See more at http://www.nanowrimo.org and visit the forum for your region:

• Ireland :: Dublin
• Ireland :: Galway
• Ireland :: Northeast
• Ireland :: Northwest
• Ireland :: Southeast
• Ireland :: Elsewhere
• Northern Ireland

Make sure you set your home region (link only works if you’re signed into the NaNoWriMo website)!

Edited to add that if you’re taking part in NaNoWriMo, you can sign up here for the word war until midnight on Friday 20th.

Some people start with a fully outlined plot, detailed character descriptions, and a beautifully built world (real or imaginary). Let’s call them plotters.

Other people start with nothing but a vague idea. We’ll call them pantsers – as in, they’re flying by the seats of the pants. (Fliers is also an acceptable term.)

Most of us fit somewhere in between. We’ve had our great idea, we’ve made some notes, we’ve had a few bright ideas about our main character and some other potentials…

You can start NaNoWriMo as any one of these three: a plotter, a pantser, or somewhere in between. But in general, those who have a clear idea of where they’re going with their novel are more likely to stay the course.

So as a minimum, try and decide on the following before the start of November – but don’t be afraid to change your mind if you need to!

• How you’re going to start.
• What a possible end might be.
• How you want your main character to change during the story.
• Whether you’re writing in first or third person, past or present tense, with a linear plot or by jumping about between scenes.

Good luck!

What’s an automatic word war bot for, you might ask. Well, it’s so you can have word wars – or as I prefer to call them, word sprints – against other writers or even just against yourself. Give the bot the command to start, and it will count down a 10 or 20 minute war for you, during which time anyone who wants to just writes non-stop.

To start a word sprint, make sure that SprintBot is listed in the chat room’s users.
Then type !wordwar# where X is 10, 15, 20 or 30, depending on how long you want the sprint to last (those are the only available options unless someone asks me for others).
Write like crazy until SprintBot tells you to stop! If you have sound switched on, you should get some beeps as well.

What’s the point of a word sprint? Well, it’s a great way to up your NaNoWriMo word count in a quick easy burst – and in company, too. Try it! You might be amazed.

• Ireland :: Dublin
• Ireland :: Galway
• Ireland :: Northeast
• Ireland :: Northwest
• Ireland :: Southeast
• Ireland :: Elsewhere
• Northern Ireland

Oh yeah – and the official forums have all been cleaned off and made shiny for this year. They’re looking good, so go and visit and update your personal information for 2009!

Ireland will be getting at least one new region this year – and hopefully more too. Plans for intra-Ireland cooperation between Municipal Liaisons have yet to be even discussed, let alone decided on, but I’ve given this website a bit of an overhaul in any case.

We’re back to using the old basic chat room from pre-2008, which frankly was a lot less bother than the fancy one I implemented last year. I’ve also re-opened registrations – without registering on the site, you can’t comment or post, although you can still use the chat.

And as for other all-Ireland things… well, I’m sure the All-Ireland Word War will be returning, although probably in a revised format.

More later, anyway, from me and hopefully other Irish MLs… As also, comments on and suggestions for the site are very welcome.

I thought I’d post here some of the tips I put in a Northern Ireland-wide mail sent yesterday.

Visit the NaNoWriMo website frequently:

• to read the FAQs (remember to read the rules thoroughly) and to get hints and tips from the people in the know
• to donate to NaNoWriMo if you can afford it; it’s a non-profit organisation and needs money to keep going, plus some funds are given to charity, and all donors get a virtual halo plus some real life goodies; if you can’t afford to donate, consider using GoodSearch as your search engine for the month, full details on the site
• to keep in touch with others in your region, or writing in the same genre; there are over a hundred thousand of us WriMos and we can all help each other out
• and most importantly, to update your word count and validate it when you’re done!

Also hang out here to take part in real-time chat and word sprints with your fellow writers in Ireland.

Write every day! Even if you don’t manage 1,667 words one day, you can always make it up the next. Keep track of your progress, so you know how much more you have to do. But pace yourself: although it’s good to get a lot done quickly so you can take it easy later, be careful not to burn yourself out too soon.

Keep your momentum going while writing. If you get stuck for a name, fill in XXX and go back later if you need to. Don’t sweat the small stuff too much; NaNoWriMo is about quantity, not quality, and it’s not going to matter at this point if you haven’t researched something thoroughly, or you think a sentence reads badly. Editing is what the other eleven months of the year are for.

Go to meet-ups as much as you can! They may seem like a waste of valuable writing time, but face-to-face contact with people in the same situation is quite good therapy, and many meet-ups will involve some writing time.

Above all, don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t write 50,000 words in a month… because you can and you will!