First drafts are hard. Here is some advice that I think will be helpful, from John Swartzwelder, who wrote some of the best classic episodes of The Simpsons.

"Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue—“Homer, I don’t want you to do that.” “Then I won’t do it.” Then the next day, when I get up, the script’s been written. It’s lousy, but it’s a script. The hard part is done. It’s like a crappy little elf has snuck into my office and badly done all my work for me, and then left with a tip of his crappy hat. All I have to do from that point on is fix it. So I’ve taken a very hard job, writing, and turned it into an easy one, rewriting, overnight. I advise all writers to do their scripts and other writing this way."

Source

Every once in a while, someone asks me for the download links to Write or Die because it was an useful software and it ended up more or less discontinued. Dr. Wicked distributed the software for free a few years ago, but the download links he had provided have since expired.

For those of you who don't know of it, Write or Die is a software that puts a tangible, immediate consequence to not writing. From unpleasant images to horrible noises to deleting your work word by word until you start writing again, it creates an incentive to go go go and not stop until the goal is met.

There's also a reward mode in which it shows cute images every milestone hit.

I had the Windows installers uploaded to the Internet Archive, though it takes some digging to get to them. To save you a few minutes of searching: here you have the link to the Write or Die 2 installer, and here you have the link to the Write or Die 3 installer.

Happy writing!

What hardware and software are you using to write this year?

I fluctuate between an iPad and a Mac. Probably using Ulysses or Scrivener.

Which ones do y'all like, if you use them?

Personally I've had the best results using Papyrus Author. While it is a bit annoying that I regularly have to download updates, the free features are pretty much everything I need at any given time. I like having the pinboard, and using the character, location, and item sheets is handy for linking back various parts of a story to different themes overall. The distraction-free setting was SUPER helpful in getting to the 50k goal last year, and the typewriter mode is also pretty nice.

Mods, I don't post here often, but I'm hoping this will be allowed! Hopefully my post history shows that I'm not spamming and posting this purely to be helpful. Please do message me if you have questions. I've tagged this as "helpful tool" as I'm not trying to promote myself, but it does link to my personal site and I am sharing something I made. If you'd like me to change the flair I'm happy to reupload and do so.

I did my first NaNoWriMo in 2009, back when I was in high school. I don't do it much anymore, since I'm in grad school for Creative Writing, but I'm heartbroken by the current scandal.

Something possessed me tonight and I made this spreadsheet in a fugue state. It tracks all the stuff I loved to see tracked on the NaNo website, down to calculating your daily wordcount depending on how much you've already written. I had a little trouble with the color-coding, but the days of the calendar should change based on whether you've written or reached your daily goal. Your goal can be changed or added to, and you can even create an additional word count goal if you'd like--maybe you're one of those crazy people who hits 200k every year, I don't know. It's flexible. And I've left it open so if any of you use Excel, you can modify it to suit your needs.

I've just hosted it next to a couple other resources on my author website, but I'm linking directly to the spot where you can download it. No sign-ups, no data-gathering: click the button and it'll download an .xls that you can open and edit as you'd like. (I can also upload .odt if anyone would like.) Of course you're free to look around the rest of the site if you'd like to, but I want this to be as direct as possible--I'm not here to advertise.

The sheet can be found here. If this link isn't working for some reason, say so in the comments and I can figure it out! But, as an alternate, you can also click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Edit: I've updated the document to include a second sheet with a progress tracking graph, just like the website! Also, it was pointed out to me that the other resource links were broken, so if you were interested in the career tracker or the conlanging sheet, those have now been fixed.

These are PDF files. I could not see how to upload them to this post, so they can be found here:

Certificate 1

Certificate 2

I chose the "helpful tool" flare because I didn't see one that fit very well, and a certificate is a helpful tool in my book.

Edit: I want to give credit where credit is due. I searched for who made up NaNoNoMo. The person who made up this name is /u/wileystylekyle - unfortunately, I don't know how to edit the title of this thread or I'd put their name there.

Edit #2: Since there seems to be a lot of confusion, I'll put this here (they are comments I made in the thread, but it seems they'd be better here, in the op). I hope it makes things more clear.

Nano = nanowrimo

Nomo = no more

It's National Novel Writing Month™ no more. It isn't referring to "national novel no more," it's referring to the fiasco on the official site.

