NaNoWriMo general

"You guys seemed pretty intrested last thread" edition.

What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing.

On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel.

Thread question: what are you guys gonna write about if you decide to do it?

Thread question: how many words do you guys have so far? I know I damn well don't have enough.

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I'll probably only work on making a draft for the next chapters, becasue of slight hangover. Which likely doesn't count. Somewhat unfair, some people like to plan what tehy are writing next, which takes time as well.

Okay, so my protagonist is a knight. Another character is a young noblewoman who has taken notice of him (not romantically, just noticed that he stares at her during addresses, and has become curious about what kind of person his is). Her father is super protective of her regarding men, but will always follow protocol etc.

I need some way the noblewoman could have arranged a way for them to meet without pissing off her dad. Bonus points if it involves her testing his character without him noticing.

Bonus bonus points if it involves a way for the knight to become her personal bodyguard.

Public gatherings.

I keep putting a few hours into an old idea, then reaching some critical flaw in the story which makes me bin the whole thing and start over with another idea.

I'm left with the same feeling of dread that I've felt right before writing tests that I was unprepared for.

My overall impression is that all of my story ideas are too sexless and niche for anybody to ever bother reading, so there's no carrot at the end of the stick for me.

Nanowrimo is the most retarded of ideas. Everything about it is stupid.

First, its trying to take a concept like imagination and inventive creation and cram it into a very short period of time. Its basically guaranteed to give a subpar, rushed, cliched result.

Second, its aimed at amateur writers yet rather than saying "Create a good story" it says "Write 50,000 words." This inherently turns it into a numbers game with people struggling to fill pages rather than create characters or stories.

And lastly, it has a horrible history. Every single winner of that god awful contest has been a steaming pile of teen fiction level shit.

I understand what they were trying to do, but they've done a really shit job at it.

Can someone tell me whether this is a stupid concept for a short story or not? I think the subject matter might be too niche/technical to reach anybody. Just tell me if it's retarded or not so I don't waste time that could be better spent writing porn.

The story is a business/gambling drama set in a 1950s Randian dystopia. The protagonist (Shockley) takes part in a lightning-round auction held by a group of businessmen who are a few hours away from having their assets nationalized. The items up for bid are privately-owned slivers of the electromagnetic spectrum, and Shockley, his company on the verge of bankruptcy, takes out a large loan from his biggest business partner to purchase the bands he needs for the analog signal-processing equipment he produces, which his investor will want for a major project (a gambit to monopolize the nascent color TV industry). Also participating in this auction is a well-heeled corporate rival (a radio magnate) who plans on bleeding Shockley dry and flipping as much as the spectrum as he can get his hands on (once the political situation cools and the imminent right-wing administration makes America great again).

The drama comes from the fact that – for the most part – the bidders come into this not knowing which parts of the spectrum the other needs, or how much money each participant has to play with. Generally speaking, the name of the game is to force the other participants to overpay for the bands that they need, so that you can get the bands you need for cheap. It gets wrinkly when multiple bidders are waiting on the same band.

I think, the basic thing Nano is trying to get across is just write. Don't try and be good. Just get into the habit of writing. To be fair I never read about any of the winner, I just participated because I have fun doing it. It's just trying to get people to not be lazy.

That sounds pretty interesting, I'd read it. I think it would be cool if you throw in espionage and the like into it as well.

>Bonus bonus points if it involves a way for the knight to become her personal bodyguard.
Almost too fucking easy. She helps arrange a tournament.

Great way to introduce other important characters or have people discuss or foreshadow later events.

>And lastly, it has a horrible history. Every single winner of that god awful contest has been a steaming pile of teen fiction level shit.
Actually, quite a few of published and commercially successful authors have credited NaNo or openly participate in it.

They're more successful than you are, faggot.

>That sounds pretty interesting, I'd read it.
Thanks a lot for the encouragement.

