Once Upon a Time: Word Crawl

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I’ve linked this here before but I just noticed that you need to be signed into the NaNo site to view the messageboard now. So I’m going to post it directly. If you don’t know what a word crawl is, basically it’s just a way of making a word count goal feel more manageable by chopping it into smaller pieces.

I kept this very generic because I didn’t want to tailor it to any characters/ships because I posted it on the main NaNo board originally. So this is for everyone, no matter who your favorite character is 🙂 Hope someone finds it helpful!

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Camp NaNoWriMo: Rumbelle Style

rowofstars:

emospritelet:

still-searching47:

It is 2017 but apparently the new banners aren’t in yet. The site has relaunched though and I’m too impatient to wait.

Yes it is that time of year. April is Camp NaNo. For anyone that doesn’t know Camp NaNo is different from regular November NaNo in two crucial ways:

  1. You can set your own word count goal
  2. They have these things called cabins

It is because of these cabins that I am making this post. Every camp session I run a cabin, they are for 12 writers and they have like a messageboard thing allowing communication on the NaNo site. I’ve always found it’s easier to write knowing I’m among friends, rather than sitting alone banging my head against the keyboard. I’ve been doing Camp NaNo for years and it always sucks if the cabin is a ghost town so in my cabin:

  1. I post daily facts everyday for inspiration purposes
  2. I post a daily word count challenge
  3. Time zones permitting I run word sprints

Generally I’ve found that so long as somebody’s talking, then the cabin picks up in activity anyway. Right so why am I putting this in the Rumbelle tag? Because I think it would be really cool if it was a Rumbelle cabin. Got a fanfic you want to finish? Taking part in @maydaymenagerie? Just wanting a boost in the writing stakes? I said to my anon yesterday that everyone should have a writing cheerleader and I think we can be that for one another.

If you would like to join then sign up and/or create a project on the Camp NaNo site. Then reply/reblog/message me with your NaNo username and I will send you a cabin invite. Any questions or anything let me know 🙂

I think I’ll do this, since studies are over this year 🙂

I’ve been toying with this but my muse is dead and I have no big projects to work on right now. 🙁

It’s not for another month. Besides, you don’t have to work on a big single project – I’m not. Camp NaNo is a lot more relaxed than regular NaNo, it’s not even rebelling to work on lots of projects at once. I’ll be counting all the words I write during April, so long as it’s fiction it’ll get added to the total. My project as it were will be to finish as many things as I can manage.

Camp NaNo actually has sections for scripts, revision, short stories etc. November NaNo is kinda billed at “writing a novel” in a month, but Camp is more about just making progress on things, and getting stuff done in a supportive and friendly environment. Plus you can set your own word count goal and you can change that goal as many times as you like up until the 20th of April. I just experimented and it accepted 1000 words as a goal. So there’s no real barrier to joining in the fun 🙂

Ok sales pitch is over heh.

sarashouldbestudying:

Join our cabin!

2017 banners are in:

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We now have 5/12 spots in the cabin filled and it’s only March 2nd. April is off to a good start already 🙂

———-

Just saw someone asking about Camp NaNo so I thought this might be a good time for a reblog, we’re nearly at the middle of the month anyway. We still have 3 spaces left in the cabin if anyone else wants to join us 🙂

Do you have any tips for someone planning on doing something kind of like nanowrimo (basically writing something everyday to get to 50k words at the end) for this up coming month? The longest thing I’ve ever finished was a 20k fic and that took over a year of stops and starts. So I’m kind of worried I wont be able to write an original story.

Oh anon I’m touched you are asking. I hope I’ll be able to help you!

My number one tip is tracking.
I believe the NaNo site offers a way to do that year round now with their goal trackers. To write 50k in March that averages out at 1613 words a day. Sounds scary right? I mean the problem isn’t doing it once, it’s doing it every single day. Life happens, build up a word debt and then the totals start getting crazy. Been there. I know that panic, but it is avoidable. How?

Break it down
I don’t know how fast you write. That is the first thing you should work out. Get a timer of some description and when you are prepared, set it to go for 15 minutes and start writing. At the end you’ll have an idea of how many words you can write in a certain time frame. That is your baseline.

