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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2808 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 1, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Has anyone here ever tried NaNoWriMo? I have a decentish idea for a novel and I think doing so this way might at least get it on paper in terrible form so it can be revised into something not quite as cringe as what’s in my head.

I did NaNoWriMo for about ten years, and was the organizer of it in my city for two. When I started as a 20-year-old, I had no idea what it took to write a novel. By the end of my time doing it, I had "won" multiple times and knew that I could sustain big projects as long as it took to finish.

NaNoWriMo, as an exercise, is one of the best things I've ever done for my creative life. There's just no substitute for getting words on paper. 90% of it may be trash, but the 10% where you're really feeling it and it turns out well, it's extremely fulfilling and motivating.

I eventually concluded I had gotten all I could out of it. The community aspect of it is effectively moribund now. In 2020 and 2021, NaNoWriMo HQ forbade official in-person meetings, regardless of whatever local Covid regulations were. Additionally as you can imagine, as a San Francisco-based organization, their official messaging has become extremely woke in recent years. NaNoWriMo is the prime personal example from my own life of entryists making something much worse than it was at inception. Still, every city is different and you may meet some interesting people. A core aspect of NaNoWriMo is "write-ins," where you gather with other WriMos and grind out word count in a coffee shop or something. It's a nice accountability feature.

Out of interest, have you had anything published professionally?

Not of fiction, I've never tried to. I do have one legit writing credit: I wrote a section of a guidebook to the city I live in. So that's something.

I signed and up am interested to try it this year, but god damn the pictures on this site give me the willies: https://nanowrimo.org/about-nano#ourstory

I regret to advise it really do be like that. All I can say is you do usually get a sprinkling of well-adjusted people amongst the shut-ins. I, for one, am full of physical vigor and fashion sense.

What's wrong with them?

They don’t look physically fit or seem to care much about conventional appearance. I am judgmental about that sort of thing.

I've done it while working full time, though admittedly back when I had zero social or family responsabilities. I missed the deadline by 4k words, and the novel was a real mess, but for what you're stating it's a fantastic thing to try. Actual production is vastly underrated, it's the most important part of the process.

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