>I think it would be cool if you throw in espionage and the like into it as well.
I do too:

A pivotal moment in the story is when the bidder representing his rival compares the size of a set of bunny ears he's snuck off with to his shoe, and uses that information to try and guess the frequency bands Shockley needs. But he's a nontechnical lackey, so he completely fucks up the formula he scratches into the desk (to Shockley's smugness) before fucking it up even worse, inadvertently getting it almost exactly right (in a decidedly moe turn of events).

This, shit like Nanowrimo teaches you that execution is better than a million good intentions.

A perfect novel that exists only in some Veeky Forumsfaggot's head is worse than even the most crude, amateurish, shitty novel that an autist actually wrote.

I learned infinitely more about writing and how to improve myself by doing NaNo three times than I could've in a million writing workshops and classes and blog posts about it.

I have the same 'put up or shut up' perspective on prissy Veeky Forumsfags

I can understand /v/fags and /tv/fags and /afags and so on bitching about their respective mediums not being good enough without necessarily needing to make a better example personally. But all you need to write a book is either pen and paper or a word processor of some kind. Prissy Veeky Forumsfags who have never written contributed even the smallest, slightest thing to literature are the worst.

Your argument is fucking dumb, because not only is writing a book clearly not enough to grant you any kind of "merit" to criticize anything (see any shitty book aisle in walmart) but you can't just pretend only writers can criticize writing.

Don't you dare make me use shitty food analogies.

Certainly one can make valid criticisms regardless of their own experience - but there are vastly too many people out there who far too free to shit on the efforts of others but fail to do anything themselves with their supposed expertise. Any fool could see how a toxic community forms when those who are actually doing the work, practicing, and improving are shat on by those who don't do it at all.

Imagine if Veeky Forums were dominated by people who don't ever play or GM tabletop games, they just read TTRPG manuals and watch other people play games and then shit on new GMs who are trying to get into the hobby. It'd be a pretty shit board, wouldn't it?

>quite a few of published and commercially successful authors have credited NaNo or openly participate in it
>Commercially successful
Ah, so we're basing quality on sales now? Guess the Divinci Code and the Twilight series are the peak of literary achievement. I'll point out to you that most of those authors wrote dime store trash that won't be remembered in 5 years. I mean, Look at "Wool" by Howey. The entire synopsis for that book sounds like a parody of played out genre cliches because its so fucking on the nose and bog standard. Its the book equivalent of "Exploding Kittens": its simplistic and appeals to the lowest common denominator and will sell like hotcakes. Good for them. If they want to make a life out of churning out rapidly forgotten paperbacks then more power to them. But you're not gonna get a Cormac McCarthy out of this shit. You're gonna get a Dean Koontz.

>More successful than you
YOU CAN'T CRITICIZE THIS MOVIE, YOU'VE NEVER MADE A MOVIE! YOU CAN ONLY CRITICIZE SOMETHING IF YOU'VE DONE BETTER!

Also you're assuming I want to be a successful author. I do not want to be a successful author because, unless you're one of a handful of extremely successful authors, you do FAR better financially to just get a good job.

See the post directly above yours. Then go fuck yourself, this is a thread for writers.

Hey, guys, I'm having conceptual issues with the thing I'm writing. I thought about changing the plot of my story because I felt the intial one didn't have a strong enough drive, as well as some structural problems that might have come up further along the story. However, I'm having trouble reconciling the plot and the goals.

The first plot had a group of people join an adventurer's guild, lower than the lowest of levels, desperate for money due to the circumstances they each find themselves in. Over the course of the story they would take progressively difficult jobs and rise up the ranks until they pull off a high stakes job would provides them enough money to fulfill all their desires, but could subsequently ban them from guild if they fail. I felt that the collective group's motivation were adequate but sporatic and not dire enough to fit the theme of the story.

The second plot had a similar set-up, however instead of accruing money, their motivation is to progress enough in the guild so they can qualify to take a trial for a Wish spell. The problem is that I'm having trouble thinking of desperate enough motivations that'd require a Wish spell (and also limits of said spell). Consider that this a world that can restore permanent injuries and bring people back from the dead (granted, only up to three times and in a limited time frame), so I don't know how to increase the urgency of their situation.