I mean March is tomorrow so you might have to go by memory but find your free time basically. What do you do now that you could cut down on a little for a month? I don’t know about you but personally I could cut down on scrolling tumblr, cut down on watching TV, I could definitely cut down on playing games on my phone. That gives you writing time and you’ll know how much you need to find because of your baseline.

Now I said to write for 15 minutes because that’s long enough to get into the story and make some progress, but not so long that attention starts to wander. You might well be able to focus a lot better than I can, but 15 mins is kinda my maximum. The trick to writing a certain amount, within a certain time frame is focus. Far easier said than done, but this is when tricking the brain comes in.

Like I said saying “I have to write 1613 words a day!!!” is super scary. Saying “I’ve just got to write for 15 minutes” is not that much of a big deal. Do that a few times and then you’ll have your words. You don’t have to break it down by time either. One of my favorite ways to break a chunk of words down is to roll a dice and write that many hundred words. I mean you can even follow  a word crawl if you like, which breaks it up for you. I actually wrote one for Once Upon a Time if you are a fan of that anon.

Back to tracking
Right I said my number one tip is tracking. That isn’t just to scare the hell out of you by working out the “average words needed per day” it’s also a good tool for encouragement. During NaNo season I update my word count fairly obsessively because I like seeing the numbers go up.

Then I’ll see that I’m fairly close to my next thousand and I’ll write a little more to get there. Then I’ll see how much I’ve written that day and I’ll be near a pretty number for that and so I’ll write a little more. Each goal is usually only a few hundred words away. A few hundred at a time is less of a big deal.

Preparation
This is kind of a “your mileage may vary” thing. Some people like to write by the seat of their pants and see where the story takes them, other people like to write full scene by scene outlines. I don’t know what kind of writer you are anon and neither approach is wrong. However, what I would say is whether you are a pantser or a planner always end a writing session knowing where you are going next.

Write yourself a note saying “next time person A slaps person B” or you know whatever. That’s just a random example. This means when you sit down to write for your next session you aren’t going “urk I’ve got no clue what to write” because oh boy that is a big time waster. If you always know what you are writing then you can just dive straight in and get on with it.

Last couple of things
Forgive yourself. Far easier said than done, I am terrible for this but it’s important. Bad writing days happen for everybody. If you don’t write one day then try and let it go, so it doesn’t drag you down. Also don’t feel you have to catch up in one day, catch up over a few days so it’s not like trying to climb such a big mountain.

Friends. We all need cheerleaders. If you haven’t got a writing buddy anon then feel free to hit my askbox anytime and I’ll be that person for you. I believe that you can write anything you want. The first time I wrote 50k in a month, I hadn’t written much of anything in about a year. That was actually also my first original story. While practice does make it easier, everybody has to start somewhere. You’re worried you won’t be able to do it but you won’t know until you try. Plus no matter how far you get, you’ll still have more than you started with and you’ll have learned things. You can do this! I believe in you.

Decided to practice writing my NaNo daily pace today to see how it felt. It wasn’t easy and it’s going to be a real challenge to do it every single day for a month. I’ve learned from bitter experience that the marathon is so much harder than the sprint.

I learned some things to watch out for:

  • Writing stories I don’t care about that much is at least 3x as hard as writing something I enjoy. I can do it, it just takes longer. The procrastination demon gleefully loves the ‘meh’ stories and I really need to practice focusing. I waste so much time on this and it’s unnecessary and needs to stop.
  • It is way too easy to stop writing, when I reach a good stopping point like the end of a chapter. I need to find a way to push through that, and not waste a ton of time trying to convince myself to restart and write more.

Tomorrow I’m going to do this again but try a couple of different things:

  • When I reach the end of a chapter and start procrastinating (like I’m actually doing now), I’m going to swap to a different project, and see if that gets me going again any quicker.
  • On the meh stories I’m going to either take them scene by scene, and swap to something else in between. That way I only have to do small chunks in one go, which should be less boring and easier to knock out faster. Or if the scene is taking forever, I’ll just spend 20 minutes or something, and then switch.

