NaNoWriMo 2018

Ongoing language-learning challenges, and team challenge logs (but not individual logs)
User avatar
Ani
Brown Belt
Posts: 1433
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:58 am
Location: Alaska
Languages: English (N), speaks French, Russian & Icelandic (beginner)
x 3840
Contact:

Re: NaNoWriMo 2018

Postby Ani » Fri Nov 02, 2018 4:20 am

I wrote less than 50 words. I realized I need to decide if I'm actually going to write using the passé simple. I thought I would just.. not. But since I'm writing sort of a fairy tale, everything looks wrong without it.

Also, I can't actually touch type in French. I almost exclusively use my cell phone. I really don't think I can write a short story on my phone. I can't decide which is the lazier option -- learning to touch type or trying to write the whole thing with a swipe keyboard.
3 x
But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

User avatar
arthaey
Brown Belt
Posts: 1080
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:11 pm
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
Languages: :
EN (native);
ES (adv receptive, int productive);
FR (false beginner);
DE (lapsed beg);
ASL (lapsed beg);
HU (tourist)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3864&view=unread#unread
x 1675
Contact:

Re: NaNoWriMo 2018

Postby arthaey » Fri Nov 02, 2018 5:18 am

(NOTE: If anyone besides me and Elenia wants their NaNo progress bars added to the first message of this thread, let me know your NaNoWriMo username and I'll do the rest.)



I only got 4 hours of sleep last night, due to going to the local midnight kickoff party and then getting up early enough to spend time at a cafe before work in the morning. But between that and writing during my bus commute (bluetooth keyboard with cellphone hidden in my pocket for the weirdo win!) … I have written an astonishing 2,004 words over the last 24 hours. :D

For those keeping track at home, this actually means that my writing speed in Spanish is fast enough that I actually could go for the "normal" 50k NaNo goal. TBH, this boggles my own mind.

My words per minute was pretty consistently in the 10-13 wpm range, which is somewhere between 30 minutes and 2.5 hours per day for me, depending on whether I'm aiming for my "official" 10k goal or the "stretch" 50k goal...

Happily, I stole rdearman's plot bunnies and ran with them; they've ended up important and well-integrated into my story idea. So thank you! ;)

Regardless of whether I like my story by the end of the month, this much Spanish practice has got to be good for me. ;)



rdearman wrote:I managed 460 words of my story in French. It was amazingly difficult and took over an hour.

Congrats on writing 460 words of French! Are you looking anything up as you write? What in particular are you finding difficult?

James.A. wrote:I managed to 646 words which is just below my daily goal of 733 words. I will write some more tomorrow for compensation. It was difficult but not as difficult as I initially had imagined. Of course the story is horrible. I plotted something some days ago, but I decided early this morning that the idea was too good to waste, so I will try to plot the story as I go. Stephen King writes like that, I will try it. I'm not aesthetically satisfied by the result, but it's not horrible I guess.

That's great that you got so close to your daily goal! I totally hear you on it not being as hard as you expected.

And yeah, it's a NaNo story, of course the story isn't at its best. But if you get this first (very) rough draft down on paper (virtual or otherwise), then it's out of your head as some "perfect" yet-to-be-done creation and now it's something you can either choose to invest time improving, or else you can set that particular idea aside as something you gave a fair try but didn't stand up to scrutiny.

All the while, you've gotten practice writing and/or TL time. :)

James.A. wrote:For the time being, I will post my work on the multilingual room. Every criticism is welcome!
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =18&t=9358

Wow, you are way braver than I am!! I'm not willing to show anyone my unfinished drafts of anything even in English. But you're going to have a much better opportunity to learn than I am, so I'm happy for you. :)

Do you think you'll pay a tutor to go over it at the end of the month? Or nah?

Ani wrote:I wrote less than 50 words. I realized I need to decide if I'm actually going to write using the passé simple. I thought I would just.. not. But since I'm writing sort of a fairy tale, everything looks wrong without it.

Oof, I'm sorry to hear that the start has been so challenging for you. ¡Ánimo! as they say in Spanish.

What do you find challenging about the passé simple? (I'm only a false beginner in French, so I don't know my past tenses at all. Sorry if this is a silly question.)