Nah. This thread is for wannabe authors with no life experience.

...

>The problem is that I'm having trouble thinking of desperate enough motivations that'd require a Wish spell (and also limits of said spell).
The world is going to end and a Wish is the only thing that can say it. If they try to just tell other people, the conspiracy will ensure their silence.

That's a pretty good motivavation, but the scale sounds too huge for this story and ultimately wouldn't fit the theme. I mostly want to focus on the personal reasons what drove them so far to think a Wish spell would fix their problems.

Their childhood best friend's life is going to end and a Wish is the only thing that can save it. If they try to tell other people, the conspiracy will ensure their silence.

>tfw too busy for NaNo
Always next year, oh well

Sure is anime up in here.

Because only Japanese people have childhood friends, apparently.

Good for one, but every member of the group have pretty distinct backgrounds.

Every single member of the group are, not coincidentally, related to the same person in different ways. One's their childhood best friend, another is their brother, another was their apprentice, another is in love with them, another doesn't actually know them in person but admires them over some past event...

You know as well as I do that the childhood friend trope is done to hell and back in anime.

I actually just happened to watch Stranger Things today, and that's why I thought of it. You know as well as I do that the childhood friend trope is done to hell and back in western media, too.

Fine, substitute childhood friend for shooting instructor or whoever it is is distinctly American enough.

If she is really testing him then have her take the knight out of his comfort zone. If he is a champion fighter who would dominate a tournament, then force him to dance after a feast. If he is a better hunter than Nimrod, and Humperdinck combinded, play a game of chess.

If story dictates he must become the bodyguard the best thing would be to have him foil a plot against the crown, have him in such a position that his loyalty could not be questioned and he is the best choice for the position.

strange to see a NaNo board here on Veeky Forums, but i guess it's more in line with my tastes than Veeky Forums (bar /sffg/

I'm working on a novel I've been worldbuilding for, which is probably gonna end up published as some sort of web serial. It's inspired by Filipino myth, Philippines during Colonial Times, but mixed and stirred and twisted to make it my own setting. (There are more islands, for example, and they had better technology, and the colonizers are closer to the Roman Empire than the Spanish). The main characters are

>A lowly girl part of a barangay, which is sacked and raided by pirates. She escapes and is rescued by an engkanto (think a dryad-fairy-elf).

>A battle-hardened man who was part of the pirate raid, needing to work for a Datu until his debt has been paid for a crime he didn't commit, so that he could go back to his family. The rules were that every member of the barangay had to be killed. When he found out that the girl had been saved, he goes out to hunt for her. He also gets mystical tattoos later on that basically make him a demigod.

>A scholar and writer who is also part of the Secret Jeremian Order, travels to one of their colonies on the archipelago continent to create a book about the natives there. His studies lead him to a much darker secret.

And like, the plan is all of them would meet up. It's nice, getting to write about something different.

I just wrote a scene about the torture and eventual murder of a servant girl by a closeted lesbian sadist noblewoman who is supposed to be one of the good guys. This character concept has advanced in a way that is worrying.

As a point, how can I make such a character still somewhat good? She has a daughter and a husband (who just died at war, but that's not important right now), and is actually a very loving woman with her family, and keeps this a secret from them. Not from the servants however, but they know what will be done to them if they mention anything to anyone. Plus the noblewoman is a mage, so the servants are all scared she'll know via divination that they have spoken about her to others outside the house. She's somewhat a leader character, and for the most part is meant to be good, but she has a sadistic side that she gives into more and more throughout the story, until in the end she becomes the villain and is just outright and apologetically cruel.

Thread Question: 7073 so far. Wanted to get to 10000 yesterday, but was scared I'd exert myself too much early in the process.

This is something pretty common. The thing is, your ideas always seem awesome before you put them on paper. When you get the first draft out, it's not going to be exactly what was in your head, and some huge mistake will come up. That can be sobering. I've heard somewhere that it's a sign you're more familiar with your characters and setting, and can see its downside better - but that still doesn't help the fact that you can discover fundamental flaws while putting the story together.

