Fanfic to the extreme?

[ladymako71]

Every November now for the last 5 years a group has held what they call NaNoWriMo...short for National Novel Writing Month...they used 'National' but it is definitely open to anyone around the globe. The object is to write 50,000 words in the span of a month. There's no prizes given (except the right to brag if you succeed) and style/grammar/quality doesn't count. It's an exercise for writing's sake.

Or like they themselves state here:
"Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down."

I did this last year and wrote a horrific X-Fic that I may one day clean up and actually post. It felt good to hit the 50,000 word mark and I'll admit that I was prouder then a pig in slop when I did...even if it was rubbish. ^^

Their home site is here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/index.php if you want to check them out. Now some Nano novels have been published, most will probably never see the light of day though but that's okay. The idea is quantity over quality, you work on the quality later if you think you might have something there.

I recommend checking them out if you are a writer and maybe want a good exercise in writing. I found my experience helped me a lot with my own writing and I reckon a lot of other writers could benefit too. Who knows? It might be good enough to get Marvel's attention enough that they'll offer ya a job. ^^

[kohl]

it sure is a good idea. i've been wanting to try it for a couple of years, but laziness gets me every time.

[ladymako71]

see? what I like about this is the fact that you have no real excuse to be lazy. it's not like you're trying to creat a masterpiece like War and Peace or something. Just grab a concept and start babbling away on the keyboard.

[ladymako71]

It's less then a month to November!

Ever said 'I wanna write a novel someday?' Now's your chance.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/index.php

50,000 words in 30 days. They don't even have to be great words, heck, not even good...mine last year were utter crap. ^^ But I had 50,000 words. I actually had 64,983. They want quantity, not quality!

It's free! It's Frantic...it's not exactly fun if yer stuck, but it's something you can cross off your 'must do in this lifetime' list!

[kozzi24]

I joined up. We'll see how I do with a focus on this idea that's been kicking around the noggin for a few years and had one aborted attempt before.

[kozzi24]

Hey Jo, thatnks for bringing attention to this here.
I'm well underway with a project so old and abandoned it might not have otherwise ever gotten developed without this total-emmersion. I'm well over the halfway point of the word count, and maybe a quaerter or a third through the actual novel.
Hope you're also doing well at it

[ladymako71]

sounds like yer on a roll...I'm finally not fluish enough to sit at the comp for more then five minutes and type....then there's the fact I work in the postal industry and it's Christmas rush already. I'm sitting on 10k at the moment...I hope to catch up lost ground this weekend.

[kozzi24]

Keep plugging

[ladymako71]

Made it!

50,661 and counting. thankfully I got well enough from the flu to type away like mad.

[Ben]

I dunno Jo, writing that much that fast seems pretty sick to me! Are you sure you got better?

Ben

[ladymako71]

well seeing a the subject matter is something I can babble about for days...I dunno...mebbe.

although.....since I was on the writing binge for NaNo...I err gotta kinda figure out what my column (due TODAY) is gonna be abo.. >=) never mind. check yer box in about an hour or so.

[Ben]

eeeep! I still have Kozzi's latest column in by box to go up! I've been a bad liccle webmaster, been kinda busy. I just finished a big job, so there should be some updates today for sure.

Ben

[kozzi24]

I've got 47000+ in for the month, with, so far, five days where I didn't get to work on it. Absolutely no problem for me in making and surpassing the 50,000 mark, and I'm pretty satisfied with the output.

[kozzi24]

Hey, Jo, did you validate yet?

I'm certainly not done with this first draft, but validated today at 52,238 words.

There is one section I know off the top of the nogging I will cut because it's a bit of an info dump and I worked it in better in a later chapter, but the words were written.

Really, thanks for pointing this out here. I'd seen it in Writer's Digest, but I typically don't read the mags at the computer and do web searches from it become 'round toit' stuff that often collects dust before I get around to it. I ended up getting a bulk of a novel done after it has sat in a file and the back of my minds for four or so years as an abandon short story that wasn't going to be short enough to be feasible.

Your word count's up too, so congrats!