I have started accumulating links to online Nano novels. This year, I'm actually checking to see if people are really posting their work. If it's password protected, has only excerpts, or there are only posts about Nano life and current word count, I'm putting them under other links.
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The following is a Nanomail I sent to all the newbies I'm mentoring* as well as my Nano buddies yesterday. I figured, why keep this to just a few, select people?
Greetings!
Holy cow, I can't believe the madness has begun. It's day one and you know what that means--putting your fingers to the keyboard and writing! Whatever the quality of your first words, don't look back. Keep on piling those words since the first part of the month is when you will be feeling the most fresh.
It's the middle of the week and I know it's not the greatest day to start a project. But write something. One word is more than zero, a paragraph more than a sentence--and by the weekend, you'll be glad that you don't have to start from scratch when several days are already gone.
Also I have a bit of a reminder. It's common sense and perhaps patently obvious to you--but I suggest that you back up your work. Every year, someone forgets to save their story and a gut-wrenching 40k or so goes poof when their computer gets fried. So make copies of your work in progress on floppies, zips, flash drives, CDs/DVDs, a different computer. E-mail copies to yourself and a trusted friend. Make copies in different file formats (doc, rtf, txt, etc.) in case one file gets corrupted. Split your novel into separate files instead of lumping them into one big file--some people do it by chapter, other people make a different file for each writing session. And if you have the time and the resources, it might even be a good idea to print out your progress as you go along so you have hard copies as well.
But that aside, may all your plot bunnies jumpstart your chapters, your characters have lengthy conversations, and the words flow like an avalanche from your mind to your fingers. I know, the preceeding sentence was extremely bad, but the sentiment remains: grab your ideas and run!
Happy writing, Sya
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*Ah, the curious art of mentoring. I might babble more about this tomorrow.
