Bonnie's NaNoWriMo* 2008

It's 2009 and time for a new blog

2009-11-08T23:26:00.002-05:00

Visit me at Bonnie's NaNoWriMo* 2009, my blog for this year. Go take a look at it ... and leave me a comment, if you are so inclined. Thanks.

NaNo '08 survey! $10 t-shirts!

2009-01-26T21:19:00.000-05:00

Dear NaNoWriMo participant,

At the close of 2008, we convened a meeting of the Great NaNoWriMo Governing Council. Humans, hobbits, elves, and coffee shop owners from throughout the land gathered together, tasked with the mighty responsibility of forging our first-ever NaNoWriMo Participant Survey.

One month of feasting, singing, and catapult-rides later, the participant survey lay forgotten. We now know that pairing elves and espresso was a bad idea, and plan to do the whole thing very differently next year.

But because we really, really want your feedback on NaNoWriMo 2008, Lindsey and I sat down and made a survey ourselves last week. It has many multiple choice questions on it! It mentions ninjas! We're very proud of it.

Would do us the immense favor of filling it out? It'll take about ten minutes. We want to know what you liked about NaNo '08 and what you think we need to improve in '09. The whole staff a nd board will be reading through the surveys, so this is a great way for your voice to be heard. The deadline for survey response is Monday, February 2. Here's the link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=h6208B_2fPhGh72AEWyn2Viw_3d_3d

We're also excited to announce that we're throwing a $10 t-shirt sale in the Office of Letters and Light store. All NaNoWriMo, Script Frenzy, and OLL t-shirts (except for this year's NaNo Winner tee/sticker combo) are just $10 from now until February 2.

Check it out! http://store.lettersandlight.org/home.php?cat=6

Thanks so much for filling out our survey! I hope you're having an adventuresome 2009!

Chris
The Office of Letters and Light

NaNoWriMo wrap-up by Chris Baty

2008-12-13T07:13:00.003-05:00

Wrestling polar bears

Dear Novelist,

Wow. We had a feeling this year's NaNo was going to be big. We just didn't realize it would be this big.

NaNoWriMo 2008 not only marked our largest turnout ever, we also had the highest percentage of winners we've seen since the year 2000, when I knew almost all 140 participants personally. Please drop by our blog and help us puzzle out the whys of this year's winning ways (or celebrate it with a Winner's shirt from our store!). Whatever magical forces were afoot this year, we collectively managed to write 1.6 billion words, demolishing last year's count by nearly 500,000,000 words.

With so much fiction produced, you might mistake National Novel Writing Month for a novel writing event. But we actually have a sneaky secondary mission that extends beyond books...and into your job.

(If you're still in school, please print this email out, seal it in an envelope, and read it on your first day at work.)

Okay. Jobs. Having a job is one of the greatest, trickiest things you can do as an adult. Employment brings perks like challenges and growth and (sometimes) money. But the longer you work at a job, the easier it is to confuse what you are doing with what you can do.

This is true whether you're a dental hygienist, a stay-at-home parent, or Sirkka-Liisa Anttila, the Forestry Minister of Finland. Because careers tend to be all about specialization. Human beings, on the other hand, contain multitudes. Each of us has a wealth of talents spread broadly over domains both marketable and deliciously impractical. The tricky part is that we tend to develop the former at the expense of the latter. Passions become hobbies. Hobbies become something we swear we'll get back to when we have more time. Or when the kids are grown. Or when the stock market recovers.

Which means we leave unexplored many of those paths that ultimately make us feel most alive—the moments of creating, building, playing, and doing that lead to extraordinary and unexpected things.

Like writing a book.

Or, more loosely, postponing the must-dos of the real world to spend 30 days exploring an attractive, improbable dream.

Giving ourselves that time is so important. Because the world can wait. It's what the world does best, in fact. It was hanging out for 4.5 billion years before we arrived, and it'll be waiting around for another few billion after we're gone.

Our dreams, however, have much shorter shelf-lives.

