Hey guys I'm gonna start writing my first novel soon. I've looked into this, is it helpful?

Hey guys I'm gonna start writing my first novel soon. I've looked into this, is it helpful?

If it forces you to write, it's useful. Don't expect the result to be remotely publishable, however.

What extra steps should I take to make the final product more like a manuscript and less like shit?

if you're planning on forcing yourself to write in November, then you're still putting it off until later just like any other excuse.

Make today until October 20th your writing month. and then do it in November also.

Take what you forced yourself to write in a limited period of time, and then re-write re-write re-write.

The only strength of National Novel Writing Month is to get people to put thoughts on paper in an extremely limited period of time.

So this is just more procrastination? I really don't know where to start with a novel. I have a short list of ideas and a brief description of setting and events. As far as the overall story I only have a vague idea about how it all fits together.

Start outlining the fuck out of it? Pick the 3 part structure for the start and just write down bullet points for each section.

Why do you want to tell this story? Why THIS one? Why do you write at all?

Well, what it comes down to is, if you don't know what to do now, why would you know any better then?

What you do today is the same thing you'll be doing come the time you decide to get down to it. Don't get me wrong, I still think NaNoWriMo is a cool thing and that it encourages people who wouldn't ordinarily write to get things down on paper instead of talking about how they will someday, but I feel like you want to be someone who can push himself to write without oversight.

Expect to want to scrap everything you write for a while, but save everything anyway. Get feedback for your work, even if you decide you never want to use it again. Do research and take detailed notes to expand upon ideas you have, etc.

There's always something you can do right now to work on your novel, even if you still plan on working on the bulk of it during November.

If you have to force yourself to write, you're not a writer.

This isn't really true any more in an age of free instant gratification. If you're susceptible to addiction or lazy you're going to be doing nothing on the internet regardless of whether you want to write or do anything else. I find that if you take away the dumb dumb timesink bullshit people are quick to do something creative or constructive. Just because some or most people dont have the mental strength to pull themselves away from what is essentially a universal entertainment device doesn't mean anything except that the device is subversive, not that the person isn't truly a writer or whatever he wants to be deep down.

Given that other people DO manage that, why not? Some people prioritise consuming shit, while others prioritise creating shit. It's not like writing isn't insanely fun, for writers.

NaNoWriMo is reddit-tier.
We should start our own writing autistic event.

How would it be any different? Instead of encouraging each other, we'd complain over how shit everything is and tell people to stop writing before they read all the Greeks?

What should we called this collection of autistic writers?

We already have. Veeky Forums has written two """novels""".

But it can be fun.

Dunno, I'm too retarded to think about good names.

Veeky Forums has written at least 4 "novels".

You're right about me wanting to be the kind of person who can push himself to write. All my writing up to this point has been short form and with huge gaps in the time of writing. I guess it comes down to forming good habits and pushing through the feeling that everything i write is a flaming pile of shit

If you enjoy wasting hours every day squirting diarrhea onto page after page of pristine word documents, be my guest.

Isn't that the first step at getting better at something?

Having diarrhoea? Not really.

Some people here legitimately believe if you're first draft isn't incredible you will always be a bad writer

Just start writing it. Don't worry about how if its good or bad just worry about powering through until it's done.

should be way more "novels" desu, this board has been slacking