Sigh. Just an update: I've barely even been on fanpop since November, much less got any writing done. My daughter Lucia was born and spent most of the month in the hospital's NICU, and since then we've been trying to get into a routine. So far, no writing. I'll keep you posted.

Writing, writing, writing. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to shoot for 2000 words a day, which should get me to more than the 50,000-word goal by the end of the month, with some leeway for editing and tightening.

The problem with me (aside from real-world interruptions) is always in choosing a storyline. I have too many story ideas, and choosing one and sticking to it is a challenge.

Wow!
That's really great Harold!
I admire that you have so many ideas. I really struggle to think of story lines.

Good luck with everything! :D

Just an update: I've got 3429 words so far (out of the target 50,000, which I figure is a minimum. 50,000 is more like a novella!)

I should also point out that I am not writing the story I referred to in my original post in 2006; I've been kicking that story around for so long I've got a lot invested in it, and that's getting in the way of my actually writing it! What I'm writing this month is a new novel.

I have lots of story ideas too but I have trouble getting them down on paper
I really hope your novel goes well

Good luck! I'm trying to write a book too, but it's going pretty slow :P

I wrote a screenplay, and I'm having the feeling that writing prose would be a more satifying endeavour, so I'm adapting it to a novel. God, I hate how capricious I am.

I understand completly harold,I have the same problem with my book.To many ideas can cloud up your imagination so just write down the basic storyline on a piece of paper and come back to it when you finish your first book.

Any updates on peoples' novels? Here we are, another year past - what progress have you made? Which novel are you working to write this month?

Meh. I have trouble writing novels...I dislike writing on the same idea for so long. I lose interest in what I'm writing and just abandon it. Perhaps thats why I enjoy role playing. I like the idea of wirting shorter pieces, back and forth with someone.
That's why I admire you novel-writters. :D Go get 'em!

I'm just 13. I'm trying to write a book, not to be published just for myself and I'm getting really stuck and keep thinking i can't do this. I read so many books and lots of peoples writing on this fanspot and i think i can never be as good as this. Any ideas on how to help get me motivated and get me to believe i can actually do it?

i love to write but a whole entire book is just insanity in my mind. i'll totaly be in line to buy it hto

Lisa, you just need lots of practice. =) You're young.
Write every day. You'll improve.

The definition of a writer is someone who writes. That may sound flip, but it's really true. A writer is not someone who thinks about writing, nor someone who plans to write, nor someone who talks about writing. A writer is someone who writes...consistently and sometimes compulsively, regardless of feedback, reception, critique or review.

The first trick - and probably the most difficult - in becoming a writer is to cultivate a practice of writing every day. This may seem ridiculous to students who write for school every day, but when I say "writing every day", I mean "writing something that has not been commissioned, requested or demanded by anyone other than the author". In addition to whatever other writing one does - such as submissions on Fanpop - as a writer one must seek to write something every day. Weekdays, weekends, holidays, vacations, honeymoons, weddings, funerals...EVERY day. Without that discipline or compulsion, it's difficult to get anywhere as a writer, if one could even be called that.

Uh...bizarre. The page tells me there are already 14 replies (I vaguely remember some of them), but none are visible. Is this a bug, or have the staff implemented an expiration date for inactive threads? Hmmm.

In any case, just wanted to report that, while my original post wouldn't qualify for national novel writing month (one of the rules is that it must be something that you have not started/worked on before that month), I did participate this November (2009) and completed the goal of 50,000 words. That's a long way from a finished novel, of course: short novels are three times that long, but it still feels nice to have set the goal and accomplished it.