h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm now up to 3,000 the scary hing is that Ive not hit my minimum daily arget yet - 300 words to go My brain's going "What are you talking about? We've written loads!"

my t button seems to be dodgy...

Well if you could pull off a whole novel without any 't's in it then that would be a unique selling point! I managed to make up my word count last night and am on track. It's a lot of words isn't it? I'm learning so much from it though - once you take the pressure off yourself and tell your internal editor where to go then it's amazing what happens isn't it? Do you feel as if there's a lot of order to yours?

My internal editor's still leaving small notes, but my real problem is that my main character has completely fallen apart and won't get angry! I need this feisty, slightly arrogant character back!

How did you get on?

I just passed 50k...I don't have a novel there, mind! (Well perhaps I do, but it's not in the right order...) But I think it's a very good exercise to get people thinking along those lines.

Hope you got there!

I hit 28,000...and my characters stopped talking to me. I got to average nearly 1,000 words per day, though, and with all the college work and things I had to do, I'd say that's a pretty good achievement.

It is!

It's a really good thing to do, I think - whatever happens, you have 28,000 words you might not have written normally. Which is pretty good going!

So, of the people who've tried it do you think you've produced anything worthwhile? Not necessarily publishable, readable will do.

Or has it been one massive free-writing exercise which is like a few thousand random Post-it notes joined together?

In defence of the method, Jack Kerouac did all right out of it!

It's hard to answer - I think it's been a massive free-writing exercise *in a way* - but I think you have to do a lot of free-writing before you get a proper structure. (And the idea is to use December for editing!)

I think the problem I (and others) have is that I worry too much about a novel needing a structure, to the point where you scare yourself out of doing it. By concentrating on quantity you establish a fiction-writing habit, and before you know it ideas suggest themselves to you.

Anyway - I still have a long way to go re structure but - I recommend it!

Colin Dexter used to write a bit every day, after the Archers. And look where it got him

Mol
(who only writes bits of novels, and only in her head)

I wouldn't be able to write so many words a day, it takes me several days to come up with between 500 and 1,000 words. Might be different in German, but I don't really think so.
Just imagine you had put all this time into writing guide entries

Anyone doing this this year? It starts again in November.

I've decided to do it this year
I have an idea and I've been "good" and not started to plan it anywhere else but my head
it will be for young-ish teens and in English and German. It's for Gruesome #1.

Anyone else?

B'Elana: the difference is that guide entries have to be coherent and not random waffle (ideally).

the trick with NaNo is not to delete anything until you get to 50,000 then you can edit. But ideally, you leave the editing until March - it's all about bums on seats... no, that's wrong, it's all about getting the words out.


I am still quite pleased with my previous effort, but now my notebook has died, I'm a bit worried how I'm going to do this.

King Bomba: I'm struggling to waffle every other week, so this really isn't for me. It's far easier to write a factual guide entry, imo.

you can write a factual book, B'El. It doesn't even have to be in English.

But I'm not interested in writing a book.

you're definitely not to be persuaded, are you?

I think it's fine for all those who aspire to be writers - but that has never been my aim, I'm already writing so much more than I ever intended to.