What’s Your Nano?
It’s eleven days until National Novel Writing Month begins. Last year, attempted to write the minimum daily word count of 1,667 words everyday in November as well as post excerpts to my first Nano blog at the end of each day. I achieved my goals up to a certain point. Didn’t quite make the daily minimum word count on the very last day. Missed it by a couple of hundred words and didn’t realize my mistake until Nano was over. Don’t you just hate when that happens.
I’ve discussed my plans for this year in a past post. Allow me to explain my battle plan a bit further. No trees will die in pursuit of my fourth Nano win. All writing will be done via computer (my laptop if it plays nice). No short stories this time around unless I finish writing my novel early. The software I’ll be using is Q10. It’s simplistic and I like typewriter noise though I’m sure it’ll get on my nerves sooner or later. I will be writing in the same genre as previous years: horror. My idea is as follows:
I was watching a movie on Syfy a couple of months ago (can’t recall the name of it) about a haunted prison. Somehow I flashed from prison to missing town. I’ve always been fascinated by the Roanoke Colony mystery and with the recent reports of an entire Chinese village disappearing due to an allege UFO visit, I figure it’s the perfect subject to create a fictional story around. Run down a series of events leading up to a town disappearing off the map, but instead of everyone being aware of it vanishing off the face of the Earth, only a few people will notice it’s gone or that it even existed in the first place. I’m hoping to have any outline done by the end of the weekend.
What is your 2010 Nano battle plan?
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Write Anything 
Write or Die, thousand-word chunks twice a day. In full screen mode, Write or Die is almost as good as Q10 for isolation.
Well, I’m technically cheating on Nano already because I think I’m going to use November to bust out most of a serial novel(la?) I’m starting for the literary magazine Tales of the Zombie War and I’ve already published the first chapter over there, but since 1 1/2 chapters is all I have so far, I’ll probably work on that for Nano so I can be sure to have a suitable ending to wrap it all up since people are actually reading it real-time as I write it.
Barring that, it would be kind of cool to do a short-story-a-day for Nano too. I’m still debating. If I decide to do the latter, I’ll probably post them up on my blog daily, though I’ll be getting a late start because I’ll be out of the country without Net access until the 2nd.
I have WAY too much stuff to do to actually commit to either of those things, but every year I like to pretend I’m in it to win it. Lol.
Good luck with your novel Andrea!
I have an idea of a story – came from a dream last night. At least that’s a start. I’ve started nano twice and chickened out. Will check out your links for writing programs!
I’m doing something urban fantasyish, though it may be considered more supernatural I guess. I don’t have any writing programs and was thinking I could just do it in Word… now I’m wondering if that is naive of me? Hehe.
I’m using WriteRoom for mac, which looks basically the same as Q10. I also plan on doing 1000 word sprints twice a day like Tony above. My novel is going to be a modern fantasy action drama with plenty of gravity-defying combat, government intrigue, family drama, and a bunch of witches for good measure.
I sat down and plotted a bunch of scenes and arranged them so I know what I’m writing which day, that way the only think between me and the finish line is actually writing. I’m not leaving anything to chance or fickle creativity this year!
I’m actually going to use the new Beta Scrivener for Windows to write methinks. Though I admit, when I need a push I will rely fully on Write or Die.
Buddy me on the nano site! I’m Eileen Andrews!
I have yet to decide what my NaNo novel will be about. Usually that gets decided for me on November 1st when I start writing. Stacey, you’re not alone in using Microsoft Word. Generally I use it also, and it suits my needs 🙂
The sudden realization that November is just over a week away hit me, and I got figuratively caught with my pants down. Woefully unprepared, I think I’m going to chicken out. 😦