This thread is dedicated to the discussion of the upcoming National Novel Writing Month 2014! NaNoWriMo occurs in November, but I like to create the thread a little early so that writers are able to discuss their ideas before the big kickoff day!

What is National Novel Writing Month/NaNoWriMo? National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short) occurs during the month of November. You are challenged to write a draft of a novel during the 30 days of the month. The goal is to reach 50,000 words, or whatever length you would need to go back and edit into a novel! Why 50,000 words? This is what is generally considered to be the length of a novel.

Why use this thread? This thread is designed to help you discuss any ideas, brainstorms, issues, etc. with other writers that are taking the challenge. This way, we are all able to support each other in reaching our goal! In this thread, you are also able to post your daily goals, compete in word wars, look for helpful prompts to get your creative juices flowing, use the resources we've found most helpful over the years, or just generally chat or gripe about the challenge!

What is a Word War? A word war is when two or more people get together and choose a length of time and start time to write as much as they can. It's a race against other writers, but it is also a race against yourself. This is used as a motivator to really sit down, block out all other distractions, and write! There is no prize for the winner, as everyone wins!

Generally speaking, the time frames for word wars are kept to short bursts to prevent burning out. Here are some examples of time frames used in the past: 15 minutes starting at :30 20 minutes starting at :20 10 minutes starting at :15

Resources The Official National Novel Writing Month Website Young Writers Program NaNoWriMo Helpful Links for Writers and Poets Charahub

Write or Die or Written? Kitten! These two websites help with keeping you focused on your writing. With Write or Die, you set a time limit and a word count and get to writing! If you don't reach your goal... well, I think you can figure it out. Written? Kitten! is one of my favorites. Write 100 words, get a picture of a cute kitten!

Ping Groups! - Announcements for challenges and activities, among other things, will be made with this forum group. - Everything NaNoWriMo related will use this tag! - Used to alert other word warriors that someone is looking to participate in a word war! - Use this group to ping writers to writing prompt challenges!

-rolls around on new thread-

I think I'm finally going to be able to do it this year. After attempting to turn my novel from last year into a Pathfinder campaign, I managed to fix a lot of the problems I was having with it to begin with. ;u;

It's gonna be a fab November, I can tell you that right now.

Oh dear. Good luck finding an idea! One year, I will run into that problem. Probably once I finally finish this one friggin' novel. heheh

True, true. :0

Congrats to your mom, btw.

Super excited for NaNo! I might be able to do NaNo this year once all my college apps are in ^^ Although there is the problem of finding an idea to write about...

I think I'm going to try it. Maybe write on my phone during breaks at work, transcribe into my computer when I get home each night, and then write directly in my word processor on my days off. My work schedule's going to make this a little tricky. xD

I'm getting involved again this year! Last year my idea was heavily influenced by the fact that I'd been playing GTA pretty much obsessively, but I didn't get very far with it... so this time around I'm staying true to my roots and to what I've loved since I was old enough to actually enjoy media, and writing high fantasy. There's a quest in the works and a struggle of good against evil and everything. xD

Indeed. I need to come up with some other way to bring in money so I can actually work on my writing. xD Clearly retail isn't my intended career, but I need the money.

So excite!

I am so freaking excited this year. I'm mostly on schedule with my ML duties, I have a shiny new co-ML to share the load, and the theme is STEAMPUNK! I'm loving the theme art, it's given us a ton of ideas for local events, and I'm even going to write a steampunk novel this year because FUN.

I'm very much in the same boat. I spend all my time working retail and then when I get home I'm too tired to do anything but space out in front of Netflix and daydream the content of the novels I want to be writing... xD

I'm gonna finish this year, I swear it! I'm gonna finally finish NaNo! I have outlines and characters and everything.... in my head...

This year's going to be tough. -sigh-

Omg I've never heard of written? kitten! before but it sounds awesome.

I'm actually pretty excited about NaNo - I wasn't sure I could participate because I didn't have any suitable story ideas but I managed to procure one towards the end of August which is plenty of time to sit on it and get ready to write.

May I hope I don't have a problem similar to your GTA one because I just bought Persona 4 off a friend of mine and I'm probably still going to be working on it come November. ;n;

Oh, I know. I feel like my life revolves around Walmart, getting ready for bed, and then getting ready for work again. I want to be working on something that actually matters to me, but the work I do just for money steals all the time away.

I am so excited to start writing! It's a great excuse to just write everything and then revise, as opposed to rewriting every sentence as soon as it is written.