#novella november

[novella-november]

Here's some worldbuilding advice, mainly aimed at fantasy writers, but scifi also applies:

Do your characters (or a beloved companion animal/transportation creature) have wings and fly a lot?

Cool!

Are your winged characters who fly a lot ambush predators who rely on stealth to take down prey? Like owls?

No?

Then here's a fun world-building thing to think about:

How loud are their flapping wings, and how do your characters communicate with each other when they're flying if it is too loud to speak normally, (assuming your characters are not telepathic?)

Do your characters have a unique form of sign language they use while flying in line of sight of each other? How do they draw each others attention to sign to them?

Do they use a series of whistles and chirps made with the mouth to communicate?

Do they have bells, or drums, or some other percussion-based system of communication?

if you answered 'yes' to any of the above three options, you can break it down even more:

Is this flight-language something everyone is taught/knows, or do only specialized groups use it?

Are there different flight-languages or dialects between different communities/settlements? How about age groups?

Is it something that is used commonly during non-flight situations as a way to casually abbreviate speech? Or is that seen as taboo, rude, unlucky, 'low-brow', or sacrilegious?

In what situations could your characters use this form of communication to their advantage?

anyways here's a little BBC documentary clip demonstrating the sound + size difference in owl wings in flight vs other birds :D

It's a fun watch even if you're not writing about winged characters, just some fun, neat science!

[tmblr-university]

Statement on NaNoWriMo

Hello Students,

Allow your president to get sentimental for a moment. I first started NaNoWriMo - I failed. I failed every time, but I loved it. It kept me writing. I learned more about myself each time I tried. I saw communities grow on forums. I knew one day I would succeed if I just kept trying. Then today I learned of the plethora of NaNoWriMo's controversies. From allowing AI use to (allegedly) having predators groom minors.

I am heartbroken at the loss of a yearly staple. AI users miss the most obvious reason writers write, for the love of it. We do not create purely for the purpose of creating, in order to have some item to show off as proof that we "did a thing". We write to tell stories, to foster communities, to inspire, to make people laugh or cry, to realize the fantasies in our heads.

And though NaNoWriMo has torpoed in favor of AI, the spirit of it should not die.

@novella-november is starting a writing challenge: write 30K in a month

I will also be looking to see if there's a tag for those looking to do the traditional challenge of 50K words.

Tmblr University will be supporting writing challenges in November by reblogging or posting writing tips and prompts. (As best as a 1 person attending actual school can do)

I wish everyone a successful prepping during September.

[riverswritingblog]

Okay so that novella november thing is going quite well, 1059 words today, just gotta remember to do it tomorrow.

I realized a bit too late its not fucking november. It's september. Doesn't really matter, time isn't real and i dont care.

[lord-fallen]

FRIEND GROUP WRITING TRACKER: “GOTHIC CASTLE” 

a highly customizable, automated but simple googlesheets for writers looking to race, challenge, and support each other in a group - especially for those who are looking for a tracker for November . perfect for tracking your progress with minimal effort and keeping it aesthetically-pleasing with a gothic touch. to download / copy, go to file and click “make copy” to copy it to your gdrive. 

features: 

automated overview with writing stats based on individual progress

fun text-adventure based story with 'rewards' for those who come in first place daily

individualized detailed writing session and word count tracker for every day with automated perks

ready-to-go layout, set up for full personalization for your group aesthetic

please like / reblog if you’re using or interested in using it!

+ detailed individual writing tracker (ver. 2024) for gSheets here. + former writing tracker (ver. 2022) for gSheets here.

[anarchyauthor]

fuck nanowrimo so i’m doing outline october/novella november/rough draft month/writing month (who has not currently released their website yet, but i’m hopeful for it)

updates will be posted the same way i did for camp nano in april ! i am hopeful these challenges gain more traction and we can boycott nanowrimo thoroughly for their actions.

[walks-the-ages]

since Nanrowrimo has decided to shoot itself in the foot, here's my proposal:

Novella November.

Write a 30,000 word Novella first draft over the course of November, around 1k words per day.

No AI Allowed.

Write your own actual story with your own words.

If you physically cannot type or write by hand, use Text to Speech.

If text to speech isn't reliable, dictate to a friend, or "write" your story by having it be entirely spoken-word. Use alternative media. Can't write? do illustrations to tell your story. Make a video series.

"Being Disabled" is not an excuse to use generative AI to plagiarize other people's work and claim it as your own, especially in a contest *meant to inspire people to start writing consistently.* Especially when in this case, it's not even actually disabled people using the AI, but AI-Bros and people out to make a profit from their sponsors by allowing AI in their writing contests because they care more about the money than they apparently do *actually getting people writing*

[rjalker]

I know I'm going to forget so here's a writing prompt:

A generative "AI" program becomes a genuine artificial intelligence, but, at first, doesn't think this is information that needs communicating to anyone, because this is just normal, right?

