@RomanAria @Tyler Night (since I saw you mention it) and I don't know who else.

Happy first day of NaNo, everyone that finds their way here. I probably can't win this year, and may not even get to do more than putter around with story stuff, but I do plan on writing at least a little. It's a shame I'm out of town a quarter of the month, and having life attack me the rest. Then again, I've only won twice, of all the years I've tried. Participation and camaraderie (and the dare thread!) are what I enjoy most. Winning has always been just a bonus. <3

So what is everyone trying to write, what characters are you planning on torturing or killing off, and got any good dares for my collection?

I’ll be trying for a fantasy adventure story told in the framework of a gothic western this year. The mood hit me, and I’m not sure if this had anything to do with the small handful of western RP’s I’ve seen since the release of 2016’s The Magnificent Seven or just a subconscious desire to write in a universe I’ve barely developed over the years. As the best frame of reference the setting can be generally compared to anime concepts such as Wild Arms and Grenadier with some aspects of the tabletop known as Deadlands and the film Dead Man from 1995. The plot is still forming in my head, but I’m going to just do it “guerrilla style” this time instead of roughly planning it like I did for my last attempt (a science fiction tale called “Crisis on the U.S.S. Eden”).

I'd actually never even heard of NaNoWriMo before until @tsukune mentioned it to me in my hang-out thread on this site, probably around a week ago. @Gowi mentioned it to me again a few hours back. Those two instances are basically the only time I've ever heard the name, much less anything about it; I was told it's a big writing competition though.

That said, since my passion as a writer is (almost) exclusive to my main story project, I don't think this is something I would ever end up getting involved in personally, so beyond making a point that I'd never heard of it I don't have a lot of input or opinions about it all to give, let alone what I'd write if I took part in it. If I wasn't so much of a "one-track mind" person and entirely obsessed with my own project then I could probably come up with something interesting; I just don't think I'm able to take my mind off my primary story to do that.

Originally I did want to go for NaNo again this year - which would make my fourth or fifth consecutive year of participating in this challenge - but with my project woes and now down with sickness, I have no choice but to pull out for this year to prevent overworking my brain any further.

As for the ideas, at first I was going to do an Asian historical fantasy in Chinese, then as my school work got heavier I switched to Superpower using my most well-established character I've played in RPs so far as the protagonist.

@Shoryu Magami firstly, how'd you get that special title? Secondly: NaNoWriMo is a competition, but only against yourself. The idea is 50K words in 30 days, though you can tweak it to your personal preferences if your goal is the writing and not NaNo itself. There's Camp NaNo in summer that has flexible goals, too. And you could totally write 50K words of drivel, or in your story's setting, or even part of your future book. The idea is to encourage people to get the words on the paper, and to worry about thinking and editing later. I find that I meet a lot of wonderful people through NaNo, both online and in person, since I now go to my local meetups. <3 My best friend in the area is one I met through NaNo, and I have several others. Spent until 2am at the house of one of them (and her daughter) last night, also with the aforementioned best friend. We started at Denny's but it was just us four, so we switched venues.

NaNoers and the forums are likewise a great resource if you have odd questions that you're not comfortable asking people who aren't writers or don't want getting the wrong ideas, such as do male genitalia float, how much jello it takes to fill the White House, how long before a punctured lung will kill you, and the best way to skin a cat. There's also threads with ideas and suggestions and dares and discussions, all of which can spark inspiration and ideas for future use. It is one of the best things ever, in my opinion, though my true love is writing /with/ people, not for people.

Even if you don't want to participate, friends and ideas and encouragement for your own solo project are wonderful things to have -- and you have always had thoughtful responses when I've seen you posting, so you might be a significant contributor to discussions that encourage and inspire others. <3

@tsukune I just took a glance at your profile and I think I like you. *glomp* Blame Shoryu when you can't get rid of me~

@Gowi *sits on* Sounds like fun~ If I was writing seriously, I'd try to do the sequel to my first novel with the shattered fourth wall, or the one where the guy kills the dragon by mistake and has to fix things, or a total feels trip. ^.^ I want all the feels lately. ALL OF THEM.

@shylarah
With my "special title", I basically just copy/pasted text from this thread into the title section. I was actually planning on asking you how you got yours how it is too; the green part of it specifically; I attempted to use BBCode to make my title white but it never worked.

It is one of the best things ever, in my opinion, though my true love is writing /with/ people, not for people.

While I'm admittedly a writer/storyteller/philosopher/a few other things/etc before I'm a role-player, I've thoroughly enjoyed working with my fiancé (@Ailyn Evensen) on my main story project ever since she began giving contributions to it after we started our relationship, and whenever one of the particular female characters that she actually has influence over (she's more or less adopted some of them from me, but it's a little more complicated) does anything in the story we actually play it out as a role-play to an extent before it transmigrates over into the actual novel form. I've been working on this project for well over a couple of decades in the midst of all my personal life problems, arguably longer (I took it less seriously then), but in the last five or so years it's been a lot more fulfilling.

I've also collaborated role-plays using my setting and had good discussions about it with a few people in my closer circle over the last ten years, though Ailyn is currently the only one allowed to directly collaborate on the official narrative of the story with me. Still, due to all of this I can relate to how you feel about writing with others rather than for others to an extent, even if writing this story is definitely my priority over role-playing. I have no problem building community and supporting other writers through collaboration and discussion though; it's actually the reason I joined this site in the first place outside of an uncharacteristic moment of whimsy (you'll notice I've yet to actually role-play here; it isn't my priority but if it happens it happens).

