Hello - updating about the Glossary Generator tool I made - not a ChatGPT derivative, but old-fashioned non-take-over-the-world coding, that's helped tonnes of authors to really flesh out their writing universes and worldbuilding descriptions (designed to help us become more and more self-sufficient).
The update - it's 99¢ for the first month if you use the code 99CENTGG! ($2.50 otherwise). Try it out! Super cheap. Hopefully you'll see it's a no-brainer in terms of its usefulness :)
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A little more info about the Glossary Generator:
You can find an article about it I wrote for Indies Unlimited here. It originally started life as a python program on my computer until I realised it might be useful for other authors too.
The generator combs your uploaded Word file manuscript (nothing is saved) for useful terms and then outputs them as a text file.
The uses of glossary generator:

1. Helps find glossary terms
2. Helps find errors (e.g. naming inconsistencies)
3. Use as much as you like.

Any questions, feel free to message me. Enjoy!
James

I was putting off writing for a long long time. Motivation struck day before yesterday somehow and I challenged myself to write a novel in 30 days (NaNoWriMo was the obvious inspiration). A 50000 words manuscript amounts to around 1667 words per day for 30 days and so I set that amount as my per day word target. I jumped into writing the novel without much of an idea about the story.

I started writing a coming of age story about a guy just starting his second last year of high school.

I wrote the first chapter day before yesterday and the second one yesterday. The words flowed out pretty well and easy leading to me meeting the word count target easily both days. But the problem is that I'm genuinely stumped about what to do next. I have thought for a lot of time but genuinely can't come up with anything good.

In the first chapter, the protagonist and his best friend are introduced. A new girl to the school is also introduced who will later develop into the love interest for the protagonist. I introduced a new teacher who'll later be the mentor as well.

The first chapter ends with the protagonist asking his long term crush out on the very first day of school. She turns him down and to spare his feelings getting hurt she gives the reason that she wants to focus on her studies at the moment.

The second chapter is about the protagonist dealing with the rejection and convincing himself to accept that her reason is the actual reason as well. The second chapter ends with the protagonist finding that hia crush has actually gotten herself a new boyfriend after a week of the rejection. This leads to him feeling betrayed.

How can I get over this writing block thing quickly? I have many ideas of where the story should go next but none of them are good ones. Do you think I should write a light chapter next to avoid too much happening in the first few chapters? Please help me with the writers block thing.

Our weekly discussion thread to discuss all things to do with writing! You can get help with ironing out a plot hole or two, ask for a prompt to get the juices flowing as well as talking about how your Nanowrimo project is looking.

No self promotion please and please also keep your tone civil. Moreover, we are open to suggestions via modmail as to what you want to see in the sub.

Tell us about your project here!

So I just moved to Fresno, CA, and I'm trying to figure out what my local chapter is supposed to be. All the regions suggested to me by the website, when using my location, are at least 2 hours away.

I think it might be Central Valley, but I don't know if there's a more precise chapter for where I'm at. Is there anyone who knows for sure?

I might be missing something, but I could only find the NaNoWriMo badge. For Camp, and I think last year in November, there were also banners for FB, Instagram, etc. I like the aesthetics a lot and would like to have some banners if they're available.

So this is my first year attempting it. I have a toddler and a full time job so obviously my time is very limited. But if 2020 taught me anything, it wasn't the lack of time that was keeping me from writing it was me.

I guess I'm facing two issues in terms of keeping up with the word count: 1. I'll have to spend every moment of free time writing, and 2. My job and having a toddler can be extremely mentally taxing, how do I even get in the right head space every day?

Has anyone done this with a kid? How did you do it?

I’ve quietly watched from afar within this community for a few years and always told myself I would participate some time. This year marked a lot of change and life-altering experiences that I’m both inspired by and feel the need to write through anyway as a form of self-therapy. I used to write short stories and novels in my late teens/early twenties, but fell out of it and most creative endeavors after corporate rat-racing consumed most of my life.

My question is, has anyone here ever written a piece that reflected your own personal trauma? If so, how much of the story did you feel comfortable changing to avoid things like defamation issues or to appeal to a certain demographic of reader? Also, did you find a certain process helped you in preparing yourself to be successful through NaNoWriMo?

I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for several years and finally feel like it's ready to write. This would be my first NaNoWriMo ever and my first long-form fiction in well over a decade. It's a 20-minutes-in-the-future SciFi about social media and revolution, but I'm using the story as a vehicle to explore patriarchy and masculinity. The main characters are three men who have responded to patriarchy in different ways: the first two are fragile and unhealthy masculine character types, but the third is a gentle or "soft" masculine character.

I'm a cis-het white man and have gained a lot of value from watching black creators on TikTok and YouTube talk about patriarchy, masculinity, feminism, etc, as well as authors like Bell Hooks. The black healthy masculinity culture I've seen differs from what I see from white creators in ways that I admire and have learned from. For that reason, I wanted to have my healthy-masculine character be black.