I don't really know if this is good advice, since I have the exact same problems. But this is how I've been handling it so far:
>Look at all your new ideas, and use whichever concepts have come up the most frequently, or are the easiest to change directions with
>Let yourself explore the totally different ideas as a reward for hitting the target word count on your story for the day
>Accept the fact that your story will never be released to the public, and that this is only a way to prove yourself and git gud at writing and face some of your own problems
>If you spot a huge flaw in the concept, have the characters address it and try to fix it.
(Like, I noticed partway in that my MC was too angry and spiteful to be really likeable - so the current chapter has her fresh out of anger management courses trying to keep positive)

I really love this perspective, thank you so much for sharing this.

Knowing that my book will never be published and never be read by anyone is such an empowering feeling. It moves the focus away from "write a story that will sell with no editing to the first draft", or "write a story that's good and readable", to "write a story that you like" and "write a story that lets you experiment with things".

Giving yourself permission to be bad is great.

That sounds really cool - it mixes a lot of themes that seem pretty familiar and neat, but with the lens of a tradition that's not touched upon as much in some media. And the distinct character motivations in there and exploring how they come together seems cool.

I've seen that scenario happen before. The solution then was to have the main hero discover it (through the spirit of the servant girl combined with deduction from her diary entries), hunt the noblewoman down in a climatic chase, and redeem her with joys of heterosexuality.

Is the problem that the noblewoman's supposed to still be sympathetic overall; that she's supposed to be sympathetic at this moment and wait until later to get really evil; or that the other characters aren't able to find out and confront her, peacefully or otherwise?

>Is the problem that the noblewoman's supposed to still be sympathetic overall; that she's supposed to be sympathetic at this moment and wait until later to get really evil; or that the other characters aren't able to find out and confront her, peacefully or otherwise?

Okay, so before this happens, I'm making it seem like I'm setting her up for a redemption arc, and setting up her paladin husband to fall. In fact, the paladin's faith is reaffirmed and he dies sacrificing himself to save everybody, as she suddenly sinks even deeper down the rabbit hole. She's meant to be sympathetic up until this point, and after this point, she's got to still be somewhat sympathetic, in a smaller way. She's seriously ill in the head, bisexual in an oppressive society, and in the third act, she literally has a demon in her head influencing what she does, she's actually losing control of what she's doing to some degree. She's definitely thoroughly evil in the third part of the story, but there's meant to be some aspects of her that make the readers hope for some kind of redemption until the very end.

One of these years we should all get together and spam the contest with monster girl erotica

>It'd be a pretty shit board, wouldn't it?
Y-yeah. That would be terrible

>how many words do you guys have so far? I know I damn well don't have enough.
I'm 20 000 words in currently.

Alright, so she doesn't need to look completely sympathetic, only capable of being redeemed to keep readers guessing. That's a nifty balancing act.

Here are a few assorted ideas (sorta cliche, but that can be the start of nice twists):

Establish a few barriers, either in politics or the bedroom, that she consciously refuses to cross. Maybe a villain with a tempting offer to turn that she rejects. Maybe she refuses to torture certain types of girls, based on past traumas or family. Maybe she refuses a chance for great secret sex because it would put the other protagonists in danger somehow. These lines can be crossed when she's fully transitioned into evil, but for a small time, give her a few clear standards.

Have a villain do something worse. She could call the villain out, and quietly acknowledge the hypocricy. If you want to go further, the noblewoman could end up being on the receiving side of similar torture. It might seem like she develops empathy and guilt from seeing how she hurt others, or briefly make her a figure of pity; but it could also speed up her downfall.

Make her genuinely caring towards a specific servant who's clearly on the side of good. This servant can be aware of the noblewoman's secret spiral into depravity, and act as a caring, concerned voice of reason. The noblewoman doesn't have to listen all the time. Just establishing that she can still make genuine friendships, and that there's someone who's trying to tug her out, can give false hope that this servant will be the one to save her with unconditional love.

