Holy cow. Have you ever heard about people having mind-blowingly epic brainwaves while writing that take their plot and/or characters in hugely different directions than they thought? I just had one of those!!!

Here I was, idly typing away, trying to plod my way to 15k by the end of the day. I was writing a little bit line about a secondary character that sort of appeared yesterday, when suddenly the skies parted and I had a complete revelation about this character. And I didn't even THINK about it...I just wrote it! Whoa! Not only does this DRASTICALLY change the nature of this character, but it's just added a whole new level to the plot.

Now I'm really excited to keep writing and see where this new direction takes me. It's still very much a sub-plot to my main plot, but it's a very interesting sub-plot that I had no idea existed before. And now it does! Every new sub-plot I find brings me closer to that 100k goal, so I couldn't be happier.

Go NaNo!

"How's it going?"
"It's going great! All my characters are going out to eat right now. All my characters except my mom, dad, and little sister."
"What do your parents do?"
"Well, my mom's a writer, and my dad goes to work but what he does hasn't been established."
"He should be an oral surgeon!"

^^Random conversation while standing in the kitchen. I loved doing NaNoWriMo with my siblings! Three of my younger sisters are joining me (their third year) in this challenge and two of my still younger siblings are doing the Young Writer's Program (second year). It is awfully fun to discuss scenes and woes and characters. I also get a lot of "How do you spell...?" questions from my little siblings.
I may try a get some word wars going tomorrow.

Speaking of word wars, if anyone here happens to do their writing at sun up (5-8AM central), let me know. I assume the chatroom is pretty quiet that time of day?

These wordcounts are blowing me away! You guys are amazing! Remember 5k by midnight tonight!! Woohoo!

I only wrote 1.7k because I am having slight issues, parts of my novel are scattered all over. A few thousand on my parent's laptop, a few more in my AlphaSmart, and the remaining in my iPod Touch. I hope that I can get a spare moment tomorrow to put my novel in one place and find out just where I am. Looking forward to a big day tomorrow!

Great progress, everyone!

I think it'd be lots of fun to do NaNo with siblings, Orious. Good luck to all of you!

Gymfan, I actually had something like that happen to me last year.

I was kind of stuck this morning in a "not wanting to write" mood, but that broke by this afternoon and I was ready for the next chapter of the story. I can write this in a sort of non-linear fashion since parts of it are stories told of past experiences - background stuff that I've thought about previously but never written down for these characters. 6600 words now...

Congrats on the mind-blowing revelation, Gymfan! I love it when that happens. Actually, I had one earlier about a plot element that just needed some more backstory to explain it! It was lacking some explanation before, but I was in phys ed class when BAM! Something clicked. And now it all makes sense! Yay! Hopefully I'll get the chance to write about this particular plot element later on in the month.

Well, I'm stopping tonight at 6,850 words. Today's writing was mostly comprised of dialogue - a discussion between two of my characters where more than one question is answered. Very neat! My MC feels so enlightened.

Awesome word counts - keep it up, everyone!

Writing with siblings is interesting. My sister and brother are in the same room with me now. My brother isn't working on his at the moment, though.

So i'm thinking about swapping plots. I just wasn't feeling the first one, and i have 2.5k of another idea (fanfic ... ) down, but if i can't get to or close to 5k tonight, i may just go with the original idea. Or not. I can't tell yet.

Aw, just push through the "not feeling it" stage, Arwenel! All authors feel it, so you can feel AWESOME about it cause you feel like Suzanne Collins and C.S. Lewis did at one point!

Good work so far, everyone!

I'm slowly chugging along on my novel. My MC seems to be telling it to me as I go along. I'm going to have to take a break here shortly, but I hope to get more writing in this evening. I'd like to get closer to some of these amazing word counts you guys are putting out.

*runs through the last few pages of the thread*

Mel, your comment about the rider fitting into a western novel made me laugh out loud. Please don't ask why

I would like to believe it was because it was a genuinely funny statement, but this is probably not true. *would love to see a fantasy/Western crossover some day, but will probably have to write it herself*

Betsie, I really like your title. It's so quirky and fun!