However, I'm reading through the Writing With Color series on the NaNoWriMo blog as prep, and I'm realizing I'm in over my head. I don't think I know enough about black culture and the lived experiences of black people to do a black character justice. I believe that I could do it right eventually, but a lot of the notes on how to get it right are things that take a while: read lots of stories by and of POC, do lots of research on cultural basics, write short stories for practice and get feedback, etc.

So at this point I see three options:

1. Make everyone white (which I don't want to do, for obvious reasons)
2. Do what little research I have time for before November and accept that my writing will be heavily impacted by racism and my own implicit biases
3. Not do NaNoWriMo and try again next year with more research (but I know myself well enough to know that if I don't write it now I probably won't ever)

Any guidance is appreciated.

Hi all! Like you, I am currently in the trenches, researching for my contribution to this year's Nanowrimo. I wanted to mention something that really helped me gather all the details I've acquired so far under one roof, which is basically a vector storyboard you can use either online or on your computer/laptop/tablet.

I will often find snippets of articles, but also files/PDFs, YouTube videos, infographics, and images that further my plot and inspire me to build upon what I've already gathered so far. With an online storyboard, all of these can be dragged & dropped or copied & pasted onto a vector (infinitely scalable) board for your future reference. It is also automatically hyperlinked which is super useful when you just want to focus on what you're learning/reading about.

I am currently using Freeform which I believe is specific to Apple products (bought on their app store), but I have also used Miro in the past and that is a fantastic choice as well because you can invite other members to view and/or edit your storyboard in real time and access from any device including a smartphone. If you would like to see an example of how I use this software to help me write, please don't hesitate to reach out! Happy writing y'all.

I’m an avid fantasy nerd, with a strong creative drive that I’ve been neglecting since I was 9 years old. In preparation for NaNoWriMo I’m restarting my world bible for a world I’ve had in my mind for 18 years. We’ll be delving into everything from the pantheon to the infrastructure and agriculture… and an in depth magic system. Dozens of stories are to be set in this world and this is the starting point. Yesterday I formatted my Scrivener document and today begins the arduous process of putting to paper (well… keyboard) a world that is already so fully formed in my mind.

In our writing podcast, my husband and I read old chapters from my first novel that I wrote as a kid. It's called "the Darkness", and we love to roast the hell out of it. I just uploaded chapter 10 called "Samantha". This story was heavily inspired by games like the Legend of Zelda. Link to chapter 10: https://youtu.be/-5SUJj5BgP4

I've tried on three devices, two browsers, incognito mode, but I can't get in. Sometimes it sends me in a loop where it prompts me to enter my email/password and just sends me back to the login screen no matter what I enter (without even a notice about a wrong password). Sometimes it lets me log in but pops up with a notification "You have been logged out" after ~10 seconds. Has anyone else encountered this? Is it the website being janky as usual, or something I'm doing?

(That title was horrible but I’m going to roll with it.)

I’m debating on whether I should join NaNoWriMo or not. The last I tried the 43K word rough draft was trashed out of frustration. But I got that far because I had an amazing support system and a playlist to help inspire me. Now with the little information I remember from that novel. I’m contemplating on if I should try again and see if I can make it to 50k. This novel was a dream of mine, in short it was a steampunk fantasy novel with demon mc. It even had a title which was ‘Raise Hell’

If anyone has done something like this how did it go? I have been struggling to write any other novel after this. So I think it would be nice to try again. But without another support system like I had before . I know I wouldn’t be able to get that far. Or music because that helped a lot. Idk any suggestions, advice or maybe words of encouragement would be helpful.

Oh also, I haven’t joined since 2017/18 I can’t remember exactly.

Want to hear writing tips or reviews? My husband and I are both writers and now have a writing podcast on youtube. In our latest video we quickly went over what kind of writing content we will be discussing on our channel. If you know anyone who would potentially benefit from our writing channel, feel free to share our page with them! Link to our newest video: https://youtu.be/\_BSUmBKccjw

We're both writers, so we decided to start a writing podcast on youtube. In our latest video, we covered the difference between having one WIP versus multiple. We cover writing tips, and we review stories. Here is the link to our latest video that covers WIPS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhO0FEIr5tY

With NaNoWriMo just around the corner, I scoured the Internet for a perfect Discord to chat and gain a support group while taking on NaNoWriMo. But I couldn't find one! Hence, I pondered, 'Why not craft one for all my writing comrades? So I did it, I created us a Discord server.

Truthfully, I really want a support group and friends since writing can be a very isolating task. I never really had creative writing friends and its time for that to change! NaNoWriMo has also been something I always wanted to tackle but never had the courage until this year. So if you too want a support group/become friends please join! 🍄

Link - https://discord.gg/W4xKKYwZP3

Any chance someone might know where I can get a NaNoWriMo scarf? Finally got up the nerve to purchase one and they're discontinued.

