#ThesisThursday
NaNoWriMo starts today!
Am I in? Yes, I am. I participated twice in a row, so I was just looking for a good reason to log in again this year. Of course, I found one. How else could it be, when I am part of a strong writing community – the Wordsmith Studio, which started from the April Platform-building Challenge at MNINB. Initially, we started as NotBobbers, but soon we took a name of our own. Apart from FB group and regular Twitter chats, we have two blog-sites, forum, group membership and even Founding Member’s badges J. Well, such a tightly-knit and closely-communicating group wouldn’t have let me pass through the net of NaNoWriMo, especially when I signaled so definitely that I wanted to participate.
Setting the goals
That was the tough part. To sum up, I had to choose between regular NaNo-er and a NaNo Rebel. A rebel would be a more suitable profile for me, as I didn’t actually plan to start a new project before I manage to end the existing ones. I still need to finish Orange’s story, which I started writing with so much love, and I still have to do some heavy editing of Lily’s story which I finished with so much love and support. Alongside with those thoughts, I still do my courses at University and have six exams ahead, for which I have to complete six written assignments. Still.
So, I needed to think. I must confide in you, that communities do wonders in such dilemmas. One rarely needs a full-bodied and argument-supported opinion, since “one” has already decided, so the said “one” tends to hear just what is consonant with “one’s” intentions. In addition to this, I must admit that all opinions were consonant. Everybody said, “Go for it.” So I did.
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My Goal for NaNoWriMo this year is to prepare the Theoretical Chapters of my Master thesis for graduation. I have no doubt it will be less than 50k, because that’s the volume of the entire work, yet writing under the pressure of deadlines and impending word count will be a great help, as always.
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Happy Halloween, Happy Educators’ Day in Bulgaria and Happy start of NaNoWriMo to all!
© 2012 Mariya Koleva
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Hi, Mariya! Just wanted to stop by to thank you for the great prompt on Poetry Asides, Poem-a-Day Challenge. What fun to have prompts from other writers!
Yay, Mariya! I, too, didn’t want to start a new, full project with past ones still incomplete, but I wanted to participate in the NaNoWriMo community.
One lesson I already learned this morning: Like you, I’m writing nonfiction that I plan to use elsewhere (on my blog). It’s automatic to start editing as you go! I had to reset my brain to use a slash after “dumb words” instead of the backspace key. You can cut and paste into another document if you need to edit it before December.
Hey Beth, it IS very different from the classic NaNoWriMo. I, too, have to edit as I go. Besides, as mine is non-creative non-fiction, I have to read, assimilate and then write. But it’s OK of course, as I am using this month to accumulate a body of writing.
Happy NaNo to you, Beth!
Linda – thanks for visiting! I’m glad you liked the prompt. I am overwhelmed by the reactions of the poets responding to it 🙂
I’m participating in NaNoWriMo this year too. I love Beth/Elizabeth’s tip of using a “/” after words. I’ve been using brackets around areas where I need better description but I want to push the story forward and go back to those later. Using special characters makes the find/replace feature easier! I will definitely try using the slash from now on instead of deleting my previous work. Thank you!
Mary, I thought about being a NaNo rebel too. I even posted about it on my blog. What sealed the decision for me was that NaNo counts if you’re starting completely over and referring only to an outline, not the original text. In October, I created as detailed of an outline as I could and as I’ve begun writing it in November, the characters are beginning to come into definition. What I’m trying to say is that for me at least, the old and new text is so radically different, it’s a good thing I’m starting over because they can’t be patched together.
I do think though that it’s great that you’re using NaNo to complete an unfinished project. More writers ought to take advantage of the community of people writing and just work on [whatever]. Good luck with your goals!
Hey, Lauren,
thanks so much to visiting and a meaningful comment!
Regarding marking such “to-be-edited-later” chunks of my writing, I used to highlight the places. That way they are always easy to spot in your doc.
Regarding the NaNo rebelling, I can’t agree more. I was planning to skip NaNo this year because I had nothing new to write. I am only using the pressure of deadlines and word count to progress in my thesis. That is not a WIP, because I just started it on Nov. 1st. The trouble is, it will be less than 50k, but I’ll think of this when I have to.
happy writing!