Pictures from the TGIO

Happy New Year!

I’m finally getting around to some of the tasks that I had left over from the oh-so-brief post-NaNo days. The first one is to make available pictures from the TGIO (thanks, Barry, for taking the pictures (though next time I should probably set the ISO of the camera higher)).

081213_nano_TGIO

We also sang songs and listened to the songs and videos from France that they gave us to pay off the bet from our word war.

Here is the song from our TGIO.

Now that we are in 2009, the Pledge is underway. We have jabber meetings every Monday, 8 pm CST and are starting a short story anthology.

–Tim

Next up: Thank-Goodness-It’s-Over! Party

And so yet another NaNoWriMo ends fairly successfully for Illinois::Naperville. Over fifty percent (54.7% to be exact) of our active writers successfully completed NaNoWriMo! Kudos to you all!

Coming up on Saturday, December 13th is our famous pot-luck Thank-Goodness-It’s-Over Party (TGIO); we hope to have a good turn-out for that. Come join us whether you won, lost or didn’t even try this year. Bring your friends, neighbors and spouses. There will be games, awards, good company and discussion about the Pledge, our year-round writing group, that will be revitalized this year with a bunch of new, enthusiastic writers. Just be sure to RSVP.

NaNoWriMo and CreateSpace are teaming up to give every NaNoWriMo winner a free printed book proof! If you won, don’t forget to redeem this before June 1st, 2009!

–Tim

Pictures from our write-ins!

Pictures are now available from the first ever Illinois All-State Write-In, November 22, 2008. The brainchild of Chicago ML TimSimms, the event was hosted by the Illinois::Naperville region at the Warrenville City Hall.

08112_all_state_writein

As Katherine noted, the event was lots of fun. I believe that we had close to 40 people in attendance. My daughter Kristiana won the first 17 minute wordwar with 1955 words (I hit a personal best 979
words that round–go figure):

From 08112_all_state_writein

I have also put up pictures from previous write-ins in Warrenville and down at the 95th Street Library (part of the Naperville Public Library–many thanks to them for their generous support of NaNoWriMo and our region!). See

NaperWriMo_Write-Ins_2008

Finally, please be sure to sign-up to attend the fun-filled pot-luck Thank Goodness It’s Over party! Whether you completed your novel or not or even if you are just thinking about competing in a future NaNoWriMo, you’ll have fun! The event is December 13th at the Naperville Municipal Center.

–Tim

Writing, writing, writing

I was going to start this by talking about plugging away at your novel, but, hey, why plug, or plod, when you can skate, fly, sprint, race, throw yourself willy-nilly into the flowing rapids! In other words, continue to have fun.

Speaking of fun, the all-Illinois write-in on Saturday was great! During the first word war, the buzz of keyboards clicking was awesome. It was funny, I sat next to NewMexicoKid who said it was intimidating since most people never seemed to pause to think, just type, type, type. Well, although he thinks he ususally pauses, there was a steady buzz from his keyboard. Cableshaft, I believe, has a secret circuit connecting lifesupport to his computer as well as directly tapping into his thought process  since he didn’t breathe during the entire seventeen minutes, I swear. Now, he claims ThePiratass next to him beat him in every word war, so I can only imagine what her detailed typing sounded like.

There are still write-ins on Sunday afternoons and one more on Saturday. There are also jabber chats and with Thanksgiving schedules changing things, people may be online at different times. Join in if if helps you with word count.

Don’t forget about our TGIO party in December! All are welcomed, regardless of final word count. Come celebrate with us.

Katherine

Naperville is at war!

Well, a average wordcount regional word war with Europe::France (here is the great challenge thread in their forum from our own FinbarrMcG). The terms are the same as they were the last two years: the losing region must sing the winning region’s song.

Here is our wordwar graph (click through to go to the wordwar page):

We have the lead currently, but there are more of them than there are of us, so keep on writing, Naperville!

Today is Day 8 of NaNoWriMo. Everyone should have 13336 words by the end of today if you are staying on track! Here is our NaperWriMo wordcount graph (just post in the linked forum thread to be added to the graph):

–Tim