NaNoWriMo

November 16, 2016 7:37 PM

It's mid-November and I don't think there's been a NaNoWriMo post yet this year. How goes the NaNo? What are you writing?

I always enjoy reading about everyone's writing habits and story ideas in these threads, so I thought there should be one this year. I'm not doing NaNoWriMo myself, but I've been writing 500 words a day through November, mostly working on nonfiction and poetry.

Previous NaNoWriMoMeTa posts: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010.

posted by oulipian to MetaFilter-Related at 7:37 PM (38 comments total)

I wanted to do this, but the election ate my soul. Good luck everyone who is!
posted by corb at 9:38 PM on November 16, 2016 [17 favorites]

I'm doing it but I'm behind. I'd be doing a lot better if I wasn't addicted to Metafilter election threads.
posted by maurice at 3:36 AM on November 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Isn't everyone just typing reams of All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy these days?
posted by scruss at 5:58 AM on November 17, 2016 [6 favorites]

Yeah, I kept thinking I'd make a solid start once the election was over, but it turns out President-elect Trump is even worse for the writing process than campaigning-to-be-President Trump. My word count is 0 and will, alas, be staying that way.
posted by skycrashesdown at 6:00 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm working on a Miskatonic Herball, a late-medieval style manual of the strange plants of the Miskatonic River Valley by a Talented Mr Ripley style con artist turned murderous reverend, in the style of Culpepper's or Gerard's actual manuscripts. Even before the election, I had no expectation of finishing this month due to the number of prints I have to carve.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:08 AM on November 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

Isn't everyone just typing reams of All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy these days?

Type? Type? Why would I type that when I can just make a bot to write it for me.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:32 AM on November 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm currently in Year 12 of the madness as a participant, and rounding Year 8 as a Friendly Neighborhood ML. I think this may have been the longest relationship I've ever had with anything in my life.

So, I was going to write a romance novel about a first-time writer who falls in love with Atlanta and her local writing group partner. Then I decided that the romance wasn't going to happen, so I switched it over to Women's Fiction, because it was turning into a coming-of-age story. Then the election happened and now my characters have been doing a whole lot of not much because I've commandeered their story and turned it into an outlet for all of my excess feelings as of late. Maybe next year I'll actually write the story I wanted to write this year. Or not!

On the plus side, I haven't had the usual Week 2/3 case of I want to throw my novel into a garbage fire. I guess when you accept that your outline has gone off the rails, it's easier to just roll with it.
posted by PearlRose at 7:16 AM on November 17, 2016

I'm a first time participant, and...I'm behind. By about 7k, I think? Actually, I think I've been doing pretty decently, given the election and the fact that I got slammed with some work deadlines the last week or two. Hopefully I can catch up a bit this weekend, and a bit more over Thanksgiving.

My other issue is that I am running out of plot and nowhere near running out of days in November. Whoops.
posted by quaking fajita at 8:12 AM on November 17, 2016

fajita--have you considered a shocking plot twist no one will see coming, like, say, a reality-TV star being elected president? should get you another 5k, at least.
posted by radicalawyer at 8:50 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

I started off writing some grim scifi horror fiction but now it turns out it's journalism, so
posted by beerperson at 9:20 AM on November 17, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'm at 2811. That's... about par for me. I look forward to November with great intentions. I think I've risen above 10K a few times, but never above 1/3. And yet I keep trying.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 9:55 AM on November 17, 2016

I signed up this year, and like corb... the election ate my soul.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 10:39 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm behind 4.5K words. There's a 3 hour write-in tonight, and hopefully I can make up some ground. It's at a Panera Bread with the worst wifi ever, so I'll at least have fewer distractions.

I knew this year would be rough because of the election, but I thought that just meant a handful of less productive days. I had no idea I would lose interest in anything for more than a week. My story is fantasy, and I have to consciously avoid going into grimdark, nihilistic oblivion.
posted by chaoticgood at 11:52 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

I got about 4K words before the election. Today the Amazon fairy is bringing me a new lap desk so I can continue to hide in my bed but maybe write a few more words?
posted by Lyn Never at 12:06 PM on November 17, 2016

I took off alcohol for the month of October and spent time making grand plans for NaNo. Then my country elected a fascist. Sorry - maybe next year.
posted by lazaruslong at 3:34 PM on November 17, 2016

Ugh. I signed up all excited, and fell off last Tuesday for the obvious reasons, and I haven't touched it since. I'm just not feeling it.

I guess there's always non-Internet-gamified writing...
posted by Mister Moofoo at 4:40 PM on November 17, 2016

I'm doing it again, am on par so far. I am so, so glad to have had a project underway when all the shit hit the fan. It gives me something to escape into. Some crazy shit happened in my story on Day 9! By the way, Supernatural melds pretty well with plotlines from Futurama.
posted by tomboko at 4:55 PM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

I stalled out for a few days after election day. Still catching up. I think I'm at like 24k? But I'm determined to finish. I refuse to let Donald Trump ruin it.