If there's one thing I've learned from running NaNoWriMo, it's this: Whatever you think you are, you are more than that. You possess a fearsome array of skills and abilities, and the most satisfying of these may be completely unknown to you now. Your curiosity is a dependable guide; follow it. Put yourself in unfamiliar places. Kindle passions. Savor the raw joy of making things, and then remake the best of those things until they take someone's breath away. Wrestle bears.

Actually, skip the bear-wrestling.

But do keep trying big things, okay? Sometimes we can wait so long for a clear sign that it's time to begin, that the opportunity sails right past us.

Life is so short. Adventures beckon. Let's get packed and head out on a new one today.

I think it's time.

Chris
NaNoWriMo

Post-event pep talk from Kelley Armstrong

2008-12-02T23:33:00.002-05:00

Dear Fellow NaNo Writer,

So it’s all over. How’d you do? If you hit 50,000 words, congratulations! If you didn’t, and you gave it your best shot, congratulations! Whether you achieved the word count goal or not, you now have a brand new story. So what do you think of it?

When you reflect back on what you’ve written, you may be thrilled. You may be amazed at what you’ve produced. Or you may not... You may be disappointed. You may even feel like you’ve just wasted a month and an awesome idea. You haven’t. Trust me. I’ve been there.

I first did NaNo in 2005. I’d been hearing about it for years. By then, I was already published myself, but I thought it would be a great exercise for members of the online writing community I host on my message board. To truly support and encourage members, though, I needed to take the challenge alongside them. And I knew exactly what I wanted to write — the first draft of an idea I’d been toying with for years, that of a young adult story set in my Otherworld universe.

So I wrote that novel, called The Summoning, and this summer, The Summoning was released and made it onto the New York Times children’s best seller list. And that sounds so much more impressive if I don’t point out that the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo is not the same version that was published.

What NaNoWriMo gave me was a quick and dirty first draft, and by the end of it, I could see that my book had some good stuff ... and it had some serious problems and missed opportunities. So I put it aside for a rest period and pondered how to fix it while I worked on my next contracted novel. The manuscript underwent significant revising, reworking and, yes, rewriting, before I let my agent take it to market.

If a multi-published author can’t expect to turn out a publishable first draft during NaNoWriMo, then neither should you. Of course, you could — some people do —but what NaNoWriMo has given you is at least two things you didn’t have on November 1.

The first reward will vary. Maybe you have a first draft you can work on. Or maybe you’ve realized that your idea wasn’t as novel-worthy as you thought. Or maybe, in the course of writing this book, you got an idea for another.

The last two may not seem as rewarding as the first, but they’re equally important. If you’ve been writing for a while, you probably have stories you’ve labored on for months, even years, before realizing the idea wasn’t novel-worthy. To hit that realization in a month frees you up to start something new without lamenting all the time you put into a story that didn’t work.

The second reward is one that every NaNoWriMo participant gets: one full month of writing practice. It’s a rare writer who publishes the first book they wrote — I didn’t — so practice is invaluable. And whether you dream of getting published or not, you have just spent a month discovering and exploring the joys of storytelling.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, yes, I did hit 50,000 words this year. I just barely squeaked by with a win on Saturday, though. I can blame my near-miss on a month of book-touring and unexpectedly early edits, but I’m a full-time writer, so I really have no excuse for not hitting 50,000 words. For all of you who reached the goal words despite school or work or kids, I bow to you.

I’ll let you get back to your post-NaNo rest, right after I wish you good luck with your manuscript — this one or the next one. Because, even if you aren’t planning to edit this one, there will be a next one, right? I hope so. The world always needs more storytellers.

Kelley

Kelley Armstrong is the author of the Otherworld series. To learn more about her and her work, visit her website.

Week Four pep talk from Piers Anthony

2008-11-30T10:29:00.003-05:00

Dear Writer,

You're a fool. You know that, don't you? Because only a fool would try a stunt as crazy as this. You want to write a 50,000 word novel in one month?! Do you have sawdust in your skull? When there are so many other more useful things you could be doing, like cleaning up the house and yard, taking a correspondence course in Chinese, or contributing your time and effort to a charitable cause? Whatever is possessing you?

