Congratulations, narnian_at_heart! That is fantastic! Will you share your cover with us if your cover is one of the final ones picked?

Betsie: I too like the name- it's very creative, and very you. (Which is a good thing! )

Congratulations, narnian_at_heart!! That's really cool! I hope your novel gets chosen!

Well, I did (half heartedly) try to bribe flam with chocolate to switch story ideas, but unfortunately it didn't seem to work. Perhaps it was the fact that I discovered she likes Reeses too-and I promptly stopped talking about it after that, for fear she would steal mine.

Hehe. I would never attempt to steal your Reese's. Nope. Not me.

Oh, great news!! My brother is going to attempt NaNo for the first time this year!! Dee and I mentioned it to him, but he never really told us if he would be doing it or not, but it turns out that he's going to try!! I'm so excited about that!

More happy news: I whipped up a cover for my book just now, and I am actually quite pleased with it! That's kinda surprising, considering that I usually don't like my book covers. Click on the thumbnail to view it larger.

Yeah, it's kinda dark, but it seemed to work. *shrug* Whatever. Like I said, I liked it.

Even better news: Just over two hours until NaNo begins!! I'm staying up until midnight and I'm going to get some writing in then. I can't wait!!!!!

--- flambeau

Looks really great, Flam!

An hour and a half for me! Eeeek! I'm trying not to panic right now.

Btw, if anyone is interested, I know in years past a lot of us have congregated in the NWeb chat room or on various IM clients for word wars in the evenings. I will be in the NWeb chat room off and on during the month, but I prefer to use IM because it's easier for me. I have Trillian so I can combine all IM clients into one program, so I'm available on Gmail, YIM, AIM, MSN, etc.

My handles for all the above is Gymfan15, with the exception of AIM, which is Gymnfan15. My gmail handle is spareoom1 at gmail dot com, and my MSN is gymfan15 at hotmail dot com.

I'd love to chat with you this month! If you choose to IM me, please identify yourself so I know who you are so I can add you to my buddy list.

See ya soon!

With only an hour left till NaNo begins, in my time, I'm finishing outlining and character bios. I've been planning out my story since the begining of the school year, but NaNo still snuck up on me. Today I was talking to my friend about writing another book, when it hit me that today was October 31st and I still hadn't signed up for NaNoWriMo. So now I'm, just about set and ready to try to win this year, though with the several, large paper's that I have comming up in school, I might not make it, but I'm gonna give it a shot and even if I don't win I hope to beat last year. Good Luck everybody.

Aaahhh, I have 3 1/2 hours left! I can't wait!

flambeau, I love the cover! It is dark, but very cool.

I'm taking a pen and ink drawing class in November, too, so I hope to learn enough to design my cover before the end of the month. I want the sharp contrast of black ink on white paper, with maybe a tint of color.

well I've been working on mine for an hour now (gotta love being on EST time ) and I think I'm off to a great start so far!

good luck to everyone doing NaNo this year!

I remembered a setting on gimp that I thought might work for my cover art. What does everyone think?

I also finally have my synopsis up. http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/602125

I started NaNo this morning! (I live in Japan, so I think I'm ahead of most of you) I wanted to start at midnight, but in the end decided to get sleep, so I got up early and did it for an hour instead.

I got around 1200 words, but I kept stopping myself because I couldn't stand the lack of quality in my writing. Ugh.. I have a lot to get used to.. Plus, I was hardly awake when I did it, which probably didn't help. I wrote the word "prologue" at the top of the page and then proceeded to type the beginning of chapter 1. Duh.
(I finally realised about two paragraphs in a switched )

But I think it's going to be a lot of fun, even if I struggle to find the right words quickly.

Now I've got to go write some more.

NaNo has started! I am soo excited.