Ani wrote:Also, I can't actually touch type in French. I almost exclusively use my cell phone. I really don't think I can write a short story on my phone. I can't decide which is the lazier option -- learning to touch type or trying to write the whole thing with a swipe keyboard.

Haha, I hear ya. It's funny how dependent/accustomed we can get to the tools we use, eh?

AndyMeg wrote:I think I may try to write the prequel of a fantasy story or maybe a completely new story (I'm not sure yet). I'll try to write the whole thing in english

Elenia wrote:I think I've figured out what I want from this NaNo. I'll be cheating. Min five thousand more words spread across four existing projects, one of which is in Swedish.

picklelanguage wrote:I'm considering doing this with a much shorter goal (5k - 10k). Kind of sad that Lang-8 went kaput cause I would have loved to post my daily progress on the site.

RachelMeier wrote:I was thinking of doing my Nano in Korean this year! Working title is 후광: 부산귀담 (Afterglow: A Busan Ghost Story).

How go all your writings? Don't despair if you didn't get to it — there are still 29 days in November! No big deal! :)



lavengro wrote:In the finest tradition of imaginary and nonexistent novels, it will surely be written in Tlön, an imaginary language. Though as that language lacks nouns, the climatic courtroom scene where the parties break into fisticuffs will undoubtedly be a somewhat disappointing read (though still smacking of genius).

As for you, lavengro, I assume your current word count is the square root of -1? ;)
3 x
Posts in: FrenchGermanHungarianSpanish
NaNoWriMo: 10,000 words
Corrections welcome in any language; I prefer an informal register.

User avatar
James.A.
White Belt
Posts: 45
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2018 10:01 pm
Languages: Greek (N), English (C1), French (C1), Russian (A2), Spanish (intermediate), Swedish (beginner), German (beginner-intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=14273
x 111

Re: NaNoWriMo 2018

Postby James.A. » Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:32 am

Ani wrote:I realized I need to decide if I'm actually going to write using the passé simple. I thought I would just.. not. But since I'm writing sort of a fairy tale, everything looks wrong without it.


Yeah... You're right. Passé simple would be much more appropriate for a fairy tale. But on the other hand, writing it in passé composé will help you much more with language production in everyday circumstances. I love fairy tales! I think I will write one today as part of my "novel"! It's about a girl that turns into a doll! :D

arthaey wrote:I only got 4 hours of sleep last night, due to going to the local midnight kickoff party and then getting up early enough to spend time at a cafe before work in the morning. But between that and writing during my bus commute (bluetooth keyboard with cellphone hidden in my pocket for the weirdo win!) … I have written an astonishing 2,004 words over the last 24 hours. :D


Oh, 2000 words in the bus after only 4 hours of sleep! That's marvelous! You should do the whole 50000 words NaNo! Go for it!

arthaey wrote:That's great that you got so close to your daily goal! I totally hear you on it not being as hard as you expected.


It should have been closer actually. Next week I will have a lot of work, so I should take advantage of these few days that I am relatively free. Anyway, I'll manage I guess!

arthaey wrote:
James.A. wrote:For the time being, I will post my work on the multilingual room. Every criticism is welcome!
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =18&t=9358

Wow, you are way braver than I am!! I'm not willing to show anyone my unfinished drafts of anything even in English. But you're going to have a much better opportunity to learn than I am, so I'm happy for you. :)

Do you think you'll pay a tutor to go over it at the end of the month? Or nah?


Me neither when I write in Greek because my Greek texts will get published at some point when they are finished, so people WILL enjoy them when I decide that they are good enough. But now, writing in English, nobody is going to read them even if I try to improve them later. But I don't like to write for myself. I need my texts to be read. So I write for you guys! The one or two that will decide to read it (even though I think that after reading the work of the first day nobody will read the next piece! Lol :P ) And of course people's advices are the most important think. I just read an advice/suggestion from zjones that made me see the situation as I had never seen it for myself. It is marvelous having instant feedback.