Then on Monday – I’ll do it again!
Only I’ll have to work as well. Let’s see how that goes, when I don’t have all day to play with. I’m thinking it will be interesting to say the least. However, this is why I’m practicing and building it up. Today I’m finding out what my trouble points are, tomorrow I’m seeing if I can fix them, then Monday I put it into practice and then I’ll take it from there.

Naturally, I should at some point plan my actual projects for NaNo. However, there’s still a few weeks left, and I have a lot to finish writing this month before NaNo starts, so one thing at a time 🙂

Once Upon a Time Word Crawl

Link

Once Upon a Time Word Crawl

Got this in the mail today!

A word count calendar for my NaNo donor gift. I had to pay an exorbitant customs charge (UK donors beware) but annoyance about that aside, I do like it 🙂 Best of all it can be used for any month of the year, and for any word count target which is useful.

The NaNo Site has relaunched!!!

Honestly I’m like a kid on Christmas 🙂 I’ve accomplished nothing for a good chunk of the afternoon because I was waiting for the site to come back up.

Anyway, I’ve now created my project. It’s a bit light on details at the moment but it is only October 1st. I’m going to have to go eat dinner in a bit but I will continue writing Painting Layers of Love when I get back. The 150 words I managed between hitting F5 on the NaNo site, is not exactly going to cut it haha.

If anyone wants to add me as a buddy, here’s my profile.

Eeeek so excited. I just want to write ‘all the things’!

beliza-fryler said:

I want to do Nano this year, but I need a plot. 🙁

No Plot? No Problem!

That’s Chris Baty’s book about NaNo, and I couldn’t resist the reference sorry 🙂 Erm, yeah no I totally get it. I’m very much a planner, so there’s no way I could do NaNo either if I didn’t know what I was writing.

Ok, how about some questions. Like do you want to write an original novel or fanfic? If it’s original then I don’t know, what genre do you fancy? Genre is always a good place to start. If it’s fanfic, erm there’s that prompt tumblr which might spark something.

You know, this is actually a really good excuse to go rewatch/reread all your favorite shows/books, to get in the mood for whatever kind of writing you feel like doing – just call it research 🙂

emospritelet Said:

I’m thinking about doing it….

emospritelet:

evilsnowswan:

I see this on my dash every year, but have no idea how it actually works. Someone explain NaNo to this uneducated potato, please? 🙂

I hadn’t a clue either, but there are tons of FAQs on the website. The aim is to write 50k words over the month 🙂

Ok *rubs hands together*

The stated aim of NaNo is to “write a book in a month” or “50k in a month” but blah that isn’t what it’s really about. That is what you do, that isn’t what it is.

NaNo is about pushing yourself further than you could get on your own. It doesn’t matter whether you write 50k, a complete novel, 10k, 100k or whatever. The important thing is the taking part. My biggest regret isn’t the two years I didn’t make 50k, it’s the year I didn’t sign up at all.

It’s about setting a personal challenge, and like I said it doesn’t matter what that is, and smashing old records (whatever they are) and just generally going for it! It’s about stretch goals, reaching for the stars. Maybe you get it, maybe you don’t, but at the end of the day you’re going to have more than you would otherwise. It’s just about trying your best.

So yeah, that’s what NaNo is. It’s magic.

evilsnowswan

Checked out the FAQs, thanks. 🙂 50k Sounds doable … if one had an idea. xD Would mean no fic updates and probably no RSS though.

Do you have an idea already?

teacupsroses

A lot of people use their current fan fiction as their NaNo project as encouragement to finish it. Doing NaNo does not mean putting aside fanfic, unless you chose to do so in favor of working on something strictly original.

evilsnowswan

You can do that, use something that’s already half-written? I didn’t know that. Well, it could be helpful to have a further incentive to finish a WIP, but original project sounds good too. Mhm, need to sleep on this.

teacupsroses

Yes, you can. I know several fanfic writers who have done that. NaNo is more about the process of writing and putting the time into producing something, as well as the encouragement you get from others. What you choose to write doesn’t matter.

charmedrumbelle

I tanked last year but I’m doing it again this year. I have a private Tumblr group for support if you are interested, just PM me!

