Uh ... thanks?

OH! Larry and Kevin are in that pic too? I didn't recognize them. Nice legs, guys.;)

Hooray to you too SP!

Even to those who may not have finished, congratulate yourselves on your efforts nonetheless. Even attempting this kind of challenge is something to be proud of, and now you have all year to work on your stories at a more leisurely pace. I think the whole point is the creative effort and the seeds of a story that has the potential to be something amazing.

And I agree, a big thanks to Jim, Larry, Kevin and all the others who cheered us on. Those are some wicked pom-poms you wield!

Congrats everyone! :D

Thanks Sher! Congrats to you too. I was trying to beat you yesterday, but after the Saturday marathon I had to put it aside for a few hours.:)

Awesome Sarah! I did check the website this afternoon and was hoping that you would pull off the dramatic, eleventh hour finish.

Thanks for being an awesome cheerleader, Jim.

Hooray for everybody!

I just wrote six thousand words in three hours to cross the finish line. The first five thousand of them are good, and the last thousand are there as a placeholder ending.

I'm really really happy with the direction everything took, and I look forward to finishing it at leisure AFTER my vacation.

I am really happy for you guys. Great job.

Hooray! Tadpole made it! :)

I also believe that it depends on the kind of writer you naturally are. For some people it's easier to get it all out in a rush and go back later on to basically rewrite it into something good (that's my theory, at least). But I'm hearing some of the accomplished NaNoers that they are now doing exactly what you are saying, taking their time to make sure the story is cohesive and steady, which takes more time up front and less time to edit later on.

It's good that you know what you need in order to create productively and end up with something really solid. :)

(Tadpole... beat ya! heehee!)

One thing I've realized this month is that I have no interest in producing 50,000 words of crap just for the sake of producing 50,000 words. I want to write something that I can polish and publish. That's going to take longer than a month.

Misha I'm happy that you're still pushing forward, even though you've had such a trying month. Sometimes you gotta know when to reset your goals, and I think NaNoFiMo is a great one. Keep us posted. :)

Tadpole... dangit, you passed me last night. We're neck & neck to the end. Think we'll cross in a tie? I'm planning on finishing today. (If I can get my brain to focus a leeetle bit more)

Congratulations to those of you who have finished, or are about to finish. This has been quite possibly the most frustrating November of my life. This damned sinus infection just won't let go, and I keep feeling torn between my two projects. I just returned from a week-long trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving, which provided ample fodder for one of my projects, I think, so I'm looking forward to NaNoFiMo and hopefully finishing the GD draft in December. Thanks for that link, Dan. You may have saved my sanity. ;)

I'm off from work tomorrow, so I'm still trying to use today and tomorrow to do as much as I can and see if I can at least beat last year's total (something like 21 or 22K). I'm currently parked in the cafe at Hastings, thinking that maybe getting out of my apartment will help my productivity. It will at least remove me from the lure of Tomb Raider: Anniversary on the PS2. ;) Now, if only I could manage to get off the free wifi...

Oh man, that did it. Even though I am only 1400 words away, with that picture I'm done. It sucked all of the creativity out of my brain. Zip. Zero. Nada.

Just kidding. Thanks for the encouragement! :)

I may be a little more motivated now too...

*Laughs Out Loud*

Thanks Jim! I am now even more determined than ever before, knowing that there is a bevy of male prostitutes cheering me on...;)

Way to go guys, you have all done extremely well.

Hey, that's a pretty cool idea Dan. I may have to investigate. Although, part of me really wants to take December off completely and begin again in Jan. I think my brain is a little fried right about now.

Good luck to all of you too! :)

Good luck, good luck! *cheering ya'll on since I can't seem to write anymore*

I still have about 20,000 words to go before I get to the end, I think. Fortunately, National Novel Finishing Month is right around the corner...

I'll make it but its going to be hard with all of the driving. I'm not near done either. My plan is to tack on an ending soon, leave it alone while I'm away, and then come back and start fixing and adding as needed more purposefully than November allows.

Good luck finishing, Sher!

I am up to 46,549 and slogging through to the end. The funny thing is, I'm not even close to being done... but my brain is just not cooperating with actually telling the story. I think I might have to skip some chapters to get to something exciting, like killing someone off or my character having to save the world. Aaargh! I guess I have to keep in mind that I can change all the drivel I'm writing right now later on. That's what the rest of the year is for, right?

