I'm a turtle type, too, and I don't expect to make it to 50,000 words, but I might as well try. I have a story in mind, and I bet that's all I need. Except a lot more than thirty days!
I think I'd be more inclined to try it if it were a different month. November is always a hellish month for me, due to pre-Christmas planning and other committments. (This year it's all up in the air due to my husband's upcoming surgery.) If it was January? Yeah, I could do that. And start with a New Year's resolution, to boot. February would work well for REAL sprinters, but it's only (usually) 28 days.
It's definitely not the best month for me, either. I wonder why they chose it? In my case it's one of the three busy months in my job, I have an assignment and a dissertation literature review due for my master's, plus I haven't finalised my first novel yet. But I'm using it to bash out a first draft with little regard for quality. I'm at 13k at the moment.
Is that pretty much the same as November NaNo? I'll do it if it is. Hopefully will have come up with an idea for novel #3 by then...
It's the same deal, but I think you can set your own word goal instead of meeting the 50k requirement. Not certain for sure.
Yeah, you set your own words goal, and you get sorted into cabins with other writers, based on genre or age or something completely random.
The cabins are more like online groups, each with their own forum. Your word count completion is tabulated individually and as a group.
Yeah, my day was so busy yesterday I barely managed to eek out the recommended 1,66o by 11:58pm. I have a feeling this is going to be much harder than last year. Work is very busy right now and I realized as I was writing that there was a lot more I should have figured out and planned ahead of time to make this novel flow more smoothly. Still, I'm excited.
I am so behind! Work has been busy and that's my only time to write current. I will make it up Saturday morning hopefully.
I have to say, it's not doing a lot for me. I quite like seeing my word count go up but I can do that with Word, or I could do it here in my progress journal, or I could write the number in lipstick on my mirror every day. The quality of writing on the forums is poor, overall. About 90% of the critiques I've seen are useless. Few people seem to be hitting the word count goal, even the ones who post actively on the forums.
Just that I'm not writing any more or any better than if I hadn't signed up and done it under the guise of NaNo. The site and the whole concept aren't helpful for me. But as you know, my issue isn't a lack of motivation, so I'm not really its 'target audience'.
Basically the main differences are a) You're put into a group of other writers in a chatroom for the duration of the month. This can be done randomly or you can find people in a similar timezone/working on similar things etc b) You set your own word count goal. I found this useful as I doubt I could never write 50k of usable stuff in a month so by setting a lower word count goal allowed me to keep some quality while writing much more than I ordinarily would.
I don't do NaNo, but I think it might be helpful for the kind of people who start one story, then get bored and go hiveing off to start another story, and so on and on. NaNo should help to focus people's minds on one single project. If NaNo does nothing else than force people to stick with one story and see it through to the end, I'd count it a huge success. Never finishing a piece of work is just about the worst habit a writer can get into. Much worse than procrastination. Procrastination is something that slows you down, but it doesn't stop you once you finally climb back into the chair. Never finishing anything because you keep thinking up better ideas? That's a neverending trap, and a deadly one.
Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect on me. Yesterday, I was writing merrily away on a scene, and decided, "I'm writing too slow. This project needs thought. I need to try something easier until NaNoWriMo is over." I think that NaNoWriMo served its purpose for me the first couple of times, a few years ago, with getting my fiction-manufacturing apparatus oiled up and running, but that this year it's not productive for me. I'm probably going to bail.
That's funny. Ach well. Horses for courses. It doesn't sound like NaNo is doing you much good this year. You'll do better working at your own pace. I also think if you base your writing on research this won't work very well either. I know I have to constantly stop and consult my research, to keep myself on track. It's one of the reasons that writers' retreats don't appeal to me at all. I mean, I could use the peaceful, quiet place and time, with hot and cold running servants making breakfast lunch and dinner. But I need my 'stuff' around me to work properly. What I really need is to send friends and relations off to writers' retreats, and leave me here on my tod to get on with it!
