I’m in and excited, as I have recently discovered Scrivener’s companion, Scapple!
As with most years, I’m kinda prepared. Ideas and characters are slowly making their way onto my screen, but it’s no where near finished with that stage of development. The one year I was successful I spent about a month sussing out an outline before I ever wrote a word.
I’m in, for the third or fourth time officially. I “won” in 2009, but you will all note that was a long time ago. I am currently outlining plot points and creating characters.
I downloaded the NaNo trial about a month ago; so, it’s available now. That said, I had to uninstall my other Scrivener trial before doing the NaNo one to get it to work–it’s great!
Ayup, I’m in. This is the fifth year. Haven’t always “won” but I did finish a novel, “Pasayten Pete,” then a second, “Masi’shen Stranded” … and began the sequel “Masi’shen Evolution” which is still progressing in fits & starts. This year will finish, for sure, with a sequel to Pasayten Pete called “Gold Mountain.”
The best Scrivener feature for me is the ability to keep going by writing bits & pieces, chunks & scenes, and never having to worry about how to string them altogether as a coherent whole. The idea for me is to keep writing, to keep banging away on various scene ideas, with no worry for editing or weaving it together. Scrivener’s binder is a great place to make folders for each general thread of related material, and stuff the bits and pieces of writing wherever seems logical.
A month after NaNoWriMo ends, it’s time to use Scrivener to sift, sort, organize, edit and rewrite to make a coherent work out of all those pieces and parts. No, I don’t start with an outline … just a brief storyline with some general plot ideas. I’ve found that characters and threads take on a life of their own and begin to steer the story where they will it to go. No outline ever survives the first encounter with a great character!
Best of luck to all … when you fall in a plot hole, take a big step back and write yourself a ladder!
I’m in for the third time. Had a good idea all sussed out, till my 11 year old daughter asked me to write a story for her (that she had an idea for). It’s by no means complete in my head but started it anyway. 3 days done, and just a head of target.
@Garpu: too late to start? No … never too late to start. Dive in and give it a go! (When inspiration hits, the words tumble out and catching up is no big thing.) Just remember: never use the backspace key, and never go back to read what you’ve written. Write ‘hot’ and edit ‘cool’ … edit in December & January!
Garpu, it may seem daunting to start late, but let’s do the math.
Today is Nov 4. If you start today, you’ve only missed 3 days. The daily word count goal is (on average) 1667 words. So you’ve missed that times three, or 5001 words. That seems like a lot, but…
If you spread out your missed words over the remaining 27 days in November (counting today, the 4th of Nov), that’s only an additional 185.22222… words per day. Let’s round up to 186.
So, to make the 50,000 word goal for November, all you have to do is 1,853 words each day, on average.
On the weekends, you can likely exceed that by several hundred, and it’s not uncommon for people to do 2,000 words on average, every day, for a total of 60,000 words.
Go easy on yourself, ignore your inner editor. Make course corrections mid-sentence if you need to. Leave yourself notes in the text (those words can count too) on what you were intending.