Newbie to Nano

Any tips for a Nano newbie?

My squills article is actually aimed for NaNoNewbs. So you might want to take a look at that when it comes out! (I'm not sure when it will be coming out? @_@)

Don't freak out, don't quit, don't forget to back up. ^_^ Coffee is your friend, unless you drink too much of it. Use your time wisely.

Suzanne wrote:Coffee is your friend, unless you drink too much of it.

Or you can be like me and attempt unwittingly to commit suicide the old-fashioned way (read: mit koffein). [I will never touch coffee again. At least, I will never touch coffee 'til November, and after that, all bets are off.] Not that any of this is the least bit helpful...

Just take it little by little and try to pace yourself. Try to get something new written every day and stick with it - remember, NaNo is about quantity, not necessarily quality. Best of luck. ^_^

Yes, suicide mit koffein isn't good, Bechka ^_~


If you're intimidated by the word count, do it the old fashioned way. Write at least 1,667 every day. If you do that, you're sure to have 50k by the end of the month. And if you write more than 1,667 each day, well then, you're eve closer.

If you're a competitive person, make sure it's personally not okay for you to lose. This sounds horrid and scary, but really- if you're cutthroat, you're likely to make NaNo. If you aren't, and say instead, "Oh, I think I'll just do ten thousand words and then stop," you are certainly not going to. And you might not even make the 10k.

Scary psychological business aside:

- Make sure you find someone you can complain about it to. A month without moaning about what needs to be moaned about is kind of sucky.

- Make sure you love your story. It's okay if you don't have a fully developed plot- the characters are the most important bits, anyway- but if you hate what you're writing, it won't be any fun.

- And most importantly: do have fun. Find NaNo buddies- people you can do word wars with and try a few dares or even join the Trebuchet Club. Do crazy, bonkers things you wouldn't normally do.

[And I would probably not recommend coffee, mainly because coffee isn't good for you. *Sam downpours woe and misery upon YWS* But really- if you're a person who gets sick easily, have something healthy and not-fun around you when you write. NaNo is like a marathon. You wouldn't have jelly beans and a Big Mac before running a marathon, would you?]

XD thanks for the help guys, I'm not allowed to drink coffee anymore...long story behind that, so I'll just stick to eating apples and drinking tea ^.^ my parents say that's better.

I'm another NaNo newbie, but my parents don't believe that I should spend all of my time writing! How can I convince them that this is actually what I want to do? I'm gonna have to spend all November holed away in my room, writing under the bedcovers!

- VamPirate

I'm another NaNo newbie, but my parents don't believe that I should spend all of my time writing! How can I convince them that this is actually what I want to do? I'm gonna have to spend all November holed away in my room, writing under the bedcovers!

Tell them it is good that you are interested in writing now because when you get into high school and even college, you'll be the awesome student in the advanced English class. ^_^ Tell them you enjoy it, it's your kind of fun, your hobby, and that no, you do not plan to spend your life as a starving artist [even if you do plan your life that way--lie to them for now!] you just enjoy writing and would like to be allowed to do it in your free time, and that you will not let your grades drop just because your word count is low [also a lie. XD] and that even though you're so close to the end of your novel you will take a break and study for that major exam in Chemistry... hahah.


I hope that helps? ^_~ Just don't laugh at the end, they may not take you so seriously.

Really though, it's great for young people like yourself to be interested in writing, with the world going almost illiterate in America, it's a great, wonderful thing. They should be happy you've found such an intelligent art as writing.

They should just be glad it's not video games or binge eating. XD

One of the fun parts about NaNo is finding freaky places to write- you'll have to tell me what you come up with.

Yet another NaNo newbie here!

Okay, here are my limits:

* Before I do any writing or reading, I need to be completely prepared for any quizzes that might pop up a week from now. Prepared as in I could take the quiz now and pass it. And I need to have all the work for the week done, too.

* I'm not allowed to drink coffee until I'm 18.

* Because I tend to keep people up late with all the racket I make as I sit on my bed reading a book, once everybody goes to bed, ditto goes for me.

So there are my limits, and that's as bad as it gets. I honestly don't know how I could complete a NaNo if it did get any worse. As bad as it may sound, though, it's not too bad. Academics are pretty heavily stressed in my family, hence all the week ahead stuff. Failing a NaNo won't be as painful as what I will face if I fail a class. Also, when they go to sleep, they want to go to sleep.

And here's what I have going for me:

* I can type fast.

* Because of all the writing I don't do, I've learned how to hold ideas in my head and let them stew. I can hold them long enough to get ahead so that I can type them out. When I can write my stories, I don't have to pause and wait for it to come to me what happens next because I've know for about a week.

* I like to write. I can write for hours and not get bored. Combine that with fast typing and not taking time to think about what happens...

So, NaNo veterans, got tips?



Cass

Tips?

WRITE.

That's really all there is to NaNo. If you get stuck, force yourself to write, by either putting a [insert blah de blah] here, or just make something up to get to the next bit. Planning ahead of time helps with that, but unexpected snags DO come up. Just write past them and don't worry about having to come back to it later.

And make sure you write every day. Missing a day just makes you cranky cause you realize that you're now at least 1667 words behind at the beginning of the next day and nobody likes that feeling.

Well, here's some advice: begin at the beginning. I'm guessing they want an original story, written specifically for the contest.

This is my first year too, so we'll figure it out. Btw, my site name is jpenbrook.