I'm proud to tell you that I've finally WON NaNoWriMo 2007 with a grand total of 51,595 words !

The Challenge : I decide to write a nano-novel without any planning. To eliminate the research phase, I base my novel on my personal conworld (an alternative Earth where weapons are banned). The novel will be in English.

Week 1 : 15,656 (2,236 words per day)
On this blog : Day 1, Day 4

• I manage to kill my hero at the 2,000 words mark.
• I play Hellgate London and slowly lose pace
  

Week 2 : 22, 978 (+ 7,322) (1,046 words per day)
On this blog : Day 11

• I introduce a bunch of characters and wander from one to another
• I have no clue about the direction of the story
  

Week 3 : 30,181 (+ 7,203) (1,029 words per day)
On this blog : Day 17

• Too tired to write because of my commute time
• I kill most of my characters
  

Week 4 : 50,595 (+ 21,414) (2,379 words per day)
On this blog : Day 27, Day 30

• I write at work, in the train, and from 10PM-1AM in the evening. Phew.
  
• I don't finish my story but hit the 50,000 mark anyway

This month has been very hard, but I learnt a bunch of new techniques on my way to 50,000. I look forward to post these new discoveries on my blog, as well as trying them on my struggling Nano 2006 re-re-re-rewrite. But before all this, I will polish my Nano 2007 a bit ! Finding a title, posting excerpts on my blog, and preparing a little Lulu-printed version for Christmas !

I hope everyone had fun and learnt many things with their NaNoWriMo. Congratulations to all the participants of the 2007 edition !

Okay no updates for 10 days, you must have guessed I'm in Panic mode 2.0 ! Day 27 is here and I've only got 38,377 words !

The reason is : I was too tired to write - there were 10 full days of strikes in Paris, France and my 3-hour commute has been mutated in a 6-hour commute (and no I couldn't write in the train nor in the metro ^^).

Now the classical random bullet point list :

• I'm pretty confident to manage to put off 50,000 by Friday. And I don't care if it translates into a day off this Friday !
• I like my story now (thanks my 8,000 words edit (yes EDIT) this Saturday)
• I now write at work :D
  
• I like writing from a psychopath's point of view but I'm a little uncomfortable to write so much disturbing descriptions at work...

To everyone who hasn't crossed the 45,009 mark today, open your text editor NOW and start writing. Talathiel, Logan_Xan, and everyone else, I think we still can do it !

Good luck !

Hey, what's the ù$*@ is going on in my NaNoWriMo ? I'm beginning to hate the story, I can't move forward my characters, and I end up killing them without any reasons. Nationwide strikes in France made me stay at home thursday and friday, but I was teleworking and didn't took the opportunity to up my wordcount. So here's the week end... And all these words to write !

Day 12 : 621
Day 13 : 390
Day 14 : 1,613
Day 15 : 698
Day 16 : 1,264

Total Wordcount : 24,940

Enter the random bullet point list !

• I can't write at work. I tried. I'm not in the right mood :(
• I have a couple of inconsistencies in my plot. I should edit them later, but... I didn't noted them :(
• I found my NaNoWriMo "theme song" ! Download Paavo "Tarantula" Härkönen - War Against the Machines
• I should find a title to my NaNoWriMo...

Hope that your NaNo is going well. If you're behind like, keep writing ! If you're ahead, keep writing too ! (yeah said like that, November seems simple :) )

No Plot, No Problem had warned us : NaNoWriMo week 2 is a very hard one. Here's the proof in numbers :

Day 5 : 1,288
Day 6 : 3,134
Day 7 : 1,129
Day 8 : 490
Day 9 : 0
Day 10: 0
Day 11 : 2,853

Total wordcount : 18,999

Of course, there's no excuses. I had a quick jumpstart and now, I am behind... Writing at work seems hard, because of a tight planning. Maybe I could resort to write in the train (longhand) ... ?

As usual, here's the random bullet point list about my writing thoughts and writing life :

• I have begun to carry my Idea Box at work so I could work on my plan at the lunchtime
• I'm beginning to dislike my story... That's normal because I am approaching the dread middle...
• Writing in the bed is VERY BAD for your posture and your wrists.
• As a consequence of the previous point, I now sleep with wristbands...

To every nano writer out there : good luck, and keep writing !

SciTE is a very versatile and entirely customizable text editor. You can use it to type (and even compile !) code, to edit webpages... but I also chose it for NaNoWriMo, mainly because of its text folding abilities.

What's text folding ? It's a way to "compress" blocks of plain text so you only see its first line. Think Summary Mode in Word. This way, you can write your chapter headers, or a quick summary of your scene and develop it later. It even helps you to not be tempted to read your previous scenes ! Just fold them and voilà.

Here's a quick tutorial to add this Text Fold ability to SciTE :

1. Download ExtMan and paste it in your SciTe directory
2. Create a reate a scite_lua directory in your SciTe directory
3. Download TextFold and paste the Fold.lua in it.
4. Open your Global properties files (Options > Open Global Option Files) and add at the bottom the following lines :

ext.lua.startup.script=$(SciteDefaultHome)/extman.lua
text.outline.char=*

Restart SciTE. Now it's time to learn to use the text folding functionality :

• Any text block you want to fold must start with the text.outline.char.
• When you've just added new text blocks and they don't show properly, click Tools > Rescan.
• That's all !
  

If you're interested in SciTE customization, don't forget to visit these pages for further info : ExtMan and Text Folding on Lua-users wiki.

I hope you enjoyed this article. My NaNoWriMo report will be coming soon !

What's the difference between Day 1 and Day 2, 3 and 4 ? The answer is easy : I've been playing Hellgate London... far too much. But as you see, I managed to stay ahead wordcount-wise. My strategy : write early in the morning (6AM-8AM) and late at night (11PM-2AM).

Words written at Day 2 : 1272
Words written at Day 3 : 3046
Words writen at Day 4 : 1240

Total wordcount at Day 4 : 10,105

And now, it's time for the random bullet point list about my NaNoWriMo !

• I'm slowly losing pace. I know. But my holidays are over, and I'll be working 9-6 starting from tuesday. So Hellgate London will be ruled out and I'll spend every evening writing.
• I used my Idea Box one more time and it gave me an interesting plot twist. Yes, you can wonder how a vending machine can become a plot twist... Hint : what would happen if you found a corpse behind it ?
  
• Wireless keyboards are much more comfortable than laptop keyboards...
  

That's all for now ! Thank you to all for you support and... keep writing !

This first NaNo-day has been very productive and entertaining ! I spent the first two hours of November on a chatroom with French Nano-participants, churning the needed 1,700 words. After a few hours of sleep, I added words whenever I was inspired.

Day 1 total wordcount : 4,546

Now some bits of random info you might find amusing / interesting !

• I used my Idea Box once. And it helped me to create a pretty cool subplot.
  
• Alain, my main character, dies at the 2,000 words mark. Yeah, lol.
  
• I have a definite obsession with counting words. I found myself updating my Nano wordcount more than 10 times yesterday.

That's all for now. I will go buy Hellgate London this morning and play a little bit once I reach the needed 1700 for this day 2.

To everyone : keep writing, and of course - have fun !