@teacupsroses is right 🙂

I mean I think the NaNo FAQ says “give yourself the gift of a clean slate” as sometimes if a project is part-done, then it’s hard to have the oomph to finish it in the timeframe. However, equally NaNo can kickstart projects and finally get them completed. I think it’s a YMMV situation.

So yeah do fanfic, do original, continue a project, start a new one – do everything! The choice is yours 🙂

Do you already have an idea about what you want to write for nano?

frenchroast007:

Lol, I think it is just like Hotel California! Because I’m almost certainly going to do it again this year. I’d like to get out of my non-finishing slump. I just miss the old days, when it felt new and a little crazy to be doing.

Why don’t you mix it up then? Make it new and crazy again. By that I mean set yourself additional challenges.

I confess for me, just the 50k is kinda meh these days because I’m writing more than that every single month as it is. However, I’m still super pumped for NaNo because I can push myself, and use the magic of November to help me reach further than I could on my own. I don’t know if that makes sense.

So how about set a challenge to beat your personal best for a day’s writing? Or beat your record for how quickly you can reach 50k? Maybe set a goal that is beyond 50k? I don’t know how you are at consistency, but maybe challenge yourself to write every single day if you don’t normally. Then there’s non-word count challenges, like maybe doing a completely different sort of project from your usual, or I don’t know heh, but there are options 🙂

I don’t know how you feel about that, but maybe it could be new and crazy again with the right kind of extra spicy challenges. Just a thought.

Do you already have an idea about what you want to write for nano?

frenchroast007:

still-searching47:

emospritelet:

frenchroasted:

Kind of. I need to take the time to flesh out the vague ideas I’ve got, and I’m trying to decide if it’s worth it.

I’m wondering whether to do it this year, because I never have, and I’m not sure…

Do it! Seriously, NaNo is amazing. I’ve been restraining myself from talking about it, as it’s not quite October and the site hasn’t been relaunched yet, but oh boy, I would recommend it so much.

This year is going to be my 10th anniversary, so I’ve been doing NaNo for a while and I love it 🙂 I write all year round these days but November is magical. It’s truly my favorite time of year.

I don’t know why, maybe it’s just being a part of something, plus the tools on the site for updating word count are kinda inspirational. I had to build my own word meter for the off season because I got addicted to it. It’s great for bribing yourself to write “just a little more” because everything is only ever a few hundred words out of reach.

Anyone in the fandom who is taking part should say their usernames and we can buddy one another and cheer each other on. You know if people want 🙂

Oh, I used to do Nano(won 9 years, was also a municipal liaison for 4 years), so I know how great it can be. But the last five years, it’s been kinda meh for me. So I’m debating.

Wow, I didn’t think quitting was possible, so that’s good to know. There’s a joke among the NaNo crowd I know, that NaNo is a bit like Hotel California – once you NaNo, you can’t go back 🙂 Also, being a ML – how cool is that? That’s really brave, I would never have the courage to do that.

Anyway, I’m going to shut up and let you decide 🙂

This is my gif for November when the green bar blues hit hehe. I don’t know if you’ll like it or not. It’s not very good but I really can’t make gifs. Still everything is better with Rush.

July Camp NaNo Cabin

still-searching47:

Do any Rumbeller’s want to join my cabin for Camp? I know RCIJ finishes before the end of the month but for the first 20 days you could have a cheerleading squad. Actually the cabins are open now so yeah we could start early 🙂

I got 6 people in the cabin so far and I think that 12 is the maximum. I’m not sure but either way there are several open slots.

During the month I’m planning on running some sprints, and maybe posting a couple of challenges for those who miss them thanks to timezones, and I’m going to post some random daily facts. Don’t worry I’m not planning on spamming the cabin chat either. I just think it’s sad if days and days go by and nothing is said, kinda defeats the point of a cabin.

I have no idea how to tag this post. Anyway, I just thought I would make the offer. I’ve never run a cabin before and I’m just looking for friendly, enthusiastic people so naturally thought of you guys 🙂 Let me know.

I still have two spots in my Camp NaNo cabin if anyone wants to join 🙂