Hoping this link works to show what I'm referring to:

https://lens.google.com/search?ep=gsbubb&hl=en&re=df&p=AbrfA8olnbaYgy-tVItvpxZqCstSbo19H\_yYPBmte0UuH6qG2S760TmRqjdIbqmPufFYNue3hPUeUy3\_wgVnJq3iqpEeMIOF8qqkvfB5bMzVciZp2dc0BKlPY15oreksq5xYHbuJj9KQHjCtwxB4TpbjtnzvExVHNF3gGO\_57lxdV9vTncv3BwZ4sg2rEKFdV70xWplDmJ4y097D8zQBbfPG#lns=W251bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsIkVrY0tKREEyTkRsa056YzVMVEl5T1dRdE5EVTBOeTA1TXpKakxUZzJZbU0xWTJGaFptUTFaaElmUlhsdWJEbHNUMHQ1ZDBsWVVVVjFlRFl4WHpJd1dFSmpSVFp0WTNGNFp3PT0iXQ==

I have decided that this year, I'm doing 50K words worth of from-scratch world building. All brand new. It's something I've wanted to do for a while, but I'vejust never sat down and started.

Who else is a rebel this year?

Hello - just a *bump* about the Glossary Generator tool I made (no, it isn't a ChatGPT derivative, just old-fashioned non-take-over-the-world coding). It's helped tonnes of authors to really flesh out their writing universes and worldbuilding descriptions, and it's designed to help us become more and more self-sufficient.

Note - There's a one-off fee, although if you'd like to test it first, no problem let me know.

A little more info about the Glossary Generator:

You can find an article about it I wrote for Indies Unlimited here. It originally started life as a python program on my computer until I realised it might be useful for other authors too.

The generator combs your uploaded Word file manuscript (nothing is saved) for useful terms and then outputs them as a text file.

The uses of glossary generator:

1. Helps find glossary terms

2. Helps find errors (e.g. naming inconsistencies)

3. Use as much as you like.

Any questions, feel free to message me. Enjoy!

I won't lie I am having an awful past few months... really bad. but nanowrimo is a thing I am SO looking forward to doing. I am already planning out things!

​

If you are planning already what type of book are you writing? I am writing a supernatural queer rom-com!

Our weekly discussion thread to discuss all things to do with writing! You can get help with ironing out a plot hole or two, ask for a prompt to get the juices flowing as well as talking about how your Nanowrimo project is looking.

No self promotion please and please also keep your tone civil. Moreover, we are open to suggestions via modmail as to what you want to see in the sub.

Tell us about your project here!

I know what I want to write, I know my world and my characters but I'm struggling to make a cohesive story. So I was wondering what the process of plotting looks like for other people

Our weekly discussion thread to discuss all things to do with writing! You can get help with ironing out a plot hole or two, ask for a prompt to get the juices flowing as well as talking about how your Nanowrimo project is looking.

No self promotion please and please also keep your tone civil. Moreover, we are open to suggestions via modmail as to what you want to see in the sub.

Tell us about your project here!

"I write in my spare time in the hope of contributing to them."

"I write in my spare time in the hopes of contributing to them."

Both actually sound good to me, and I'm not certain how pluralization with 'hope' works? To be honest, I'm not even sure the 's' there is considered a pluralization or a form change or something. Thanks.

(Side Q: also, should it be 'with the hope(s)' or 'in the hope(s)'?)

I’ve been reading that Garamond is most common but that Times New Roman is also popular. Didn’t know if NaNoWriMo had any preference on that? If not can anyone let me know the pros and cons of both?

Created my account today as someone recommended it to me. Writing away for about 2 hours, then.. poof.. site just froze. Then a 404 error. And now I can't login because somehow the site forgot about my account.

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I've been looking around for fun online sites for writing nanowrimo this year instead of boring google docs and Word online. This one held promise.. but not if they are shutting down or have data loss issues :(

​

I can't reach out to them as their site is effectively offline. Their reddit and facebook page are abandoned, and twitter isn't monitored.

Ok, so I use Google Docs to do all of my notes and actually writing. I have been thinking of getting scrivener but I’m not sure if it is the best option to get. I am a huge panster as well and this year for nano I’m finally trying to somewhat outline my project. Is Scrivener worth it for a panster to use? Also, if I get it on two different devices (I.e my laptop and my desktop) do the projects transfer over like google docs? Let me know and thank you!

I want to do nano this year but I don't have a cohesive idea yet. First time writer, not prolific, well I've written about 2 poems and a short story. So all I have is a vague 1 sentence concept and the ending scene.

I am, however, obsessed with a TV show and an alternate theory of the current season. I've done a lot of analysis on the show and have detailed knowledge of it. I could whip out an outline and "write" an alternate version of it.

Obviously, I would use my original idea if I can pull it together before Nov 1. Would 50,000 words of fan fic/retelling count?

Our weekly discussion thread to discuss all things to do with writing! You can get help with ironing out a plot hole or two, ask for a prompt to get the juices flowing as well as talking about how your Nanowrimo project is looking.

No self promotion please and please also keep your tone civil. Moreover, we are open to suggestions via modmail as to what you want to see in the sub.

Tell us about your project here!