Tag: NaNoWriMo

Halfway through NaNoWriMo… it’s not too late to start!

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So it’s November 16, we’ve officially crossed over the halfway mark in NaNoWriMo 2019. Maybe you didn’t feel you were sufficiently prepared for NaNo when it started, or life happened and you had to put your writing on hold, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start now and still hit 50k by November 30th!

Let’s make a deal, if you can find the time, Pacemaker can show you how!

Here, I’ll prove it to you. Here are (just) 5 ways Pacemaker can get you there (fun fact: there are millions of ways to do it… we’ve done the math).

An Oscillating Plan skipping weekends?

How about Biting the Bullet with more on weekends?

Perhaps a Mountain Hike skipping weekends is more your speed?

Or let’s Mountain Hike with more on the weekends!

And who can resist a soft undulating wave?

We know that actually finding/taking/making the time to write is infinitely more challenging than plotting out a way to get there, but what Pacemaker always strives to do is to show you what’s possible, and then encourage you to make it happen!

If you like any one of the plans above, feel free to save it to your account and use it! Let’s take the second half of NaNoWriMo 2019 by storm!

Tis the Season- NaNoWriMo 2019!

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NaNoWriMo is the highlight of the year for us at Pacemaker! It’s like Pacemaker Christmas! The mood changes, we hear from users we haven’t heard from in a while, we meet new people and exchange kind words and even exchange gifts- you give us the gift of amazing feature requests, and we give you the gift of new features!

We even have our own version of ‘Christmas Decorating’. We spruce up the site, exterminate some pesky old bugs, and deck Pacemaker’s halls with exciting new features!

This NaNo season’s decorating includes a few new ways to help you feel encouraged and productive. We hope you’ll get a burst of happiness and an explosion of joy when you see what we’ve done with the place… I could tell you more but why tell you when I can show you? Just head over to the site, dust off an old plan or create a new one, and update your progress! This is just a small taste of what’s to come over our next few updates, so definitely stay tuned!

Happy NaNoWriMo 2019!

Team Plotters- Pacemaker NaNoWriMo Tournament Winners!

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nano-winner-badge

In a spectacular tour de force, Team Plotters wrote their way to Pacemaker NaNoWrimo Tournament victory! Congratulations are in order for the 33 Plotters who won NaNoWriMo by hitting their 50k targets, and in many cases flying over them!! Your profiles will be pinned with a golden Novel badge!

Congrats are also in order for each member of Team Plotters! Every single one of your words contributed to the massive final word count of over 2 MILLION words! Each Team member, therefore,  will be pinned with the Plotter badge for being on the Team with the higher overall word count, and most NaNo winners!

Although your Team did not start out ahead, and despite continuously having fewer team members, you hit your stride around week 3, after which you were unstoppable! You really exemplified the old adage, it’s not how you start that matters, it’s how you finish! And boy did you finish strong!

Pacemaker NaNoWriMo Tournament Plotter Stats.png

Honourable mention is made to Team Pantsers which held the lead for quite a while but alas, could not sustain it to the end. You started out strong, consistently had more team members but, despite ending with impressive stats all around, couldn’t regain your lead over the Plotters. For your outstanding effort, each member of Team Pantsers will be pinned with the dark blue Pantser badge for participation!

Pacemaker NaNoWriMo Tournament Pantser Stats.png

I don’t know if you can tell but at Pacemaker, we LOVE Tournaments and Group Challenges! It’s such a splended way to get to know a particular writing community, and the energy and fraternity which erupt around challenges like NaNo are palpable and contagious! We want to thank each of our Tournament participants for giving us the opportunity to host this Challenge and to jog alongside you, encouraging you, as you ran this race! NaNoWriMo is over, but a new work has just begun! You’ve got a substantial amount of words towards a new project. Follow through, keep refining it and who knows, you could someday look back on NaNoWriMo 2016 and think to yourself, “That’s when I started writing the greatest story ever written!”

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Oh, and don’t forget! You can keep the NaNoWriMo spirit going by creating a Challenge group of your very own with a Pacemaker Challenges Subscription!

New to Pacemaker Challenges- Discussion Boards!

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We’re so happy to introduce the newest member of the Pacemaker family- discussion boards! Now, as part of our paid subscription based Challenges feature, not only will you be able to create interesting Challenges for your writing groups/classrooms, but you’ll have a space where participants can talk to each other! This has been a highly requested feature and something we’ve been very eager to put to beta. It’s pretty much version 1 right now- a very simple prototype of what users have asked for, so do be gentle with us if you find some bugs here or there :).

We’re always looking at how you, our beloved users, use the Pacemaker features, and orient our updates in the direction of those which are most popular and valued. So if you love the idea of a social feature, use it! You’ll likely see it develop into something much more sophisticated and intuitive!

Now’s a good time to stop by our NaNoWriMo Tournament and drop a note. Let us know you won NaNoWriMo, or that you didn’t quite get your writing project off its feet this year. Encourage someone who is almost there to make that final push! Tell us how much you’re looking forward to Christmas or how much you’re looking forward to Christmas being over! Just say something!

We want to make a more social Pacemaker; we hope this is a step in the right direction!

nanogroup-db-2

Pacemaker NaNoWriMo Tournament- Plotters vs Pantsers

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We’re one week into NaNoWriMo and the Pacemaker NaNoWriMo Tournament!

Now, we could’ve been nice and created an Open Pacemaker Challenge Group where we encourage participants to compete only against themselves. INSTEAD, we decided to start a bit of a fire… and then fan the flame!

We’re pitting Plotters against Pantsers to see who’ll come out on top!

plotters-v-pantsers-1

Each member of the Team with the higher total word count at the end of NaNoWriMo gets a delightful new pin to proudly display on his/her profile.

( See what we did there? 🙂 )

Over the past seven days each Team has enjoyed a few moments in the top spot.

Surprisingly (at least to us) there have always been more Pantsers than Plotters BUT, the Plotters seem to be producing more words per person than the Pantsers on average. We have a sneaky suspicion that the Pantsers are playing a bit of a numbers game BUT only time will tell, it’s still very much anybody’s game!

SO! Are you a Plotter- meticulously planning out the details of your novel pre-NaNoWriMo so that you hit the ground running, map in hand, November 1st? Or are you a Pantser, literally flying into NaNoWriMo by the seat of your pants, no plan, just a wing and prayer?

Whichever way, there’s a place for you in the Pacemaker NaNoWriMo Tournament! There’s still plenty of time to join. Pick a side and make your word count, count!