Sarah and tadpole, keep going... you are so close! And I'm proud of everyone who has even attempted this. :)

Yeah, I have a place where I can end in mind, but there's a nagging thought of a third act that would be more satisfying. I think I'll declare it over at my original ending idea, go on my trip, and then decide if it's worth coming back to.

Sarah Pi wrote: "Photo finish for third -- Sher is right behind you, I think...though I'm not trying to get there ahead of anyone in particular, just trying to get there.

How close to an ending are you, Dan? "

I'm going to say another 15,000 words but it could be more than that. The characters have been taking longer to accomplish things than I originally planned. I still have a couple death scenes to write, a castle to storm, and a pretty mean plot twist to throw at them.

Photo finish for third -- Sher is right behind you, I think...though I'm not trying to get there ahead of anyone in particular, just trying to get there.

How close to an ending are you, Dan?

Sarah Pi wrote: "Nice job, Dan!
And everybody else!
"

You and Tadpole might have a photo finish on your hands.

Nice job, Dan!
And everybody else!

tadpole wrote: "Congrats Dan!!!

I went on a literary tear this evening and finally wrote beyond the recommended 1667 for the first time in a few days. I'm at just over 28.5K - a little short of where I should b..."

Thanks, Tadpole. I am also in the longest thing I've ever written zone. Don't despair about being behind. You all still have a couple weeks and should reward yourselves for trying even if you don't hit 50,000. Most people don't write 2000 words of fiction in their lifetimes, much less 50k.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I have some horrible things to do to my characters so I can keep moving toward the end of my story.

Sarah, that must have been unnerving. I'll bet it's safe to turn everything back on now and see if the new alarm reacts the same.

Misha, I hate that you've had such a hard time of it. But it sounds like you've made progress and sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to attain a different goal. You've got a good head on your shoulders and the framework for a good story, which you can now take your time (when you're feeling better) to create something wonderful from it. I hope you are feeling better! (And take our vitamins, girl!) :)

I'm only just over 12K, but I'm pretty happy with that considering. This cold is really hanging in there - still have a cough after almost three weeks - so I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow to make sure I don't have a sinus infection that requires antibiotics, and to get my H1N1 vaccine. In between illness, work has been insanely busy, so even being able to eek out those 12K words has been a challenge.

Basically, I've tried to take the pressure off of myself and am just writing an extensive outline at this point rather than anything that would resemble a draft of a novel. That's helped me have fun with the story again, as I'm not worrying about getting the words right but rather just figuring out the plot.

My first instinct was panic (and opening all doors and windows, and turning off the heat) but a firefighter friend said to check the age of the alarm (I had been dutifully replacing the battery for years without considering that the things have a shelf life). When I took it down I discovered that it was ten years old, supposedly well outside the life span. My friend said to take it outside to recalibrate itself, but it wouldnt shut up even after I took it outside for half an hour. I ran out and bought another and put it up, and that one hasnt chirped.
I have not turned the heat back on yet, and I have not tried the oven since that evening, so either of them might be an issue, or it might have just been a faulty detector.
Everyone says it was a false alarm, but I feel like there is no reason to have an alarm if you then ignore it. Sigh. I just keep telling myself that the new one would warn us, and that the firefighter would not have hung out at the house last night if she was feeding me false information.

Yikes! Hope your house is OK.

No need to be classy, Tadpole! I'll claw my way back up this weekend. On Tuesday night I sat down to write and our carbon monoxide alarm went off, and I wasn't able to get back to writing, so I'm a full day behind. I have a show tonight, and tomorrow night I'm seeing Bruce, so I'm going to have to really push to keep up.

I am ecstatic for you guys for pushing your way through congrats to all of you.

::hands each a shot of tequila::

Cheers.

Keep it up tadpole! It's pretty amazing when you sit back and think about it, when you realize 'I'm actually writing a book!' In my opinion, that's what matters... that we're doing something we love and actually accomplishing the goal. I know that I'll have to work on rewriting most of what I've got, but at least I'm getting my ideas down and the characters are surprising me in strange but wonderful ways.

I think the best thing is that we are creating something! No matter if we actually reach the 50k mark or not, we should all be proud of ourselves. :)

Congrats Dan!!!

I went on a literary tear this evening and finally wrote beyond the recommended 1667 for the first time in a few days. I'm at just over 28.5K - a little short of where I should be. Right now i'm still just impressed with myself that I have mustered this many words and still have things to say that are relevant to the story. This is easily the longest piece of continuous fiction that I have ever endeavored upon.

