OK, I have decided to try this for the very first time. This is the first year I'm not working and since I'm already working on one book, I thought I would put that one on hold and work on a second.

Writing is something I never thought I would do, but I had this story in my head and I started writing it down. And I have enjoyed it so much. (Probably because it's just for me and I have no one correcting my grammar, etc.!)

The book I'm going to do for Nanowrimo is actual the sequel to the book I'm writing now. The story I have in my head has a good place to end the first and start the second. I had no idea how long the first one would become.

I don't know if I'll get to 50,000 words, but I think just to attempt it and work at it will be a great achievement for me!

By the way, all of you have inspired me to do this!

Hurray for Ramagut joining us! I hope you have lots of fun, ramagut! And may you make 50,000 words easily!

It's hard to believe it's only days away, isn't it? My research is almost all done- I think I know enough to be able to start writing it to-day if I had to do so, but there are still vast amounts of small details that I do not know. Most of it is information that I need to create mental pictures of the time period, surroundings, and land, etc, so it probably won't even end up in the story itself. ^.^

Planning? What's that? Ok, so I do have a basic plan in my head and an idea of what the different sections of my book will involve...
Research? My living room is full of books with titles like The Daily Lives of the Pagan Celts and Roman Britain and I've read chunks out of most of them. I still have a list of very basic things I have to figure out, though, like specific time period and location and how my Roman character can logically/accurately get to where he needs to be. I think I'm assimilating a lot of good background info, though.

Anyone have good ideas for 1st-century British names that: 1) don't already belong to famous people from that time period and 2) a 21st-century teen could relate to? Not sure I want to go with a main character named Cassevellaunus, for example.

Unfortunately, I've been really hampered in my progress to get a team word war up and going due to lack of buddy lists. Ugh. I can do it without them, but it's EXTREMELY helpful. So right now, I'm waiting on the buddy lists to go back live so I can get everything up and running.

stardf, you always seem to have the most fascinating twists to your plots. I hope your second story goes well!

ramagut! I'm so pleased you'll be joining us this year, how fun!!!

hogglestock, it seems to me that you could give a character named Cassevellaunus the nickname Cass, which rolls off a modern tongue easily. Unless, of course, that changes the meaning of the name entirely...

I am doing the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program and I was wondering if I could take part in the Narniaweb Word Wars.
Thanks!

The buddy system is up on NaNoWriMo.org! Woot!

Here are the two NarniaWebber threads on the NaNo boards, for those of you who want to go through them and buddify everyone.

Narniaweb NaNo's - Rockin' it for the umpteenth year!
and
NaNoNarniaWebbers Unite
In other news, I seem to have misplaced my sanity.

For the past month or so I've been preparing to do a retelling of a fairytale for this year's NaNo, and suddenly I've shelved that idea because I just feel detached from the story. I really like it and am excited about the ideas I have for it, but I think I'd rather work on it when I feel more like writing about a whimsical world, so I can at least hope to do it justice.

So, instead, I'm going to shake things up and come up with something different. Since I waited until about three days before the first of November to decide that I was going to chuck my original story idea out the window and write something else, things are getting really interesting for me as we draw closer to the starting gate. Can't believe I only have about two days to figure out what I want to do, but at least that makes everything very exciting!

I have a few other story ideas wandering around my brain, though they're all very green. I have a feeling that whatever I come up with, it'll be very character-driven, because I don't have time to weave together a really tight plot. I have a habit of focusing on plot details too much and don't give my characters enough attention, so I'm excited to try something new.

Let's see. . . I've had a sort of steampunk-style novel idea with connections to the "Monday's Child" nursery rhyme floating around my head since summertime, so I might try to do something with that. And recently, I've also been inspired by this really lovely list of flower names from the 1800's that includes the Latin and French names for each plant, as well as the meaning of the flower, and I am just dying to turn those gorgeous words into names for characters. Annnd despite shelving it, I'm also open to the possibility that I may end up reverting back to my original plan, or possibly retell another fairytale, though I doubt it.

Goodness, I have no idea what I am doing right now. But I'm hopeful that I can pull something together in time. Who knows? I may end up writing multiple stories and just following my whims, in spite of all the madness that is sure to ensue. At least I probably won't fall into last year's trap of planning-quite-a-bit-but-not-planning-enough.

Anyway, I think I'm in for quite an adventure. . . and hopefully I'll find my sanity again somewhere along the way.

Well I went to go on the site to add some people to my buddy list... and it's under maintenance... Ah well...

Squeee! I am so excited to see so many people on NarniaWeb are doing NaNoWriMo this fall! I can't wait to start scribbling words at insane rates. Betsie, I'm kind of doing the same kind of thing you are with my plot this year. I always like dwelling on the characters more than the plot. But plot really is key as well for me. I have to have a solid plot scheme to work with.

