*NaNoWriMo or "Write a Novel in a Month"!* :)

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I'm registered and have been working on my outlines for the ideas I have. Not sure I want to "out" myself as someone with Asperger's to the NaNoWriMo community, though, but I'm glad I'm not the only Aspie doing this. I've been writing stories all my life, but this is my first time with this contest. I'm not terribly interested in writing contests and I really suck at self-promotion. But I just want to see if I can finish. I haven't even read up on what "winning" at NaNoOWriMo means. I see people in the forums who have sigs of what years they have won--seems a lot of people.

Is there an Aspie thread in any of the NaNoWriMo forums or are you guys going to keep tabs with other Aspie participants here?

I have four ideas: two are sci fi, one sort of supernatural suspense, and fourth contemporary fiction. I almost want to wait until Nov 1 and flip a coin for which one to do. I think all four are finishable stories.

What are you guys writing?

I've never finished, the few times that I've tried. I have a short attention span. I get really pumped up and usually can meet the word quota for a few days, but it's only a matter of time before I fall off. Stick to the same routine for a whole month?

Yeah, I have executive function problems. I'm terrible with follow-through too. I dont know if I can finish. But I will try. I want to finish. It may be utter crap. Lots of Gertrude Stein-esque gibberish, but I want to finish.

I think I found a way to work with my own tendency to find distractions for myself--I'm writing two stories that intertwine. So if I get bored with one story I'll move over to the parallel one. I also decided after that last post above this afternoon that I would do well by myself to go with the story idea that most reflects my experience as someone with Asperger's. So if I get bored or stuck for ideas, and I can just go "Write something about how it's like to live with Asperger's" and then translate from my point of view to my main character's. I think it can work. I'm pretty excited now.

Good luck to everyone else taking part. I'm Wandering Author on there, if anyone is interested in a writing buddy. Got a pretty good idea, and I'm getting excited about it. That probably means my place will get hit by a meteor tonight...

Still, I've won every NaNo I signed up for, except 2007. And in 2007, I found a good friend dead on his kitchen floor on 02 September. Had to help clean out his apartment, spent the last half of September and all of October racing back and forth to get up there, then sifting through all his stuff. Left the apartment about three minutes before midnight on 31 October. Got home about 2 am on 01 November, so exhausted I was falling asleep even standing up most of that month. So, yeah, I lost that year.

It just makes me more determined to win from now on.

362 words so far! :lol

Good luck everybody!
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I'm trying, although I have so much work to do I doubt I can finish.

I have about 500 words so far.

My sociopath of a brother decided to throw one of his narcissist drama queen fits today, because it seems, the world wasn't revolving around him at the very moment and he couldn't allow that. And he was abusive to me, too, because he's a bully like that. It really really pissed me off, because just last week I took a day off from work to help him move and then he pulls this crap on me. I really didn't need it. And now I have to unwind before I can start writing agian, and I have a study session with another student tonight as well that I can't skip out on.

Not a promising start, but I'm going to try to write another 500 wrods before going to bed. I was hoping to get at least 1500 today, but I get done what I get done, I guess.

I hope everyone else got off to a better start than me!

I've had a worse start than any of you and still won. At one point, I think it was in 2008, I was behind by about 25,000 words....

This year is starting out well for me. I have 1,775 words, and I may not be done for the night.

I hope the rest of you have better luck tomorrow.

1605

I'm just shy of 3000. I didn't write as much as I wanted today because of the elections here in teh US have had most of my attention tonight. I don't work tomorrow so I'm hoping to pass 5000 by tomorrow night.

But it's going OK, I think. My novel is very wordy so far, but us Aspies are good at that.

Yay, I'm glad to hear that other people are doing this. I'm not feeling up to writing, but tomorrow when I'm on my meds I will start writing.

I'm up to 10,363 words today. That means I'm slightly more than a day ahead of target. And I'm having fun! My MC picked up a cool Hispano-Suiza roadster; I wasn't expecting that, but a minor character needed to get rid of it. I love NaNo!

I hope the rest of you are doing well. Even if you're behind, take heart. This is the first year I've been on target this early. One year, I was 25,000 words behind almost three weeks in. But I picked up steam and managed to win anyway. You can, too. And it's a blast!

I've signed up on the NaNoWriMo website as BrandonSP, and right now I have 1,232 words written.

11,619 words. It was very slow and quite difficult today. I was creeping along, wanted to give up for the day at one point.

It felt a bit like in LOTR when they have left Rivendell and are scaling that mountain and are assailed by snow storm and ice giants, and after huddling down for a few hours of restless sleep decide that they will have to take the other way, do/write something that find really "scary".

First act turn/the "point of no return" in fact, pretty appropriate at about 11,000 words out of 50,000.

I haven't actually got inside the mountain/the Mines of Moria yet, but I'm approaching the gate, on the "easy" way downhill towards it. ( on a mini-scale anyway! :lol )

How is everybody else doing?

Good luck!
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My wife has done NaNo for the last 5-6 years and is the ML for Omaha Nebraska she's up to about 11,000 words I believe. I tried one year but I got to almost 1,000 words and gave up I thought my story was basically hackneyed plagiarisms of HP Lovecraft...might give it another go sometime.

I haven't been writing much this week but I'm at about 12K. I think I can make to the half way mark this weekend, though. I'm not lost for words, thanks to being an Aspie! Isn't verbosity a diagnostic criterion??? I've just had another crappy week and decided not to stress over not having the energy to write. I'm off today and hopefully I can spend the afternoon writing. I seem to be averaging about 1000 an hour when I do find the time. Once I realized that, I though "OK, I just need about 38 more hours this month." That made it a lot more manageable for me.

I'm a bit disappointed with the local meet-ups and write-ins. I haven't gotten to one because they aren't scheduled at times I can make it or at places that would be tolerable for me with my Aspie quirks. Basically, I just need a place where there's not a lot of kids and that serves decent hot tea, and not just coffee. I figured that other writers would understand that. I made a few suggestions to alternative places and time, but no one has been able to make those. I had hope to just some chance to socialize, since I'm pretty socially isolated here and it's hard for me to meet people. It seems most of the people in my region involved with NaNo are quite younger than me anyhow, so I doubt there was much a chance for me to strike up an acquaintance with any of them beyond NaNo.