me on the merits of her homeland and setting me straight on things. For example, I have always wanted hold a koala. She informs me that koalas smell and spread disease. What I want instead, she informs me, are flying foxes, sugar bananas, rainbow lorikeets, mangosteens, and Sydney sunrises.

    Read More

  6. NaNoWriMo word count for the night: 6,556

    What my word count should be: 6,666

    Satisfied? Hell yeah.

  7. Neil Gaiman’s NaNoWriMo Pep Talk

    By now you’re probably ready to give up. You’re past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You’re not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end, when words and images tumble out of your head sometimes faster than you can get them down on paper. You’re in the middle, a little past the half-way point. The glamour has faded, the magic has gone, your back hurts from all the typing, your family, friends and random email acquaintances have gone from being encouraging or at least accepting to now complaining that they never see you any more—-and that even when they do you’re preoccupied and no fun. You don’t know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you’re pretty sure that even if you finish it it won’t have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you began—-a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you ever read—-it falls so painfully short that you’re pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.

    Welcome to the club.

    Read More

  8. NaNoWriMo #2

    Second day in. Woo! I’m still alive, thanks to Halloween candy and lots of water. But, that’s besides the point. Today, November 2nd, 2009 at 6:28 PM, I’ve written 4,102 words, and, once again, I plan to write more over the night. Luckily, I get a day off from school tomorrow, so that should give me a lot of time to advance my word count.

    I gained two followers from yesterday, which is awesome, since my follower count is now at 777. But that’s still not 800, so no prologue for you! If you’re interested in reading the first major section of my novel (it’s either Chapter 1, or the Prologue), tell your Tumblr friends to follow me. Yes, this is self-promotion and whoring myself out, but you’re neglecting the fact that I don’t care.

    I had a huge scene in the novel where the question of who says who is a nerd and who isn’t is asked, and I think personally it’s a great part of the story that came out of nowhere. But that’s the fun of NaNoWriMo; writing things that end up being fairly good, but totally unexpected.

    Tomorrow starts Day 3. Good luck to my fellow Wrimos out there!

  9. NaNoWriMo #1

    So, today starts NaNoWriMo. It’s a big deal in my book, since, for the past month, I’ve been preparing a story in my head. As of now (November 1st, 2009 at 3:51 PM), my word count stands at 2,050, though I plan to write more during the night. I’ve finished Chapter 1 (or Prologue, I can’t tell which it will be yet) and I’m half way the second chapter. I’d love for you to read it, but, alas, I have to ask of something from you first.

    Right now, I have 775 followers on Tumblr. It’s a big number, and I’m happy that I’m not boring you. But, being the self-obsessed teenage boy I am, I’m going to ask for a few more followers. When I reach 800 followers (25 more needed), I’ll post the first chapter of my NaNoWriMo novel, The Constellations, for your reading enjoyment.

    Sound good? Good. Now follow me.

  10. It sounds like E.T. But then again, I’ve never seen the movie.

    — Erika on my NaNoWriMo novel

  11. Here’s a quick scene from my NaNoWriMo novel, The Constellations:

    Brown sat at his desk, drawing himself into his own little world, inattentive to the fact that he was being watched over. For, at that exact time, the visual combust had snuck through the window, and began monitoring Brown’s every move.

    Shadrach gasped, and he had every reason to. He had been amazed by what his eyes were seeing. Bright shades of yellow, of red, of magenta, of blue, and images that he had never seen during his lifetime, like a cowboy riding through the Wild West, or a shark, devouring a small, innocent fish. Shadrach had never imagined, let alone seen, these awe-inspiring images in his lifetime. His mentors told him whatever he had been taught in seminar was the truth, and anything else should be considered garbage.

    But seeing this imagery, Shadrach realized a fact that never had occurred to him before: his mentors may have been lying. Everything he had been taught wasn’t all there was to know. There was a whole new world, an entire other constellation that he had never been educated on. He wanted to know about this. He wanted to do what this boy did.

    Brown fell asleep while drawing an actual size sandcastle. Shadrach continued to watch, and later on, when he himself fell asleep, he dreamed of a constellation, a colorful constellation, a beautiful constellation.