I was perusing the NaNoWriMo website...
(I can't believe how many people are already signed up and chomping at the bit. The people in my group [city,state] are already planning an all night writing get together on the first day. Yeah, I won't be going to that. And grrrr.. they seem to be all college students. Gawd I feel old.)
...anyway, I found their FAQ page and a couple of these were funny enough to share.
How do you win NaNoWriMo and what are the prizes?
The way to win NaNoWriMo is by writing 50,000 words by midnight on November 30. Every year, there are many, many winners. There are no "Best Novel" or "Quickest-Written Novel" awards given out. All winners will get an official "Winner" web badge and a PDF Winner's Certificate.
The real prize in NaNoWriMo is the manuscript itself, and the exhilarating feeling of setting an ambitious creative goal and nailing it. And the $1,000,000.
Just kidding about the $1,000,000!
How do I verify if I'm writing by hand?
Invoke the Luddite Clause!
What you do is write your 50,000 words, then have someone you trust verify that it is, indeed, 50,000 words. Then using something like the Lorem Ipsum generator, submit a file of the exact number of words of your handwritten manuscript to our word count validator.
HUH? No clue what any of that means.
Looks like there is some paranoia out there about the manuscript being stolen (It is not published on a website. They say the delete it immediately after confirming the word count.)
Can I scramble my novel before submitting it to your untrustworthy word-counting goons?
If you are using Microsoft Word it is very easy to scramble your novel in a way that will not affect its word count.... blah, blah, blah, instructions...
And my favorite-
Can I write one word 50,000 times?And before you ask - No, I have no life and I need these little things to keep me entertained.
No. Well... No.
6 comments:
Ugh, had a VERY clever, brilliantly worded comment about half an hour ago...blogger decided not to print it. It may have been some of my best work...*sigh*.
I still don't understand this though. The want you to write a 50,000 word manuscript, but they don't want to read it? Umm, why?
Just to say you did.
The theory as I understand it- some of us need an excuse to accomplish things, otherwise it is extremely easy to procrastinate.
I know that normally I would agonize over the first 10-15 pages and trying to make them perfect. I probably would then get frustrated and give up.
So this just a goal to get the first draft done. And then a little pat on the back for doing it. I have no idea what the outcome will be, but if I can get from "Once upon a time..." to "...happily ever after" it will be a major accomplishment. Something in the middle will be nice too.
Ha! Even with an excuse to accomplish things I can procrastinate.
I just know I would be trying to type out 47,890 words the day before this was due...lol.
I am hoping that publicly declaring myself will spur to do it to prevent embarrassment of admitting I didn't.
But I make no guarantees, lol.
Only you, Rowan. Only you.
Oh, and everyone else doing this thing!
There are 182 people from my little college town participating. I had no idea there were that many crazy people here.
Weird, only 48 people from Lincoln so far.
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