Erotica is one of the selectable genres on the site. And it has its own section in the discussion forums, where normal rules on content don't apply if posting passages from your book.

I say we go for it.

The motion is seconded.
Now in addition, do we get /d/ in on this?

If the goal is to get MGs more accepted into western literature I say no, but if it's just for shits and gigs I say it's a good idea.

Okay, so it looks like a lot of those suggestions work really well for before she has this big event where she goes deeper into the rabbit hole. Mainly because she's the primary villain in the third part. In the first part she's against werewolves that want to turn the human empire into a puppet empire for their race, and in the second part war flares up between the elves and humans again (humans invaded about 50 years ago, been tenuous peace since, events of part one help kick off events where the elves start attacking the empire again).

Perhaps in the first act, one of the werewolves could tempt her with something and she could refuse.

Calling out one of the werewolves or elves for torturing could work.

As for her recieving torture, that could work. She accidentally gets caught up in a demon summoning, part of that could involve something like that.

I think the idea of refusing to torture certain types of girls based on past traumas could work well for the third act.

Additionally, although she has super demonic buffs going on and could kill the other party members, perhaps, but doesn't because she wants them by her side.

Now the idea of some servant on her side and knowing everything could work very well. Could be somebody who becomes intimate with her, and enjoys the weird power dynamic and pain involved. I could also show the noble's emotional distress and guilt caused by being in an intimate relationship not long after her husband died. That could continue into the third act, so that's a really good idea, thank you.

bump

As a professional writer, I assure you that if I write 50,000 words in a month it is not for one story.

I've always thought the idea should be to figure out the beginning and ending of a story and write them out, then spend the rest of the year filling in the middle.

I completely forgot about this.

Goddamn it I only have basic ideas and barely anything outlined.

Fuck it I'm going to shit out a short story.

Dibs on insect girls

Honestly though I forgot this month was coming up and I had planned to participate. I am currently trying to think of an idea to commit too.

Technically I've written about three thousand words if we count shit I've erased but in all honestly I have about 700 now.

Not good but hopeful I can get more down now that I actually have a day off.

As for what the story is actually about. Horror story about a guys girlfriend gradually losing bits of herself after run ins with a digital phenomenon in the near future.

It is interesting to find out what gets me writing nonstop and what gets me stuck. I start describing a character accidentally launching a warhead from a mech he just excavated and the next thing I knew I passed the 2000 word count for today. This is after struggling to come up with interesting dialogue between two characters for an hour.

Dialogue's actually an easy way for me to burn through wordcount goals for me, actually, especially if I'm into the voices or personalities of the characters speaking. I generally struggle the most with kind of inbetween 'get from point A to point B' sections.

I'm 8000 words in as of tonight. Hoping I can get up to 10000 tomorrow. I'm just about on track so far.

>actually an easy way for me to burn through wordcount goals for me, actually

Whoops, way to use a post about writing to show Veeky Forums I write like a retard, haha

This is all pretty neat, thanks.

I'm the same. And since I've figured it out some time ago, to write fast I avoid writing dialog, plain and simple. And it is a fun exercise to go around dialogue and make things work without it.

Throw me some ideas for my novel. The general premise is a sci fi not!80sAmericaInSpace with a guy traveling Route 14 from the setting's equivalent of San Antonio to Hollywood so he can "put [his] hands in the sidewalk with all the celebrities have their names."

The vast majority of the story will be his meanderings along the roads and truck stops. I would like some people and things to discuss, because asking a bunch of total anons for discussion hooks seems more organic than making it all up on my own.

The setting is humans only with cheap interplanetary travel. Also the planets are all multibiome and each have about 200 governments (think multiple earths rather than star wars/trek planets).

I'm just basically writing to practice dialogue. Just trying for a comfy 20k words until December

Is it too late to start with this? How feasible is it to actually complete 50k words in a month for a non-author?

