Indeed. Just because someone else did the active stealing, doesn’t mean that using stolen material is fine.
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So I’m all signed up for NovNov. 
ProWritingAid is sponsoring workshops all through this month, to help participants prepare for meeting their word goals without burning out. Very rah-rah, be gentle with yourself, that sort of thing, which my snarky self would usually sneer at. But–I must say, there was some good advice in the one I attended yesterday, along with 700+ other people. Save the Cat’s Jessica Brody is running one on Thursday, and my outline is based on STC, so hopefully I’ll get a tip or two out of that.
Then, once November comes, they’ll host group writing sessions throughout the day every day, if I feel like being in the company of a few hundred other people all trying to get our words in.
When you sign up, they give you a dashboard with a bunch of grayed-out badges. As I achieve various word counts, I assume badges will be awarded to me. Cool. At about 2 weeks into this process, as the initial excitement wears off and fatigue starts to set in, I imagine these little bits of positive reinforcement will feel very timely.
For anybody that’s done NaNoWriMo, this is probably all old news, things to be expected. But I must say I’m pleasantly surprised by the level of support so far. It all seems very well put together.
Best,
Jim
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Today I broke 10k words in the NovNov challenge. Yay! So I’m averaging around 2k a day.
Apparently 55k people are participating in the challenge this year.
My prose is not as bad as I’d imagined it would be. I thought with this pushing to meet a daily word count goal–something I’ve never even considering doing before–that it would be absolutely atrocious. I’m pleased to discover this isn’t the case; rather than atrocious, it’s just not very good. 
But that’s what revision is for.
I’ve turned off spell check, so no squiggly red lines to distract me. When I realize I need to confirm a fact or maybe revise something I wrote in another scene, my process is to add a couple of sentences about it to a list, then keep on moving. Yes. sometimes I can’t help myself and I go back and fix stuff. But I’m trying really hard not to interrupt the flow by doing those things.
I’m writing to a fairly detailed outline, with character back stories, settings, etc., all prepared back in 2022 when I first had the idea for this story. (Even a few relationship & timeline & storyboard diagrams in Scapple!) Thank God I did all that pre-writing work when the idea was fresh, as I’d never have remembered a lot of the details.
Even with all of that planning and pre-work, getting the actual words out into Scrivener injects new levels I hadn’t thought of while planning–additional relationships between characters, between story elements, insight into themes, ways to foreshadow, etc.–mostly, I’m warming up to the three POV characters, or perhaps they’re warming up to me–but I’m slowly but surely learning to hear their voices better. The days their voices are clear are the days the daily goal goes by very quickly.
I continue to be impressed by the ProWritingAid community relations team. They did a ton of work lining up authors to run the workshops. (Over 50+ classes) (The Fast Drafting class by Jessica Brody–she wrote Save the Cat Writes a Novel–was a standout for me.) The NovNov website is thoughtfully designed and useable. No advertising on the NovNov pages. No pushing of product.
And they keep giving me badges! Love the badges.
Best,
Jim
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In contrast, my Preptober was awful. Hardly any writing on the first two days, because of a SF conference and a book launch. A very bad scenario, actually still writing it. It’s more a concept document. And not much time to actually sit down and write. Lots of catching up to do… We’ll make it up in the end.
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With luck, your characters will revolt here in about a week or so and that prep would have been for naught. Mine always set fire to my outline around mid-month and forced me to catch up. It’s a glorious thing.
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Broke 20k words today in the NovNov challenge!
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12,203, still some catching up to do…
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I crossed the 30k barrier today. 
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25K, almost catched up this Saturday. Good writing days. Joined the Sprint and that helpend.
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Yesterday I broke 40k in the NovNov challenge. I’m nearly there!
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I did it!
Finished writing my 50k words this morning. 
I wouldn’t say it was easy, but it was certainly not as difficult as I’d imagined it would be.
I suspect having an unbelievably supportive spouse made all the difference. Even on the days when, on my own, I might have waffled and wavered about maybe taking a day off–because of her I would always decide to move forward with writing. She was being so encouraging and understanding, I found I couldn’t allow myself to be lazy–I couldn’t do that to her! 
I had 14k written prior to NovNov, so that brings me to around 64k words so far for this book. I’m at about the half way point of the story. I’ll probably take my time drafting the second half, by setting a less time-consuming daily target. This process has demonstrated to me that having a daily target is a very useful tool.
I know the real work will come once I start editing. I truly enjoy revising short stories–that’s where I find my stuff really comes to life. But it takes forever. To do that with a 400+ page novel? That will be a very interesting undertaking.
Best,
Jim
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Finished yesterday’s as well, but do want the badge for writing every day in November. I still need to make up a few scenes to complete my futuristisch detective as the fourth part in a series.
Supportive spouses are important, and mine also makes time for me to write. 
Missed the festive page, reaching the goal at the PWA-site. Which was a bummer. Guess the goodies will be available at the end of the month…
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So, how about redeeming a 50% discount for buying Scrivener? Asking for a friend…
I cannot seem to find a goodies page after gaining the Finisher badge, as expected. The sidebar only shows the 20% for just joining the challenge…
I’ve just checked, and I’m told that as long as you’ve registered your word count on the NovNov dashboard by the 7th, codes should be up on the 9th.
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