Anyone else doing it? For all those confused faces: check this out. For anyone who needs some help, I've accumulated a few handy websites.

A list of other words for "said"

Anti-writer's block

Synonyms for some common words

A very detailed character chart

A website that forces you to write (And has a word count)

And, of course, Kurt Vonnegut's 8 rules for writing fiction

I'm excited.

Two of my best friends are doing it (one's writing kind of a cyberpunk/Hunter S. Thompson book, and the other's writing historical fiction about child labor and robber barons). I've always wanted to do it, but my brain lends itself better to episodic fiction rather than a substantial story that I've always thought a novel would require. Whenever I sit down to try and start one, I wind up with a bunch of three-page chapters. Anyone who can tackle it gets "mad props" (are the kids still saying that?) in my book.

What's the story that has inspired you to put pen to paper?

I wanted to thank you for the "Write or Die" link and also suggest (because of the first link) that no one should go crazy with using words other than "said."

It's easy to think "I shouldn't use that word too much!" But it's more annoying than anything if you don't use it at least 80%+ of the time. Words like "asked" or "shouted" change the tone of the character's words greatly, and that's when you really need to switch from "said." Things like "argued" or "boasted" should already be obvious by the words being said, so they're not needed.

That's not to say you should never use those last two or any other words on that list, but "said" is a perfectly fine word to use over and over again. The best part about it is that it's invisible to readers. It lets them glide through your dialogue. However, I can't think of one of my friends that doesn't get jerked out of a story when the author has gone crazy with "said" alternatives.

Anyway, I really wanted to do NaNoWriMo this year, but I procrastinated about doing planning and pre-writing/research (and I personally really need those stages) and then I decided I wasn't going to do it because I'm a bit depressed about a recent loss in my family. I'm going to do some planning months in advance for next year. No more excuses; I'm gonna do it in 2010 or else...

I'd like to but I'd need more information.

Actually, I think they're saying "it's dah bigst deep stuh hearp guhg." I've got no clue what it means, but man do I feel cool when I say it.

As a quote from my novel synopsis, "A story of a troubled teen who believes he has no redeeming qualities is left in charge of a shell of a person, to teach them about emotion, language, and nature." Am I the only one who finds it awkward to talk about something they're currently writing? And yes, I'm totally pushing for the "troubled teen" cliche. Whoo-yah.

That is true, but I more or less included it to provide people with a list. It helps me, and I figured it could help someone else as well.

Well, there's a link to the NaNo website in my original post. But basically, you write 50,000 words of a novel starting on November 1st, and ending on November 30th. If you have any other questions, check the FAQ.

In the end, I decided to tackle it and write something.

I've started yesterday and today I have 3938 words so far which isn't bad considering this is my second day, but at the same time it is pretty bad as I started 3 days late so I'm still behind where I should be.

Still, I pulled out a concept, wrote a quick outline for it and started writing. So far it's coming along nicely, although I'm sure my grammar is horrible and will need a lot of editing, heh.

I'll try for next year. Can't do it this one because my life is that busy.