Hey, not sure if this is where I can ask about this but I can't find information literally anywhere else. Plot Factory's servers went down today and I'm panicking because I've spent a year writing and organizing several novels and pieces I'm supposed to submit for publishing. Is the site down for maintenance? Did something happen? You can't even access the main site nonetheless the app so there's no way to report an error or contact support. I can't find contact information anywhere online either. Please help, I'm completely panicking.

Yes, I was able to write 50k words in 30 days. One might think I'd be happy with the success, but I'm one of the tortured types (starting with that in case anyone can't stand people like me; not trying to waste your time).

One thing I've learned from this nanowrimo exercise is that the numbers and timeline are all arbitrary. The silverlining is that I've realized I can choose to sit down and write whenever I want, and I can set whatever word-count goal that I want. I did it for 30 days, after all, missing about 5-6 over the course of November. It could've been Decembowrimo, or Januwrimo, Februrimo, and it could've been 20k, 30k, 100k—whatever. How much or how often writing occurs is entirely up to us, generic-you, me. That should feel a little bit inspiring...

Unfortunately, I also learned some bad things about my own writing.

I'm an amateur, of course. Yet I hate my writing, and I decided over this weekend to take an indefinite hiatus from writing. I might never come back to it, I hate it so much. So take my advice here with a grain of salt, as I'm still being a bit emotional/ranty, but this is one other thing I learned:

Write for yourself. Don't write for anybody else. Don't write for a friend, or a loved one, or for people on the internet. Don't write to be published. Don't write to be famous. Don't even write to be this thing called a writer.

In other words, do not write for external motivation. Some people might be saying "fucking duh" but this is really hard for me. If you write, you write, and I think it can really be that simple. Perhaps that takes away a lot of pressure for someone.

See, I'm part of an online writing community (not this one, it's a smaller online forum), and it's hard for me to self-motivate, presenting an intrinsic motivational dilemma. Maybe it's my ADHD, I don't know, but the short-story is I wasn't receiving enough 'Likes' dopamine. Possibly even worse, I wasn't even receiving much of any feedback or comments at all. Which made me wonder why in the Hell that I was even bothering. I know it's not fair to expect a lot of feedback on fifty THOUSAND words, but brain's gonna' brain.

The issue with having people only read an excerpt or a single chapter is that you cannot quite get feedback at the global level, where someone can constructively breakdown (oxymoron) a full character arc, the pacing of the plot, etc. I'm not saying it's a bad or useless perspective, but it's limited, and I'm having issues at the global level with my WIP. That is, I believe that I suck at telling a story. I don't understand what I don't understand, in fact. That's how bad it is. Asking me to fly solo and figure that out on my own is like asking a kid in pre-algebra to do quantum math and just magically figure it out. I don't have the perspective, the capability, the tools, the knowledge, to just magically "figure it out" on my own. I'm stuck. Reading every novel by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Jane Austen and Hemingway is also not going to make me magically figure out the secret sauce. I've read my whole life, and experienced hundreds of *stories* in every medium imaginable: novels, short stories, manga, video games, movies, anime, theater, even music and paintings. Yet despite having developed a consumer's taste, I still don't know what the Hell I don't "get." I could read stories that I love until the end of time and I'm not sure I would ever "get" it.

Anyway, I don't know how you find intrinsic writing motivation. I don't know if I really intentionally "found" mine. My intrinsic motivation is to be creative, and writing has always been that outlet, my strongest skill (yet nevertheless useless, evidently) since I was single-digit age. I wanted to write super-duper cool, epic stories like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Nowadays I would commit unimaginable crimes to write anything as good as the Persona games, in terms of world-building and character development. I could say the same about the Monogatari light novels in terms of voice and plot. I digress.

My stupid need to be creative, to write, doesn't mean I enjoy it though. Sometimes I do, but right now I really don't. I am at an impasse where I don't know what's right or wrong, so any attempts at revision are just blind, which is very stressful and demotivating. It leads to fixing things that aren't broken because you don't know the difference between broke and fixed. I'm not one for writing "fun" stories; I can really only motivate myself to write something that means a lot to me personally, which ultimately makes this all the more painful. I find it difficult to follow the advice of just spinning out random short-stories I feel no deep, honest connection to. Sounds like a me problem.

I wanted to write 50k in 30 days just to prove to myself that I was serious. As it turns out, perhaps I am too serious. Anyway, this has turned more into a venting session, so I'll stop. I at least hope that a couple of the things I learned from nanowrimo are useful to someone. I understand that a lot of people won't relate to this for one reason or another, and I'm not about to actually engage in the tortured artist debate. Some will relate, some will empathize, some will punch-down, that's the internet. Just figured I'd try to share a couple of relatively positive takeaways before I quit. Not that this is me announcing me departure from the writing subreddits, I'll still lurk as always. Maybe in 30 days or 30 weeks or 30 years, I will try again, who knows.

