NaNoWriMo - April 2016 event

[Valka]

NaNoWriMo is a short way of saying National Novel Writing Month. This is a story-writing competition where the goal is to write a novel in 30 days. The November event is the main one, and the most ambitious: Participants try to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days (from November 1-30).

There are two other NaNoWriMo sessions besides this, though. They take place in April and July (August? I'll double-check that), and are known as "Camp" events. These sessions are easier, because participants are allowed to set their own goal for the month, as long as it's a minimum of 10,000 words.

That sounds like a lot, right? But when it's broken down over 30 days, it adds up to less than 400 words per day. Most of us can easily write a 400-word forum post without thinking about it. Even the 50,000-word stories are doable if you break it down into daily sessions of 1667 words per day.

NaNoWriMo operates on the honor system. Nobody on staff actually reads the story, but there are forums where you can ask people for advice and feedback. The goal is quantity, to encourage people to write a little every day. Editing comes later.

So how is this a contest, if there are no judges? You're competing with yourself, to see if you can meet the minimum word count. I managed this once, a couple of years ago during the April event. My goal was 10,000 words and I ended with over 12,000.

If anyone else wants to sign up, the address is http://campnanowrimo.org/

This year's event starts April 1. I've got several ideas but am not sure which one to pursue yet. That's part of the fun - some people plan very carefully in advance, while others wing it.

This thread is meant to offer encouragement to the participants. And if you don't meet the goal, that's okay. The objective is to get into the habit of writing every day.

[Valka]

Okay, I'm signed up for this year's April Camp event, with a modest goal of 10,000 words between April 1 and April 30.

Day one: 361 words (ahead of the daily minimum of 334 words).

The rules say that this time around it doesn't have to be a proper story, and people can edit an old story.

So my 10,000 words will be a preparation for the actual stories to come later, possibly in November.

It's fanfiction, set in the Hulzein Saga universe, created by SF author F. M. Busby. I can't recommend these books enough, since they're as relevant now as they were over 30 years ago when they were first published.

Busby glossed over a lot of the minor characters' backstories, and there is a LOT of room for "fill in the blanks" stories. So that's what the plan is: Fill in the blanks and explore the minor characters.

[Valka]

Day 2 word total word count: 1406. NaNoWriMo tells me that if I keep this rate up, I'll be done on April 15.

It was a productive day. I got over 1000 words more than my daily minimum, which is great.

This is a project I've wanted to tackle for YEARS - putting together a reference work for Hulzein Saga fans, and doing fanfic. I've got scads of story ideas already.

[Valka]

Day 3 total word count is 1769. Obviously I didn't have as productive a day as yesterday. I still did more than the daily minimum, though, so that's what matters.

[Valka]

Day 4 total: 2290 words. I'll be 25% done by this time tomorrow.

Got another idea for a story in this series (whatever did happen to that slimy Welfare supervisor whose Lottery scam enabled Rissa Kerguelen to buy out of Total Welfare and escape from UET? Nothing good, heh, heh, heh...).

[Valka]

Day 5 total: 2780 words. I'm just past the 25% point. 

At this point I'm still mostly working out the timeline for when everything happened. I've found a couple of whopping huge continuity errors that Busby made, so will have to make a decision which novel has the "right" information.

When I met Busby at a convention in Calgary back in the '80s, I mentioned the worst of the continuity errors, and he seemed a bit embarrassed and irritated. Apparently it's one that completely slipped past both himself and his editors.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm following this - just, nothing to say about word count and a series with which I am unfamiliar...

You can do it.  I'm rootin' for you.

[Valka]

Day 6 total: 3285 words.

If you want to know more about the series I'm dissecting in order to write canon-faithful fanfic, look up the Hulzein Saga, Rissa Kerguelen, or F.M. Busby. It's a fantastic series that combines space opera with dystopian fiction, and some of the elements are completely relevant with what's going on in RL.

One of Busby's basic setup elements is that the U.S. government got to the point where it was unable to function financially. So the multinational corporations took over running everything. Every four years there would be a bidding round to see which of them would govern the country. In the Hulzein timeline, this would have begun sometime in the '80s or so.

One of the corporations was called the Synthetic Foods Combine. They annexed Canada and Mexico (the books don't say how). Then in 2004, United Energy & Transport (UET) won the bid... and stayed in power for the next 99 Earth years.

UET is the stuff of nightmares - fascism at its finest. One of the things it did right away was construct Total Welfare Centers. Anyone who was unable to stay afloat financially ended up in Welfare - literally. The Clients were taken to locked prisons where they basically became slave labor for the government. There was a tiny amount of money credited to the Client's account, and the theory was that the Client could save up enough to buy out and be free again. But the system was set up so that this was basically impossible.

One of the main series characters, Rissa Kerguelen, was put into Welfare at the age of 5 (yep, age was no barrier). By the time that happened, UET had been in power for 28 years and 30% of the population was in Total Welfare. It wasn't only people in financial difficulties by that time; Welfare also contained political prisoners and pretty much anyone convicted of a crime that didn't carry the death penalty.

By this time UET is in control of most of Earth. The only holdouts are Australia and Argentina (where the Hulzein Establishment is in control).

What also happened in 2004 was an alien spaceship crash in Oregon. UET investigated, killed the aliens, reverse-engineered the ship, and started the Space Academy. They soon sent ships out to explore and colonize (since Earth was really overcrowded; that's part of what led to the downfall of the U.S. government in the first place; it couldn't afford to take care of everyone).

But some of the ships never came back, and word got around that they'd mutinied and were setting up their own colonies on planets UET didn't know about. Another of the main characters is the captain of one of these Escaped Ships.

One thing Busby did in this series was make space travel STL and use time dilation as a major plot point. A ship might spend a year subjective time traveling from one planet to another, but on the planet itself, anywhere from 10-20 years might pass. So there are a few situations where people who are originally the same age end up with vastly different ages, if one travels on a ship and the other doesn't.

[Valka]

Day 7 total: 3735 words. I've started on one of the short stories that occurred to me a couple of days ago.

[Valka]

Day 8 total: 4121 words. I'm still working on the short story, and hope to finish it this weekend. Then it's back to prep work for some of the others.

[Dio]

It sounds interesting except that it requires a huge time commitment that I cannot make at the moment.

[Valka]

Day 9 total: 4576 words. I got so involved in a YT argument with someone, I nearly missed my deadline.

It sounds interesting except that it requires a huge time commitment that I cannot make at the moment.

The time commitment sounds huge, but really isn't. You're allowed to prepare beforehand, which is what I usually do.

I did my word count tonight in less than 20 minutes. Even if I were going for the full 50,000 words instead of a modest 10,000, it still would have taken less than an hour.

Some people go into NaNoWriMo cold, but that's not something I can do. I usually do a month's preparation beforehand - making notes and outlines, deciding where the story is going to start, where it's going to end, and a few highlights along the way. After that, it's trying to make sure things lead more or less in that direction.

Sometimes it doesn't, though. Some characters get ideas of their own, and next thing you know, you've got a subplot you never intended.

[Valka]

Day 10 total: 5064 words. More than halfway done, word count-wise. I'll keep going for the whole month, though.

[Valka]

Day 11 total: 5528 words.

[Dio]

The whole project sounds as though it prepares a individual to write a master's dissertation.