We’re coming up on the final days of NaNoWriMo. Congrats to everyone who has hit (and passed!) 50,000 words. Jennerosity has sent a regional e-mail out to all our Vancouver-affiliated wrimos with words of encouragement and news of regional goings-on. The e-mail will be posted here for posterity … as soon as one of us has time.

As things are coming to an end, we also want to remind participants that the TGIO parties (you heard right – there will be two) are going to be coming up, and to please RSVP to one you will be able to make it to. Jennerosity is terribly organized and already has the Thursday evening (December 1st) thread up. MysteriousAges is being a slacker, and avoiding calling restaurants. His will fall on the Saturday (December 5th) and take place around the same time as the Kickoff did. Probably.

As always, check the forums for the most up-to-date information. As November comes to an end, expect to see more extra-nano activities/information popping up on the site. Some people have been asking about writing groups, and we plan to make information available to people about it.

We are going to be starting the SkyTrain Write-in at Waterfront Station by meeting in the CP station just before 1pm, just inside the doors off Cordova Street. Look for the Starbucks, Jugo Juice and SkyTrain ticket vending machines. Alternatively, look for the ML in the terrifyingly bright Traffic-Cone Yellow shirt. He will probably be wearing a fleece over it though, so if that fails, look for the large group of people with notebooks, both electronic and lined. We will be heading down to the platform of choice just after one, so make sure you have enough time to meet with us when you set out. Track maintenance on the Expo line means that trips coming from New Westminster, Delta, Surrey and Langley may take an extra 15 minutes, so make sure you’ve accounted for it!

Our journey through the system will be played by ear and will probably last for more than 90 minutes (the duration of a ‘regular’ fare) and will probably get to each of the Expo, Millennium and Canada Lines at least once. We will be posting periodic updates of our location and car numbers to the VancoWrimo Twitter account, if you’d like to pick us up later – it might be a bit tricky though. The track maintenance in the New Westminster station area shouldn’t impact us a whole lot, since we’re not really in a hurry to get anywhere.

We were on the third floor, but because we’ve filled up the room last time to bursting, we have been moved for this Thursday to better accommodate the masses.

Couple things to tell you about. PDAs that were included in the goodie bags kickoff attendees recieved are now available for download from the website at this page.  I’ve also found a nice graphical… THING for everyone to see how our regional Word War team is doing against New Zealand. So far, it’s been a close race. You can access it directly at http://www.vancowrimo.ca/wordwar/

Regional e-mail went out earlier today. A copypasta of it follows, with a little formatting sauce.

To everyone whose word count is steadily climbing, we have this to say: Congratulations on making it this far! You have come farther than many people who talk about writing books or stories “one day.” The difference? Your day has come. You started. The other ‘one day novelists’ will always be talking about what they will do. In a few short days, you will be talking about what you have done. That’s something to write home about. Don’t worry if you are a bit (or a lot) behind on your word count. Keep at it, writing as much as you can handle every day. You’ll be thankful you did.

Jennerosity and I would like to thank everyone who came out to the Kickoff, despite the last-minute restaurant hiccups. We had just about 70 people come out to party with us, about three times as many people as 2008. I was also VERY surprised by the number of people who turned up for our first write-in at the Vancouver Public Library central branch. We completely filled up the room we had. The community programs librarian was also surprised; so much that she’s trying to find us a bigger room for the next ones! Wow!
If you weren’t at kickoff, or you find that the supplied scene and character outlines or the plot point checklist aren’t enough, we’ve made a PDF of the entire collection available on the VancoWrimo site: http://www.vancowrimo.ca/?page_id=102 You are free to download them and print off as many as you need.

As we prepare to enter Week Two, know that the forums and IRC channel are buzzing with people ready to cheerlead if you find your enthusiasm ebbing. It’s a tough week ahead but if we pull together, we’ll get out of it and into the verdant fields that are Week Three.

See you at the Write-ins or online!

–MysteriousAges

I’ve also tweaked the site a bit. There are now pages for all our Official Events, and if you mouse over the items in our header menu, you will see, thanks to the magic of CSS, a drop-down menu! (Note: It looks HORRIBLE and doesn’t work well in IE6. I can’t guarantee 7 will be any better because I don’t have access to it. IE8 is fine, and so is any other browser apparently. Even works on the iPhone!) More pages will be appearing as we get them ready. I’m still on the hunt for an IRC server that will allow a web client to connect multiple times and allow a rather fast-talkin’ bot, ThereAreSomeWhoCallMeTim. If worst comes to worst, I’ll just host the thing myself again.