It's been good for me, like tomboko - forcing myself to think about *anything* other than the election has been really valuable.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 6:37 PM on November 17, 2016

If they granted wordcount credit to time spent staring at my ceiling and cursing at the election, I'd have won by now.
posted by mochapickle at 8:05 PM on November 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

Looking at the region-wide graph for Seattle, there's a definite decrease in the rate of word production after the 7th. I suspect we are not alone.
posted by quaking fajita at 8:39 PM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

29K. I have a number of angst-ridden South London professionals coping with a murder in their midst. They also spend a surprising amount of time wringing their hands about the American election.
Must say I find plotting to be excruciating. I know you're supposed to end this thing with a completed story arc and not just a mass of words but it's hard!
posted by shibori at 10:38 PM on November 17, 2016

I was ahead in word count up through the 8th, and then I didn't manage much more than a profanity laden sentence a day, at best, from that point on. I love goodbyewaffles' attitude of not letting Trump ruin this. Gonna keep that in mind as I try to tackle the gap--a little less than 3k a day for me to finish on time, that's gotta be doable.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 6:56 AM on November 18, 2016

I've got a solid ... 2700 words.

Maybe next year (hopefully not in Jerusalem tho.)
posted by griphus at 10:52 AM on November 18, 2016

24k and I've hit the stage where I hate everything. Also, there are people who have already hit 50k+ and I hate them the mostest.

I'll probably get better though.
posted by Cozybee at 11:52 AM on November 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I refuse to let Donald Trump ruin it.

This was precisely my feeling!

I'm at 28K at the moment and about to dig in for the rest of the night. I don't think there's actual salvageable fiction in here, but it feels good to write.
posted by danb at 4:56 PM on November 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

My novel is nonfiction about presidents. So guess what mood I've been in. I had been thinking about actually publishing it, but I don't think I will now.

But that said, if you have shit tons of notes taken ahead of time, it really helps. I usually try to hit 50k before Thanksgiving because who the hell knows if I'll get any writing done after that (thanks, relatives) and I think I'll make it since I hit 47k last night, whoop whoop.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:47 AM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hey everyone, didn't see this post. Thought there'd be people on here giving this a try! Decided to give this a shot on October 28th, first attempt. Lost a couple of days like everyone else when I tried to drink myself into an alternate timeline after the election, ended up about 6k in the hole. But I've been staring at the blank Word document and pretending it's the sun, blinding me to everything else going on. That's very effective, but I'm not sure what kind of novel it'll end up producing. Hit 44k tonight, so I think I'm on track? Good luck!
posted by lefty lucky cat at 11:52 PM on November 25, 2016

Finished mine today! Whew. My brain feels sore! But I'm happy to have finished something I started. I'd done it before, but not lately. And I established a habit of writing at the same time every day that I'll try to keep going forward.

The NaNoWriMo word count validator is very generous, I found. It counted 522 more words than Google Drive's word count tool did.
posted by tomboko at 6:33 PM on November 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

The good news is I finished my story!

The bad news is it turns out it was a novella rather than a novel.

I'm counting it as a win.
posted by quaking fajita at 6:38 PM on November 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Whew! Just fed the validator. I won! Now what?
posted by lefty lucky cat at 8:39 PM on November 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's a mess of a novel but I won. I was writing a historical fantasy, but a lot of stuff that was about me coping with the election got in there.
posted by maurice at 3:41 AM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I couldn't even say how complete the novel is, since I skipped around from scene to scene, but the practice of hitting a word count each day is definitely a worthwhile exercise. Often I will give up because I'm not feeling it that day, but I'd say about 20% of the time during NaNoWriMo when I stuck with it to hit the word count I would end up getting inspired and writing something good.

That said, I'm creatively burned out at the moment. I was definitely running on fumes the last 2-3 days.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 12:49 PM on November 30, 2016

Congratulations to everyone finishing!
posted by mixedmetaphors at 1:11 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Congrats yes!
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 3:06 PM on November 30, 2016

Done! I have never been so glad to see NaNo over.

The weekend before the election, my in-laws were visiting, so I missed a couple days. Post-election was a shit show. I was a good 12,000 words behind at that point, and it just isn't that fun when you are constantly digging out of a hole. Usually I spend the month of November with my novel being the main *non-necessity* thing I think about. It just wasn't this year--it was more of a chore.

I look forward to binge watching some tv that people have been raving about. I look forward to getting back to my novel in a week or two when there isn't a word count hanging over my head. Stupid election.
posted by chaoticgood at 3:46 PM on November 30, 2016

I tried to resume my abandoned novel from last year but didn't manage to add a single word. However, I did finish a nanogenmo book of rhymed answers to everyone's questions. (Linked on my twitter in my profile if you're curious.)
posted by moonmilk at 7:37 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Last night was unsatisfying in that I hit 51k but felt like the evening's work was uninspired. I was just grinding. Not wanting to finish on that note, I sat down and knocked out another 1k tonight that I really liked. A good bookend, as it were. Now I can rest!
posted by lefty lucky cat at 8:31 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Squeaked out a victory around 10:30 last night. I'd hit 50k a bit earlier in the evening, only to realize that android tablets do not like copy and pasting almost 300,000 characters in one go. As it, it outright refused to, so I had to validate later that evening on my desktop at home.

I rather liked the tablet and keyboard set up, so next year, I'm thinking I'll have to cut the novel into 25,000 word chunks or something to make it easier to validate properly if I plan to be writing on the last day again, like I wound up doing tonight. (Or I could just finish early, which ...ahahahaha... no.)
posted by PearlRose at 6:25 AM on December 1, 2016 [1 favorite]