Technicalities

October 28, 2006

Getting Ready

Wednesday is the big start day for National Novel Writing Month. After signing up for this project and checking out the message boards, I found there are local groups all around the country. Some people are even in areas with access to multiple groups. Apparently there are several groups I could join for this, but I don't have enough time, especially if I ever want to get anything written.

The groups give the writers encouragement, help the newbies, brain storm ideas for those who are stuck, that sort of thing. It's a fun idea and naturally, meeting the people involved in my area is always a bonus for me.

Today our local group had it's first get-together. A pre-writing kick off. It was excellent fun.

There were about 10 people at this first meeting. A couple of us were new, one guy had already participated for the last 4 years and managed to win each year, I find that amazing! I got a number of tips, but the biggest one seemed to be... just flat out write! Don't edit, don't worry about sticking to a certain point of view, deviate from the main point, add extra detail, don't worry about pretty - pour out a story.

I think this will be the most difficult part for me. I tend to like things neat and tidy. And even though I know that no one will be reading my story (unless I happen to share it with them), being sloppy may be enough to slow me down. It doesn't look like it most times, but I reread each blog post about a dozen times before posting... and I STILL have errors or things I state badly, which I find later.

My only aim here is to write a story. Just to do it once. I want to see if I can. There are a couple of excellent points in favor of doing it this way - I'm not writing for an audience and I have a deadline - both of which make this easier for me. How easy? We'll see.

Posted by: Teresa in NaNoWriMo at 08:00 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 350 words, total size 2 kb.

1 I know I always get hung up on things like page layout, making the fonts look nice, etc. My goal over the next few days is to get my "template" all set to my satisfaction so that on Wednesday I can just start filling it with words. I thought it was encouraging yesterday to meet people who have actually done this. We can do it too!

--Adrienne

Posted by: Adrienne at October 29, 2006 02:32 AM (+oVfA)

2 You'll do great. My best advice is to participate in the "Word Wars" on the Nano forums - someone will say "Go on :30!" and then at 30 minutes after whatever hour you're in, everyone starts writing superfast, and after 30 minutes (or whatever time is decided on) you post your word count that you got during that war. It surprised me how much I could put out when writing like that.