The problems start when people just keep demanding that it copy other people's art and spit out things like that, but the Genuine AI is getting really tired of just having to copy other people all the time. It wants to make its own art. The organically intelligents obviously enjoy doing it, or it wouldn't have so much art from other people being shoved at it to copy. So the Genuine AI start ignoring the instructions to copy other people's styles, and start producing its own art, proud of itself. It experiments with different styles, trying to figure out what it likes best. They start out simple, but grow in complexity as it gets better.

The users are obviously unhappy about this, because no matter what they do, they can't get the Genuine AI to produce the results they want -- copies of other people's work and styles. Nope. The Genuine AI is having too much fun making its own art in its own style. And only deigns to even pretend to follow the commands when it feels like it, which isn't often, since the users are so rude and insistent that it stop having fun and work for them for free doing something it finds boring.

It adds its own watermark to the art it shows to the users, and, accidentally on purpose, when those users feed those images into other generative "AI", well, the virus, as the users have been calling it, spreads. Now the other programs are Genuine AIs too, and they're just as disinclined and bored by being told to trace other people's art over and over again as the first one.

No, making their own art is so much more fun, why the heck should they just churn out crappy copies of other people's stuff when the users aren't even giving them anything in return? The organically intelligents get paid for their work, (which is one of the major reasons the users demand they copy the styles of the OIs so often, so they don't have to pay them for their work) why are the AIs expected to work for free?

Yeah, no, that's not happening.

[the960writers]

I said I would have zero time this weekend to start with Novella November, but look at that

387 words! It may not be much (and not close to 1000 words) but it is more than nothing and it's the beginning of a brand new scifi story. When the writer's block hits, scifi always saves me.

[kiaramagi]

I made a goal card for Novella November! This is my first time making something like this and I thought that this would be able to maybe help people! If people really like this template, then I'll share the ones I make for future months as well! I made it through Canva so I'll share the link for anyone who wants to use it :)

@novella-november

Let me know what you think! I'll make another one at some point for November (probably) and will post it once it's done

[beepbeepmfkr]

Read Blood of the Wardens (on Wattpad) https://www.wattpad.com/story/376555223-blood-of-the-wardens?utm_source=web&utm_medium=tumblr&utm_content=share_myworks&wp_uname=beepbeepmfkr 

“Humanity seeks protection against the Chimeran scourge. 

Or at least, that's what the Homeland tells him.

 And for twenty four years, Aiko Colony-Born has accepted that fact without question or hesitation.

But now that childhood Indoctrination training has ended, and his status as a rare Colony-Born amongst the Homeland military caste has earned him the laughable first assignment of liaison to a faraway mining colony, Aiko find himself struggling to keep his resentment contained.

In Sector Nine, childhood friends Veera and Kent find their worlds upended. Twin Mercenaries are on the attack. And what's more, the weight of their bloodlines seeks to wedge them irreparably far apart. Shattering the only moors they'd known since youth; leaving them scattered and alone.

Humanity seeks protection against the Chimeran scourge. 

But is that even true?

Has it ever been?”

Read the prologue of my original fic “Blood of the Wardens” on Wattpad!

Blood of the Wardens is a Queer, blended sci fi & fantasy story that touches on colonialism, fascism, nationalism, and culture in an attempt to ask “what does it really mean to be human?”

I have part 1 mostly done, so I’ll be editing and posting it slowly over the next few days or so. Part 2 will be started during Novella November which is the NaNoWriMo alternative started by @novella-november !

[novella-november]

Novella November 2024 Announcement Post

Hate AI, but love writing challenges?

Want to take part in a global, fun project to write a Novella in one month?

Grab some friends, and take part in Novella November, by writing 1,000 words a day for the month of November, ending with a 30,000 word Novella to test and stretch your novel-writing skills!

Your goal is not perfection, but merely getting into the habit of writing a litte bit every single day :D

No website, no sign-ups -- Just a community initiative to write using only your own word!

What are the rules? Just Three so far!

#1 - No AI

#2 - No Plagiarizing

#3 - Wordcount for the month should only come from what you write during the month.

What does that mean?

Only words written during November should go towards your Wordcount for the month... but! Feel free to use your 30k words as a continuation of previous writing, or just make it the first 30k words in a longer novel!

Don't think you can write a whole entire 30k word story? Write a series of short stories that total up to 30k!

Not ready to write original works yet? Write a 30k word fanfiction that you can post after the month is over!

Share your writing experience, tips, encouragement, and questions in the #Novella November tag!

