McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
NaNoWriMo 2010
jeno:
From the NaNo website:
--- Quote ---Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
--- End quote ---
Kali:
Bah, there are plenty of novels that are right around 50k words. That's the reason why Chris Baty picked 50k as the goalpoint; he grabbed a skinny novel off his bookshelf, checked the pagecount, did some math, and said "So, ok, 50kish. Works for me!" Novels like "Flowers for Algernon", "The Great Gatsby", and "Brave New World" clock in right around 50k so it totally counts.
And, if you look at the rules for NaNo, it's to start a novel on November 1 and finish it the last day of November (ahem). Now, there's no one monitoring you. You can, if you want, "cheat" to your heart's content. There's absolutely nothing stopping me from writing 50k words in Book 2 and adding it to what I've got, then at the end of the month claiming my winner's bar. But them's not the rules and so I won't 'cause that's just me.
--- Quote from: Enjorous on October 04, 2010, 11:08:33 PM ---My problem is that it normally takes longer, so I don't think I can finish it in a month. And have it be good. I'd like it to be good.
OT but I like your site Kali.
--- End quote ---
The fun of NaNo is freeing yourself from the need to write something good. ;D I had editing disease something *fierce* before NaNo. I never finished anything truly long because I kept editing, wanting every sentence, every scene to be just right before I'd go on to the next. With the result that I almost never finished anything of any length. Just learning how to turn off my inner editor and get the words down was such a great experience, it was worth donating even though I was nearly broke last year.
And thanks! Having a site at all, with actual details about myself, was harder than I thought. I'm an immensely private person, almost paranoid about it. But I have to get over that if I want to have any kind of a writing career at all, so... It's out there. For what it's worth, it's there. I freak a little every time I see the counter go up, honestly, but that's what Valium is for, right?
jeno:
--- Quote from: Kali on October 04, 2010, 11:18:04 PM ---Novels like "Flowers for Algernon", "The Great Gatsby", and "Brave New World" clock in right around 50k so it totally counts.
--- End quote ---
And when were those published again? :D
Enjorous:
I don't have editors disease, or world builders disease, I'm fairly disease free.
I think I'm going to go for my locked room mystery if them's the rules. Besides I want my shiny new Scrivener 50% off. Is it against the rules to do prep work before 11/1?
Kali:
Sure, they're very short novels, but they are novels. Middle Grade novels run long at 40k (though there are exceptions). Young Adult novels are long at 80k, 50k is just about right (again, there are exceptions). "Hitchhiker's Guide" is around 50k, though I'd guess you'd argue that's an old book too. Ditto for Anne McCaffery's "Harper's Hall" trilogy.
Heck, Google it. ;) Most sources agree that a 'novella' is somewhere around 20-40k, and a novel is longer than that.
--- Quote from: Enjorous on October 04, 2010, 11:29:42 PM ---I don't have editors disease, or world builders disease, I'm fairly disease free.
I think I'm going to go for my locked room mystery if them's the rules. Besides I want my shiny new Scrivener 50% off. Is it against the rules to do prep work before 11/1?
--- End quote ---
Nope, do all the prep work you like! The only thing you 'can't' do, according to the rules, is write any prose that you use in November.
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