NaNoWriMo
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Okay, who else is engaged in this particular insanity this year?
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I'm in the 'cheerleader' boat (I'm writing/polishing a spec script this month; not conducive to NaNo). Austin's NaNo crowd is great!
Far better than Seattle's, tbh. I didn't participate last year because of school, but the year before I didn't because the Seattle NaNo group was so unwelcoming.
![😕](http://musoapbox.net/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f615.png?v=4vfms5ns7sl ":\")
But I graduate in the spring, so next year I'll be back to fully participating (I began around 2000/2001 and even ML'd in SC for 6 years).
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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I'm in the 'cheerleader' boat (I'm writing/polishing a spec script this month; not conducive to NaNo). Austin's NaNo crowd is great!
Far better than Seattle's, tbh. I didn't participate last year because of school, but the year before I didn't because the Seattle NaNo group was so unwelcoming.
I remember the Seattle group being pretty good about three or four years ago, but I haven't really involved myself in the bigger NaNo community the past couple of years. I just haven't had the time or the energy for the bigger meetups. I'm sad that you had bad experiences with them.
I'm using NaNo this year as an excuse to try some new writing habits out—writing first thing in the morning before work, etc.—and so far it seems to be working. I'm 17,000 words in by day 7, which is a far better pace than I've ever set before. I don't think it's a maintainable pace—today I've only written like 600 words before work, so probably will write my remaining 1400 (I target 2000 a day) at lunch.
But it's taught me that if I set a goal like "write at least two sentences on your story every day before work, and two sentences at lunch" I will probably be more productive than "try to write something after work every day" (where I get home and I'm tired and just want to futz around online).
a.k.a. Packetdancer (or "Pax" for short)
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I remember the Seattle group being pretty good about three or four years ago, but I haven't really involved myself in the bigger NaNo community the past couple of years. I just haven't had the time or the energy for the bigger meetups. I'm sad that you had bad experiences with them.
It seemed to be run by a few bffs around college age. All write-ins / meetups were downtown and their opinion on non-downtown gatherings were 'you can plan it but we won't put it on our calendar or help you get the word out in any way because it's not OFFICIAL'.
The chat site they used was just garbage and not secure at all, so I suggested 'Hey, such a big region, you guys should check out chatnano. It's an IRC approved by OLL, you can register/secure your login, and MLs get access to a special room. The word war bot also lists all wars ongoing, so people could hop to another region's room if there's no one local to war with.' I got chewed out for 'daring' to suggest something was wrong with their decisions.
And it was just sort of annoying to see such a huge region basically focus just on downtown Seattle. They didn't give a shit about any of the surrounding areas. Someone needs to just contact OLL and step up to ML Eastside (anyone can do this; suggest a new region if they think there's the numbers for it).
My biggest piece of writing advice: stop in the middle of a sentence or paragraph. I've found it does wonders for me. I don't write until the 'thought' (as it were) is done but I stop while I still have ideas. It gives me a place to dive in the next day without hemming and hawing over 'what' to write. Once you're in the groove, it's easier to keep going.
I learned this from one of the classic authors. I forget which, tho.
But it totally works.Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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I remember the Seattle group being pretty good about three or four years ago, but I haven't really involved myself in the bigger NaNo community the past couple of years. I just haven't had the time or the energy for the bigger meetups. I'm sad that you had bad experiences with them.
It seemed to be run by a few bffs around college age. All write-ins / meetups were downtown and their opinion on non-downtown gatherings were 'you can plan it but we won't put it on our calendar or help you get the word out in any way because it's not OFFICIAL'.
Oh, yeah, no. A few years ago whoever was running it was making a point to have usually 3-4 write-ins going at a time, at different coffeeshops and such, all on the calendar. On the grounds that smaller neighborhood-focused write-ins were probably more manageable than single big ones. (The exception being the November 1 midnight write-in which was usually huge and done somewhere like Southcenter.)
That's super unfortunate.
My biggest piece of writing advice: stop in the middle of a sentence or paragraph. I've found it does wonders for me. I don't write until the 'thought' (as it were) is done but I stop while I still have ideas. It gives me a place to dive in the next day without hemming and hawing over 'what' to write. Once you're in the groove, it's easier to keep going.
I learned this from one of the classic authors. I forget which, tho.
But it totally works.I do often try that. I've also been using some of what I picked up from Mary Robinette Kowal at SIWC this year, about how to deal with writer's block. So far it seems to have helped.
(Also, if you want my SIWC notes, btw, as a fellow writer, feel free to peruse them. Some of the workshops, the notes haven't been great, but for some of them they've been pretty useful. SIWC'17: Diagnosing Story Problems are my notes from Kowal's workshop on writer's block and editing.)