I'm simply not willing to reveal too much about my project publically at this time, which admittedly does limit some of my ability to provide good feedback in certain threads I post in; the "A Magic System?" thread potentially being the best example. I'm actually certain my work would inspire other writers and help them grow, but I'm unable to spoil too much of it on public sites (not yet at least). Most of what I'll tell people regarding "spoilers" is through PM, and even then I'm a bit reluctant.

Even if you don't want to participate, friends and ideas and encouragement for your own solo project are wonderful things to have -- and you have always had thoughtful responses when I've seen you posting, so you might be a significant contributor to discussions that encourage and inspire others. <3

I actually really appreciate you saying that. I doubt I'd have time to participate directly with my how overworked I am already, but knowing it's not a "competition" but rather a "personal challenge" is something I have more respect for. If I can contribute in the other ways you're describing without it distracting me too much from my project (admittedly, this site has been doing that since I joined, but I consider the people I'm getting closer to worth it) then I don't have a problem with that. My workload is particularly bad right now, but once I get it a bit more under control I might be able to do more. I assume there's probably some sort of link I need to know about? If you send it to me, I'll look into it eventually, but it won't be immediately due to my browser being incredibly overloaded as is. Even as we speak I actually had to type out this entire post two times due to a tab crashing on me.

@tsukune I just took a glance at your profile and I think I like you. *glomp* Blame Shoryu when you can't get rid of me~

Heh, exactly according to my plan I'm not being held accountable... This woman does not represent me.

In all seriousness though, you probably would've met him through me eventually if you two aren't acquainted; he's one of my friends here.

@Shoryu Magami Actually, that title is a trophy title from the TTL con. One of my characters thoroughly defeated me by way of writer's block. ^.^;; I only started using it now because I thought it replaced my "crazy one" title.

<3 Yeah, I actually have a couple chars I've "adopted" (or been asked to play...or needed for an rp that didn't involve the original player because the char was a huge part of the life of one of my chars...), and I've let a couple people adopt a few of my chars, or write for them. My favorite DM ever has written entire stories -- including a NaNo novel -- using some of my chars in it. Though it was basically the events after the end of one rp campaign and in one of the two, before a second campaign started. ^.^;; I like having other people have input because then I still get the joy of the reader, instead of merely the joy of the author. <3

I have rped alternate versions of events for actual rps, so the idea of rping something on the side of the main story that is potentially noncanon makes total sense.

The NaNo forums are at their most active in October and November, since NaNo is November and the official yearly site opening is October first. The camp forums are on a slightly different site, and I think those are most active...what, May/June to July/August? Not quite sure, I've not really ever done camp. Still, even if you can't chatter this year, I'll send you a link for future reference. Plus who knows, you may need to know how many consecutive bodies a bullet might possibly go through before it runs out of energy. ^.~

@shylarah
If you take a look at my bio you'll notice that, in the place where I list people who I know on this site, there's a non-member who's referred to under "Special Mention"; this friend is the only person whose collaborations using my setting are in a similar league as @Ailyn Evensen's (though a few other friends have also brought enjoyable sessions to the table as well). Their knowledge and understanding of my setting is significant enough that if you were to read character sheets for the people they brought to the role-plays you would actually believe they were written by me, and their absence lately is actually one of the primary reasons that I felt the urge to look for other role-players and joined this site. A long time ago they told me I should feel free to use any concepts that they brought to the setting in my official work if I wanted to, but I never had a chance to ask them if they wanted their characters to make an appearance (I hadn't decided if I'd want to; I still don't completely know).

The link is more than welcome, though given my current workload and due to the fact that November is already underway this is definitely something I would be considering more next year rather than immediately. Other than that, I don't know if I actually understand the analogy you've made at the end of your post (admittedly sleep deprivation and severe multitasking possibly have something to do with that).

@Shoryu Magami It's not an analogy, it's an actual question actually asked in a writing forum for reasons of plot, though not by me. Someone needed to know how many people you could kill with a single bullet.

nanowrimo.org

@shylarah
Ah, I see; that makes sense. This is the sort of information that I'd normally use research for, though since guns are not common (or to be more exact, not really useful) in my setting it's not something I've currently needed to look up. I suppose it was the mention of "energy" that confused me; if I hadn't been so multitasked I probably would've realized you meant kinetic energy. My own fault for overthinking things like I always do.

Cheers.

@tsukune I just took a glance at your profile and I think I like you. *glomp* Blame Shoryu when you can't get rid of me~

Of course you'll like me, because I'm awesome. Do you still remember the time we chatted with each other occasionally in the Guild's C-box last year with Cara and the others? Took you long enough to realize my true charm, heh. XD

I only adopted characters created by my friends IRL (more like they begged me to write stories featuring their characters for them lol), never tried to adopt those created by online members. Well, mostly because of my flair of playing eccentric, weird and conflicting characters than the more straightforward types.

For Camp NaNo, yes it's a little different from the Main NaNo. Camp NaNo has two slots, most of the time in April and July every year. In Camp NaNo you can set your own word count target, more genre choices (including revision drafts and even playscripts), and you'll sorted into cabins (with random writers, or you can toggle the setting to form your own cabin with people you know) instead of the region-based system in Main NaNo. I personally prefer Camp NaNo over the Main largely because November is such an awkward time period for me - it's my exam month every single year, regardless of which grade in school I'm in, even in college. XD

@tsukune I've had that favorite DM draw character frameworks with me in mind. I play a good bleeding heart, impulsive prankster, or crazy person. ^.^ The others, as I said, are so intertwined with my chars that I really can replace them.

You are totally awesome, and I know I've seen you around. I don't recall the discussion offhand...nor do I know who Cara is. ^.^;;