YA and Beyond discussion

I thought it would be a good idea to move this (sure to be a) discussion to its own thread ;)

Brigid, Tommy, and anyone else who is participating in NaNoWriMo this year or wants to discuss noveling, here we go!

This is the first time in four years of participation that I feel really good about my story idea. And I mean like, SUPER good. Like I think I'll hit 50K this time, finally. :D :D

Nice, I was just thinking I should check it there was a thread since it started to dominate the other one haha.

So I'm about 1/3 done with a novel already, which I'm gonna be working on as well, but I decided, on the 3rd, what the hay, why not try NaNo this year... before putting any thought into my idea haha.

I think I'll probably just do one I've been thinking about for about a month. The working title is "The Diary of a Reluctant Teenage Monster Hunter".

The gist of the idea is the main character is a 16 year old, just a bit below the middle of the social ladder. He's passing school, but not excelling, he has a fast food job and fills up most of his other hours with video games.
Then one night at work he's approached by a tall, almost blank man who informs him of his newly inherited position which he inherited for his recently deceased grandmother "Mammie".

Outside of that general description and knowing I want to mix some dark and humor and maybe two thought out scenes, I'm pantsing this one all out. And I'm not a pantser... Man, I need to think things through haha.

Anyway, I'm already signed up, so whoever wants to come along for the ride my name on there is Tommy Hancock(creative, I know).

I'd love to hear about everyone's projects and see their progress :)

Yaaaay good idea making this topic, Ashley!!! I'm excited to discuss NaNo with you guys. :D I'm glad you're so excited about your idea Ashley, it sounds so awesome.

Tommy your idea sounds awesome as well––very creepy/mysterious, and I love some good dark humor. :)

Well, this is my tenth year participating in NaNo (?!?!?!) and I've won the past seven so I really want to keep my streak going! Most years I start planning way ahead of time, but this time around I'm kinda winging it.

My story is based on real-life grave robberies that happened in England in the 1700s; basically these guys called "resurrectionists" would steal dead bodies to give to anatomists for dissection/research. So my protagonist is a girl who's a gravedigger, who agrees to help out some resurrectionists ... but then it turns out there's all this crazy stuff with demons possessing some of the stolen bodies and ... yeah. Uh. I don't really know, honestly. I'm kind of making it up as I go!

Okay, so I did some looking into something that was mentioned that led to this thread existing. Brigid mentioned that Cinder by Marissa Meyer started out as a NaNo project, along with some of the other books.

Turns out, she not only wrote the first draft of Cinder, Scarlet and Cress as NaNo projects, but she wrote all three drafts in the SAME MONTH. That's 3 books written in 30 days.

Now, she said that she had to do multiple rewrites and heavy editing that took much longer, but how incredible is that?

Brigid, your idea sounds like Frankenstein + Daughter of Smoke & Bone to me and I LOVE IT.


Before the Lunar Chronicles, the only book I knew of that was published and had been a NaNo project was Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants (which I still haven't read).

@Tommy - Right??? I also found that out after I mentioned it ... someone on the FB NaNo page said something about how she'd written them all in one month and I was like, "Damn, can that be true?!" I mean I'm sure she did lots and lots of rewriting/editing, but that's still so impressive, especially considering how great that series is. It sure gives me hope. :D

@Ashley - I love that you said that because Frankenstein is one of my favorite books and it's definitely a huge inspiration to my story! You're also the second person who's made the DoSaB comparison and I hadn't really thought of it before, but I guess there are some similar themes and whatnot. :)

Yes, Water for Elephants is probably the most well-known NaNo project (and it's a good book from what I recall, although it's been quite a few years since I read it). Some other published/famous NaNos I can think of off the top of my head:

- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
- The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
- Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

The NaNo website also has a list of a bunch of them here. :)

omgggg so cool <3 I loved Night Circus! Didn't know about that one.

Even if all three books were trash(and I doubt that even while assuming quality was way below publishing) the sheer amount of words is incredible. I know that book Crewel was also a NaNo book. I didn't know there were so many success stories if I'm being quite honest haha.

