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November is arrived! Here in the first few days, most of you will be writing your first chapter and building your first act. Some words of advice from successful authors: And if you're lost at how to even begin, check out this article on How to Start Your First Chapter. You have a story in your head, and it is your goal to put that story into words. The world needs your novel. Good luck! Happy noveling! * * * @Kolth, @Ganaram Inukshuk, good to hear. If you decide to join, reply with your author name and word goal.

@Valeska, Added with 25K. I suggest that you still try for 1667 words a day at first, and if you can keep that up, yes, hit the full 50K! You may just surprise yourself. And yes, you may write several pieces totaling your writing goal. Lots of short pieces makes for an excellent first NaNo (and I am going to recommend it since we started here on 10 days before November). Traditionally, the challenge is to complete one single novel, and if you love NaNoWriMo this year and come back in future years, I do highly recommend you someyear try doing a traditional 50K novel. There is nothing as satisfying as having made a single 50K+ written work yourself! As for an early start, but not counting those words, yes you can do that. BUT! If you are a planning kind of person anywhere else in life, you probably need some sort of planning process with writing too. If that's the case, please please please spend the full 10 days brainstorming - holding yourself back from actually getting to writing - and just think of ideas, settings, characters, plotline, whatever. The longer you spend holding yourself back from writing, the more ideas you will accumulate to work with. Edit: Note though that some people are discovery writers, meaning they plan out a story start, they let their writing take them where it will. Please don't take it that I'm saying "spend 10 days planning your whole story", just spend 10 days thinking about any portion of the book. Ending ideas, along-the-way ideas, quirky character interaction ideas, whatever. Just also make sure you do set aside some thinking time about the beginning, because discovery writer or no, you have to have some idea of what you are trying to write before you start writing or it's probably going to be a mess. As for idea bouncing, the easiest way to communicate ideas to other authors is by knowing their jargon, and a big portion of writer jargon is in tropes! You can learn more here: http://tvtropes.org/ Happy noveling!

nanowrimo.org November 1st - 30th. * * * Welcome to the fourth National Novel Writing Month thread hosted on the MLP Forums! In our previous years (2013, 2014, 2015), we've seen a bit of a bad trend of host inconsistency and late threads, and this year is no exception! (@Kolth, @RockinRarity, come back to us!) What is National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as "NaNoWriMo"? NaNoWriMo is a competition to write a novel between November 1st and November 30st. You think that's easy? Here's the catch: a novel is defined at being a minimum of 50,000 words. But don't let that number discourage you. Broken down into the 30 days of November, that's on average 1,667 words a day - which most people can achieve with relative ease. The tricky bit is staying consistent with writing those short bits for 30 days. That's where this thread comes in! Okay, sounds cool. So where can I sign up for this "competition"? And how do I "win"? Head over to nanowrimo.org (but then come back here when you are done). And it isn't a "competition", per se, though that's what they call it. NaNoWriMo is more of a self-challenge, You "win" the competition by meeting your goals. And anyone can win - but only those who persist will. And keep in mind that NaNoWriMo's 50K limit is not set in stone, nor is there a strict requirement to write a novel. If you think 50K is too ambitious this year, go ahead and reach for 30K, saving the full 50K goal for next year. If you don't want to write a novel but rather multiple short stories, go ahead and write a bunch of short stories that total up to your word count goal! If you've already begun on a novel and have been meaning to finish, go ahead and let this competition be your excuse to pick it up again. There is only one real rule: only the words you write in November count toward your goal. Already have a 3,500 word start? Doesn't count toward your goal. Having words written prior to the competition isn't forbidden, but your new word count must start at zero on November 1st. This challenge isn't about finishing a race by taking shortcuts; it's about finding the motivation and teamwork to accomplish! So, what is this thread for? This thread serves three main purposes: 1. To keep you, the writer, accountable. 2. To allow authors to bounce ideas off of each other 3. To help new writers find the tools and groups they need to get started! As for keeping you accountable, drop a comment below if you are participating. Include your author name and your overall goal. I'll add you to the leaderboard here, and you can see how you are comparing to other writers. Send me a pm or drop another comment anytime with your new word count, and I'll get it updated ASAP. And new writers, feel free to ask questions below! What should I write? Anything that comes to mind! If you have an idea or two that's been bouncing around for a while, give it a shot. If it's an mlp fanfic, all the better: you have a whole community of MLP nerds ready to help you expand your ideas. If you have absolutely nothing: sit down, put on some moody thinking music to get your mind meat churning, then write down quick descriptions of whatever story ideas float by. Write up a whole page or more! Don't worry, most will be awful, or at least fatally flawed. Odds are, though, at least one of them will be a good one. This process of generating thoughts is called "brainstorming" in the writing world. It's used in all stages of idea creation, and the best part is that multiple authors can brainstorm together! Ideas galore! Who else in the brony fandom is participating in NaNoWriMo? - Equestria Daily is once again hosting their National Pony Writing Month event!, headed up by Novel Idea. They will be running posts on EqD throughout November, and Novel Idea will be running a discord channel on Equestria Daily's discord server. I highly recommend any writers trying to get their work out there to check this event out! Keep in mind that this event is for MLP Fanfiction! - FIMFiction has an active NaNoWriMo Bronies group, run by Moonlit Path. The group has three levels of difficulty: 25K, 38K and 50K. At the end of the month, anyone who met their goal can post the story to the group. Again, stories posted to this group (and on the site in general) are specifically for MLP Fanfiction! - And the associated NaNoWriMo Bronies discord server: discord.gg/3pz4bc6, lead by myself and a few of the admins from the FIMFiction group. This server has general chit-chat channels, its own leaderboard, and regular novelist challenges like "writing sprints" and idea prompts for those wishing to participate. These of course will be starting in November. Though most members of the server will be writing pony fiction, it's not a strict requirement of the server. * * * Resources: Official NaNoWriMo website: https://nanowrimo.org Young Writers Program for NaNoWriMo: https://ywp.nanowrimo.org/ Scrivener NaNoWriMo Trial: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/nanowrimo.php True Novelist: https://www.truenovelist.com/ FiMFiction - the largest my little pony fanfiction platform on the internet: https://www.fimfiction.net/ * * * Leaderboard Lucas Aldebrandi - 0 out of 50,000 Valeska - 0 out of 25,000