Consider the first card of the Tarot deck, titled The Fool. There's this young man traipsing along with a small dog at his heel, toting a bag of his worldly goods on the end of his wooden staff, carrying a flower in his other hand, gazing raptly at the sky—and about to step off a cliff, because he isn't watching his feet. A fool indeed. Does this feel familiar? It should. You're doing much the same thing. What made you ever think you could bat out a bad book like that, let alone write anything readable?

So are you going to give up this folly and focus on reality before you step off the cliff? No? Are you sure? Even though you know you are about to confirm the suspicion of your dubious relatives, several acquaintances, and fewer friends that you never are going to amount to anything more than a dank hill of beans? That you're too damned oink-headed to rise to the level of the very lowest rung of common sense?

Sigh. You're a lost soul. So there's no help for it but to join the lowly company of the other aspect of The Fool. Because the fact is, that Fool is a Dreamer, and it is Dreamers who ultimately make life worthwhile for the unimaginative rest of us. Dreamers consider the wider universe. Dreamers build cathedrals, shape fine sculptures, and yes, generate literature. Dreamers are the artists who provide our rapacious species with some faint evidence of nobility.

So maybe you won't be a successful novelist, or even a good one. At least you are trying. That, would you believe, puts you in a rarefied one percent of our kind. Maybe less than that. You aspire to something better than the normal rat race. You may not accomplish much, but it's the attitude that counts. As with mutations: 99% of them are bad and don't survive, but the 1% that are better are responsible for the evolution of species to a more fit state. You know the odds are against you, but who knows? If you don't try, you'll never be sure whether you might, just maybe, possibly, have done it. So you do have to make the effort, or be forever condemned in your own bleary eyes.

Actually, 50,000 words isn't hard. You can write “Damn!” 50,000 times. Oh, you want a readable story! That will be more of a challenge. But you know, it can be done. In my heyday, before my wife's health declined and I took over meals and chores, I routinely wrote 3,000 words a day, taking two days a week off to answer fan mail, and 60,000 words a month was par. Now I try for 1,500 and hope for 2,000. That will do it. If you write that much each day, minimum, and go over some days, you will have your quota in the month. On the 10th of the month of August, 2008, I started writing my Xanth novel Knot Gneiss, about the challenge of a boulder that turns out to be not stone but a huge petrified knot of reverse wood that terrifies anyone who approaches it. Petrified = terrified, get it? And by the 30th I had 35,000 words. That's the same pace. If I can do it in my doddering old age—I'm 74—you can do it in your relative youth.

Of course you need ideas. You can garner them from anywhere. I noticed that our daily newspaper comes in a plastic bag that is knotted. The knot's too tight to undo without a lot of effort, so I just rip it open to get at the goodies inside. It's a nuisance; I wish they'd leave it loose. But I thought, maybe there's this cute delivery girl who has a crush on me, and she ties a love -knot to let me know. Not that at my age I'd know what to do with a real live girl, but it's still a fun fantasy. Okay, there's an idea. I could use it in my fiction. Maybe even in a Pep Talk. The mundane world has provided me with an opening. It will do the same for you, if you're alert.

Here's a secret: fictive text doesn't necessary flow easily. Most of the time it's more like cutting a highway through a mountain. You just have to keep working with your pick, chipping away at the rock, making slow progress. It may not be pretty at first. Prettiness doesn't come until later, at the polishing stage, which is outside your month. You just have to get it done by brute force if necessary. So maybe your ongoing story isn't very original. That's okay, for this. Just get it done. Originality can be more in the eye of the reader than in any objective assessment.

You can make it from a standing start, even from a foolish daydream when you should have been paying attention to the Pep Talk. You will want to try for a bit more quality, of course, and maybe a spot of realism. Garner an Idea, assemble some Characters, find a suitable place to start, and turn them loose in your imagination. Now go home and start your engines!

Piers

Piers Anthony is the author of the Xanth series. You can learn more about him and his work by visiting his website.
__________

Bonnie's note: Hey, you're a little too late for some of us, as you can see here:

My ship crossed the finish line

Oh, maybe that means we aren't the ones in need of a pep talk on the last day?