P.S. I really like both of you gal's story ideas.

Finally really getting started on this thing, at 10PM on day 4 haha. I mentioned starting late and not having an at first, and pantsing when I'm a plotter, didn't realize another thing: This is my first attempt at first person.

Might as well get out of all the comfort zones, yes? haha

Good luck with first-person Tommy!

I'm under 10K and already hit a really intense scene -- not the climax, I don't think, although if there were two climaxes in this book this would be the first one -- I'm terrified I'll finish the whole thing and be nowhere near 50K. I also seem to be doing extreme amounts of telling rather than showing, which irks me and makes me want to go into revision mode immediately.

@Tommy - I'm also kinda pantsing when normally I plot a lot. But I only decided on an idea a few weeks ago, so I didn't have much time to plan! Haha for me it's the opposite––I almost always write in first person, but I'm writing this book in third. There are just too many characters and storylines to use first person. :P

@Ashley - Ugh I'm doing so much telling as well. But I figure that's just kind of a placeholder, and I can always go back in and add more showing details. :D

I'm at like 6.6k and I'm feeling a little stuck, but I think I'll try skipping around between the scenes I already have planned out and fill in the gaps later. Usually I never write out of order, but in this case I feel like it might help me.

Brigid *Flying Kick-a-pow!* wrote: "I'm at like 6.6k and I'm feeling a little stuck, but I think I'll try skipping around between the scenes I already have planned out and fill in the gaps later. Usually I never write out of order, but in this case I feel like it might help me."

Yeah I'm doing my best to plow through and get the majority of the story down first, then go back and add in the bits I got stuck on earlier.

In order to be on track by the end of the day my word count would have be at 10,002. I'm currently at 1,511 haha. I have too many days where I don't get to touch the story :/ Like last night I didn't get to start writing until 11:30PM, but I had to be back up and ready to start the day at 6AM, so I got in like, 15 minutes of writing.

If I want to have a chance, I'm gonna have to cancel pretty much everything that isn't work and just hide away on days off work and churn out like 5k+ on those days. It's doable, but gonna be close.

Wow, good luck Tommy! I believe in you! :D

I am at 8,523 right now and today's goal is 10k. I let myself fall behind yesterday and didn't start writing today until like 9PM so agghh ... But I did just write about 1k in an hour, so hopefully it should only take me another hour and a half to catch up. Not going to sleep until I'm on track!!! :P

Hmm, thought I responded. I guess there's a different thread that makes a little less sense now haha.

My goal is to catch up by the 15th. It'll be a bit tough, but if I can catch up by halfway, the momentum to the end should be fairly breezy.

Best of luck to you guys and gals. I fancied myself a writer when I was younger but life got in the way. All your ideas sound fantastic!

@Tommy - Nice, that sounds like a good plan! :)

@Heidi - Thank you!!!

And update on my progress: I hit 10k last night! I had a bit of catching up to do but I just sat down and wrote for like 2 hours straight. *whew* Today I've written like 300 words so I have a bit of a ways to go, but I think it'll be okay. I just need to get my butt off Goodreads and go write. :D

About to start on a mini-writing sprint. Won't get much done today, but gonna try to really get some done tomorrow since I have the day off and no plans. If I pass 8k, I'll consider myself on track.

Also, toying with the idea of multiple POV. Not decided, but I have some ideas that might make it worth the challenge of so many POV/narrating characters.

I broke 13K last night -- I've been going back and adding in more these last two days (mostly Saturday, we spent Sunday moving a lot of stuff and I only got to write for 2ish hours last night)

But! We've got both couches and all 5 bookcases moved :D only 2-3 more big things at the apartment now.

I fell a little behind this weekend, but yesterday I made up for it by writing about 4k words, so now I'm up to 15k! I'm going to try not to fall behind again this week. :P Hope you guys' novels are going well!

I took last night off -- I knew I should write something but it was a busy day.

Glad you are getting all moved in Ashley!

