NaNoWriMo

So November is over, and you've either finished your novel or you got as far as you could.

Or, you know, you gave up and started playing Trombone Champion on the Quest 3 because it's fun and it annoys your neighbours when you do it at 3am.

Whatever your experience, it's December so you have a whole year until it's November and NaNo again. So what will you do?

Edit and publish your story? Start a new story? Read other stories?

Do something that has nothing to do with reading or writing at all? (What sweet madness is this? I don't know what possessed me to suggest this!)

The community will remain, even if it gets little use so come and tell your stories. (Metaphorical ones, not literal ones -- unless you want to tell literal ones as well!)

I'm not participating this year - in fact the one and only time I tried, something really life-shaking happened in the middle and I never finished. But that's another story. My daughter did nanowrimo as a high school project and came through it with a 60k word teen romance novel. I was just curious how everybody's doing at this point.

50792 words at Nov 29th 2024, 01:46.

Mostly spammed my progress on Mastodon. I really meant to participate here - I'm so sorry I completely forgot! I hope Lemmy keeps growing and there's more people here next year.

(And yep, I was writing on my Commodore 64)

It's a relatively simple idea.

You write a complete story in two sentence.

Horror, romance, comedy, drama -- you choose.

You can write it to make someone laugh, or gasp, or go "awwwwwwww" or go "ewwwwwwwwww"

(Note : I have tweaked my plot nine times since I originally wrote it. Friday cannot come fast enough)

Sometimes when you can't advance your plot, ideas jump into your head.

You see the sun glint off the river and a scene springs fully forth from your head like Athena from the head of Zeus. Or the flower on the side of the road makes you think "What if Simon Snow brought that to Baz? What would he say?"

If you can't write your story, try writing something else. Then share it.

So how you doin?

Want to boast? Are you having problems?

Where is your word count at?

Blocked? Annoyed? Frustrated?

Things going well? Overjoyed? Over the moon?

Tell us all about it.

Sadly, because of copyright issues and studios not wanting to share their toys, we don't get all that many cross overs. We never get to see The Hulk sitting down to have a tea-party with Princess Peach.

What crossovers would you like to see?

Bonus points for funny titles :)

You suggest a topic (Romantic Novels, Science Fiction Films, Horror Film, Teen Novels -- whatever)

Then people provide titles with a letter added, removed or changed.

Just because it's funny. And inventive. And it alleviates boredom. Or writers block. Or both.

(Full disclosure -- it's 13 days until NaNo and I have almost entirely plotted out my story. And as always I am SO bored & frustrated waiting for midnight on the first you have no idea).

So there's an Intergalactic Super Villain of Doom coming to destroy your world.

And you have to pick a squad of seven people, robots, aliens or whatever to fight this ISVOD to fly off in a starship to defeat them.

Who do you pick.

Rules :-

No god-like beings or beings with god like powers (Thanos with the infinity gauntlet for example) because it's just no fun if they can kill the ISVOD with a snap of their fingers.

No combinations that would fight each other (Predator/Alien for example. But Batman/Joker would be okay because they can get along for the length of the mission)

You can have one pair, providing it is a pair (Abbot & Costello, for example)

People are only armed with weapons they'd usually have.

You get to pick the starship, but it has to be a normal starship. No planet killer level starships.

x-x-x

Full Disclosure -- the idea originally came from "The Babysitter", which is really an excellent film if you like over the top comedy horror films soaked in blood, guts and swearing.

So the rules of the game are this :-

The first person (which is me, I guess) writes a sentence.

EG : I went to London to see Wicked.

Then the next person (which in this case is also me) has to write the next sentence using the letters of the last word of the previous sentence ("wicked").

Wild invertebrate crabs kiss excited dolphins.

(The sentences don't have to make sense, as long as they are readable).

So then the next person would have to write a sentence based on the letters "d, o, l, p, h, i, n, s".

Weirdly, it is good practice for NaNo because it makes you think about a lot of words you might never use in day to day conversation and how to put them together in a sentence.

So -- have at it with "dolphins" :)

Update :- I think to avoid countless lines down the left hand side, it should go like this :-

Sort by New (as opposed to "hot")

If you are posting the next turn in the game, just create a new post (click "Post")

If you are replying to a post to comment on it ("Nice", "Cool", "Wow" etc) then reply to that post.

Because otherwise we could really get a lot of lines down the side?

Do you have an excerpt? A clip? A paragraph?

Are you a raging ego maniac who wants everyone to know how good you are?

Worried the story isn't going the way you want?

Post a bit of it here, and see what people think.

Remember -- be nice. It's mean to be mean, and rules is rules

Sometimes you hit a wall and can't find a way to continue your story. Either your characters won't behave, or your plot is just "blaaaaaaaaah" (a technical term, obviously).

When that happens it's probably best you don't literally hit a wall -- it hurts and you might break a finger which would make it harder to write.

Instead you can play a game. Like the picnic game. Or the make a wish, screw a wish game. Or the sentence game.

So come on down and waste some time.

Cause it's more fun than breaking a finger.

But, to be fair, you can say that about most things. Except -- you know -- breaking two fingers.

What does a banana smell like when you burn it in a toaster? What does it sound like when you stick a straw up a frogs bum and blow really hard? What does a cabbage look like when it has been sat on by an elephant? What does a lava feel like after it has been covered in liquid nitrogen?

These are all questions that no one should really be asking.

However sometimes you'll come across a question in a story that you need help with, and someone else might have the answer to.

So, give it a shot. Post your question and you never know. Someone might have the answer.

It's eighteen days until the 1st of November, so most people have an idea of what they are going to write.

Do you?

Tell is who you are, and what you're going to be writing come midnight on the 1st.

Greetings and Salutations.

On the 1st of November, people all around the world take part in National Novel Writing Month -- an annual contest/competition/endeavour to write a 50,000+ word story/novel/tale during the month of November.

There are no real rules to this, and despite the term "contest/competition" there is not really a prize at the end, other than you get the satisfaction of having completed your goal. Or (as is sometimes the case) the annoyance of having not completed your goal but made some progress towards it.

I am somewhat of a veteran of this, having first taken part in 2006, and written a tale every year since then except for last year. And the one thing I have learned is that -- like most things in life -- it is far more fun when doing it with other people than doing it alone.

Not writing together, but writing with friends. Sharing excerpts, ideas, suggestions. If you get stuck you can ask for help, if you are suffering from writers block you can have a rant or just spend five minutes reading something else or talking to other people.

So I thought a community might be fun. Or helpful. Or at the very least slightly distracting.

Basic rules :-

Be polite. If you don't like someone's idea be constructive, not rude.

Keep your comments safe for work. If you are writing NSFW stories, then try to write about them in SFW ways, or (if that isn't possible) tag them as NSFW.

Aside from that, just have fun.