My ship crossed the finish line

2008-11-30T09:49:00.007-05:00

When I got within about 127 words of reaching the goal of having a 50,000-word draft of my novel (which doesn't mean it's finished, of course), I furled the sails and waited. Then last evening I went off to our region's Big Push Write-In wearing a new t-shirt, given to me by my friend in honor of this momentous occasion. On the front of it are these words:
Careful, or you'll
end up in my novel
And there, among friends, I typed the last words needed to cross the line for NaNoWriMo's word-count goal. No, I didn't stand up and cheer and shout, but it was fun to share that time with them. Then I entered the word count in the meter at the top of my profile page, confusing the wrimo sitting next to me. Yes, it was deliberate -- because I wanted to see my word-count meter turn solid green. Then (and only then) did I put the **whole** kit and caboodle through the validator to see the meter turn gloriously purple with WINNER! across the face of it. Wanna see?

Or visit my Bookbuddybonnie profile page to read all about it.

Week Four Pep Talk From Nancy Etchemendy

2008-11-25T06:01:00.004-05:00

Hi Writers!

It is a dark and dismal day. If the birds are singing, you can't imagine why, and you wish they would stop. You've taken a walk. You've taken a nap. You've sharpened all your pencils, even though you haven't written with a pencil since first grade. You've made yourself a cup of something hot to drink, but now it's cold. It got that way while you checked your email, and then your MySpace page, and then the "Things You Never Knew Existed but You Can't Live Without Them" website. You've cut your toenails. You've even brushed the dog. And still, you can't bring yourself to open the dreaded file that contains your novel and place your fingers on the keyboard.

STOP.

You've come to the right place. The NaNoWriMo people, in their wisdom, have supplied you with a stash of pep talks. Why do you suppose they would go to so much trouble? The answer is simple: because you have a lot of company, including me. Writing a novel is hard. At some point in the process, most novelists get bogged down, and it's perfectly normal. In fact, it's to be expected.

Okay, so now you know you're not alone. That's a relief. But the task of writing your way to a finished book still looms before you like the mountains of the moon, dark with mystery, and really, really high. So high, in fact, that the voice is whispering a new fear. You might actually expire before you get there, so why not just stop now?

Simple. Because you want to be a novelist. The difference between a novelist and someone who tinkers around with writing is this: novelists finish their books.

All well and good, you say. But how? How can you finish when you're pretty sure everything you've written so far is total garbage, you have no idea where you're going, and every time you look at the thing, you desperately want to go and do something else?

First, let's look at the question of whether you're writing something that belongs in the trash can. What you're working on right now is a first draft. Moreover, you're deliberately writing it at breakneck speed, which makes it a rough first draft. It's not going to be anywhere near publishable, nor should you expect it to be. I heard or read somewhere an observation by a gifted young novelist whose name escapes me now, for which I apologize. He said that a first draft is like a chunk of marble. It's a big, formless block. Later, you'll carve away the unnecessary bits, and you'll shape what's left into something beautiful. Michelangelo's Pieta was once a shapeless block, most of which ended up as dust on his studio floor. As you write, give yourself permission to create that formless block---the necessary first draft from which a wonderful book can spring.

Second, about not knowing where you're going. This will sound counterintuitive and maybe even crazy: don't worry about it. Think of your everyday self as a lost rider on the back of a powerful black horse. The rider may be freaking out. That's understandable. It's frightening to be lost. But your everyday self is not who creates the first draft. The first draft is written by the big black horse---your subconscious mind. That horse is smart, and it knows exactly where it's going. So trust it. It will get you home. Just write. Put down whatever feels right, even if it makes no sense to you. Don't think too much about it, don't hold the reins too tight, and soon you'll see your way again.

Third, regarding the desperate wish to go and do something else. Every writer has to deal with this. When the work is not going smoothly, the world fills up with inviting distractions. The great novelist and essayist Cynthia Ozick said, "A good citizen writer will put down her pen for a noodle pudding." I'm not sure about the good citizen part, but every writer I know is tempted to put down his or her pen hundreds of times during the course of a writing day. What kind of bird is that, calling from the tree outside? Has Uncle Harvey responded to your email yet? Wouldn't you be contributing more to the world if you were cleaning a toilet or eating a tuna fish sandwich?