There are two characters in my story--two main characters. Athol Elen Maccallum and Clem Jamar Heidrich. Though Clem doesn't usually tell people his last name. Everything in this story is sort of centered around these two characters. For example, Athol's environment and where she lives is a reflection of who she is. She lives in an upscale suburb neighborhood with her wealthy family. Clem is a ragamuffin who lives in the queer woods just outside of Athol's neighborhood. The woods are sort of a summary of Clem's character, more so than Athol's environment does, I think. The woods are mysterious and fantastical. Dangerous things dwell there, creatures Athol has never heard of. But beautiful treasures can be found there as well.

Athol of course is forbidden to enter such dangerous and spontaneous woods, but she is forced to when her two younger brothers go missing. And of course, she meets Clem.

I think I really want the overall theme of the story to be family. Clem is almost a Peter-Pan character. He ran from his family--a broken family that had suffered divorce. Not wanting anything to do with them, he entered into the woods. Athol has always had the urge to leave her family. She doesn't feel stifled by them, but rather intimidated. Her parents are succesfful, but estranged from her. Her brothers are boys and don't really think much of having their sister as their friend. And ultimately she pursues them to prove herself--whether to her parents, her brothers, or herself, she's not sure...

There's a shorter summary on my NaNoWriMo page. My user is Erubadhriel. I'd love to keep up with all of you as you write your novels!! It's really encouraging seeing so many others on here and it's always a motivation to keep writing when my friends are all writing. Can't wait until November 1st!

Is anyone else having problems with the Nano site? It's lagging like crazy and I can only view my comments not the rest of the forums.

The site is slow, actually, it's not working for me either, wolfloversk. Perhaps it's the last minute NaNo-ers who have come to the site (much like last minute Christmas shoppers cause rushes on the days preceding Christmas....).

Ok, panic is starting to set in...

NaNo is in TWO NIGHTS. I BARELY KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO WRITE!!!!!!!!

*deep breath*

Ok, this can't be so hard, right? For someone who hasn't written less than 65k in a NaNo, I should be able to scrape 50k even on an "off-year", right? It's not like this is a brand new story/characters. This is the third novel in a series, so I'm pretty familiar with my characters and the general storyline, plus I have a lot of great research material; my other two books! I think I shall be doing a speed-read of those books tomorrow and Monday; I don't actually think I've ever read my second book straight through. It's huge and awful but at least it has some character insights that I could use...

I mean, I have a basic plot, but I KNOW I'm going to sit down on Monday and just freak out. It doesn't help that I have to be at work at 9:30 the following day, so I can't stay up all hours to write. In fact I probably can't stay up more than an hour or two, and I don't know if that's going to be a blessing or a curse. Ugh.

I also feel really...out of sorts, because the NaNo site is so different and unfamiliar, and I don't know my way around it at all and I just don't have the time or willpower to figure it out. So I apologize if I'm unable to be such a huge team player like I tried to be last year; I don't know if I am going to have time to sit down and figure out word wars and such. Hopefully I can, but they might not get underway until after NaNo does. Having the site down right now is not helping!

Sorry for the rant; I just am starting to freak out a bit and I'm not sure why. This month has been CRAZY and it has not gotten me in the NaNo mood at all!

I hope your re-reading gives you the inspiration to hit the ground running on Tuesday, Gymfan! Good luck!

My story is also the third in a series; while some new characters will be introduced, most of the others are old familiar friends.

I like the idea of re-reading the past stories as research! I'm going to have to do some checking myself, to make sure certain incidental but important characters are correctly written in this year's story.

Little more than 50 hours before the start (in my timezone). Good luck to all our participants!

Oh, I just realized I only have two more days to plan. CSLN and I got around to planning our novel together, laying down who the characters/their temperments will be, and basic story ideas, so that's good.

Now I have to figure out what I want to do. I want to switch genres, but now am considering just doing something like Anne of Green Gables based on something I wrote a year ago. I keep getting inspiration for it, but I don't know how effective or even important the story will be, or even how much quality its content will have. It might end up becoming corny, melted cheese. So, as of now, I have only perhaps 5% planned of anything that I am going to do. ..... I have no idea how this is going to turn out.

Agh. I can't wait to start!!

It's so funny to read the NaNo comics with everyone saying, "AH, I HAVEN'T FINISHED MY OUTLINE!"...till you're the one doing it.

I only have today and tomorrow to fill in all my plot holes! I'm doing a rather major stress bump right now. My NaNo angel isn't helping. He's standing behind me saying, "Well, if you had worked on it every time I told you to, you'd be done by now."

On a lighter note, last night I had the joy of explaining to my dad how my characters from last year's NaNo named themselves. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm crazy.