I spent the majority of October thinking I knew what I was going to write about... I wasn't quite sure whether I liked the idea or not, but I didn't have time to plan much, and I prefer winging it anyway. However, October was really really busy for me and I started worrying about failing school due to attempting NaNo, so I figured I needed some sort of plan, however measly just so I could know what I was doing sort of. But then I forgot about planning until the 30th, late at night. At which point an idea hit me. I have had a habit, ever since I was really little, of imagining stories to put me to sleep. I imagine them as movies, and go back and edit every single little detail until they are to my liking. And so I was like, I've been planning this story plot since I was 12! I should do this one! Only problem is, it's sort of fanfiction that only lives in my brain for the Percy Jackson & the Olympians books. And THEN in church on the 31st, my brain was suddenly hit with an idea right in the middle of an interesting sermon. I could squish my two ideas together! So NOW my novel is going to be sort of a mass of Percy Jackson & the Olympians + Fringe + Oliver Twist + Incarceron elements meets assassins and ninjas and scientists and street urchins. Um. Yay? I've already started, and so far I love my opening. I hate my last two NaNo prologues. So I am happy. [/long ramble]

How's everyone else doing?!

*bounces* I love this, I love this, oh how I love this.

I just hit 1700 words (it's 2:30 AM). So far I've just been rambling because getting started is really hard for me. BUT rambling or no, I'm having a blast. I discovered 500 words in that my mc's family has a pregnant Italian cook... who just went into labor. And my mc's stepmother aspires to be a perfect 1960's sitcom mom, a la Mrs. Brady of the Brady Bunch. I don't want my heroine to ever leave her house, I'm having way too much fun writing that stepmother.

So now, after 1700 words, I'm finally getting to something actually relevant. But I'm having a hard time getting into my heroine's head... I thought I knew her quite well before I started writing about her.

I have been typing for about half an hour, and I am up to 648 words. So far that's a really short intro and the first little part of my prologue. I really like how it's going so far, but I'll be able to get a bit better of a feel for how it's going to be once I'm farther along.

Nionel, Fringe, as in the TV show? Love it. Plus Percy Jackson? Your novel sounds awesome..

I've got to.. 2048 words so far. This might be easier than I originally thought, although we'll see a week or two in. Already I'm really loving my story, but soon I'll reach the not-so-planned stages and after than the not-at-all-planned stages. I'm sure things will reveal themselves to me along the way as well. This is heaps of fun. I've really missed writing.

Confession: I haven't written a single sentence yet because I am afraid that it'll be awful!

I'm procrastinating because I am afraid! Fun times? I've never actually done a prologue before so that is freaking me out. Randomly, the other day, I figured I'd just do a few hundred words on one of my important characters who doesn't really come into the story much. I think it would be great if I can just get it out of my head.

*breathes* Okay. Here goes.

(I have decided that, if at all possible, I am going to put a masquerade into my book.)

Hate to break it to you, Orious, but statistically your first sentence WILL be awful. I just wrote 2.5k, and it's all complete and utter rubbish. But should that keep anyone from writing? Noooooooo sirrie. Ya gotta keep pressing on!

So, last year pretty much my worst fear came true. It turned 12, I stared at the computer screen, and I didn't have blessed clue of what I was supposed to write. That was kind of depressing and discouraging. But then I got my act together and got some scenes started, even though it was like pulling teeth to get them out. I did a little better later on, when I got motivated to pass Alenta and Phoenix's word counts before I went to bed.

Here's the thing: I THRIVE on word wars!!! I find it hard to self-motivate my writing, so I would love for you all to challenge me by writing as much as YOU can. Because I can't stand having the lowest word count, so that will force me to write until I have the highest. And hopefully that will motivate YOU to keep writing as well, and it's a win/win situation.

So far I have 2.5k for today, and hoping to get out another 2.5k before the day is out. I dare you to beat that!

I was up until 3 a.m. writing last night and my word count is currently at around 2400 words. I had forgotten just how fun these late night writing sessions can be! I got the first chapter and a half of my book written, and I'm pretty much happy with them. I'm sure when I read through them critically in a few months while I'm editing I'll find innumerable things wrong with them, but I don't have to worry about that right now. The beginning of my book is pretty much all planned out, so for once I'm not lost when it comes to what I'm supposed to be writing; that's a great feeling, let me tell you!
I know I'm probably crazy, and I'm not even sure if it's possible for me to do, but I would absolutely LOVE to hit the 10k mark on day 2! I recall Gymfan did that last year, and I was so envious.

--- flambeau