Take care and best of luck. If you finished nanowrimo, my belated congratulations. If you attempted, also congratulations—if 1% of people are "writers" then only 1% of the 1% bother attempting nano, so good on you. If you can somehow find a way to still like what you're doing, that's all that matters, because it makes it very easy to keep going.

After hitting 50,000 words at the end of November today I actually finished my first draft. Somehow I'm excited, nervous, giddy. It's a weird feeling. I mean I know it's just the first draft but it's something, right?
Anyways, what do I do now. Do I jump into editing or do I send it off to close people like partner and a friend or two? There's no way I'd look for any pro editors or anything at this point but is it worth sending it to people at all?
Thanks

Started at 13627, ended Saturday at 62627! This is my first year doing this an I'm super excited

I'm going to write the second draft of my YA mystery novel in 31 days, from December 17 to January 16.

I'm aiming for the word count to be 75,000 words.

I lost access to my first draft, which is kind of good because I didn't love it 100% anyway. I just have my outline I created in June, which I also don't love 100% either.

But anyway, I'm a freshman at Southern Methodist University and December 17 to January 16 will be my winter break for those that don't know.

But anyway, I'm asking if anyone wants to join me in tackling their writing projects during this 31 days.

Let me know in the comments if you plan to tackle a writing project during this time. Maybe we can keep each other posted on our writing projects!

Stay tuned for more updates!

85,036 - final count but its not complete just at a climax. My most productive day was over 8k words. I wanted to see how I could do full-time writing. I see now how Harlequin authors manage 200 books in their career, their turning out one a month. My story won't fit their current lines...but that's what January is for.

I won Nano this year, though I didn't use the website or anything.

I really felt a strong sense of creative purpose in writing every day, and am now feeling a bit lost. I could of course continue to write every day, and maybe I will, so the point I'm trying to get across here (and which I make at length in this article) is that it feels Good to write.

And just as we don't need Christmas to give presents to those we love, we don't need a specified month to make us write. With that in mind - what are you doing on Reddit (this applies to me too), get writing!

This November was my first NaNoWriMo, and my first ever long-form writing project. I'm very proud to have completed the 50K goal, and tied a neat bow on this stage of the story I plan to tell. I'm currently re-reading and fine-tuning a second draft, and that's going well so far.

My current struggle is twofold:

- I don't have anyone in my life available to read my story and give me their thoughts. I've been going back and forth about the "need" for a second set of eyes, as there are obviously pros and cons to this. I'm a visual artist as well, so I'm no stranger to critiques. In theory, I feel like letting someone read my novel before submitting it for publication would be a good step for me anxiety-wise, to sorta... break the seal on that, even if the story doesn't resonate with that specific reader. They might notice something I, as the writer, have completely overlooked, as well.

I have two questions about this: Would you consider getting a second set of eyes on your work important, if your end goal is publication? And, are there any good communities online for this type of exchange?

I'm a bit nervous about just handing my manuscript to a random person and hoping they don't just... sell it off as their own or something... But I'm also anxious about blindly submitting my manuscript for professional consideration as a first step. Anxiety on all sides. 😬

- As stated above, my goal is publication. I don't even know the first place to start with this. I am hesitant to self-publish, as I don't have any method of distribution or connecting with an audience. I am very creative-process-focused and the whole salesmanship side of creativity (in art and writing) always feels very unnatural and icky to me (no offense to anyone who likes it); as a result, I'm not very well versed in it at all. I was wondering if anyone had any good recommendations for communities dedicated to aiding in the transition into publication, or just resources in general. Beyond just getting my novel to exactly where I feel comfortable, I don't have any plan whatsoever, and I figured it would be smart to ask other writers first before blindly googling and hoping for the best.

