Once again, November is National Novel Writing Month. Is anyone else going to try it? If you do, we should add each other as writing buddies on the website. I hope to see you there.

Every year I want to do this. I've had an idea for a novel, but it's too much like Harry Potter in space (well, the future). I'll sign up...just did. I have the same user name there as I do here (capitalization and everything). I'll kick around some more ideas throughout October and see what I can write in November.

BlastDoorApidia!!!

Whack!

Blows door off spaceship and everyone dies.

I've decided on a different idea I've also had bumping around in my head for a bit. It's about a confidence man, who's going to pull a long con known as "the wire", as seen in the movie The Sting. But it's in the sci-fi genre so the advanced knowledge is gained by way of a time-dilation bubble.

I only have one novel idea, but I don't know if I'm actually going to attempt to write it. I think I'll be going for the word count, but not necessarily try to tell a coherent story.

December is for editing.

Have you thought of doing Script Frenzy in April, too?

Yeah, I've thought about it. Was looking for software to format a screen play. But I think it would be easier to adapt a working story into screen play format, than write one from scratch, for me.

I used to enjoy writing pieces of screenplays, but I'm so out of practice with that format. It might be fun to try again.

I saw those emails creeping up in my inbox, the NaNoWriMo ones, that is.

I simply cannot keep up with the pace involved and I did give it a valiant effort two years ago. In fact, I'm still working on THAT story. Little by little I may get it done by 2020 at my snail's pace.

It sounds like you're doing better than me. None of my efforts have been valiant, and it's looking like 2050 for me.

It's only 1667 words a day. I write more that that in e-mails several times a week. Probably come close to it on this forum too.

But I'm a very verbose individual.

It was probably the sleep deprivation, but I had an odd phrase running through my head the other morning that I was going to ask one of you to use in your novel. Unfortunately, I have no clue what it was.

You just had to one-up me, didn't you?

Don't worry, I've worked in the phrase, "My name is not Calvin" in every chapter so far!

Welcome back!

Oh, man, I've done no preparation for this. I need to get on the ball.

I've thought about the first line for a while. I think I know how I'm going to start. Not sure about anything after that. I figure it'll just come as I hit the keys.

Whew, I made my quota for today (well, yesterday now), but this is going to be rough. I really hope I can get ahead on the weekends.

I was entirely too distracted yesterday, and only got 43 words.

I'm going to stick with it this year and get it done. First day down and quota done. . . .29 more days (gulp) to go.

Charles, I didn't do any kind of prep save for scribbling down a few ideas and such the last two days of October. Just started typing yesterday with a basic idea and hope to pick up more ideas as I go. Yeah, not the best plan, but it's all I got.

Chris, I added you as a buddy on the website!

Good luck, Sean! I did see on the site that you made your first day's quota. I did my first day, too, but I'm late starting any writing today. I'm not sure what I can get accomplished tonight.

You too, CV!

Dang, I worked on it all evening yesterday and still fell short. Caught up a bit this morning before going to work, though.

Something tells me this month is going to be a grind. While I'm at work, however, I can't wait to get home and start writing again. I'm taking that as a good sign!

That is! I haven't reached that level of enthusiasm yet, but I did feel like last night was a slight breakthrough. Inelegant exposition, but I now have a framework with at least a little potential, I hope. I barely made my quota. My brother-in-law, on the other hand, is where I'd like to be, at over 4,000 words. I was hoping to do over 2,000 words a day for the first week to give myself a nice head start. Here's hoping the weekend gives me that breathing room.

Keep it up! It would be nice if we both succeeded this year.

I have a feeling the weekends are going to be filled with catching up!

CV, I'm really hoping we both can succeed. That'd be awesome!

I've got a lot of catching up to do. I wish girls would stop visiting me in the evenings so I'd be able to write. Last night there were two over, and they just wouldn't leave!

At least you'll have more material for when you're not distracted, right?

Well, I wasn't conning them, or performing time/space experiments, so no material for this story. But yeah, social interaction always helps round out characters.

Hey what happened to you guys?

Thursday night I was a little emotionally overwhelmed and couldn't get anything out (did I just admit that?), and I have no good excuses since then. While I like several of the ideas I've come up with and think they have a lot of potential, my contradictions are already accumulating, which is applying friction to my further progress. I know, I need to stop concerning myself so much with it and just tear through it, contradictions be damned. How's yours going?

What's disturbing is that I just watched last week's episode of Sherlock, and it starts out having to do with breaking and entering high up on buildings as well as graffiti. My story starts out having to do with graffiti being done high up on buildings, so that was kind of weird. I accused the writer of this Sherlock series of taking ideas from William Goldman, my favorite writer, for the first episode, and now on this second episode, I'm apparently taking ideas from him. Ha ha.

Still chugging along. Barely maintaining the daily goal. I'm really determined this year.

I read some of the NaNoWriMo forums on Friday afternoon and most of the advice was to keep writing no matter what. Even with holes in the plot or things that don't make sense, you just keep going. It's all about trying to get the words down. While I'm not just writing any old thing down (I do have some standards), I am trying not to over think things.

I am finding myself being too wordy sometimes, like when I used to write essays for school--stretching for padding here and there. That kinda bugs me.

CV, please keep going!! Don't give up! Just sit down and force yourself to go. I'm grinding it out, too.

I know what you mean about padding the writing with extra words, just to get the word count up. I've done some of that, too. Of course, the story is still happening way too fast, since I didn't have a real plan when I started. Now that I actually have some ideas, I think I would benefit from some outlining.

The whole thing is challenging, but I keep reminding myself I can edit once it is over with. I'd much rather have 175 pages of absolute crap over no pages of excellent prose. In the end, I have something to work with.

Having said that, I'm still afraid to reread everything I've written so far. No need to discourage myself so soon!

I'm writing a novel about where my novel eats your novel.

What a novel idea.

Good luck guys! I've actually wanted to try writing a novel/short stories some time. Hafta get rolling on that...

My novel would give your novel indigestion.

Definitely.

Good thing my novel took some novelcane!!

Okay. That was a bad pun.

Ba domp pshht!

Well, for you guys who are doing this, this is a bit tangential, but I thought it was pretty interesting.

Aye carumba.

That is beyond words. Just as I thought, it's by the same guy the got outed by Oprah for fabricating parts of his memoir, "A Million Little Pieces."

By the way, Ken, my bestseller is coming along swimmingly!

Cool. I'll give you $500 for the rights.

Deal!

*spits in palm and shakes*

Scalzi tweeted that link this morning. Craziness.

*victory dance*

Congratulations, Sean! When do I get to read it? Or selections from it? Or when are you writing a second draft?

*hangs head in shame*

Dialog is too difficult. As much as I told myself, "just type the words and you can punch it up later", I just kept feeling that I wasn't getting the "voice" of even the first two characters.

Oh well. I write with my own voice here well enough.

I like writing dialog, but my characters are always the same. I'm sure my stories would go further if I had a real sense of each character.

There's always next year. Not that I can see the future and really guarantee that.

One is a 20s-something man from Washington State and the other a female singer with a sex addiction?

Thank you, CV! I'm still kind of in shock that I got NaNoWriMo done this year. Even after all the furious writing, I'm not done with the story. And I do want to finish it.

Ha ha, I haven't read anything that I've written so far (I didn't want to get discouraged by realizing what absolute cr@p it might be), but as soon as I get some things cleaned up I'll send you a draft!