I first took part in NaNo last year, and it was so much fun! I decided that I would use NaNo to totally rewrite the story I'd been working on for several years (I used my past drafts as a rough outline) and it worked brilliantly...last year I had previous drafts to help me, I only looked back at them when I got stuck. I tried to just write.

Thank you so much for the inspiration, AJAiken! I wanted to do NaNo, but I didn't really want to start a new story until I'd done something with my current ones...now, using your idea, I'm in!
The novel/story I'll be writing is one that has existed in one form or another (both in my head and on paper) since I was twelve. I'm really hoping that I can get into a decent form during NaNo.
I'm still Avra over there, by the way.
Looking forward to November!

your cover looks great, sweeet! mine's still in the process of being made...lol. I basically just need to figure out exactly what I'm putting on it...

It's great to see how many Naniawebbers are joining us! I'm glad and hope you have an amazing NaNo

Oh, I love your covers Gymfan and sweeet! Both leave me curious about the story, and both look professional I just have one question, which size should the covers be? I made one last year but it was really small and when I enlarged it, it looked reeeeally bad

I found a title for my novel: Miniature, because it would be something that will connect the MCs.

About schedules I didn't have any last year, I just sat down at different times each day and didn't have all the plot developed from the beginning, I just had a vague idea of where I wanted the story to go. The results were really good, but this year I'm going to try to have a schedule and a more defined plot, to see how I work with that.

I am so excited to be doing nano this year! It's going to be a lot of fun!
As far as schedules go, I want to have like 20,000 words the first week... We'll see how it goes, but that's my goal. After that, I'll just do an hour or so every day, maybe in the morning or evening, and then hope I get done in time. I've written two books before, one WAY over 50,000 the other WAY under that mark, but I was not even close to having them done in a month, so it should be very interesting...
The plot? I have a plot... a pretty basic plot, although it's getting more detailed by the day. I can't wait to start writing to see how much of my outline I actually use. I normally can't stand outlines, but I thought I'd at least try it this time, since I was kind of impatient to start.....

~Danny

i love the covers, sweeet and Gymfan. they both look so professional, like books you'd see on the shelf at Chapters.

just after my last post, i realized that i've spent all this time waiting for Nano, but i don't have a plot or even a good idea for a story yet. oh well. i have a month, i'll think of something. hopefully.

Kate: the rules say you can't coauthor a book unfortunately. If you want to coauthor something do screnzy which does allow coauthors. btw, the letter is game fun to play. I'm currently doing it with AJ by email (snail mail would take waaay too long considering we're in different countries).
Yes AJ, I'll get the next letter to you soon enough. Midterms are slowing me down but I should be able to get to it over fall break (starting wed).

As for me, this'll be my 3rd year doing NaNo. The first time I didn't win (novel entitled Firequeen) and last year I did (novel entitled Lwyn: a Space Trader's Daughter Book 2 - Kaja Colony Crisis). Unfortunately 50k wasn't enough to finish the book so I'm sorta looking over it, getting ideas, at the moment. I'd love to have it done by Nov but that isn't looking like it'll happen.

NaNo idea for this year is to write book 3, the sequel, for which I've got a vague plot starter (what happened to make their first ship get scuttled so they had to buy a new one?) and that's probably all I'll have to go on come Nov. 1. I'm very much a seat of the pants type writer.

I'm Menelve on the site (duh...) so add me if you aren't already on my buddy list.

~Anna

I don't think I can justify NaNo this year. I wanted to do it last year, but I got writer's burnout after the first weekend. I had been making a huge push on my novel and I just ran out of gas when NaNo arrived. This year, it's homework. I hardly have the time to look at my sequel right now and in November I am looking at having three projects to do. So I have one month to be set up for those projects so I actually have a chance to finish them. So no NaNo for me this time. Maybe next year depending on class schedules.

That's a shame, Fencer! Maybe next time.

Gymfan, when I went to edit my name from my NaNo cover I realised that the picture is kind of the same to yours ... But, anyhoo, here it is!

Menelve, no problem. I look forward to it though!

sweeet, I really like your cover too! I love all the shoes ...

I like your cover, AJAiken! I don't think it really looks like mine (except for some of the blurriness), so don't fret. Besides, good ideas were meant to be shared.

So I've started doing some planning for my NaNo, in order to save time and frustration in November, and my MC is demanding that I write my book in first-person. I DON'T WANT TO WRITE IN FIRST PERSON!!!! But I just can't conceptualize this novel any other way!

This should be an interesting month.

Oh come on, gymfan! Write in first person. It's really, really fun and gets a nice dialogue going. It's like writing in a journal almost. And you can do fun things with it. I find the more limited the POV the more you can do with it. (I write in 1st person btw for my nano novels)

ooo, that's pretty AJ! I love the text and the swirly accent

~Anna

Right now, i am really having trouble working out a plot. I realize it's only the earliest part of October, but the sooner i can get started working it out, the better.

Anyone else having this problem? I could really use some encouragement at this point.

Arwenel: I am having the same problem as well! I have what will probably be the first half of the plot all figured out, but I am stuck now- I have only a slight clue as to one event that I want to have happen, but no real idea of where I want the story to go, what will happen to get it there, even the themes and character stories that I want to have happen. Since it's a fantasy/time travel, I really want to avoid cliches and already-been-dones, but I will admit it's making everything harder...

NaNoWriMo?! That's NEXT MONTH?! I didn't even realize. I felt sure NaNo wasn't starting for like six months. That means my birthday is in two months... WHY didn't I remember this?!

Last year was my first time, and I WON. I hate my story though - it had exactly one good passage, and then after I wrote it, I'd used up all my plot, and I was only about 3000 words in. So I was just randomly writing and drawing out random things (like this one guy opening a door - I got about 1000 words out of that. ) and sticking random things in like spaceships and time travel and kidnapped kings and it turned out really really really badly. (Although I am kind of fond of that one part where the guy opened the door. But otherwise it was all pretty bad)

Anyway, several months ago, I came up with the first line for my novel, but other than that, I have no idea what my plot is going to be, or what I'm going to do at all. There's going to be a princess though. I simply can't do without one. I'm also going to use some of my character's from last year's novel - despite its horribleness, I did rather like some of my characters.

It'll be my first NaNo ever and I picked a hard topic!

It, hopefully, will be about my past year with my fish and all the bad, bad, bad - oh, look, something good! - things is my tank.

On the bright side, no one can steal my idea.

On the down side, how do I write just one year's worth of fishy adventures into 50,000? That's a whole mess of words!

Actually, my personal goal is 10k.

I'm luckily a part of the ultimate (off nano.org forums) NaNo support and prep group! It's AWESOME!

One of the advantages about NaNo is that you don't have to worry about how bad it is. That is one of the key pep talks you're going to get. Nearly every single piece of work done at that speed is going to be trash, but there are surprises. The key is finishing. Once you finish, if you like the general idea, you can go back, edit, and refine your work to something better.

Personally I have fun when I don't know the story line. It is exciting to join your characters for the adventure they are on, because you know as much of what is going on as they do. I did this for the novel I have ready for publishing and though I got 250 pages (over 135k) in just 40 days during school, a week of travel and work. But the draft was simply bad. I did not do what I wanted. But I got a collection of characters and some sweet plot points that I used in a completely re-written 2nd draft. But let me tell you something, the joy of finishing is even greater than having something that is good. Have fun with NaNo this year and go for it.