No, dear novelist, you wouldn't be. The bird will wait. Uncle Harvey will wait. The toilet and the tuna will wait. You have something important to say, and you are saying it. That is your contribution, without which the world would be a poorer place, and it is one that only you can make.

Now, write!

Nancy

Read all about Nancy on her website here.
_________________________

"But the task of writing your way to a finished book still looms before you like the mountains of the moon, dark with mystery, and really, really high."

Yup, like these. Located somewhere on this little round thing:

Week Four pep talk from Chris Baty

2008-11-24T05:58:00.005-05:00

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

Between my apartment and the Office of Letters and Light, there is a monster of a hill. I bike to work, and I always take a long route that steers me safely around the behemoth. I do this because I have the calf muscles of a goldfish, and because I've developed an aversion to feeling like I'm going to die first thing in the morning.

But yesterday, I summoned all my courage and headed up the mountain. My word count was—and still is—stuck in the low 30,000s, and I wanted to ride the hill to remind myself what the 40,000s in NaNoWriMo felt like. After struggling through an ordeal in which my lungs felt like twin meat-logs roasting on gyro spits, and my heart beat so fast that I feared it was going to try and make an emergency exit through my nose, I reached the top.

A day later, I'm still buzzing, and feeling more alive than I have in months. With biking, as with most forms of exercise, the best part truly comes when the ride is through. The ascent can feel miserable, but once you've made it to the top, you get that enduring glow of having pitted yourself against something bigger than yourself and triumphed.

If you've already crossed NaNoWriMo's 50,000-word line, you know that feeling of triumph intimately. As for the rest of us…In just one week, the sun will be setting on this year's NaNoWriMo. As the light of the contest starts to dim in the final days, we will likely still be out on that hill, still struggling towards 50K.

This is good. Very good. Because, as humans, we come into our own in these do-or-die moments. Deadlines mint miracles every time. Want proof? Think of all the papers we've written at 2 AM. All the projects that have been nowhere-near presentable that we've salvaged at the zero hour. Having a life as busy as yours means you have to leave some big undertakings till the very last minute; it's just how things get done.

But now NaNoWriMo's last minute has arrived. The world needs your book. It's time to make your move.

Happily, the summit of NaNoWriMo may be closer than you realize. The threshold for winning is 50K, but the climb towards it changes markedly at 35,000 words. This is the point when you've written enough of your novel that the course tilts downhill again, and you begin sailing towards the finish line.

Gravity is a wonderful thing. But even something as strong as gravity needs your help. When you finish reading this email, write 250 words. When you have a spare moment at work or school, write 250 words. While your morning coffee is brewing….you get the idea. No session is too short, and every page you write gets you one step closer to a literary achievement that will be a source of pride for years to come.

National Novel Writing Month Winner, 2008.

That's you.

That's totally you. Just one more climb and you're there.

Have an adventuresome final week, writer. I'll see you in the winner's circle.

