Far North Naperville NanoWriMo Write-In Saturday Nov 13

Katherine, you're the best.

Thanks for your encouraging words and ideas. We're happy to spread the NaperWriMo message across Chicagoland.

--Steve

I am crossing my toes (would do my fingers, but then I couldn't type) for you all to have an outstanding day of writing. I only wish I was writing a 1000 words a half hour this year, since it would mean that the leaves in the backyard actually got raked this week instead of taunting me as I sat at my computer for I don't even want to count how many hours a day (but it's at least 5, and sometimes 10.)

I keep trying to do something I found in October called the Heartstorm--but not succeeding. It seems like a good idea:
HEARTSTORM; ten minutes, feel the scene, the emotion, the sensations, the wonder—and write! Smells, sounds textures, strange details and how they affect the char. What are the chars thinking or feeling that they aren't saying?

I've tried to do this four times, setting a timer and everything, but I soon find myself back plugging away with my plot and characters insisting on arguing, or going somewhere, and not wanting me poking my writer nose into their thoughts and feelings. (I'm only expecting one line in ten to be useful in the second draft, so my internal editor says I should rake the leaves if I'm planning on being inefficient. My internal editor also likes clean closets.)

Good luck! May it be so outstanding that you schedule more write-ins in your neighborhood.

Katherine’s 10/27 reply is inspirational. 10k words in 5 hours. So, for your 65k words now, you have written, oh, about 35 hours. A day and a half. You are a blistering-fingered and talented woman. Having you as an ML is (heavy gulp) inspiring.

Tomster—God, you are funny. I pray you’re writing a humor book because you have a way with words that is absolutely insane. Stuttering. Cats typing. Knee-slappers!

I’m not even going to try to top those visual images, except to say, if you try typing on two laptops, one on each hand, and just mush out letters (for the love of God, no words!) without any thought whatsoever (best done while watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians with spouse), you can run the spell and grammar checker afterwards, click correct all, and come out with a huge James Michener size novel in one good night of writing (as long as grazing on Twinkies and Hi-C doesn’t distract). (Is that one long sentence, or what!) I mean, the spellchecker makes actual words out of comlpete jibberish.

Man eating diatribe combination epidermis.

There's a one sentence example of the gems you can get with this method. I know, I was impressed, too!

James Michener wrote epics like Alaska, and Hawaii. Using this method, I’ve written mini epics titled Compost Pile and another called Ruined My Day. The plot seems to keep pace with how frequently I need to use the john, interestingly.

If you still dare, nowhereliz, come on out Saturday. LOL Would love to write with you. Note that I posted this in the Elsewhere in IL forum, too.

this sounds like fun. The Naperville and Aurora write ins are a little intimidating for me, both because of distance and lack of familiarity with those areas. Schaumburg is practically my back yard. I'll try really hard to make it this Saturday. I'm on pace right now, but only just, and could sure use to get ahead a little for a peace of mind.

Said in a whispering, conspiratorial tone:

“What Steve doesn’t realize is that last year’s story revolved around a circus troupe of acrobats with severe stutters. I was able to convert a simple line of dialog like “What time is it?” into a thousand words. I highly recommend stuttering acrobats. This year’s story is a murder mystery involving a parrot who repeats the same phrase over and over again, ad nauseam – like a broken record.”

I may have also cheated last year when I allowed my cat to write a chapter when he decided to use my keyboard as a scratching post. I had no idea cats could be so creative, nor spell as well as they do!

Seriously, I achieved 50K works because of THIS community and a very supportive family. That’s all the inspiration any of us need.

Tom(ster)

Excellent idea!

Two years ago, bookgrrl (my daughter), challenged me to see if we could each write 10,000 words in five hours. She'd seen the challenge on a forum site and thought it would be 'fun.' Honestly, it scared me. While I'd written 10,000 words in a day, it usually took me most of the day and pretty intense thinking and writing to accomplish it.

We didn't make it, but we learned that we could write faster than we thought we could. (We each made over 8,000). After that experience, we realized that if we had half an hour, it was possible to write 1,000 words. It also made other intense writing times seem a little less intense, since at least we weren't being insane and trying to write 10,000 words in five hours. (We barely looked at each other during those five hours, ate one handed, and were very, very, very focused.)

Good luck.
Katherine

Thanks, Tim, for adding it. Tomster succeeded in 2009 with NNWM, so he is inspirational to have around. I hope to succeed in 2010. We'll need a boot in the pants by Nov 13, and witnessing everyone else panicking, and then strapping themselves to a wooden chair to crank out "catch up" word counts will be motivating. Looking forward to seeing everyone from the greater Schaumburg area.

Steve,
Thanks to you and Tom for setting this up; I know we have folks up north who long for write-in events that are closer to home.

I've added your write-in event to the events page on our wiki as well as to our google calendar.

--Tim