Story of Paperclippe:

I know a lot of you seeing that work right now will shake your heads in adorable fashion and utter to yourselves, “Who did the what now?” (At least that’s what I’m picturing, leave me alone, I can believe whatever I choose.

And a lot of you will have strange and wonderful emotions stirred up when I mention to you that it’s mid-October and my handwriters should set to buying new notebooks and pens and my typewriters should get on stocking up on ribbon and my computerwriters should open their word procession programs and start fiddling around with default fonts now so you’re not screwing with them for hours in November, because, you see, my friends…

November is National Novel Writing Month! (Ooh, it’s a link.)

That’s write folks (ooh, it’s a pun), it’s time to get your creative juices flowing and crank out a novel.

So what exactly is NaNoWriMo? And what is the point? Well, in a word, it’s motivation. NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write a fifty thousand word novel in thirty days, from scratch. Sound daunting? It is. But it’s definitely doable. Last year, I didn’t get started until three days in and I still reached 49K. The only reason I didn’t hit 50K is because I got really disappointed with a plot device in my story, and even though NaNo is NOT about editing – that’s right, no editing! – or even accuracy, really, I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. So this year, I am starting that story over. From scratch.

Now, if you work some ridiculous amount of hours or have children or a really long commute or anything else that would make it virtually impossible to reach fifty thousand words unless you gave up sleep entirely, you’re allowed to set your own limits. If you register on the site, (and I encourage everyone to) obviously it won’t count as an official win, but a personal win is still a win. Remember, it’s about motivation. It’s about having a group of people to talk about writing with, and having a timeframe and a deadline to make your lazy ass (my lazy ass…) get it done. Or at least get it started.

SO WHO’S WITH ME!?

If you’re in, below are some useful links to help you on your November writing extravaganza!

Obviously, you’ll want to check out the official site. That’s where you’ll find all of the official information and rules, as well as getting yourself registered. Also on the site, and especially if you blog, I encourage you to check out the word count widgets to display to fellow Nanos how far along you are. However, sometimes these widgets are ‘down’, sometimes they’re ugly, and they don’t work if your goal isn’t fifty thousand. If that’s your shtick, there are a lot of other counters out there. Try this for a really basic one, and here for a few that are a little more involved (and funny).

Now, obviously you’ll need something to write with. Even if you type or hand write, you’re going to have to verify your word count at the end, which means you’re going to need to type up your story. For my Mac users out there, I recommend Scrivener. Yes, you have to pay for it, but not only is it totally worth it, you can get a 50% discount just for being a Nano participant! Just check out the special offers page. For Windows users, if you’re happy with Word, stick with it, but if you’re not, try yWriter or Celtx. I’ve heard good things about both, though it seems Celtx is more directed towards other forms of media. Now if you like Word, but don’t have it and can’t afford it, go with OpenOffice, every time. OpenOffice also works on everything: PC, Mac, and Linux.

So, you’re registered, you’ve got a program that works for you, and you’re writing, but sometimes you can’t get motivated. That’s when you need Write or Die. Write or Die is, according to the website, a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you’re fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences. And. It. Works. Even if you’re not doing Nano, give it a shot for paper writing or anything else you need to get done.

So that’s National Novel Writing Month according to me. I hope you’ll join me, and if you do, please let me know!

Tags: nanowrimo, tips, writing   Posted Rants, Reviews |