November Writing Challenges

[Negrek]

November will soon be upon us, and with us the tradition of writing a whole lot of words. It's been a tumultuous year for NaNoWriMo, so whether you're doing that challenge, Novelember, November Writing Month, or any sort of push to get writing in November, feel free to discuss it here! Feel free to talk about your projects, process, progress, and any problems you run into along the way. I'll be hosting regular writing sprints on Discord, and also hope to put one or two word-boosting sort of events on the forums as well.

To begin with, what will you be challenging yourself to do this November, and how are you preparing for it?

I'm going to be writing 50,000 words next month, the same as I usually do, this year focusing on an original story. Fortunately I don't think I have 50k left to draft in Salvage! My usual level of prep for NaNo is... none, heh. I noodled around with a couple scenes from this story last NaNo, and also wrote a story set in the world/with the main characters of the big chapterfic, so I have at least got a nebulous idea of where I might go. I don't think I'll have much time for prep over the next few days, but early on in the challenge I think I may try some more non-outline-outline sort of strats, e.g. character and world development questions that might give me a bit more direction. Running face-first into a wall with no plan has always worked out well enough for me, ultimately, but if I could find a process that was a little more efficient and a little less painful to execute, it would in fact be nice.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I'm gonna try to finish The Devil You Know

 

[Nekodatta]

Just trying to get back into a write-every-day habit, I will try to do at least one 15 minutes writing sprint per day... Maybe I can challenge myself to break my personal record and see how many I can fit in any day.

Mostly about my fanfics, but maybe I will also try to work a bit on an original story.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

What will you be challenging yourself to do this November, and how are you preparing for it?

I only have three firm goals for this upcoming November:

• Write at least 30,000 words in any capacity before December 1st
• Rough draft out at least 4 installments of the serialized version of Trueno (read: new content that will not appear in the Zine version)
• Publish at least two updates of new material across any combination of stories

Everything else will ultimately be up in the air. I'll probably be focusing on the four stories presently in an active publishing pipeline, but never say never to something else joining the mix.

 

[Negrek]

I'm gonna try to finish The Devil You Know

Awesome! How much do you have left to do?

Just trying to get back into a write-every-day habit, I will try to do at least one 15 minutes writing sprint per day... Maybe I can challenge myself to break my personal record and see how many I can fit in any day.

Mostly about my fanfics, but maybe I will also try to work a bit on an original story.

Just 15 minutes a day is a really powerful goal! What sort of original story were you planning to work on?

What will you be challenging yourself to do this November, and how are you preparing for it?

I only have three firm goals for this upcoming November:

• Write at least 30,000 words in any capacity before December 1st
• Rough draft out at least 4 installments of the serialized version of Trueno (read: new content that will not appear in the Zine version)
• Publish at least two updates of new material across any combination of stories

Everything else will ultimately be up in the air. I'll probably be focusing on the four stories presently in an active publishing pipeline, but never say never to something else joining the mix.

Four stories is plenty! Hope nothing else sneaks into the pipeline--I know you've got a lot to work on as it is!

Good luck, everybody! We're officially on our way!

Things have been going pretty well for me so far. I wasn't really expecting to get anything done on November 1st since I had guests over all day and knew I'd be tired, but I ended up hitting par without too much trouble. I've also got this year's companion all set up and ready to go:

​

It's satisfying and unusual for me to not be immediately behind on words, lol.

I'm also going to be spending this month reading some Arthurian literature to get me in the mood for my origfic. Starting things off with Parke Godwin's Firelord!

I'll be sprinting at 10 PM EST as many days as possible in November, and I hope to set up one or two additional writing events this month. Good luck to everyone writing along! Keep us updated. :)

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I have absolutely no idea. I'm within a few *hours* of the finale, but how much writing that translates to is unknown.

 

[Cresselia92]

Well, I don’t quite have a specific goal in mind, but I have two writing-related goals that I’m currently focusing on:

- Getting another chapter done for Wonderful Winter Wishes before the start of December. That has been on hold for quite some time and I’d love to drop an update for December 24.

- Starting my new writing project. This isn’t Pokémon-related because, well, I’m kinda suffering from “Pokémon Burnout” and I’ve been struggling with writer’s block for months.

What’s this project, you might ask? A Gravity Falls crossover fanfic, born from my recent hyper-fixation and merged with another hyper-fixation of mine: the EarthBound series. I already have poured hours of brainstorming and drafted a good skeleton for the entire fanfic, so I’m planning to actually work on the first chapter this month.

Nothing really tangible, I admit, but I’m extremely hyped about the second project, both in terms of writing and drawing! :D

 

[Flyg0n]

A couple days late to this party but...

I am committing to working on writing projects every day this month. Lately I have been in a writing slump, save for like, RP stuff. I want to get back into the swing of things. No wordcounts, no specific time limits, just a particular goal to do some effortful works on my active projects.

This can include:

• Legendary Adventures
• Home is Where the Hoenn Is
• My original novel
• Blood is Thicker than Poison

Effortful work just means some progress on writing, plotting, thinking, or in some way working on my stuff. So far I've stuck to it!

 

[K_S]

Allow me to top flygon in tardiness...

No word goalsper say...

Basically I'm corralling every scrap of physical paper and putting it in digital format. I'll get some outlines for nearly complete projects out of it. And possibly discover what color my writing desk is.

 

[Audrelite]

I started a one-sentence fic collection, fifty in all, a couple of weeks ago; I hope to finish it by the beginning of December—I'm 24/50 of the way through.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I posted a new chapter of The Devil You Know but it's one I'd already had in the document file. Ah well...

 

[K_S]

Hey update is a good one. Thanks for sharing.
Ah you did post it here? Right? Because I can't find it...

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Not yet but I will!

 

[K_S]

Ty

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

https://forums.thousandroads.net/threads/the-devil-you-know.1327/page-2#post-66894 there ya go

Ty

 

[StrixUmbra]

Bit late to this too, but I've been working on an original story for November. I haven't written as much as I'd have liked to, but this turned out to be an insanely busy month for me, and I consider myself lucky that I've been able to write something each day so far. No matter how long it takes, I will get it done - I keep reminding myself that I'm going to be so happy when it's finished, and then I'll switch my focus back to my PMD fic. That's helped me get over my typical "too many ideas at once" problem that's stopped me from finishing anything before, or at least it has for now!

 

[Negrek]

Awesome! It sounds like people have a lot of great goals this year. We're a bit more than halfway through now--how is everybody doing?

I fell off the wagon a bit in the first/second weeks of November due to World Events, but this weekend I actually caught up again, and I'm now slightly ahead on my word count! We'll see if I can keep it together for the rest of the month.

The story itself hasn't quite gelled the way I'd hoped for yet; I'm kind of still stumbling around looking for a plot. I realized that both the main characters are also at a point in their life where they're flailing and unsure of where to go themselves, so I've tried introducing a third character who can be like, "sorry your whole world got turned upside down and all, but I still need to get these hogs to market, so..." and drive things along a bit until the others recover some agency, lol. It's going better, but hasn't quite clicked yet; we'll see where we stand at the end of the month! Having a general plan and a handful of scenes to work with would be a great outcome, I think.

 

[K_S]

You know you beat me to punch on calling for a status update....

Life's been lively but I'm about halfway done with the pile. So I might get it cleared off. By months end... Maybe. Regardless I plan on posting my outlines on ao3 as a idea collection/headcanon/may get back to it later coagulation. there's about 40 pages in word thus far...

Also for those curious the desk is a fetching shade of dark brown (well half of it is, the other half paperwork colored).