I might hire a tutor to check it, if not all of it, at least the second half. I believe that the first days I will be doing a lot of stupid mistakes that will not be present in the second half, as I hope to become better. I will hire someone if I find out that I like writing in English as much as I like writing in Greek. If I do like it, then the only way to become efficient in writing in English is to have someone tell me my mistakes.
2 x
Super Challenge: Spanish
9000 minutes (films/audiobooks) : 9000 / 9000 (100/100)
5000 pages (books) : 5000 / 5000 (100/100)

User avatar
Ani
Brown Belt
Posts: 1433
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:58 am
Location: Alaska
Languages: English (N), speaks French, Russian & Icelandic (beginner)
x 3840
Contact:

Re: NaNoWriMo 2018

Postby Ani » Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:22 pm

arthaey wrote:
Ani wrote:I wrote less than 50 words. I realized I need to decide if I'm actually going to write using the passé simple. I thought I would just.. not. But since I'm writing sort of a fairy tale, everything looks wrong without it.

Oof, I'm sorry to hear that the start has been so challenging for you. ¡Ánimo! as they say in Spanish.

What do you find challenging about the passé simple? (I'm only a false beginner in French, so I don't know my past tenses at all. Sorry if this is a silly question.)

Ani wrote:Also, I can't actually touch type in French. I almost exclusively use my cell phone. I really don't think I can write a short story on my phone. I can't decide which is the lazier option -- learning to touch type or trying to write the whole thing with a swipe keyboard.

Haha, I hear ya. It's funny how dependent/accustomed we can get to the tools we use, eh?


It's not that the passé simple is difficult, it's just that, because it's a literary tense, it's not one I have practice with writing & using myself. A notecard cheat sheet would be sufficient, but it feels both weird to write & weird to *not* see when reading over my work -- so it's awkward no matter what I do :) I think really there's no choice but to use it. First time for everything :)
2 x
But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23127
Contact:

Re: NaNoWriMo 2018

Postby rdearman » Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:40 pm

I did only a couple of hundred words today, because my French friend was doing corrections on the Google Docs where I write it! It was good because I could see her corrections as she was editing it. I have booked some time on Sunday to go through all the corrections and try to identify patterns I need to fix.

arthaey wrote:Congrats on writing 460 words of French! Are you looking anything up as you write? What in particular are you finding difficult?

Sadly I look everything up! One of the major problems I'm having is that although I can say the word, I don't necessarily know how it is spelt. So this is a lot of time wasted searching for the translation of the English word to find out how the French word (which I already know) is spelt. French definitely isn't spelled like it sounds! So for me the biggest problem (while writing) is the spelling of words and it would appear the bigest problem afterwards is normally using the wrong tense. I appear to be better (not good, just better) at personal pronouns than I was the last time I attempted to write in French.

I'm doing writing sessions, one French the other English. I did 1660 words in English is just over 30 minutes and the 460 words in French took almost 2 hours. BTW, I cheat and use voice-to-text in English. I have a free app on Android called "Voice Notebook" which I use to dictate while walking my dog. You have to speak very slow and correct, but it works. On the desktop I have Dragon Speaking so I can talk much faster. So day one of Nanowrimo took an hour and a bit using the Voice Notebook app for English, but today with Dragon it was only 30 odd minutes.

The voice notebook supports any language Google does, so I did think about trying to use if for the French (since I can say it but not spell it) but figured it was better for me to do it the hard way for the practice.

I'm writing what is supposed to be a comedy in French, and my French friend said it made her laugh a couple of times (and not just because of the errors) so that is encouraging. :)
5 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
zjones
Green Belt
Posts: 483
Joined: Mon Apr 16, 2018 6:22 pm
Location: USA
Languages: English (N), French (B1-certified), Spanish and Greek (abandoned)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9860
x 1404

Re: NaNoWriMo 2018

Postby zjones » Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:58 pm

Ani wrote:It's not that the passé simple is difficult, it's just that, because it's a literary tense, it's not one I have practice with writing & using myself. A notecard cheat sheet would be sufficient, but it feels both weird to write & weird to *not* see when reading over my work -- so it's awkward no matter what I do :) I think really there's no choice but to use it. First time for everything :)


It's neat that you're using the passé simple for your fairy tale, and I imagine that you'll get used to it if you use it enough. I prefer the passé simple when I am reading a story, because it helps the story move along clearly and swiftly.
0 x

User avatar
zjones
Green Belt
Posts: 483
Joined: Mon Apr 16, 2018 6:22 pm
Location: USA
Languages: English (N), French (B1-certified), Spanish and Greek (abandoned)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9860
x 1404

Re: NaNoWriMo 2018

Postby zjones » Fri Nov 02, 2018 9:04 pm

Ani wrote:Also, I can't actually touch type in French. I almost exclusively use my cell phone. I really don't think I can write a short story on my phone. I can't decide which is the lazier option -- learning to touch type or trying to write the whole thing with a swipe keyboard.