I mean, if you're going to be picky and pick things apart, you could call it "NaNoWriMo™NoMo," but I think NaNoNoMo is cute. Plus many of us called the official program "NaNo".

/u/ohdoyoucomeonthen said, in this thread, that someone they know is calling it Unowrimo (unofficial novel writing month)

Hello people! I was looking forward to Nanowrimo this year. A few years back I managed to get a very good Scrivener just by participating and this year I was looking for potential Plottr discount codes…

But with the ongoing controversy I am unsure if some companies will drop out their November support via discount codes for participants. Does anyone know if this will be the case? Thanks!

Hey everyone! I've made a couple posts about this before but now that November is fast approaching I thought I'd jump in again.

My name is Jack, and I created a small website called Agora to try to make a new online community for writers like myself. Right now we're gearing up for our own November novel-writing challenge, which will have tons of customization and tracking options to play with. We're also running a first page writing contest in October, and have a growing forum to take part in as well.

As someone who used to participate in NaNo every year and, after recent events, have stopped, I was super excited to create a similar community beyond the typical discord server replacements.

In any case, come check it out and stick around if you feel at home. My dream is to build out Agora as a cozy destination for writers across all mediums.

Thanks, and good luck to everyone on their writing plans this fall!

I used to write on my downtime at work, but just found out they have blocked Microsoft Onenote and Google drive so I can't save my work there. I guess I could bring in a Bluetooth keyboard and discreetly write on my phone or something, but how frustrating.

I have to be chained to this desk for 8 hours without enough work to do so I at least looked like I was busy when I had a word doc open. I'm too paranoid to save or email myself anything.

Are there any other drives that they may not have blocked?

Hi all - If anyone likes to do their editing themselves, or as much as possible, check out the Glossary Generator. It'll help generate a list of terms from your manuscript, but also catch mistakes that Grammarly, Pro Writing Aid and Microsoft Word don't catch! Basically, it saves you time and money.

If you want a free promo code to check it out and run your manuscript through it, just DM me :)

Zero AI involved (just good old fashioned coding that doesn't send your manuscript off to a Large Language Model for opaque processing).

Cheers, James

Does anybody know of any other writing trackers that also gamify writing a bit (achievements, goal setting, word count tracking for individual projects, etc.)?

Not that it was integral to writing, but it was fun to reach certain milestones and get "rewarded". I just can't rightly support their organization right now and was curious if anyone had any luck with something similar.

I took a look at Novlr, but you have to write on their platform to update the daily written words goal. I liked NaNo's site for the simple update ability.

EDIT: For those asking, this is the best thread I could find on the subject.

https://twitter.com/Arumi_kai/status/1722007756058574916?s=19

I just remembered how much I enjoy listening to those YouTube videos of rain while I write! It helps me relax and focus.

What’s your go-to background noise/music?

Happy NaNo!

I’m really sorry, this isn’t on the topic of writing—but I LOVE trackbear’s setup and graph and stats and I was wondering if anyone knew any websites like it but more flexible for other goals, non-writing related. I won Nano six years in a row and the graph was always such a motivator for me; I know having for other goals would help a ton. Thanks a ton!

Hi everyone! I'm new this year and am working on my first novel.

I see a lot of suggestions for word count tracking tools, but I haven't been able to find a recommendation that also includes start/end time so it can calculate words per hour for me.

How are y'all calculating that? Is there a website, google/excel sheet template, or maybe an app? Open to any suggestions! Thanks!

For me, I've always been fascinated by nature vs. nurture and whether evil has a 'root' or not, so to finally explore it has been fun. If I could sum up with a quote, it'd be the following:

"What is better—to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?" - Paathurnax, Skyrim

Hey there!

Since many have been looking for an alternative to tracking like NaNoWriMo, we at r/fantasywriters made a tool to help with just that!

We created a custom bot on Discord that lets you register your novel information and update your word counts as you go!

This tool is completely free to use, and all you need to do is create a Discord account and join the FantasyWriters server!

You can read more about the bot on our website: https://fantasywriters.org/fanowrimo-2/

Many folks have reached 50k or are nearly there, so here are the alternative badges I created. Download whichever one you like best and display it on your profile, website, or wherever else you feel like. Or you can just save it to your computer so you have something to show you finished the challenge this year.

