Hey guys! This will be my first year participating in NaNoWriMo - I've wanted to for years but the "time was never right." Well, I'm doing it this year no matter what. I really want to get my writing off the ground in a meaningful way. I was just curious if anyone else was planning on participating this year? I'd love to be "buddies" :)

My username on Nano is Lizanita76!

Hiya! I am planning on participating this year, too! <3 I've done NaNo before but haven't reached my goal several years, so this year I really want to spend a lot of time writing and having fun!

Hi hiii! I'll be joining as well! Not sure what I want to do yet whether I want to work on one book or just do smaller projects that all add into the word count! I added you also :) ~missshadowwings

I just logged into the NaNo site for ages, haha! You all can feel free to add me, too. My username is teacup.cat!

Swiftpaw: We're doing NaNo this year ourselves too, and we've been trying to have a successful month since 2018. Hopefully this will be the one haha

This year our story is a middle grade fantasy involving dragons.

NaNo always seems to sneak up so fast! Definitely in this year, but at the rate I'm going, I don't know if I'll have an outline in time ^.^

I'm definitely participating as well. I'm excited about using one of my tools, which prevents me from going back and editing lol. My stories always turn out so much differently if I stop myself from actively editing.

Nano 2020, I worked on something different than just plain writing. I was working on turning an already self-published book into an audio version.

I painstakingly worked on how to accomplish the feat and during nano 2020 I debated whether or not I wanted to do the voice over myself, hire someone outside to do the narration. Eventually in March on 2021 I found a program which yeah I know....

A program...voice automation but these one was so unique that I decided to do so and eventually in the summer months. With the use of this program I eventually turned my self-published memoir into an audio book!

My So Called, Gay Schizophrenic Life: Introspection Audiobook

Now for this year, I am working on my second book, called The So Called, Religious Preoccupied Life: Religophrenia. Which this book stemmed from something that was said to my parents. "Those with types of schizophrenia tend to be religiously preoccupied." From what I experienced with my mental health disorder and the likes I wondered for years if there was more to this than meets the eye.

That is where the idea of writing the book stemmed from and well its going to look at that, the medical consensus that those with schizotypal are preoccupied with religion, why is this occurring within society and if other disorders face the same things? Also taking a in-depth look a religion, mental health disorders in the past and how they both evolved over time.

OMG I can't believe it's November already! So not prepared at all this year!!

I've been working on my novel since the start of the year but figure NaNo is probably a great way to give myself some external pressure, haha. Hopefully I manage to actually get some writing in between Christmas shopping and work.

This is the first year I've participated, and the first year I've actually really sat down with the intention of writing stories, so it's all a bit new to me - and yet, it feels like I've been doing it forever as well. Does that make sense?

Hi there! I'm Frieda and this will be my 13th NaNoWriMo. I'm writing my fourth book series within the world of Glen Meadow. This one will take on a more Science Fiction tone with new characters. I'm writing Children's Literature for older children who can handle Redwall, Harry Potter, etc. While the stories have danger, intrigue and combat, they don't have the edgy overtones YA would have. All my stories have been about a society of small woodland creatures who have developed an advanced culture and have to deal with all the consequences of such a life, such as Civil War, natural disasters, interpersonal relationships and interactions with the modern human world that has invaded their domain. Passion, Power, Greed and Fury! Only written for kids.

Good Luck Fellow NaNo's

Oh my gosh that is where I always struggle as well!! My brain keeps gnawing at me to go back and re-read and edit, but NO; I'm refusing to give in to that little voice haha. I think that's why I've never completed a project, if I'm being honest with myself. So my goal this Nano is to get a full, quick and dirty first draft out of it.

Ok, now that I can actually get forums to load...

- Congrats on committing to your first nano! It'll be a fun ride, regardless of if you write 50k words or not!

- GL reaching the goal this year! Even if you don't 'win' you'll still have more written than when you started :)

- I have done a mix of both in the past. Sometimes it's nice to have those shorter side stories to work on when you get stuck in your novel. I'll probably be doing that again this year. (my poor neglected subeta pet stories need some work!)

- Ooo no editing tool, that does sound handing for nano. Unfortunately, I've written enough word vomit from past nanos and never managed to go back and edit them that I kind of need to edit for my sanity. If that means I don't get to 50k, that's fine by me, I've won enough in the past that I don't feel like I need to now if it means having something actually workable at the end OTL

- Welcome back! This will be year 12 for me! Cheers!

- I'm sure I'll be able to squeeze 50k out of the month. Whether that's in actual writing or just constant revision of my plot notes is another matter entirely, lmao. Ah well. I know I won't be finishing it anytime soon but I'm enjoying the ride regardless.

So what are everyone's little writing rituals and quirks? I have no doubt we all have them.

I've got my mug that I only let myself use when I'm writing. I'm hoping that I'll eventually develop some kind of pavlovian response to using it, lol.

I'm also one of those people who needs total disconnection from the world around me for my brain to actually focus, so I have my headphones in and white noise playing so I can block everything out. It seems to help a lot.

Despite that need for isolation I seem to find it helps if I start out the day by actually talking to someone out loud about what's happening in the story up to that point. Something about actually forcing myself to verbalise the scenes seems to fix things in my mind in a way that lets me play with it a little more. Like sticking clay to a bench so you can use both hands to mold it. It used to work for uni essays and work reports as well, actually, yet somehow it still took me like 4 years to realise it worked for my fiction stories too. Guess I'm not great at pattern recognition, haha!

OK NaNos: How are you doing? It's day two, almost day three for some of you...how many words can you get done in the next 40 minutes before the day ends?

- I haven't written anything today, but I've still got 2.5 hours left in my 2nd day! I'm still trying to finish editing my outline draft, but I've got other writing stuff to work on in the mean tme.

- Yeah, when I have major edits, I don't delete anything, I just use strike through to get rid of the stuff I don't like and re-write it, that helps, plus sometimes that stuff I stroked out is actually usable somewhere.

: You go! You can do it. I'm just trying to post something every day. I got about 1700 words done today, about 250 in the last 30 minutes. I've got nearly three hours left, but I'm going to work on a drawing till bedtime. Good Luck to you!

- Yeah, I tend to cut it out and paste it into a file of chopped-out things. I like to keep things just in case, but I can't work while it's still in the body of the text, even crossed out. It's like my brain can't keep it separate. I do occasionally use what I've pulled out, but not too often.

- End of the third day for me! Not a whole lot in the body - only about 250 words today - but I did finally manage to structure my notes for the next few chapters and work out the order of certain events. I even managed to fill a plot hole I've been hemming and hawing over for months! So all in all I'm pretty happy with my progress for the day. I'll give myself a few more hours of writing and then give my brain a break :)

: Way to go! Progress is progress as I see it. I have so many plot holes in my story right now that it looks like my Animal Crossing garden when I'm rearranging flowers. Keep going strong!

- OMG, you and me both! I have 3 versions of this outline open right now, and a separate doc for me to write my thoughts, and every time I do another major edit BAM! A new doc gets created! lol.

I've written only about 100 words, but I'm making decent progress on this outline! I have tomorrow off, so hopefully I can marathon a couple thousand words out. I did get a bit extra done yesterday, so I'm not too far behind.