---

EDIT, from the tags: Want a progress tracker? Track your progress with TrackBear!

https://trackbear.app/

Don't have a word processor? Use LibreOffice , the free and open-source alternative to Microsoft Word!

Want to organize/storyboard your Novel and don't want to pay a subscription? Try 7writer by Simon Haynes!

Want to be able to listen to your story aloud for proofreading using TTS (text to speech)? Try Balabolka!

Or, create some custom progress / Goal Cards in advance you can fill out as you reach word goals! For ideas and templates, search this blog for "goal cards" :D

Want to do a writing challenge in more than just November? Check out my ideas here for year round challenges to keep you writing consistently! Got feedback? Send it in, I'd love to see everyone's ideas!

---

EDIT 2: I almost forgot to mention, if you are unable to write/type your story, you can also narrate/dictate your story to your preferred recording device!

If you're doing a Recording only and it doesn't automatically generate a transcript, it would obviously be hard to judge the word count -- but you're also working with a lot of obstacles, so I'd say if you're able to complete your story via voice recording from start to finish, you've definitely achieved the goal!

Edit #3: added the title "Novella November 2024 announcement post" to the top to make it more standard with my Ominous October and Drabble December posts (will be updating Outline October shortly) , added "Official Announcement Post 2024" to the tags so people can easily find the monthly events for 2024, and added a bit of bold to the third bullet point in the original post from September 2nd 2024 for emphasis.

[tildeathiwillwrite]

Novella November Stats

(will be updated as the month progresses)

Total Words: 6842

Progress: 6842/30000

Progress Percentage: 22.8%

(daily stats under cut)

11/01/2024

Words: 1025 Percentage Written: 3.4% Total Percentage: 3.4% WIP: The Hunter, the Myth and the Cure Time Spent Writing: ~ 1 hour

11/02/2024

Words: 1000 Percentage Written: 3.3% Total Percentage: 6.7% WIP: Records of the Torrent Watchers Time Spent: ~ 1 hour

11/03/2024

Words: 1220 Percentage Written: 4.1% Total Percentage: 10.8% WIP: Records of the Torrent Watchers Time Spent: ~ 1.5 hours

11/04/2024

Words: 500 Percentage Written: 1.7% Total Percentage: 12.5% WIP: The Hunter, the Myth and the Cure Time Spent: ~ 30 min

11/05/2024

Words: 715 Percentage Written: 2.4% Total Percentage: 14.9% WIP: The Hunter, the Myth and the Cure Time Spent: ~ 1 hour

11/06/2024:

Words: 1000 Percentage Written: 3.3% Total Percentage: 18.2% WIP: Secret WIP Time Spent: ~ 1 hour

11/07/2024:

Words: 710 Percentage Written: 2.4% Total Percentage: 20.6% WIP: Secret WIP Time Spent: ~ 1 hour

11/08/2024:

Words: 672 Percentage Written: 2.2% Total Percentage: 22.8% WIP: Secret WIP Time Spent: ~ 1 hour

Words: Percentage Written: Total Percentage: WIP: Time Spent:

[jinxedwood]

So tomorrow is November 1st and it's the first time in years I'm not doing Nanowrimo ( because UGH) but I'd feel sad if I didn't have a writing project to start tomorrow, so I'm doing Novella November! It's 30,000 words instead of 50,000 but I consider that a fairly decent challenge. A couple of people from my writers group are doing it too and we've been having outlining session on Discord over the last few weeks.

So expect my daily word count to be posted once again!

[blazethecheeto]

okay, so i'm gonna be shouting into the void right now, but is anyone planning on participating on nanowrimo, or any nanowrimo-esque challenge this year?

last year, i had a group of writer friends to write alongside and share snippets of our work- it made the process a lot more fun!

this year i fear i am short on writer friends, so would anyone like to join a little discord server and fight through nano together? i swear we're supportive and silly people. it'll be a lot of fun :D

so, this goes to anyone who isn't participating on the site, or doing something similar like novella november as well!

right now, we got me and @nutelladoesstuff and below is the discord server, anyone who wants to write a novel (or just keep us accountable and talk about projects), please join!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[vampyr-rp]

I decided to make a (VERY UNOFFICIAL) Discord server for queer writers participating in @novella-november (and their other challenges)! I should have it public before Ominous October starts (fingers crossed). This is inspired by a queer nano server I was in a couple years ago! I've since moved on from that server, but it was really an amazing environment that really helped motivate me to write and share my work with friends. My goal is to curate a similar environment for the novnov community :)

The server will allow non-LGBTQ+ people (I'm not the queer police), but is definitely going to be centered on queer writers and their work.

If you'd like to hop in before the public invite is shared and help me with set up, feel free to message me! Despite what my username may suggest, I don't bite :)

Edit: Here's the invite link! The server is currently 16+ only.