Chris
30,019 words
______________________________

I've forgotten why it was I thought I wanted to climb NaNoWriMo hill ... or is it a mountain? Still waiting for somebody to remind me.

~~~ Bonnie
36,795 words

Week Three pep talk from Gayle Brandeis

2008-11-21T21:53:00.002-05:00

Dear NaNoWriMo writer,

The metaphor of writing-as-birth is not a new one—perhaps it may even be a bit overused—but I can’t help but think about it this month. It doesn’t matter if you’re a woman or a man; you’re pregnant with a novel—congratulations!

Of course, one month is a pretty short gestation period, but hey, that’s all the time rabbits need, and NaNo certainly requires a “no time to say hello, goodbye” White Rabbit breakneck pace.

I remember how amazing it was when I was pregnant with my kids—each day, my body had transformed into something new. This month, you have transformed, too, moving from aspiring writer to novelist, from someone who has wanted to write to someone who actually is doing the hard, juicy work of getting words onto the page. You have learned new things about the creative process, about the depths of your imagination, about the themes and images central to your subconscious life. And even if you are way behind on your word count, even if you’ve only written the first scene of your novel, you have taken a profound leap. You are a writer now. How awesome is that?!

If your experience is anything my like NaNo experiences have been, this has been a time of exhilaration and frustration, inspiration and despair (and, hopefully, big slices of pumpkin pie!) A journey from that first thrill of conception, through moments when the story feels heavy and unwieldy, to times when it kicks inside you and fills you with awe. And now the end, your due-date, is in sight—at least as far as the calendar is concerned. Now you’re not just pregnant—you’re in labor.

In fact, you’re probably at what midwives call the transition stage—the point where the contractions are coming fast and furious, and you’re almost ready to start pushing your book baby, whole, out into the world. So me people get a rush of energy of at this stage, a super human surge that propels them through the birth—a mad flurry of words, a tumbling of scenes that seem to write themselves toward their own climax. Other people, when they get to this stage, suddenly feel as if they’re going to die. As if they can’t go on. As if they don’t know why they ever wanted to have a baby/sign up for NaNoWriMo in the first place. If you can breathe through this transitional period, if you can find a way to quiet those nagging critical voices and keep moving forward, your story will ultimately find its way into the bright oxygenated air (even if it’s long after November 30th.)

See if you can use this final stretch of time to stretch yourself creatively, to try something new and playful with language, to let your characters surprise you, to let yourself surprise yourself. Never let yourself forget what a profound thing you’re doing. As Margaret Atwood says “A word after a word/after a word is power.” You have that creative force inside you. You are poised to give birth to a whole new world.

Congratulations again!
Gayle Brandeis

Gayle Brandeis is the author of Self Storage and The Book of Dead Birds. You can learn more about her and her work by visiting her website.
______________________________

This baby -- uh, I mean, this book -- wants out.

Week Three pep talk from Janet Fitch

2008-11-20T22:23:00.003-05:00

Dear Author,

It's happening. You're writing a blue streak. You're piling up the pages. You're roaring through this novel like a forest fire. Then suddenly you hit the immovable obstacle. WHAM. Ow. You're flat as a piece of typing paper, your mind as blank. Panic!

Whether you're taking a month or a year, this is always the question. What happens next?

Fiction is all about decisions. Let me give you a personal example. Working on White Oleander, I kept hitting this wall, about chapter 8. It was all going great, all the wheels in motion, and then WHAM. I just couldn't decide what to do next. I'd try this, try that, but each time I'd get stuck. The character would put her toe in and pull it out again. No, not that. Should I just bag it? Write a different book? Go to law school? Watch reruns of Hogan's Heroes? I was absolutely blocked at the crossroads.

Luckily I was seeing an amazing therapist at the time. I explained I was afraid that if I chose route 6, then I would be eliminating all the other possible routes. What if route 15 was better? Or 3 1/2 ? [Bonnie's NOTE: Or what about route 6 in a different state?] So I hedged. I couldn't commit. I was stuck. And she gave me the piece of advice which has saved my writing life over and over again, and I will give it to you, absolutely free of charge. She said, "I know it feels like you have all these options and when you make a decision, you lose a world of possibilities. But the reality is, until you make a decision, you have nothing at all."