Kickoff is a great way to meet up with other participants from the area before the pressure of cranking out words gets in the way of socialization. (but don’t worry, because we also have weekly Sunday meetups at Blenz downtown, on Granville and Dunsmuir in Pacific Centre.) We will also be giving out some NaNoWriMo goodies and novelling tools. There’s also going to be food, fun and games. We’ll try to be finished by around 4pm, since some people tend to have plans for the evening of the 31st.

We’re also having a Pre-Nano Mixer on Sunday, October 18th from 1pm to 4pm at the same location as our usual Sunday meetups – the Blenz in Pacific Centre. Its across the street from the Granville SkyTrain station, and a dry walk through the shopping mall from the Vancouver City Centre station on the Canada Line. It’s a fairly small location, and we usually take over an area just behind the till, visible from the street entrance. Chances are if you show up between the start and end times and see a group of people talking loudly and making a nusiance of themselves, you’ve found us.

Hope to see you at the Mixer and Kickoff!

The NaNoWriMo Wordle reminded me about this blog post about using Wordle as a writing tool.  Basically, the author put in her entire manuscript and used it as a visual representation of her novel.  She could clearly see what words might be over-used and which characters were taking key roles in her work.  She also did Wordles at different points in the revision of her work so she could see how her novel was transforming.

For those of us tackling NaNoWriMo we probably won’t have enough time to play with this during November, since we’ll be busy enough frantically writing.   But this might be an interesting way to ‘see’ your work after the month is over – either as a comemoration of your victory and the mad fun that you had, or as a way to get started on revising and editing during the cold winter months that follow.

-Jennerosity

• Location: The Old Spaghetti Factory in New Westminster (link goes to the map). It is right by the New Westminster skytrain station.
• Time & Date: Saturday, October 31st, starting at 1:00 pm. We figured this would be early enough so that people could still make it back in time for Hallowe’en plans

PLEASE RSVP BY OCTOBER 29TH! So I can let the fine folks at the Spaghetti Factory know our final numbers and they can be all set up for us. I’ve tentatively set up the reservation for 40 ppl and they are ok with a group that size. If there’s even greater interest, we’ll have to see what their maximum capacity is. I’ve revised the reservation up to 60 to 65 and confirmed that they’ve handled groups even larger than that, so keep the RSVPs coming until Thursday!

The menu is pretty reasonably priced and you do get a pretty good amount of food for your money. (Link goes to .pdf file). I’ve already discussed it with them and they have no problem doing individual bills for a group that large and won’t be calculating minimum tips or anything like that. Even with the reasonable prices, I know that there might still be a few people who are on a really tight budget and don’t want to have to buy a meal out. If this describes you but you still really are dying to come and join in all the fun (and really, who isn’t?), then send me an email or tweet, and I’ll see what we can do to accommodate you.

If you want to come along AND invite a friend/parent/sibling, etc. that’s totally ok, just please let us know the numbers in advance. Also, just to let you know, we’re preparing goodie bags for NaNoWriMo participants. Guests of participants can come and enjoy the fun, but won’t be getting a goodie bag.

I think that covers all the major points. If you have questions, please feel free to ask!  Hope to see lots of you there!

[Edit: I'm sensing some server slowness so I'm backing up the RSVP list here.  If possible, RSVP at the forums, but if they happen to be down, you can email or leave a comment here with your response as well RSVP list has been finalized.]

YES

• Jennerosity
• MysteriousAges
• pwinkle
• SheaKoshan
• TrueNorth & guest
• hvipond
• highnez
• Calvynne
• Sue___B
• abulia
• GwendolynIV
• Fojee
• fuseikaku
• paper_megami
• Flamebyrd & husband
• elenya
• fearjude
• ShirtNinja
• helmax
• Aranthii
• jodiferous & iMonk
• Lady Kabe
• aemberline
• cynicalsarah
• raexrae
• Madison1964
• TheNighthawk
• SarahC
• witchling
• bdiffley
• Sharpied Story & Mom
• sar_sunshine
• JenGets
• TheWeeJenny
• dcbj & husband
• Hwesta
• rattyfleef
• Bluesander & guest
• lil_water
• rilwyn
• janra
• ReikoOhashi & ChihiroOhashi
• Cilo
• Shamera
• Menchi
• Xore
• Witness101 & guest
• demanda
• Veronica Vanpelt
• Elandarex
• thedhaliance
• raiinbowfiiz & guest
• AnderWriter
• Tweetyiscool29
• reneethewriter
• Nolo
• MissCorene
• chandri
• Swamp_Dancer1
• Carolinenano & other nano
• zachlynn
• mandrolinath
• txr13
• itmustbecarly
• martlet & parent
• fishiesinthesky & guest
• Ezekiel

-MysteriousAges