Sounds like you were very busy, Ashley! I'm sure you can catch up. :D

Way to go, Brigid! Good luck staying at it this week. :)

Tbh I picked a crap year to do NaNo lol I'm surprised I'm finding as much time to write as I am. We need to be all moved in by the end of the month -- should've done NaNo in October or December instead haha

@Elora - Thank you!

@Ashley - Sometimes I've found that during the busiest years I do the best at NaNo––maybe because when I find the time to write, I write like crazy. :P

That's probably it, Brigid!

I'm having similar issues. I thought yesterday and today would be my days to catch part of the way up since it was my two days without work, but a ridiculous amount of other, unavoidable things came up.

I've only had one writing session last over an hour and that's because I stayed up and wrote before going to work instead of sleeping one day haha.

Oh well, I'm sure I'll get at least a few free days. And I'll either finish or I won't. Either way, I like where my story is going :) It's nice writing this way. Makes me think I typically try too hard to make the first draft perfect. If nothing else, I'll end the month with a lesson learned.

Agreed, Tommy! I just got the email pep talk from... whoever it was, yesterday xD she was all "You're still writing. I'm proud" and then reminded us about how the month is only for pounding out a rough draft, definitely not the finished product, and that gave me a bit of a boost ;) I self-edit horribly when I write, which is likely why I've never finished a draft of a novel ever. I'm determined!

@Tommy - I totally agree! I'm often way too much of a perfectionist, and NaNo helps me to overcome that and just get a draft down, even if it's far from perfect. :D

@Ashley - It was from Stephanie Perkins! She wrote Anna and the French Kiss and its companion books, which all started off as NaNo projects. :) Loved her pep talk, it was very encouraging!

That pep talk was super good. If I'm being honest, Anna and the French Kiss, along with all the other (name) and the (something) books are about 100 miles off of the type of books I consider reading, but knowing that someone with an eerily similar situation as mine(she was trying to finish a novel for 7 years, me too haha) turned it around by basically forcing it in a month and turned that into a success story and books loved by many is very inspiring.

And I love telling myself that the Lunar Chronicles and Night Circus were all NaNo projects because I LOVE them <3 I also find myself getting to the point where I dislike my story though -- all this time I've had a fully-realized plot and characters, and I find myself going "Nobody's gonna like this. It's just a bunch of mermaids being bitches to each other :P" LOL

Ashley *Hufflepuff Kitten* wrote: "And I love telling myself that the Lunar Chronicles and Night Circus were all NaNo projects because I LOVE them <3 I also find myself getting to the point where I dislike my story though -- all thi..."

Yeah, Lunar Chronicles is really keeping me motivated haha. Especially since she wrote three of them in one month. When I consider giving up because I'm so behind, I tell myself if someone can do three, and turn them into three awesome books, I can finish one with no obligation to make it good haha.

And I don't know, that description did well for that scene in The Little Mermaid haha.

So, I may or may not have taken a notebook to work with me and jotted down notes/mini outline for my NaNo story while at work... :)

@Tommy - I actually really like her books; I remember thinking Anna and the French Kiss would be trashy but I ended up devouring it in like two days. And I usually don't like contemporary YA romance much. :D But anyway––it is very inspiring! Haha I've also been taking a notebook with me places to write down notes and parts of scenes and whatnot. It's a small thing but it can really help!

@Ashley - I get those thoughts/feelings too. Even though it's just a first draft I find myself already worrying that it sucks. :P But I just keep trying to tell myself it's not set in stone.

Exactly, Brigid :)

Broke 15K last night!

Yaaay Ashley! :D

I'm at a little past 16k but I want to get to 20k today. I was going to write this morning but I've been procrastinating and now I have to go to work. x_x But maybe I can sneak in some writing while I'm there, shhhh.

I'm still lagging behind you guys, but so far avoiding the doubts. I'm sure they'll sink in.

And yeah, it looks like notes at work while on break(and, erm, not so on break at times) is just part of the process now, at least during this NaNo project.

