NaNoWriMo and Writing Programs

[† Emotional Outlet]

We had KamWri for a few iterations, but people kept complaining about the limitations/aspects/themes they needed to include. The reason I would rather the limitations and themes is because then you have a point of judgment and fairness when comparing stories, even if they're different genres. Did they incorporate the necessary characters/traits/events and how well did they do it, did they achieve the word count, &c.

If you want to host a KamWri competition, you're more than welcome to, since I think people don't care for my attempts to run it.

Anyway, if anyone wants to participate in this year's NaNoWriMo, I'll be up for doing word wars with you guys. I'm going to stick with my regular goal of 2k a day--or so I hope, haha.

[† Anras Rune]

I'm going to do the NaNoWriMo this year me thinks. I have quite a few stories that I need to choose from, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. All just depends on my schedule in truth, and I'll be deleting Steam from my computer D:, just joking. I still haven't seen anything telling us what the limitations are, if any? Meh, I can cover all bases me thinks.

As too another KamWri, I won't join. Sorry. When the KamWri started, the forum was in a bad place and it just served to kill off the struggling Lit section. All of KALS' work undone. T-T

[Alice]

I was about to ask what NaNoWriMo was, but don't need to after reading your post EO. I might try this once, once my little one isn't zapping all my time and energy. I used to write a lot back in the day. I'm an old fashion writer...I prefer the pen and paper method of writing. I tend to write better that way...and I'm not a very good typer.

[† Emotional Outlet]

it just served to kill off the struggling Lit section. All of KALS' work undone. T-T

Okay.

The rules of NaNoWriMo can be found here.

• Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
  
• Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).
  
• Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!
  
• Be the sole author of your novel. Apart from those citations mentioned two bullet-points up.
  
• Write more than one word repeated 50,000 times.
  
• Upload your novel for word-count validation to our site between November 25 and November 30.

And Rei, as far as writing by hand, they do have a clause for that. Just write your 50k or more, use a word generator like this one to generate the amount you wrote, and submit the file with those words. The official site word count does tend to differ from what word processors say, so it's best to err on the side of caution and write a little more than 50k. According to the site, there have been differences of up to 1k words.

However, if you do bend or break the rules, they have no way of knowing. It's all based on the honour system.

In other news, there's a couple of offers up on the NaNo forum for participants!

There's one for Storyist--25% off for participants. For Mac users only.

And another for WriteWay--you can demo the Professional Edition for free until the 15th of December. If you like it, you can buy it for 50% off. Windows only, but there's a Mac version in the works.

No word yet on any offers for winners, but it's still early. I haven't tried or looked at either of those programs (I really like Scrivener and you'll never see me using a Mac if I can help it), but at first glance WriteWay is fairly similar to Scrivener. There's a corkboard, area for research, and character profiles and all that. It just seems to be set up differently, so if you don't like the way Scrivener is set up, you might like WriteWay better.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[† Emotional Outlet]

All right, I played around with Writeway for a bit. For the short amount of time I've messed with it, I really don't like it. It's clunky, a little bit ugly, and I've managed to make it crash twice in the space of twenty minutes.

Negatives aside, there are a lot of sample layouts if you like taking detailed notes for your writing and I do like being able to access character sheets and research from a separate window, but that's not enough for me to want to switch from Scrivener to WriteWay. Someone wrote on the WriteWay thread on the NaNo forum they preferred this program over Scrivener because it seems like WriteWay was written more for Windows as compared to Scrivener being written more for Macs. I don't agree with that in the least--while Scrivener was originally a program for the Mac, it works much smoother than WriteWay.

There is a learning curve for both programs if you want to use the more advanced features--it's easy enough to get started with the basic features like adding and deleting scenes, moving scenes around in the file tree, &c. I understand that and have no problem with it. However, after having WriteWay crash on me twice, something I never experienced with Scrivener, I'm more than a little wary of experimenting with this program. The way I learn to use things is through experimentation--having documentation is nice, but you can only read so much about a clarinet before you just have to pick up the instrument and start playing it, you know? I don't like feeling like I can't play around with features freely for fear of it crashing.

It was mentioned on the NaNo forum that they're planning on rewriting the program entirely for next year, so I'm hoping they come out with a more stable program in the future. It has a lot of promise and the price isn't bad all things considered. I can look past an ugly interface, but I at least want it to be functional.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[Pinkie Pie]

I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. I started the planning of the planning and the putting together of the proper playlists I would need to get into a mindset necessary to get the planning ball rolling around Saturday. As for my writing program? Notepad. Plain and simple. I usually have four or five instances of it open at once though. I don't even use Word anymore.

[† Emotional Outlet]

I signed up to do a Homestuck Secret Santa to write some fan fiction--that's slated to run through November until December, so I'm doubled up on projects, haha. I have one of my playlists partially set up--still have a lot of music to sort through yet, though.

Notepad is probably the closest thing to handwriting something without actually handwriting it. There are a couple of "distraction-free" programs that aim to do the same thing but with different layouts.

======

Couple of links for you guys that you may already be familiar with.

