Grr. This NaNoWriMo thing is going to be really hard. I write too slow - a thousand words, even of almost exclusively dialogue, which is my best thing, takes me nearly two hours to write. So I have to write an average of nearly four hours a day to get 50k in one month, at my best pace. That's ridiculous. I'm a student, I have homework and drinking to do!

Then there's the fact that, once it's done, I have to decide whether I can, in good faith, submit and claim my winning status, as the final novel will include some prose I wrote before November. I need Buffistas to help me with this moral quandary, so here's the details:

The rule says "No prose written before the month."

However, one way of interpreting that, in my opinion, is "No prose that you use to count towards your final word count written before the month."

I had 3000 words of a story that I was really really liking written, but had stalled in writing it because I realized that it was growing in my head to a ridiculous size. Then November suddenly came around and I was like, "Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to write a novel. What should I write?" and then i remembered that I had a story that was turning into a novel all ready to go!

So my plan is to add 50,000 words (at least) to the end of the 3000 words I had written already, always submitting my word count to nanowrimo as 3000 words less than are actually in my novel. That way, when I'm done, I have a 53,000 word novel, 50,000 of which were written in the month of November. I'd even submit only the non-pre-written bits for verification.

But now I'm wondering if that's kosher. The problem is that, since I have this story, there's nothing else I want to spend an entire month of my life writing. So whether or not i decide to submit for "winning" NaNoWriMo, I'm gonna finish this story this month if at all possible.

What are your opinions? Is this plan okay? Or would too many other NaNoWriMo participants feel that this method cheapens their work somehow?

Nova, I don't think that's contrary to the spirit of the exercise. You're supposed to produce 50k words in a month, so you learn you can do it; so you actually complete a project to deadline, so you can encourage and be encouraged. Having 3k of a story already completed doesn't negate any of that, as long as you do the additional 50k on top. At least, that's my opinion.

Thanks, Deena. That's what I think too, so unless I hear some really compelling arguments against it, I think I'm gonna go with it.

Now, if only I could tell my internal editor to shut up and let me write...

Signed,
Guy whose "30 Minute Fics" in LJ are usually less than 500 words long. But flow very nicely.

I call bullshit because to write fifty k cold in a month, you'd have to be wired like Hunter S. Thompson at a Pfizer convention, imo. Whatever it takes, babe. I don't know that I will because the last 6 months have been novel-writing months for me. I've never written 2000 in one day so maybe I've just got size issues. ;)

Here's a writing question: When in a novel(la) should you stop introducing new plot points and start wrapping up the old ones?

Signed,
Should Probably Have Outlined His Novel Before He Started Blindly Typing

Here's a writing question: When in a novel(la) should you stop introducing new plot points and start wrapping up the old ones?

Nov 30th.

I think it goes: new plot points in the middle are "twists," new plot points towards the end are "asspulls."

I think it goes: new plot points in the middle are "twists," new plot points towards the end are "asspulls."

Unless, of course, you've been clever and foreshadowed it all along when the reader wasn't paying attention.

Unless, of course, you've been clever and foreshadowed it all along when the reader wasn't paying attention.

See: J.K. Rowling.

you've been clever and foreshadowed it all along

That happens in the 2nd draft...and sometimes in the galley proofs.