So you have these options, but which one to go for? When in doubt, make trouble for your character. Don't let her stand on the edge of the pool, dipping her toe. Come up behind her and give her a good hard shove. That's my advice to you now. Make trouble for your character. In life we try to avoid trouble. We chew on our choices endlessly. We go to shrinks, we talk to our friends. In fiction, this is deadly. Protagonists need to screw up, act impulsively, have enemies, get into TROUBLE.

The difficulty is that we create protagonists we love. And we love them like our children. We want to protect them from harm, keep them safe, make sure they won't get hurt, or not so bad. Maybe a skinned knee. Certainly not a car wreck. But the essence of fiction writing is creating a character you love and, frankly, torturing him. You are both sadist and savior. Find the thing he loves most and take it away from him. Find the thing he fears and shove him shoulder deep into it. Find the person who is absolutely worst for him and have him delivered into that character's hands. Having him make a choice which is absolutely wrong.

You'll find the story will take on an energy of its own, like a wound-up spring, and then you'll just have to follow it, like a fox hunt, over hill, over dale.

GOOD WRITING!

Janet

Janet Fitch is the author of the Oprah Book Club selection White Oleander and more recently, Paint It Black. She regularly blogs about writing on MySpace.

Week Three pep talk from Chris Baty

2008-11-16T05:22:00.003-05:00

Dear NaNoWriMo Participant,

In the last two weeks, we've traversed dark caverns, swung through treacherous ravines, and felt the cool breezes of hope blowing across our tired, keyboard-indented brows. And now we've arrived at Week Three. The beginning of the end. The moment when our struggle tips towards victory.

There are four things to keep in mind about Week Three:

1) Word-count-wise, the 20,000s are where the dread beasties of Week Two will make their final lunge for your kneecaps. Kick them off, and use all of your sprinting skills and word-count-bolstering tricks you've learned in the last two weeks to get to 30K. If you need to have your characters sing "American Pie" in its entirety or recite some of their favorite passages from telephone books, so be it. Also, if you are writing alone, stop that. Affiliate with your local NaNoWriMo region through your My NaNoWriMo page, and then start going to write-ins. If you don't have a local NaNoWriMo group, sign in and join a Word War or three on the forums.

2) At 25K, we party. Yes, 25K falls squarely in the middle of the arid 20,000s, where vultures pick clean the bones of dawdling novelists. It may seem like a bad choice for a party location, but when you hit the halfway point of NaNoWriMo, celebration is a must. Our tech team of Russ and Sam had been working night and day on modifying your author profile to release a shower of confetti, doves, and 10,000-Euro notes when you cross the magic midway. Their work was almost completed when they were called away to fix a graph-line on someone's word-count widget.

We'll get the money and doves in place for next year. In the meantime, we'll just put together our own celebrations. Think about taking yourself and your favorite cheerleader out for dinner. Splurge on a babysitter and spend a Saturday getting a massage, or buy yourself that gadget you've always wanted (and yes, cars count as gadgets). You've outwritten most of your fellow participants and you're still going strong. Raise a glass to yourself at 25K, hero. You deserve it.

3) Know the end is near. If you are falling behind, and are thinking you might bow out and work on your novel when you're less busy, think again. You still have plenty of time to do this. With 115,000 people tackling the same crazy challenge at the exact same time, we've temporarily bent the laws of motivational physics. There's a special noveling window open now that will makes passage through your story easier now than it will be at any other time of year. Sadly, the window closes on December 1. If you're absolutely, positively sure you can't make it to 50K, reset your goal to 25K, and write towards it with everything you've got. Your adventure is not over. Your story awaits.

For those of you who are on track with your word counts, Week Three is when you should start thinking about how you're going to get a complete arc written in November. If the end of your book still feels light years away, think about abbreviating scenes, omitting chapters, and jumping ahead to the middle-end and end-end of your story. It's much, much easier to go back in December and flesh out the connecting bits you skipped than it is to write an entire ending.

4) Short-term goals make all of this goal-reaching and arc-building less daunting. In the last email we went after 15K by Monday the 10th. This time, let's do 30K by the time we go to bed on Wednesday the 19th. At that point, we'll be out of the beastie-filled 20s, and into a great new place. It's called the homestretch, and I think you're going to love it.

You can do it, writer!

Chris
NaNoWriMo

Week Two pep talk from Meg Cabot

2008-11-14T01:10:00.000-05:00

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

I know what you’re doing. You’re thinking about cheating, aren’t you?

Ha! Caught you!