So I created a new leaderboard for December writing goals and then forgot to post the link! 😋Anyone who's interested in continuing the momentum from November with Trackbear, please join. :) Just go to Trackbear, Leaderboards, Use Join Code, paste: 30af0ba7-524f-4c8f-a91b-6b8f839187ae

Set your own goal, and let's keep writing!

tl;dr: i did it. i won. it felt muted. i'm glad i did it. i plan to keep my streak [2006-2024] going for as long as i can. so will be writing again next year.

i didn't use the website at all, this year as a result of what's been happening. instead, i stuck to the local discord for my area, posting updates to that while using trackbear to get /some/ of the site functionality i've lost.

my experience of trackbear itself was very pleasant. it's mostly easy to use with one or two little hitches that - i think - could use a little bit more polish.

but my experience of the actual sprint to the 50,000 was quite muted. it reminded me - in a lot of ways - of my early time doing the actual competition when the site itself didn't really exist in it's current form [and when my area didn't have a region.]

back then, i was just doing it by myself and seeing if i would crash out.

i'm glad i did it - it's been like a little ritual for me since i discovered it through word-of-mouth in 2006 - but it was also a kind of disconnected experience.

the writing - and the way i was writing - did give me time to reflect on the implosion, though and my feeling really has become that while it's nice that the challenge existed, it's also ok that the organization that ran it has blown up. it means - to some degree - that this writing - and specifically this year's writing - was very much by me, and for me.

[which is probably correct, because i wrote a VERY TERRIBLE litrpg thing.]

will i do it again in the future? i think so. previously, for me, there was a vast sense of quiet community around this time of year that's - obviously - been lost, but to be fair to that idea: i didn't participate a lot in the forums other than to poke my head into my local region every evening to talk with those folks there. and while that's now gone, and while i do - on some level mourn it - i am ok with how this year turned out.

it's a shame things turned out the way they did, but for me, personally, writing this way again was a reminder that sometimes, you DO just need to write for yourself.

So nanowrimo is not for me but I am writing 100 words a day . I'm at 4000 words. My goal is get too 50k before the new years

So, NaNo HQ has gone down the tubes, but there's still a Scrivener discount for anyone who did register a win on the site. This is your thread to request and share winner discount codes for Scrivener or any other sponsor (are there any other sponsors at this point?). If you want a code, comment with the request--if you have a code, put it in the thread. If you use a code from the thread, reply to the comment so everyone knows that one's taken.

November is over, and I successfully wrote 50k words about my time travel story. I'm feeling great about it, but yesterday I had a great idea to make the entire thing written in iambic pentameter. The pull is so strong to just rewrite the entire novel beat for beat in iambic pentameter. The worst part is that I think it would work so well. That's the crazy part about this. That's the thing that's really bugging me is that it would work SO well. I just don't have time in my life to do this and I need convincing that I really should Not Do This.

I am not equating failing with being a failure. They are not the same. Failing happens. It doesn't make you a worse person.

I knew I probably wasn't going to reach 50,000, but thought I would get to around 38,000. I wrote 16 days of the month and ended with 16,088 words. By every metric I could measure myself, I failed. There's a lot more written than I had before, I understand and enjoy my setting a lot more than before. Concrete progress has been made and that last month was objectively good, even if I failed in my goal.

So what now? I thought about going back to the days I didn't write anything, and filling those in. Write 50,000 words in 30, non-consecutive days.

I could also put the book on pause until next year, with anything I write before then being counted as part of the 50,000. Knowing me, it's possible I won't write very much at all without an event like this adding a deadline.

What's your plan, if you didn't finish the novel, if you fell short of the 50,000 word marker or whatever goal you set for yourself? What happens next for you?

My grand total isssss: 76867 words!!!

I genuinely don't know what got into me this month, I think the fact that I started working somewhere new had me stressed enough to want to drive those angering feelings into creativity for my fics, this is my first year trying nanowrimo so I am pretty proud of myself :3

Hi all,

Just curious if Scrivener is still handing out the 50% off discount code for NaNoWriMo winners. I scrolled through the winner goodies and found comparable offers from other writing software below my certificate. I understand participants receive 20% and an extended free trial but I was anticipating a better deal for those that hit the 50k milestone. Is this an expired deal from years previous or am I jumping the gun?

Not sure of my wordcount. I think I got over 10k. I definitely didn't make 50k. I did, however, write most everyday and feel like I was able to do good work and hone the 'ol Words-on-Paper skillset.

I'm working on my NaNo projects going forward, and one of them looks to have legs.

(:

50,121 as of tonight, though I was just shy of 49,000 last night. It's been a long month, so damn it all I'm still counting this lol. Happy December everyone.

I started a new job and was sick most of November so I didn't get nearly as much writing done as I wanted to so I'm wondering if there are any discords out there that do daily sprints? One of my region's discords used to but they changed the one they use and I kinda hate it so I'm trying to find a new one.

Hey folks! I just wanted to share with the community my small achievement: it's my first time participating in NaNo and I had no idea how fast I can type and how much time I'll be able to dedicate daily. But I didn't give up. I'm very proud of myself, cos mental and physical health issues very often take their toll and I usually end up dropping this kind of challenges. But not this time. I've written some more than 25k, I was writing almost every day, even small amount of words even if I didn't feel well. So cheers to everyone who participated! You are all such great people! And thanks everyone who shared their tips and inputs into writing!