Are you referring to using the French keyboard, or just writing in French with the American keyboard?

If you are referring to the latter, then you might want to memorize some easy shortcuts for accents (or just long press any vowel on a Mac), or turn on the French spell-check on your computer. I've found that having spell-check helps me when I forget an accent or have to spell a word containing 8,000 vowels.
0 x

User avatar
Ani
Brown Belt
Posts: 1433
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:58 am
Location: Alaska
Languages: English (N), speaks French, Russian & Icelandic (beginner)
x 3840
Contact:

Re: NaNoWriMo 2018

Postby Ani » Sat Nov 03, 2018 12:00 am

zjones wrote:
Ani wrote:Also, I can't actually touch type in French. I almost exclusively use my cell phone. I really don't think I can write a short story on my phone. I can't decide which is the lazier option -- learning to touch type or trying to write the whole thing with a swipe keyboard.


Are you referring to using the French keyboard, or just writing in French with the American keyboard?

If you are referring to the latter, then you might want to memorize some easy shortcuts for accents (or just long press any vowel on a Mac), or turn on the French spell-check on your computer. I've found that having spell-check helps me when I forget an accent or have to spell a word containing 8,000 vowels.


Yeah I could do either. I use AZERTY on my cell phone so I was thinking I'd learn to type that. Maybe not. Really I'm feeling very lazy :) French spell check would be very helpful. I'll have to look into that. I'm just borrowing a laptop for the next couple months while I'm travelling so I'll have to see what it's already got and what I can put on it.
1 x
But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

User avatar
James.A.
White Belt
Posts: 45
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2018 10:01 pm
Languages: Greek (N), English (C1), French (C1), Russian (A2), Spanish (intermediate), Swedish (beginner), German (beginner-intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=14273
x 111

Re: NaNoWriMo 2018

Postby James.A. » Sat Nov 03, 2018 12:14 am

Ani wrote:Yeah I could do either. I use AZERTY on my cell phone so I was thinking I'd learn to type that. Maybe not. Really I'm feeling very lazy :) French spell check would be very helpful. I'll have to look into that. I'm just borrowing a laptop for the next couple months while I'm travelling so I'll have to see what it's already got and what I can put on it.


You can use the usa international keyboard layout. It is qwerty but has some hotkeys for accents etc... Actually you can write with it in every language that uses the latin alphabet. It is available on the most popular linux distributions and windows. I don't know about mac.
1 x
Super Challenge: Spanish
9000 minutes (films/audiobooks) : 9000 / 9000 (100/100)
5000 pages (books) : 5000 / 5000 (100/100)

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23127
Contact:

Re: NaNoWriMo 2018

Postby rdearman » Sat Nov 03, 2018 8:53 am

Ani wrote:
zjones wrote:
Ani wrote:Also, I can't actually touch type in French. I almost exclusively use my cell phone. I really don't think I can write a short story on my phone. I can't decide which is the lazier option -- learning to touch type or trying to write the whole thing with a swipe keyboard.


Are you referring to using the French keyboard, or just writing in French with the American keyboard?

If you are referring to the latter, then you might want to memorize some easy shortcuts for accents (or just long press any vowel on a Mac), or turn on the French spell-check on your computer. I've found that having spell-check helps me when I forget an accent or have to spell a word containing 8,000 vowels.


Yeah I could do either. I use AZERTY on my cell phone so I was thinking I'd learn to type that. Maybe not. Really I'm feeling very lazy :) French spell check would be very helpful. I'll have to look into that. I'm just borrowing a laptop for the next couple months while I'm travelling so I'll have to see what it's already got and what I can put on it.

This is why I write in Google docs. It has French support and spell checker. Just set the language to French. Plus you can access it from your phone and pc.
0 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.


Return to “Language Challenges”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests