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NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

nanowrimo.org

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Re: NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

#51

Post by blakewatson »

I’m I love this little challenge. I've participated almost every year since 2010. At the peak of my involvement l was a local organizer (Municipal Liaison). I met a lot of cool people and had a great time at write-ins and such.

It was a good social outlet for me because I have a pretty severe mobility impairment and, long story short, small groups and laid back activities are easier for me to participate in than other things.

I haven't really gotten back into in-person stuff post-COVID, but I still enjoy making November a time to write and hanging out in the local NaNo Discord server. I enjoy perusing the NaNo forums, particularly the Adoption Society, where people offer up plots, characters, running gags, opening lines, chapter-naming schemes, and more for anyone to use.

There's also a bit of fun lore that has developed. For example, if you're stuck, kill a character with the traveling shovel of death ("traveling" because us Wrimos are passing it around). Or find a way to include Mr. Ian Woon (anagram of NaNoWriMo).

NaNoWriMo is different things to different people and I love that about it.

This year and last, I lowered my goal to writing a 20k-word novella. I have difficulty typing and a lower word count makes it a bit easier for me (that makes me a "NaNo rebel" lol I love all the little jokes and stuff).

Re: NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

#52

Post by boznz »

jdriselvato wrote: post #45

I love NaNoWriMo and have written and won every year since 2019. My only issue is once the month is complete, no one cares about your novel or that you finished it. So when I got laid off earlier in the year I started working on an alternative to NaNo. https://penpinery.com At the moment it's in MVP but it current has: - Author profiles w/ blogging - Publication cataloging + reader reviews - WIP cataloging with word…

Nice concept, for me and millions of others at the mercy of the Amazon algorithm to what we read next I may try a few books here.

You are right nobody cares about your novel but the rush from finishing and publishing something even if nobody reads it is pretty satisfying.

Re: NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

#53

Post by notatoad »

jdriselvato wrote: post #45

I love NaNoWriMo and have written and won every year since 2019. My only issue is once the month is complete, no one cares about your novel or that you finished it. So when I got laid off earlier in the year I started working on an alternative to NaNo. https://penpinery.com At the moment it's in MVP but it current has: - Author profiles w/ blogging - Publication cataloging + reader reviews - WIP cataloging with word…

So as a reader the only way to see any content is to purchase a book?

i love self-published books and back a few authors on patreon that i've found on royalroad, but there's not a chance i'd be buying books from unkown self-published authors without even a few sample chapters. especially not when the pitch is that it's something an author has created by churning out as much wordcount as possible during a writing challenge.

Re: NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

#54

Post by jdriselvato »

boznz wrote: post #52
jdriselvato wrote: post #45

I love NaNoWriMo and have written and won every year since 2019. My only issue is once the month is complete, no one cares about your novel or that you finished it. So when I got laid off earlier in the year I started working on an alternative to NaNo. https://penpinery.com At the moment it's in MVP but it current has: - Author profiles w/ blogging - Publication cataloging + reader reviews - WIP cataloging with word…

Nice concept, for me and millions of others at the mercy of the Amazon algorithm to what we read next I may try a few books here. You are right nobody cares about your novel but the rush from finishing and publishing something even if nobody reads it is pretty satisfying.

Right now I'm in the middle of the chicken and the egg problem where we don't have enough authors cataloging their publications and b/c of that obviously readers are not interested in using the site.

I've gone back and forth with taking Open Libray's [0] catalog as that would at least flesh out our collection of books but then I'd have to deal with verifying authors to accounts so they can access their books. Which sounds like a major headache and also just defeats the concept of building a community.

Since this is really a weekend project, I'm just going to keep building the tools out to perfection and hope people will trickle in over time.

Luckily for me I just want to write, so the tools I'm building are exactly what works for my writing goals and I think overtime others will find the same value.

[0] https://openlibrary.org

Re: NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

#55

Post by drusepth »

jdriselvato wrote: post #45

I love NaNoWriMo and have written and won every year since 2019. My only issue is once the month is complete, no one cares about your novel or that you finished it. So when I got laid off earlier in the year I started working on an alternative to NaNo. https://penpinery.com At the moment it's in MVP but it current has: - Author profiles w/ blogging - Publication cataloging + reader reviews - WIP cataloging with word…

Very cool idea; I always wished the NaNoWriMo energy would persist past November. That's actually why I added forums to my own writing site and have had _decent_ luck keeping the momentum going year-round (at least, some years).

