Anyone else doing Camp NaNoWriMo/JulNoWriMo?

[ljwrites]

I was originally going to write my first draft in August as discussed with sarillia, but I had a change of plans when I learned my best friend whom I plan to vacation with can only get vacation time in the last week of August. Besides, July makes a lot of sense for me. It's when everyone else (including my boss) is on vacation, meaning things will be slow at work, and it will leave me August to recover and prepare for next semester. It's not ideal, but no month is going to be ideal.

Is anyone else doing this in July, or thinking of doing so? It would be great to have someone to commiserate/compete with. :)

Update: I've created a private comm, go_nano, for off-site chatter between participants. Ask by comment or PM, and ye shall be invited.

Comments

[ljwrites]

Yup, it's the particularities that ground the universals of a story without falling into cliches. I think I'll get a better synopsis as I get those particularities settled in my mind.

Is your planned story the long one and the unplanned one short, or vice versa? I think for a NaNo-style project it might be easier to start from scratch without the ghost of work process past tugging at your heels, but then again the folks on the other thread had some good ideas about how to proceed.

I think I'll try for criteria-based cabin assignment since I want to trade tips on my genre (historical). Thank you so much for the offer, though. If my cabin bombs I might end up asking piteously if you still have room, lol.

Like anehan I'd love to have something off-site, too, as another source of support or as insurance in case my cabin doesn't work out. Maybe on this comm, or maybe a different comm or bbs?

[graychalk]

The planned story is definitely longer. That one is part epic and even if I do it for NaNo, it's not something I'd have a finished draft of by the end of it. As for the unplanned one, I'm having trouble gauging the length at this point. I don't really know where it's headed yet, so I feel like whatever number I come up with may as well be just a random guess. I think you may be right though - I'm getting the increasing feeling that working on the old WIP during a NaNo month might be asking for extra trouble.

Ah, I'm pretty sure I saw a couple of threads on the forum for people writing your genre, so I hope you find some good cabin mates! As for our off-site thing... hmmm, I don't know, might depend on what we're looking for. If it's just general daily or weekly check-in and such, anything more than a comm would be overkill. Then again, comms are flexible and we'd likely be able to do a lot with it. In terms of IRC or a chat room, that would be great but it'd also only work if all three of us are actually on at the same time (less of a problem if it turns out more are doing this). What do you think?

[ljwrites]

Yeah, the default NaNo-style challenge usually isn't editing-friendly, so starting something new might fit the format better. I think NaNo founder Chris Baty similarly discouraged continuing a WIP on NaNoWriMo. As for the word count on the new work, it's a crapshoot no matter what you do so if it looks like a novella 20,000-30,000 might be reasonable to shoot for, while if it looks novel-length the default 50,000 would suit well enough.

I found a cabin with fellow historical/fantasy writers! I see what you mean about it being basically an IRC chat, though. We're talking about setting up an off-site board, too. Meanwhile, for the folks on this comm I've created a private NaNo community with a generic enough title that we can hand it over to later NaNo participants. I've sent you an invite as co-admin.

[graychalk]

Oh yeah, no... editing is pure nightmare for NaNo. I don't know how others do it. I tried it once and it almost killed me. I had to jump ship midway through and work on a different novel. D: I'm probably going to set it at 25,000 for now. It's a number that I'd still see as a personal accomplishment. Besides, I'd rather aim lower and write more (as opposed to aiming too high and then having to resort to magicking words out of my butt).

Looks like you've found a good group then, yay! :D And thanks for creating a comm for us. I've joined - see you there!