Bella, what a lovely idea! I'd love to read a story about Fanny Crosby.

I like your second cover, Queen Susan.

Nice drawings, Starsy. They look like fun people to write about.

*is in the plodding boat, despite a word-count that might be considered amazing* I want a story that is full of 'things being awesome' and so far all my characters have been depressingly meh and all the little light-bulb moments have been tiny. I'm hoping that with the new characters I introduced today things will look up tomorrow. Let there be cheer along with the doom and gloom...

Author: Will you be funny?
Characters: No.
A. Why not?
C. Because we want you to suffer as much as we are suffering now.
A. I am tempted to send in plot ninjas in clown suits.

Great job everyone!!!!!! Your word counts are all awesome!!!!

I worked on my story earlier today. So far I'm at 4,577 words. I still have to finish the chapter tonight and maybe work on the next one. So far I've introduced all my MCs though I haven't totally finish the last intro.

Author: Will you be funny?
Characters: No.
A. Why not?
C. Because we want you to suffer as much as we are suffering now.

... and then a little: because i know exactly what you're talking about.

5017 words. That's where I'm clocking tonight. Nowhere near the amazingness that some of you are doing ( btw!!!) but at least I'm finally on track. Finally. They were hard words, too. I feel like I'm forcing it, and a lot of what I'm writing is just...words for the sake of words and word counts. It's a little frustrating, but that's what NaNo is: Goodbye inner editor. What will I do without thee???

*collapses from exhaustion, yet still victorious!*

It's official .. i'm doing the other story now. That makes two defunct "Kingslayer" NaNoWriMo stories - i think i know one thing i will not be calling next year's NaNo ...

I'm at 3,903 - or 8,904, if you count what i've already written despite not continuing that story - which is more than i wrote on the first day, but leaves me 2,756 words behind. After doing over 3k in one day twice so far, i'm not too worried about that.

Updated my profile, if anyone's interested in seeing the new synopsis/excerpt. Feel free to add me as a buddy, too, if you haven't.

Arindilwen

Well, I got my 15k! And it went much better than I feared. If anything, I proved to myself that I can write large amounts of text in a very short amount of time if I set my mind to it. Suddenly, this 5k a day thing and my ultimate 100k goal is seeming to be more and more within reach. If I can write almost 7k in about four and a half hours, I know I can do it.

Many thanks to Djaq, flambeau and others who have chatted and word-warred with me! It's been great inspiration. And everyone's word counts has been a huge motivator as well....you all are doing SO well! I don't remember any other NaNo that had so many NWebbers with such high word counts so soon. Keep the pace up...you can do this!

Off to bed, and on to 20k tomorrow!

I can hardly believe that I'm at over 12k!!! It's goig so amazingly well. I wrote over 5.5k today!! I am astonished.

Orious, that's evening for me, so I'll probably be around. Not every day, as I tend to work in the afternoon as well, but I should be there sometimes.

Right, well I just got back from school and am ready to go with *checks* 6286 words from yesterday. I'm feeling small amongst all your crazy word counts. I wonder if I can get to 10k by the end of the day.. probably not, but I'll try. My story seems to be moving ridiculously slowly at the moment, and it feels like I'll need more than 50,000 words to get through.

I know I should do the schoolwork I've been neglecting for the past few days, but when I sit down with the computer, writing is so much more tempting.

Random question: what are word wars, exactly? Does everyone just try to catch up with each other, or do you set a certain number of words to write in however many minutes or whatever?

I'm at 13k, I think, and...well, chugging. Just chugging through the story. At last I'm past the suspicion/suspense bits of the first chapters (Character A has finally broken into Character B's house, yay!), but the writing still feels dry, not fluid or inspired.

*feels massively jealous of writers like winterlife and Gymfan, who are having moments of mass creative revelation from their characters*

Also, I have a quick question; does anyone know how to type one of those upside-down question marks that are used at the beginning of questions in Spanish? I can't find it on my list of symbols on my computer, and I had kind of hoped to use it, though it isn't essential...

*leaves, praying to the muse for inspiration, and hoping that said muse hasn't got itself run over by a truck and lost permanently*