Tuesday, November 01, 2005

NanoWrimo begins

Every year thousands of dedicated writers set out to write a complete novel in a month. November is that month, and it started at one minute past midnight on the first (today, as I write this.)
I've signed up this year, hoping to knock off half of Hal Spacejock 4 by the 30th. (A complete Hal Spacejock novel is around 90,000 words.)
Why did I sign up when I already know I can write a whole novel? In a nutshell, I work best with a deadline and I enjoy a challenge.
The Nano deadline suits me because it's much easier to skip unimportant stuff when you have to write 1,700 words each and every day. There's also the reward aspect, where you won't allow yourself another coffee until you reach 500, 1000, 1500 words, or you're not allowed any TV or DVDs or casual web browsing unless you've done your quota for the day. That works quite well.
The challenge is a major one - Assuming you get 250 words on a double-spaced manuscript page with industry standard margins (ie. huge), 1700 words is almost 8 pages. And that's not dictation or copying from a book - it's all fresh fiction from your brain. Every day.
I'm off to the dentist in about 1/2 hour, but when I get back it's writing time. My goal is to start off with 3000 words.
By the way, you might like to check out my NanoWrimo Progress Forms

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been looking for a writing program like yours for many nano years. Australian, writer, programmer, fabulous. Thanks. You've made my day.

Simon Haynes said...

Schmeggifin - Thanks for the comment, and I'm glad you like the program.

Anna - 99.99% of spam has a fake sender, so a bounce will either fail or will goes to someone who has nothing to do with the spam. Worse, if you send hundreds of bounces out to innocent parties one of them might report your mail domain as a source of spam.
However, if you know the sender is legit (e.g the spam is a monthly newsletter from a real estate agent you just can't seem to opt out of) then fake bouncing works quite well. I use my own email program but there are one or two other utilities out there as well.
I'm enjoying Nano - it's like writing in company.