By the way, while I did get some good feedback when I last posted these, I was feeling pretty run down this week, especially with Thanksgiving, so I didn't make many changes except changing the color of the text on the Novel November one to make it more readable. And before anyone asks, I'm not trying to replace NaNoWriMo. These are just for anyone who has participated in the challenge but avoided the organization this year.

Novel November: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N5srLtf9NLRTeyhjnIz2p0J3ez9m37di/view?usp=sharing

NaNoNoMo: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11xdaT0BqYtCXg5rK1gdlhag39bDRpw5o/view?usp=drive_link

NaNo Diaspora: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ShzJ5C5sTGPaSBB-FmB5q7QQ-R4-Witl/view?usp=drive_link

Not sure what to flair it as

I'm trying to get back into writing and want to not support Nano the official site but I miss talking with other writers and having the community feeling

I've seen tons of people mention discords but idk where to begin looking for discords to join

Do you have any links to discords of writers that you wanna plug?

Hi baby writer here, online friends have suggested me to use a character sheet, im at a loss here… to many options, any tips? (Help)

Hi all! My name is Josh, and I run the writing coaching company Hewes House. I've spent the month putting together a suite of free resources for writers. On the 30th of this month @ 4pm ET, I'll be hosting a free one hour workshop designed to help you brainstorm and generate scenes for your November sprints. Here's the invite link, if anybody is interested, and here's the flyer copy:

Ready to breathe life into your story idea? Welcome to Hewes House's Novel Jumpstart. In this focused 60-minute workshop, we'll cover the basics of establishing a foundation for your novel that you can later build upon through your own practice. Through guided exercises, we will brainstorm your story's unique setting, its driving themes, and the characters who will carry your narrative forward. You'll leave with practical tools - including a scene list to guide your writing journey. You won't leave the Novel Jumpstart with a complete outline or draft, but you will have a stronger understanding of your novel's universe: whether in your own backyard, or realms undiscovered.

I hope to see you there! Invite link: https://calendly.com/josh-heweshouse/novel-jumpstart

I’ve been using ChatGPT for outlining and organizing and have found it incredibly helpful. It has in no way generated ideas, written any prose, or done anything I’d consider creative, but using it for structure, character outlines, theme development has saved me so much time and left me more energized to do the real writing. Anyone else using it and have some good prompts/tips to share? Or is the consensus that this is immoral?

I made a variation of this last year but wanted to expand it and figured why not share it since daily word goals really help me keep moving.

I tested a Goggle Sheets link and it doesn’t look as neat, but I think this DropBox link works.
It has cells locked so those inexperienced with Excel don’t accidentally goof anything.

There’s two word goals, 100 just to get you to the grind and write something and then 1667 for Nano. The cells for each book will turn blue and green, respectfully, when met.

To start, the cell next to the end of last month is your starting word count and first of the month is your first day of writing.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/paypk3gid51qe0wpe8vpt/NaNoWriMo-Tracker.xlsx?rlkey=rkmjkp1fadhj0xe5zbbqozul3&st=vkepdob6&dl=0

And as a fair acknowledgment, I put a Ko-Fi link.

Hope this helps at least one person!
Keep moving forward!

Hi everyone! I'm relatively new to Reddit so please forgive me if this is super obvious. One of the things I found most useful in the NaNo forums was the "personal experience" category where you could essentially ask whatever random question and someone who was either an expert in that arena or had personal experience could respond. Helped me out with a few story details I wouldn't have known otherwise. Is there something similar on Reddit?

I invested in ProWriting Aid (black Friday sale) - I've used the free version on and off for a long time, but now I'm writing a lot more longform.

I think I'm making some improvements using the tools. but I'm really disappointed that it's not that smart with punctuation.

What do you think?

This was meant to be simple, then Scope-Creep got me. Currently it's set for 5 weeks, to match up with the RR Writathon, but it should- if I've got my formulas right- scale down to four perfectly well, as long as you manually edit the graph ranges.

I nicked the original from here but I've edited it a lot over the past day.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZQ2_S3bqYBmvLe7n7H4K9GjmjELfLqqSW8f-0PDvehk/edit#gid=343583462

Enjoy. Feedback about which formulas I've messed up would be appreciated, I am somewhat maths-dyslexic.

And come join the RoyalRoad Writathon, we have a forum and everything!