I'm still in. It's so far away that anything could come up, but I intend to be there. Edit: btw, I changed my username Lucas Aldebrandi is martyrboy.

Glad you like it! It's your's to do with and modify as you please; I only retain rights to display and claim credit for the original.

@Maple Bat, Download: https://lucasaldebrandi.deviantart.com/art/MLPForums-Requests-Noontime-Nap-Maple-Bat-699800712

@Maple Bat, Does he have a silver streak in his hair, or was that patch supposed to be colored black?

@Venomous Download: https://lucasaldebrandi.deviantart.com/art/MLPForums-Requests-Weary-Wolf-Venomous-699674142 Hope you like it! I ended up doing something a bit different than what I was initially doing.

I will finish up Venemous' Wolf Tracks OC tomorrow, then start on Maple Bat's adorable draconequus. If I finish up Maple Bat's OC tomorrow, I'll start on yours the day after. Otherwise, Saturday. I need to get this batch of requests out of the way by Sunday evening at latest, when I will be taking off for the solar eclipse. Don't fret, though, I'll finish the next two requests a lot quicker as their backgrounds are simpler.

@Tilgoreth, Full: https://lucasaldebrandi.deviantart.com/art/MLPForums-Requests-Charm-Hunting-Tilgoreth-699090725 Cutout: https://sta.sh/0lzbpejda6b @Joystick, Yes, I got back from Baltimore this morning and after sleeping through most of the day, I've resumed requests. Oh, and I still need to figure out what to do with the detailed background in your request. I'm not the best with backgrounds, but I can get better results with vector, so I might try mixing mediums.

Yep! Sure. I will make the image 16:9 or near, but I will keep the focus in a 1:1 square so you can also crop the image for icons without losing context. Is 8000px by 4500px high enough resolution?

Yep, no problem. Also, @Venomous, @Maple Bat, @Old King Colt, I will be leaving for BronyCon Wednesday afternoon, and there is a chance I will not be done with all five requests by then. If so, I will complete the characters when I return on the 15th.

@Old King ColtYep, I will take this request, but I will need some intermediate feedback when I start working on this one. I have an image in mind that may not match up with your expectations, so I'll have to confirm the rough sketch with you later.

@AJFan89, I may have gone a bit overboard with the background... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You can download the file in full resolution here: http://lucasaldebrandi.deviantart.com/art/MLPForums-Requests-Manehattan-Mare-AJFan89-697490408 And you can download the OC without background here: http://sta.sh/0ryt3msyz4v Hope you like it! - Lucas Aldebrandi

Yep, I'll take you up on it. Laying on a branch you say? I'll have to put some thought into that pose Do you want him asleep, looking off into the distance, or something else?