(I'm going to be classy and not mention that I finally pulled ahead of Ms. Pi again tonight...:);))

Woo-Hoo Go Sher! You're SO close. I remember a couple of weeks back when 10K seemed like a major milestone...

Dan, you are sooooo close! You could write a bunch of blather and still make it. Maybe have a character recite Dr. Suess rhymes or something. :)

How's everyone else doing?

tadpole wrote: "I'm in the same boat. Good luck, I know that we can all make it.

DAN! You're almost there. Here's some inspiration music for your last day or two...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf45I1ZI__w"

Thanks for the inspirational music. I'll be needing it for the additional 25-30,000 words I have to write after I hit 50,000.

Ha! I thought for sure it was going to be the Rocky theme song. That's a great one though. :)

I'm in the same boat. Good luck, I know that we can all make it.

DAN! You're almost there. Here's some inspiration music for your last day or two...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf45I1ZI_...

Yesterday I was at a complete blank, so I succumbed to writing detailed character descriptions and their philosophical outlook on life. I think some days you just have to get something down, even if it doesn't really further your story.

I thought today would be the same... it's been horribly dismal here, the sun doesn't seem to exist anymore, and I have been in a funk. So I basically put my character into the same mindset and used it to vent all my frustration that way. It seemed to work, and now stuff is happening that I didn't expect. All of a sudden, wham! I've got daemons popping up to corrupt my main character. What?!!

I guess sometimes you just have to use your characters in whatever way you have to to get words down. Apparently mine appreciated it.

Hang in there Sarah! And everyone else!

I'm just spinning my wheels. I'm still pretty much on schedule, but I had wanted to be ahead. This is where an outline would have come in handy.

I don't know if it's the grey day we're having (which has lasted for, Oh I don't know, two weeks now?), or if my brain is mush. I know what I want to write about but there is a severe disconnect between my creative thought processes and the keyboard. I have a feeling this one lands squarely under user error this time. :\

tadpole wrote: "I'm fairly comfortable with my vocabulary even though it is not immense, but it bothers me whenever there is a word that has to be used several times in a scene. Example: A scene I was working on l..."

I've been having the same problem with describing the ship and the ocean in my story.

I figure I can always go back and 'flower it up' with the language. Right now, not much of my story is very smooth or pretty.

tad - yup, that's a pic I found that just screamed Izzie to me, especially the point she's at right at the moment. She's coming out into the split between good ol' 50's and the wave of hippies of the 60's, and she's something else entirely. Pictures help me quite a bit with keeping in mind my characters, etc.

I often use deviantart.com to find all kinds of pix that fit my ideas.

I'm fairly comfortable with my vocabulary even though it is not immense, but it bothers me whenever there is a word that has to be used several times in a scene. Example: A scene I was working on last night involved a lecture in a meeting hall. At one level it is a monologue by the lecturer, but at another level it is a dialogue as the reaction of the crowd is integral. It is distracting to keep seeing the crowd, the crowd, the crowd, but aside from audience I could think of little else that fit. I also agree with Abigail in that one could get too creative in this regard and start using things like "the teeming throng" or "the curious but well-behaved onlookers" which can be equally distracting to the reader. It is quite the literary tight-rope walk.

Ha ha, thanks Kevin. It never occurred to me that tadpole could be construed as phallic (in a sadly diminuitive sort of way, no less:/). I will steer clear on theorizing on what an El Liso might be...;)

Sher: Is your current avi the inspiration for your red-headed main character?

A slightly larger vocabulary would help. I almost feel bad using a thesaurus, but then I remember that it is much easier to remember the million words I do know when they are in context. So using a word that didn't come first to my mind is okay when set in a sentence because people will most likely get it as long as it isn't really obscure. Or sounds woefully like you picked it out of a thesaurus...

bubba biggerstaff would be a great red-neck XXX screen name

Is that secretly you Kevin? ;)

I, um... well... uh.... yes. I think mine is woefully inadequate about now too.

Edit: Why is it that I can write my book so much better in my head, including masterfully written prose, but when I attempt to put it on paper I feel like a 3rd grader? "The girl had red hair... like, uh, something red. And she was pretty. Pretty like a pretty fairy. Duh...."

Is NaNoWriMo making anyone else think they need to expand their vocabulary a bit?

tadpole (which has its own innuendo i suppose) was on fire. very funny. thanks.

bubba biggerstaff would be a great red-neck XXX screen name