Wednesday 6 November 2019

I'm NaNoing this year too

I just wanted to quickly update to say that I am indeed participating in NaNoWriMo this year.

The new site has taken a lot of getting used to, and I know that many users are grappling with the extreme bugginess of the site. Clearly it wasn't quite ready to go at launch time on November 1st, but sometimes you get lucky and find workarounds that work for you.

One of the biggest problems people are facing is the inability to use the default type of word count updating method - the "total words" option. For me, adding words written during each session is working, but it doesn't work for everyone. And for me, adding my overall word count total does NOT work. It looks like it's updated, but when you refresh and go back to it, the word count has reverted to the old count.

I count myself lucky to only have that problem, where other people are having what sounds like an infuriating issue with their projects being deleted / disappearing over and over again. They've had to add it back repeatedly, and some seem just about ready to give up.

I'm hoping that many of these teething issues will be resolved soon, but it seems like the NaNo team is very short-staffed, and they're dealing with what looks like thousands of complaints. So it can't be a fun time for them right now!

As for my actual writing? I am working on adding words to pre-existing projects. The main project is one that I had to do some corrections for before November 1st, because I had previously stalled at a certain point of the book. I had to revise my plan for how the story was going, as it just didn't seem to be working. So that was done before November began, and while it was a little slow getting back into the story, I feel like it's flowing nicely now. These are my first projects where I'm writing to a beat sheet, and I'm hoping that when I get to the revision stage, I'll find myself with far less of a mess than I have in the past (in my pantsing days). Time will tell!

I went to a kick-off party which was a lot of fun, and I'll go to the November 30th Write Night for my region too. All in all, I just love NaNo and always get sucked into doing it, even in those years when I'm not sure I should.

Is anyone else doing NaNo too?

15 comments:

  1. I am! I'm denizb33 on the site!

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    1. Just checked, and we're already buddies! My handle is yoghurtelf ;)

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  2. Good luck! Yes, I've heard a lot of people are having issues.

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    1. Thanks :) Seems that the problems have largely been smoothed out but maybe that's because I found a workaround for my main one.

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  3. I didn't even know they had a new site. I'm pretty new to NaNo. Last year was my first time participating, and I'm unable to join in this year, so the site as it was was still pretty new to me, but I can see how that would be frustrating for those who have been using it for years.

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    1. Yeah, it's wildly different this year. :)

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  4. So glad to hear you're writing! Seeing a blog update from you made me smile. Keep at it!!

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    1. Aww, thanks. I feel bad that I update so rarely - I definitely miss the old days of being a mad blogger and being really involved.

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  5. I am not doing Nano but I am writing! Good luck :)

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    1. Thanks (belatedly ;) ). Hope your writing went well in November (and since then too).

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  6. I hope NaNo went well for you! I didn't do it, but I heard a lot about the frustrating issues.

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    1. It did go well.

      Especially when I figured out a workaround for the most annoying issue of not being able to update my word count ;)

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  7. Hi Trisha, thanks for stopping by and I was going to ask the same question, so I'm glad to hear it all went well... I've never done NaNo, but it's on the bucket list :)

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    1. I do it every year - I just can't help myself. ;)

      My main problem is having too many finished novels that aren't yet publishable. Every year I hope to change that by getting some polished up. Haven't so far, but as usual I'm hoping this year will be different.

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  8. hope you did well with NaNo!
    just wanted to thank you for stopping by my Beast World campaign!

    Tara Tyler Talks

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Thanks for your words, me hearties! and don't forget to leave a link to your blog somewhere I can find it!