Yep!

Yep, do you have a cutie mark reference?

Yep. I'll do a basic city skyline + Manehattan-y shops behind her.

(All Closed!)

Vase

Wow! I'm always astonished by good MS Paint artwork, since it's such limited software to author with. Keep up the awesome work!

Hello MLPForums! I wanted to bring your attention to a fandom that often goes forgotten. Over 350 Million Rubik's Cubes have been sold worldwide. Even if you have no clue how to solve one, odds are you have one sitting around on a shelf. The Rubik's Cube is considered the best-selling toy ever made, but just as with a certain pony toy line, the cube is not nearly as interesting as its unprecedented adult fandom. During a discussion on Discord, a brony friend of mine was surprised to find that I too enjoyed Rubik's Cubes. While I'm just a passive enthusiast, he is practicing to improve his solving speed in the hopes of jumping into competitions. I on the other hand am much more interested in getting into designing my own cubes in the upcoming year. As we talked, I began to make some parallels with the brony fandom. Both fandoms are male-dominated with a rising female interest. Both fandoms are filled with all sorts of people - creative types, gamers, intellectuals, social personalities, artists, etc. Both fandoms are driven by an insane number of conventions. Both fandoms took the whole world by surprise, upsetting long established cultural expectations. Most importantly, both fandoms are often completely misunderstood by outsiders to the fandom. More on that in a moment. The iconic table from the "If You Give a Pony A Rubik's Cube" comic series. Intrigued, I started asking around on brony forums and on Canternet IRC. How many bronies were cubers as well? To my delight, I found several of the twisty puzzle enthusiasts hiding amongst artists, musicians, and writers. Though many of the cubers that I found were coders, I was much more interested in the creative-type cubers, since it's almost expected for programmers to be knowledgeable in puzzles. The friend dug around himself and came to the same conclusion: these two fandoms are standing side by side with no bridging subcommunity. So, we made a server on Discord for that very purpose. Generically named "My Little Cubers", the server stands to be a place for brony cubers to unite, as well as a place for curious bronies to learn more about the puzzle and the incredible fandom behind it. I've left an invite link at the end of this post for those interested. "Pony Puzzle" by Axian-Art Now, back to that comparison on how both communities are misunderstood. As any brony will know, people have preconceived ideas about the show. "That show is for little girls", "Grown adults should not be collecting pastel pony toys", "Clearly, there must be something wrong with those people" and so on. That being said, people have preconceived ideas about Rubik's Cubes as well, the most harmful of which is that "the Rubik's Cube is a difficult puzzle made for smart people". Well, I've got news for you - learning to solve a Rubik's Cube is no harder than learning to navigate Facebook for the first time, or memorizing a poem. While the puzzle may require out-of-the-box thinking, that requirement can be well met with the intellect of an average 10-year-old. I would know, I was first 10 years old when I picked up a Rubik's Cube and took the time to work it out, and I'm just as average as the next man. Hundreds, if not thousands of beginner guides exist that will take you through a series of 7-steps to solving the cube, each step having one or two "algorithms" (an instructional pattern) associated with it. If you get these handful of patterns memorized and know in what order to apply them, you can solve a Rubik's cube in under two minutes with almost no mental effort. It's true that the fandom is filled with a lot of smart people. However, these people are not all the same. There are artists, seeking to express creativity through the puzzle; engineers, looking to create new derivatives of the puzzle; speedsolvers, creating and practicing longer and more complicated algorithms to cut down solving time; critics, examining and contrasting different cubes and algorithms; etc. In short, all of the diversity that the bronies love is present within this very different yet strikingly similar fandom. "B.B.M.E.F" by PsychoDikdik If you have never solved a cube, or have solved a cube but have never checked out the community behind it, I encourage you to do so. It's a fun toy, and an incredible community! And if you are interested in hanging out with a bunch of bronies who also enjoy Rubik's Cubes, check out our Discord Server "My Little Cubers": https://discord.gg/35g9Vay

Eeyup. My only major requirement of roommates is good sleep schedule, and I naturally meet all of your other requirements, so I suppose that is an affirmative on all accounts. I will PM you so we can continue conversation privately.

It's been a few months since you posted this. Are there still 3 spots open? If so, I would be interested.