Brigid *Flying Kick-a-pow!* wrote: "@Tommy - I actually really like her books; I remember thinking Anna and the French Kiss would be trashy but I ended up devouring it in like two days. And I usually don't like contemporary YA romanc..."

I don't doubt her books being potentially amazing, just not my general cup of tea. I may be surprised and like it if I read it, I just don't see myself letting it get too far towards the front of the line.
*shrug* she seems cool, so I'm glad for her success even if I never check the books out.

Tommy wrote: "I'm still lagging behind you guys, but so far avoiding the doubts. I'm sure they'll sink in.

And yeah, it looks like notes at work while on break(and, erm, not so on break at times) is just part o..."

I only got around 350 words last night -- this whole week has been a mess and (from what I hear) won't get better til the end of the month. i.e, waking up at friggin 4:30-5am to go to work and then subsequently being exhausted by 8pm. Not a fan.

I'm sorry Ashley, that does sound exhausting. :-/ I'm impressed you still have the energy to write, though!

I've been kinda busy this week, but I've had enough free time that I shouldn't really be making any excuses. And yet I've fallen about 5k behind, agggh! I may block myself from the internet for a few hours and just try to catch up. :P

Ashley *Hufflepuff Kitten* wrote: "I only got around 350 words last night -- this whole week has been a mess and (from what I hear) won't get better til the end of the month. i.e, waking up at friggin 4:30-5am to go to work and then subsequently being exhausted by 8pm. Not a fan."

I'm in the same boat. Almost the same exact part of the boat haha. Just found out my next two days off are taken up, too. I'm just accepting that I will likely not finish, while pushing hard when I can to get there.

I'm kind of shocking myself with this story, and so far, at least, I think in a good way haha. The things I've published thus far in life have been short stories that I did very little planning for(and, unfortunately, very little editing after haha). But when I set out to do a novel, I always, always plan like crazy and stick to that plan like crazy.

With NaNo, I had to start something fresh day 6 if I had even a snowball's chance of finishing on time. Yes, I've done some notes/planning, but it's very vague(3 chapters fit on 1 page that is less than half the size of an average notebook page) and in each chapter thus far, I've kind of dug in and explored something that wasn't on the agenda to write for the day. And they're like, WAY off the notes haha.

So far I have Ray, the guy who owns the place the MC works. He wasn't in my notes at all. Now he has a personality, a back story/love interest for the main characters very married mother, a dislike for the MC and his father, and a lost father of his own.
He's like my character's Snape, if Harry's parents lived into his teens haha.

Then I have another girl character, Sandra, who only exists because I wanted to show that the place the MC works is indeed staffed, and that it isn't only staffed with the two dudes who work there that the MC has issues with. Now she's already been an awesome buddy to the MC, and, much to my surprise, a potential romantic interest.

I'm liking writing this a lot. No clue how good it is or isn't, but, man, I'm having a blast :). Jumping on board for this challenge may have really overhauled my writing style.

Tommy wrote: "I'm kind of shocking myself with this story, and so far, at least, I think in a good way haha. The things I've published thus far in life have been short stories that I did very little planning for..."

That's great Tommy! I love when the characters and story surprise me that way. And I'm glad you're having so much fun with it. :D

*Sigh* I wrote a little over 1k words today but I'm still like 4k behind, and tomorrow I'm going to be even more behind ... GAHHHhh. I guess I'll write a little more before bed and tomorrow I really need to get my sh** together. :P

I'm not a fan of this whole life thing sometimes. Today was my first day off with no plans. Woke up just before 8 am so I could get up and eat and do whatever and still be able to start writing at 8:30... Instead a car breaks down and I have to spend the entire morning doing other nonsense.

Oh well, time to get started now 6 and a half hours later haha.

Sorry about the car Tommy, that stinks! :(

I was at work until 3 buuut now I've been home for like 2+ hours and still haven't done any writing and I'm still about 5k behind schedule. But I don't have anything to do tomorrow so maybe I can finally catch up if I write a lot tonight/tomorrow. Aggghh!!!

I refuse to sleep tonight until I break 20K!