NOTE: NIAD 7 HAS FINISHED - SEE YOU ALL NEXT YEAR!!
[size=200]Time is no substitute for talent[/size]
On Saturday October 28th 2017, we’ll be taking part in NiaD VII… Our SEVENTH event to pool the collective talents of writers from around the world and write a damn fine book in just a single 24-hour period!
What is it?
Novel-in-a-Day is an annual event where a group of writers from across the planet get together and write a novel. A whole novel. In a single day.
If you’re new to NiaD please check out the FAQs for more details and background, but essentially:
At midnight (UK time) on the day of the event you’ll be emailed a brief of what you need to include in your chapter.
You go away and write your section without any knowledge of the wider story or where your chapter fits in the book.
You return your chapter by 8pm (UK time) at which point it’s turned into ePub, mobi and PDF books using the magic of Scrivener, ready for publication on or around midnight.
How do I sign up?
If you’re up for the challenge of taking part (and have read the FAQs to know what you’re letting yourself in for), let me know by posting in this thread! If you’ve never taken part before, you’ll be contacted via private forum message with the next steps, so keep an eye out!
We’ll be keeping the registration open until a few days before the event to produce as many versions of the book as the number of participants allows, so invite your writing friends to sign up too!
NOTE: NIAD 7 HAS FINISHED - SEE YOU ALL NEXT YEAR!!
This post will be updated as people register their interest, to save people trawling through what I’m somewhat optimistically hoping will be a long thread!
Nom and rdale (I will not use a new name for you!) will fetch ideas from the bins of others so I can have the bad id as all to myself.
And finally
Mr X shall play the role of antagonistic nun with ruler, all too eager to correct my misguided ways (if only I’d hold still long enough to make sure contact could be made without risking damage to the desk!)
Let me know when I’ll get my advance draft of the outline!
Ha! Sadly the end of BST means that Sunday gets longer rather than Saturday. We should be long finished and nicely tucked up in bed by 2am on Sunday.
Welcome back to those who’ve signed up already! There’s three of us at the moment, which is enough for a start, a middle and an end, so it looks like we’ve got ourselves a story!
I know you don’t say very much at this stage, but a wee clue would be useful. Very broad-brush genre, such as “Western”. There are some things I wouldn’t touch with the proverbial bargepole. Something like “1930s Crime” could be “The Untouchables” or Agatha Christie, but it’s hugely different from the here-and-now, and the difference does matter.
There are some topics that I would, reluctantly, just walk away from, even at the last-minute midnight email stage.
About the only clue I can give you is that it probably wont’t be a genre we’ve done before. That’s not too helpful, though, because 1) I have a personal definition of what genres are that stands a good chance of being different to what you’d naturally assume, and 2) at some point I’m going to have to abandon the new-genre-each-time approach, and 3) I’m probably not going to warn you when I do.
Not knowing is a big part of the fun, but it’s also a big part of the challenge. It’s not supposed to be easy, and that discipline of writing something that stretches you is where you learn the most about yourself as a writer.
As a great philosopher once said…
If you honestly think you won’t be able to commit to producing something you’re proud of to an unseen brief, then this probably isn’t the event for you. Except, of course, I’ve read your stuff before and I know you can do it!
Ooooh… errrr… I did it back in… was it June? I really feel like I want to, but if I remember, I finished veeerrrry close to the wire (in fact, it may have even been a bit over the wire) and I whinged a lot about how terrible I thought I’d done afterwards. But I dooooo have this burning want to do it, and now I know what to expect I would probably have my shizzle together a bit better this time around, and it IS a great experience…
Oh lordy, this sounds a lot like me saying yes to this…!
