A language learners’ forum

October is the time of year I plot about what I'll attempt for November's NaNoWriMo, the annual "write (the first draft of a) new novel in a single month" challenge.

I'm planning to be a rebel this year, with a word count goal less than the official 50,000 words… because I'm going to write in one of target languages!

Who else wants to join me? NaNo is great because of the community, so I'm hoping someone other folks will be interested in trying this audacious thing.

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Progress

Arthaey:


Elenia:


James.A.:


Participants

AUTHOR	LANGUAGE	WORKING TITLE	GENRE	GOAL	LINKS
AndyMeg	English		fantasy	10–50k	log
Ani	French		fairy tale	10k	log
Arthaey	Spanish	"Los que nos quedamos" (We Who Stayed)	fantasy	10k	plot, posts
Elenia	Swedish			20k (5k in Swedish)	log
James.A.	English			20k	log
James.A.	French			2k	log
picklelanguage	?			5–10k	log
RachelMeier	Korean	"후광: 부산귀담" (Afterglow: A Busan Ghost Story)			log
rdearman	French	"The Isle of Salt Root"	comedy adventure		log

Resources

• No Plot? No Problem, by Chris Baty. The classic book that started it all. Advice & motivation, broken down by common "emotional milestones" of writing a novel in a month. [English]
  
  
• Writing Excuses, a podcast on writing advice in its 13th season. Each episode is 15 minutes long. I always end up with good ideas after listening. [English]
  
  
• Objetivo NaNoWriMo, a YouTube playlist of 31 short videos on writing tips. [Spanish]
  
  
• Save the Cat, a book on story beats. [English]

• Pacemaker, a website for detailed tracking goals vs a schedule. Useful if you want more control than the official NaNo stats page gives you.

rdearman wrote:I've been in some off-forum discussions with people about doing NanoWriMo in a target language, but we decided to pull it back a little so it is only 25k words and we'd start today 1st Oct.

rdearman, you interested in sharing how your off-forum NaNo writing is going here on-forum too?

arthaey wrote:

rdearman wrote:I've been in some off-forum discussions with people about doing NanoWriMo in a target language, but we decided to pull it back a little so it is only 25k words and we'd start today 1st Oct.

rdearman, you interested in sharing how your off-forum NaNo writing is going here on-forum too?

I was going to quote in RD before I saw that you'd already done so.

I have 61 words of Swedish continuation story (I tried doing NaNo in Swedish two years ago. It wasn't a resounding success, but it also wasn't a massive failure, either. As in, my final word count was not significantly worse than usual)

As for my own NaNo idea this year, I have this big fantasy storyline that I'll write later in English. For November, I'm going to write a shorter story in Spanish from a side character's point of view instead.

The basic overview of the larger story: A region/ethnic group has an ability to sense blood, long-ish range. Village girl gets her some fancy city learning in exchange for being a test subject herself. Plague happens, she figures out vaccines or bloodborne pathogens or somesuch. Does she use her bloodsense + science discoveries to save folks, even if it means using her people and/or opening them to more exploitation? (Spoilers: probably yes, but you never know, IME characters surprise you when you get to writing!)

The English large-story main character leaves the village and does her adventures.

The Spanish small-story main character stays in the village. She stays when some villagers flee due to Events. She "stays" when others die. So her story is about her various decisions to "stay" in some form or another, and how that shapes her.

Working title: "Los que nos quedamos". (Spanish speakers: is that grammatically correct? Does it sound okay?)

arthaey wrote:

rdearman wrote:I've been in some off-forum discussions with people about doing NanoWriMo in a target language, but we decided to pull it back a little so it is only 25k words and we'd start today 1st Oct.

rdearman, you interested in sharing how your off-forum NaNo writing is going here on-forum too?

I don't mind sharing. At the moment it is going nowhere. I haven't written anything. However I am thinking about resurrecting the Roger the dragon story that I've posted here on the forum earlier.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. My road will be 12 meter thick solid 24 carat gold.

Elenia wrote: As in, my final word count was not significantly worse than usual)

I'm reading Michael Crichton's Voyages (ISBN: 9782221084007) at the mo. He used to write pulp spy novels in 9 days!

arthaey wrote:Working title: "Los que nos quedamos". (Spanish speakers: is that grammatically correct? Does it sound okay?)

Sí, me parece gramaticalmente correcto.

La verdad no me gusta mucho cómo suena el título en español, pero eso ya es algo subjetivo.

DaveAgain wrote:

Elenia wrote: As in, my final word count was not significantly worse than usual)

I'm reading Michael Crichton's Voyages (ISBN: 9782221084007) at the mo. He used to write pulp spy novels in 9 days!

I have finished approximately three things in my entire life. Clearly, I'm more of a Flaubert. (Except, you know, with none of the literary pretensions.)

I'm not going to be able to participate this year, but I'm currently trying to establish a hobby of being creative, so maybe next year I'll be able to give it a shot. But I'm cheering for all of you who are gonna try

lavengro wrote:I would be as angry as Zoldan the Furious, main character in my as yet unpublished yet extremely geniusy novel, "Zoldan Hires a Lawyer and Travels to Lausanne, Switzerland").

I, for one, would be excited to read the tale of an old pagan Swiss god navigating a lawsuit in modern Switzerland. So what language will your genius novel be written in?