Write or Die -- Free web app also available for purchase as a desktop version and for iPad (although there seems to be a lot of issues with the paid apps). There are multiple levels of getting you to write--at its nicest, it'll bring up a popup. At a higher level, it'll play an annoying sound. Even higher and it starts erasing your work. Good for people like me who find nebulous reasons not to write or want to spend all day editing instead of writing.

NaNoWriMo Special Offers -- From the official website. All the information is there for your enjoyment--some are participant rewards, some are only for winners, and some are for both, offering a higher discount for winners. Keep watch of that page and the forum for any updates!

There are other resources on the NaNo forum like spreadsheet report cards as well as offers to make book covers and the like (not that most of you would need that since you can probably make your own).

I'll try to keep an eye out for other interesting stuff! When it gets closer to the start, I'll post up a thread for people to set up word wars; shout outs for progress and, eventually, completion; words of encouragement; and the like (unless someone else beats me to the punch).

Edited October 9, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[Pinkie Pie]

...Homestuck fanfiction secret santa? That's something I'd be interested in |D there will never be enough gamkar in the world

but yeah, i don't want to use anything fancy or anything. After changing it to a decent font, I found it very easy to get sucked into using it tbh. I used to handwrite my stories, actually, so I guess I was upgrading only a little. I like to have my character profiles and plot details on paper though.

Edited October 10, 2012 by Loki

[† Emotional Outlet]

Like pale or. Because I like them as palebros.

The one I'm participating in is here--sign ups are closed for now, but they said they'll reopen once they sort all the messages. I totally told them I would write porn. There's another one here, but you can only participate once--on the other hand, you can get nude figurines in the mail!

Presumably other fandoms are doing something similar, but I'm not as embroiled in them.

[Alice]

I'm writing a story myself, but I may not enter it. As I often do with my stories...I can never seem to be satisfied with it and believe good enough for anyone other than myself to read. My stories are always fictional and are almost always based in the country of Japan. I hope to complete this one into satisfactory levels. If I do...I might just enter it.

[EDIT]

Okay maybe not. I just put mine thru the word counter and it barely comes even close to 6,000 words and I am at least half way thru. I may still share it with you all thou.

Yes, I realize I started before the 1st. Another reason I couldn't enter...but considering the word count...I'm not even going to bother to try, cause there is no way I'd be able to that kind of writing in that time span when raising an infant. -sighs- Maybe later on in life...or I might add on to my story as I gain more ideas.

Edited October 11, 2012 by Sakura Rei

[† Emotional Outlet]

Nobody actually reads your NaNo entry, though, unless you want people to. If you submit to the official site, it goes to a word counter and then disappears forever after giving you a count. The official site even gives you ideas on how to scramble your work if you think someone might be secretly reading what you wrote.

The point of NaNo isn't necessarily to follow all of the rules (although it's part of the challenge), but to get writing and stop putting it off. To stop editing all the time and just write until you have something, because you can edit crap, but you can't edit nothing. It's not so much a competition against others as it is a challenge for yourself. 50k not a big enough challenge for you? There are people who do 75k, 100k, and upwards. Maybe 50k is too much? Then lower your goal to a more achievable one.

Make the challenge your own. No one is going to look at you funny for doing something different because chances are they're doing something different too.

[Pinkie Pie]

Pretty much what EO said tbh. It's not about how much you write, it's that you're writing. Even RPing counts as writing > w>

[† Emotional Outlet]

I'm counting the Secret Santa fics I write in case I start hurting for word count towards the end, haha. Gonna rebel all the way.

[Pinkie Pie]

Maybe I should start a Meuloz porn epic and put that in for my wordcount lmao. I'd get hella followers on tumblr and my wordcount done XD

In all serious business though, I'm planning my new project and it'll probably turn into a gore epic since it's been quite a while since I've done one.

[Alice]

I'd like to be able to do a 10K story. The one I'm working on right now is the longest I've ever wrote. Even as is, incomplete, it's still the longest I've ever done. I always get bored about half way thru my story and I make up an ending before I've carried the story thru.

[Pinkie Pie]

A fun fact about my writing process is that I usually write the end while I'm still planning it. Whether or not it actually ends like that doesn't matter much, but I don't let ideas like that slip away usually.

[† Emotional Outlet]

A lot of people I talk to actually recommend writing out of order, so you don't end up stalling an entire project just because you're bored of one part. If there's another part you're more interested in and you're stuck on one you're not inspired to do, just leave a note for yourself and move on. I'm trying to keep to that myself.

In previous years I did NaNo, I'd write porn as filler, haha. Super hilarious and completely out of place.

[Pinkie Pie]

ahaha nice. I'm tempted to fit the thing I'm doing right now in the world that Unicorn Killer is in, but it'd have to be before humanity was wiped out because of how it would function. Maybe near the end? There's a lot I can do to develop that world before the Apocalypse/Ranarok/nuclear winter/earth just giving the fuck up.

[† Emotional Outlet]

That sounds neat! I like working a lot of my stuff into the same universe at different points on the timeline. Lot of long living characters and reincarnations I have to rework from stuff I wrote as a teenager, haha.

[Alice]

That sounds like a really fine idea. I should do that the next time I get bored with one of my stories or anything for that matter.