My project was set up as personal so I didn't get the 50% off code...Is there a thread for people giving away their codes?

Reached my 50k but didn't get the scrivener code...whoops. I think I set up the personal project instead of the official one. Is there anything I can do now?

I'd never heard of this before September. A buddy of mine said, "Hey... Nanowrimo is coming up." I had no idea what it was. Checked out the site. Donated like $10 (I didn't want to be a freeloader).

Anyway... I made "par" every time. Got my 50k. Feeling pretty good.

Mind you, it isn't really finished. I figure my 50k needs to turn into more like 80k (for a sci-fi novel). I'll also have to yank some of it.

Next time... I'll pre-plan a bit better. Create an outline first. This made me feel like I was just... running aimlessly.

I'm also not going to wait until November. If figure... January? This time planned? And not 1,667. Half of that for twice as long will be much easier.

I've been writing for over 20 years. I've done NaNoWriMo before and won but didn't finish the book. I've written long fanfic before, but it's not the same. Now I have a book that is just mine, that is finished, that is a publishable length.

I don't know what to do with myself now. What do you do when you've finished your project?

I had a bunch of medical and mental health issues this month and gave up at 11,836 words.

After five failed attempts, I've finally made it! This last week was hell. Little sleep and a lot of work, yet I still managed to cram in some writing time somehow.

This time I tried a vastly different project from my last attempts, and it seems to have payed off. I guess my advice to anyone struggling year after year like myself, would be to try and write something different to what you are used to, you never know!

I wrote as much as I could, the first third was outlined because I based the novel on a spec TV pilot I wrote, and I had two episodes outlined. I got about 700-1500 words a day and I'm sitting on about 30K words. But I will definitely finish a draft and a rewrite by 1/1/2025 so I call that a success.

Thanks NaNoWriMo Folks!

Jumping on the celebratory bandwagon…I hit 50K today. It’s mostly disjointed crap, but there are some good bones in there. Most importantly though, I’m just so dang proud of myself because I came into the challenge with no plan, but I still wrote Every. Single. Day. During hangovers, on holidays, while studying for final exams and working full time. It was so hard, but if nothing else this month has taught me how important it is to establish a writing habit, and just like with going to the gym, the most important days are the ones where you don’t want to go, but you still do 💪🏻

I reached 50K today! I made it! I´ve completed NaNoWriMo24!

This is my second year trying to finish the NaNoWriMo challenge - and i succeeded!

Last year, I realized right at the beginning that I didn't have the time or the resources and kind of got stuck on the idea. It was all I had: an idea, with no plan or plot. I spent most of my time planning and thinking, but I couldn't really bring myself to write a whole thing. I ended up with a few scenes, but after two weeks I gave up. I didn´t had the time and at that moment too much to deal with and no real spirit for the story.

This year, however - my 2nd time around - I came prepared.

I joined a writing group almost a year ago. A few of them also participated in NaNoWriMo this year - which is great motivation – so I had some people to back me up.
I also prepared my story - a new one this time - during Preptober. Step by step, day by day, I build up the idea I had to a story. From the beginning to the end, over the plot and the twist, from the structure over the most important scenes, with character design and world building to basic research. I planned a writing routine and prepared myself.

The first day was great! I was able to start writing and had all the ideas in my head, ready to spill them onto paper. The first week went well. I realized once again that time management is not my greatest skill. Writing is a passion of mine, but I´m not only a daydreamer but still a student and part-time-worker as well, so I knew there was gonna be stress ahead. But I managed it pretty well. My goal was to write once every day - which I did, some days more, some days less. The weekend days were my writing days, so on those I could write 3k words and more to catch up.

I knew from the beginning that I might not finish my story, which is totally fine with me. And I did not. But I wrote 50K and a few more words in a whole month and I am so proud of myself for completing this challenge! I am going to finish my story over the next weeks and months, and I know that I have a long way bevor me, with editing and correcting and all the stuff.

But I am so proud and the fact that I was actually strong enough to write 50K (50410 words in specific) in a month is a huge motivation for me! And I am so happy and joyful and even more willing to continue!

Hey all, now that NaNo is almost over, I've decided that I just want to keep going next month. I've been using Trackbear, and I think that would be a really good platform to keep using for new goals and leaderboards. Are there other groups of writers out there who are doing this in an organized way? Who else is interested? I would love to do this with a writing community online! :)