Just write and don't look back.

I teach English. Nano is neat but it's misguided. I can't really focus on writing thousands of words a night. Papers to grade. I can offer some advice if anyone wants it, though.

Hi Satan, I'm:
My main issue is that I've realised I don't know what the noblewoman is testing him ON. Bravery? Loyalty? Any advice on that would be helpful, as well as a way she could engineer testing him and a way for him to become her bodyguard because of those actions too. She's the noblewoman from these posts:
I'm writing part one of the book this month, before they get together and start a family, and her sadism doesn't come to light properly until the end of part one, and even then, at that point she is just quick to anger and beats servant girls, but she doesn't do torture until mid-way through part two.

Currently writing an isekai fantasy about a man and woman who are shunted to the magical world of Kaisekia but are reincarnated as a young boy and girl. They go on adventures.

In a vein similar to Konosuba the characters have stats and can buy upgrades (as well as some magical gear). Story is more comedic slice-of-life fantasy since I'm pretty burnt out from work and writing atm but still want to get something done for NaNoWriMo.

I'm up to 12000 words.
I just wrote some shit down a few days ago and I keep following on it and see what happens. I don't have a plan, I just had a few ideas in my head and I'm vaguely trying to make them happen. Had to abandon a few because they became entirely impossible, though. Too bad.

you might try looking at the codes of chivalry and courtly love and start from there.

Having him deny a secret meeting because it might seem like a tryst if anyone found out and instead meeting him at a ball or tourney, doing errands for her because she asked or her honor was at stake, etc.

Seems like the kind of stuff youre attempting with the noblewoman.

Ouch, dude. That one hit home.

I think it's time to take a break from Veeky Forums for a while.

Can I write a light novel?

I've got a meandering sci-fi plot myself. Here are some quiet situations that have come up in my story, or that I've planned for later. Maybe you could borrow some:

>In an overpopulated spot, the dump sites where they put old mechs and ships have people re-purposing them as houses. The first thing people see when entering are clotheslines connecting various wings.
>A scatterbrained woman, living near an over-developed hyper-commercial area, is looking for a gift to give her boss. It has to be something that's not too personal, not too flashy, and not outside of her quickly-diminishing price range.
>In the name of compliance with environmental rules, a construction company is about to tear down a beloved parking lot to build a natural park. People are giving its last goodbyes.

Very nice, I like these. With the first one it makes me think of all the plane boneyards out in the desert. I like the other two alot as well.

Wait I used the wrong doggo pic, here you go

You're giving off mixed signals here. She notices this knight but isn't romantically interested in him. What,then, makes this particular knight interesting to her?

The testing part isn't so important as understanding why she's interested in your protagonist in the first place.

The unofficial Veeky Forums writing discord is doing word races and other shit for NaNo. Join up!

discord.gg/mV2mFZY

Me again. I've got another question if you don't mind me asking. I've decided to go for the second scenario, the one with the Wish spell, but I was wondering if this would make the overarching plot meandering and too distant of a goal.

A good example would be in One Piece, where Luffy's ultimate goal is to be traverse the Grand Line in order to become King of the Pirates. It's a series that includes a far-off goal with each step progressing the plot and introduces a sense of high stakes and risk. It could do that largely because of its place as an action-adventure series, since every location they travel to has a self-contained plot.

My story, meanwhile, personally feels like the stakes are too disconnected with the goal. How would you convey a sense of urgency for a goal that's supposed to be reached in the long term? As it stands I wanted the majority of adventuring parties mostly in it for the money and fame, while the ones in it for the Wish spell are in the utmost minority and would be looked upon as following an unachievable dream and encouraged to give up. Here the conflict would mostly be provided by the increasing difficulty of jobs with a few rival parties as competition. But should I go the opposite route, with the majority of people out to get a Wish spell and have the conflict be provided by a various number of competing parties?

Thanks, I'll look into doing something like that.