If you end up adding an API or looking for other sites to partner with, feel free to reach out sometime (email on profile). Not sure what your needs are but I might be able to help from Notebook.ai. :)

Re: NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

#56

Post by jdriselvato »

notatoad wrote: post #53
jdriselvato wrote: post #45

I love NaNoWriMo and have written and won every year since 2019. My only issue is once the month is complete, no one cares about your novel or that you finished it. So when I got laid off earlier in the year I started working on an alternative to NaNo. https://penpinery.com At the moment it's in MVP but it current has: - Author profiles w/ blogging - Publication cataloging + reader reviews - WIP cataloging with word…

So as a reader the only way to see any content is to purchase a book? i love self-published books and back a few authors on patreon that i've found on royalroad, but there's not a chance i'd be buying books from unkown self-published authors without even a few sample chapters. especially not when the pitch is that it's something an author has created by churning out as much wordcount as possible during a writing chal…

Good question.

We're not a marketplace just like NaNoWriMo isn't a marketplace. As an author you build an author profile (like any other social media) and link directly to where people buy books (Except we have catered icons for Ao3, Amazon, wattpad, quotev, etc that show up on the profile).

So the cataloging of publications on the profile is just like Amazon's author profile, GoodReads' author profile, a person website, etc it's another place for people to find ones work.

The plus side of an author profile is if you share your publications they can rank on the community feed where new readers can organically find your novel. Then go to Amazon, B&N, etc and purchase it.

The reader can also follow the author so if the author adds blog posts they'll see it show up on the feed. Which I think will be a great way for Authors to talk about book tours, new novel releases or WIP they're starting.

It isn't so much about wordcount is the focus but building an author brand on the platform where ones publications, WIP and posts are all talking to the same algo on the community feed. Here people can easily find new authors and what they are working on in an author/reader relationship I haven't found else where.

Re: NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

#57

Post by jdriselvato »

drusepth wrote: post #55
jdriselvato wrote: post #45

I love NaNoWriMo and have written and won every year since 2019. My only issue is once the month is complete, no one cares about your novel or that you finished it. So when I got laid off earlier in the year I started working on an alternative to NaNo. https://penpinery.com At the moment it's in MVP but it current has: - Author profiles w/ blogging - Publication cataloging + reader reviews - WIP cataloging with word…

Very cool idea; I always wished the NaNoWriMo energy would persist past November. That's actually why I added forums to my own writing site and have had _decent_ luck keeping the momentum going year-round (at least, some years). If you end up adding an API or looking for other sites to partner with, feel free to reach out sometime (email on profile). Not sure what your needs are but I might be able to help from Noteb…

I love the concept of Notebook.ai, thanks for sharing that.

When I was writing my first fantasy novel I was messing around with Notion templates (almost a local wiki in a sense) just to organize weapons, factions/governments, religions, etc. It didn't work as well as I expected and I had been wishing something like your service existed the whole time. Well done!

For time being, I'll put together a little blog post about Notebook.ai to let the community know about it. I know there's writers out there that are looking for this exact product. I appreciate the comment!

Re: NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

#58

Post by dave1010uk »

phoe-krk wrote: post #15
ActionHank wrote: post #10

Do they have a policy on AI, I feel like they are not prepared for the coming flood.

Why would they need to be prepared? NaNo is on you, you don't get anything for winning other than satisfaction and online badges and stuff from sponsors, such as some promo codes for writing software and getting your initial draft printed. A text that reads "Rabbit." written 50,000 times is enough to win NaNo.

https://gist.github.com/dave1010/a7e7207edef422cf972968b029b...

Feel free to fork.

Re: NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

#59

Post by boznz »

jdriselvato wrote: post #54
boznz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice concept, for me and millions of others at the mercy of the Amazon algorithm to what we read next I may try a few books here. You are right nobody cares about your novel but the rush from finishing and publishing something even if nobody reads it is pretty satisfying.

Right now I'm in the middle of the chicken and the egg problem where we don't have enough authors cataloging their publications and b/c of that obviously readers are not interested in using the site. I've gone back and forth with taking Open Libray's [0] catalog as that would at least flesh out our collection of books but then I'd have to deal with verifying authors to accounts so they can access their books. Which s…

Thanks for both links, anything to get away from the algorithm that keeps recommending the same military Sci-Fi to me just because I liked Old Man's War and Enders Game! The big sites should all have a big reset algorithm button IMHO.

As another author I am happy to create an account and pop my "masterpiece" on and re-link it for the 100 or so bots that visit my website every year.

Holiday coming up in a few week's time, so I have downloaded your first book for a read so at least you got something good from your post :-)

Re: NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

#60

Post by schaefer »

jdriselvato wrote: post #45

I love NaNoWriMo and have written and won every year since 2019. My only issue is once the month is complete, no one cares about your novel or that you finished it. So when I got laid off earlier in the year I started working on an alternative to NaNo. https://penpinery.com At the moment it's in MVP but it current has: - Author profiles w/ blogging - Publication cataloging + reader reviews - WIP cataloging with word…

you say you're in MVP, so it may be a bit early for this but, it's really surprising to me that the landing page is not geared towards readers trying to discover new authors.
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