You know when you catch somebody's eye that you didn't mean to, and from then on you keep noticing them? It's something like that. The knight kept staring at her during her father's addresses because she looked a lot like the depictions of the goddess of his religion (this wasn't deliberate, this just accidentally wound up being the case whilst I was writing as I'd already had both characters looks fleshed out seperately beforehand).

When he got sorted into the order of paladins that's traditionally quite small, she finally notices him, and realises he is staring at her and not at her father, who is speaking. She begins to get curious about what he's like. It's just a simple bit of curiosity from a noblewoman who is quite happy to indulge in small whims of curiosity.

Contentless bump.
Or maybe, what do you guys write shit in? What software? And what language, might as well?

I write in google docs. It's quite easy, I can access it from most devices, and I can save copies to a device or two as backup in case anything happens with google drive.

Open Office, german. I'm constantly hearing how great the software Papyrus is with its build-in functions, but office is really all I want.

Ever read Kane and Abel?

Isn't Open Office kill? I used it years ago but switched to LibreOffice for reasons I can no longer remember.

I've started messing around with a program called QuollWriter, and so far, it's not bad. All the little note sections are useful for keeping all your world building consistent.

Are you German or just writing in German?

Developers on OOO gave it away to someone else, I think.

Looks good.

is it cheating, if that's the final part of a trilogy?
In my story a group of christian soldiers (crusaders) roaming the border with the Ottoman Empire, find a village of elfs. They kill them all (heathens, you know) save a single young girl, that is taken as a prisoner. She has no name (the immortal elves didn't pay much attention to her) and has heretical knowledge that is too advanced for the era. A couple of soldiers are dispatched to Sarajevo to sell her as a slave in the belief that when she is sold to the Sultan, and he learns what the girl knows, God's wrath will fall upon him, thus facilitating the conquest of Constantinople by the Christian Empire.

I'm currently expanding the second part with a new chapter, and I hope I'll be able to make it to the end of the story by the end of the year.
this has worked for me.
I use Scrivener, I would recommend it wholeheartedly

I'm german.

Libre Office

What word counts are you all at?

I'm just at about 6600 ish.

write ideas down. That's what I like about a dedicated project software for writers, you can keep notes, outlines and the fragments you scrap can be archived.

Maybe for something else. But there for the nano, I don't know. It's mostly putting out as many words as possible and I'd rather freely forget or abandon stuff. I doubt it'll be good or matter to me at all beyond "wew, I can put words down". Fancy can come later, I suppose.

I'm at 5000 words.
I don't think I'll make it.

Don't worry about making it. Just write. If at the end of the month you only have 10,000 words, that's 10,000 words more than you would have done otherwise. Just keep going beyond the end of the month.

Bamp

I'm 20,000 words in now and still in the establishment phase. Its working well but man have I underestimated what the size of this story was going to be.
At least I have a fully fleshed out outline to work from and don't have to seat of my pants it to the end.

14200 now. It's nice.

Nano is one thing, but the other I wonder about is how the fuck do I actually shop something to publishers?

I don't think I'll ever be a great or good author, but I'd certainly like to make a living writing rather than working my soulless corporate job where I consider killing myself an option to avoid work.

You could always self-publish.

Write it down, get proof readers, edit your work, maybe a professional lector if you cna pay for it. Send it to an agent or various publishers. Or self-publish and do the whole marketing, cover, editing for yourself.

But keep in mind that most authors don't live from their books alone.

So I'm writing right now, where do you guys write? I'm currently writing at work.

Then what do they live on?

I am a terrible marketer and salesperson. I suppose when (if) I'm finished with the book I'd probably wind up self-publishing in the end, but yeah, I don't see myself being able to live off it.

>Then what do they live on?
Their actual job, or they have sidejobs, give courses on writing, work as lectors. It's a creative job and it bears all the risks that come from these kinds of jobs.

>Thread question: what are you guys gonna write about if you decide to do it?
Well, I'm the guy who keeps asking about the knight and the slightly (at first) deranged noblewoman.
>Thread question: how many words do you guys have so far?
I've just hit around 8k words.