Come on. One cheater knows another. You think I’ve never been there?

Maybe for some of you it’s not too late: you haven’t crossed the line ... maybe you’re just entertaining the idea of abandoning the story you’re currently working on.

Maybe you’re just thinking of taking a break to jot down a few notes about the story you just thought of -- that ultra-fresh, totally cool, sure-to-be-a-bestseller you dreamed up the other morning while you were supposed to be figuring out where you took the wrong turn on your work-in-progress.

But I’m here to let you know: That’s how it starts. The next thing you know, you’re doing character sketches. Then a little dialogue. Then whole scenes.

And then you’re through. You’ve given up on your work-in-progress entirely, and the next thing you know, you’ve started working full-time on this new story you thought up. I know only too well what comes next. The excuses. The rationalization: “So what? So I switched stories. I’ve still got a work-in-progress. It’s just not my original work-in-progress. So I’m a little behind in my word count. I’m still writing, right?”

Sure, it seems innocent enough. But the problem with doing this is that of course the new story always seems better than that old busted up, out-of-control story you’ve been working on for so long. That new story has the aura of dewy freshness to it. It’s calling to you! It’s all, “Yoo-hoo…look at me! I don’t have any plot problems and my characters are way-intriguing and some of them wear leather jackets and oh, yeah, you know that weird transition thing you’ve got going on near chapter four that you can’t figure out? I don’t have that!”

I know. It sounds good.

But how long until some other story idea comes along and twitches its enticing little characters at you, and you decide to abandon this new one for it? How many words will you have then?

Not enough for a whole book, that’s how many. And here’s the thing: If you keep doing this, you never will.

Do you think I haven’t been there? Cheating on your current work-in-progress with a new one is the oldest trick in the book! I have a plastic milk crate crammed full of stories I started and never finished because I cheated on them, t hen got so enamored of my new story, I never went back to the old one. Over and over and over again.

And that, my friends, is how you never finish a book. Take it from someone who has hundreds (maybe even a few thousand) of unfinished stories because of this phenomenon.

So stop right now! Stop using a new story idea (or whatever excuse you’ve come up with) to avoid the work you still have to do on your current work-in-progress!

Put the Shiny New Story away for later, when you’re done with your WIP! If your Shiny New Story is that good, it will still be there waiting for you.

And please…don’t end up like me, with a plastic milk crate full of half-finished stories. Think about what made you fall in love with your work-in-progress in the first place. Shower it with the attention it deserves.

And whatever you do, don’t let it end up in the Milk Crate of Shame. Think of where we’d be if all the great stories we love today ended up there, uncared for and forgotten by their authors, because they got distracted by some Shiny New Idea while they were working.

Take a deep breath. There. Feel better?

Yeah. So do I.

Now let’s get back to work.

And about the cheating ... I won’t tell if you won’t.

Meg
__________

Meg Cabot is the author of the Princess Diaries series and the soon-to-be-released Abandon. You can learn more about her and her work by visiting her website.

Week Two pep talk from Katherine Paterson

2008-11-11T17:13:00.004-05:00

Dear Friends:

At this point I feel I should just say: "Times a’wasting! Stop reading this note and get back to work." But I promised to try to cheer you on, so I’ll do my part, if you’ll promise to get right back to your novel after you’ve read it.

Yes, yes, the hardest part of writing a novel is keeping at it. Some years ago when I was totally stuck in the first draft of a novel, I was having lunch with my dear friend, the novelist Mary Lee Settle. "Oh, Mary Lee," I moaned, "this is my seventh novel and I haven’t learned a thing."

"Yes, you have," she said, fixing her eagle gaze upon my whining face, "you’ve learned that a novel can be finished."

So I went home and finished the first draft. Now you’re determined to write 50,000 words in a month. I just said to myself that I had to write two pages a day before I could do anything else. The margins could be wide and there was no requirement for quality. I just had to finish the two pages. Eventually, the log jam broke and I found myself moving forward without that iron rule.

I aim always to get to the end of the first draft even though all the time I’m telling myself that I’m writing nothing but garbage that no one on earth would ever want to read, especially me. But I tell myself that this poor little attempt, this garbage, deserves a chance. Just as our beautiful dog Annie, who was the runt of her litter, grew into the most beautiful, loving dog anyone would want, so there may be hope, even for this pitiful mess of words I’m accumulating. So I say to myself: Don’t read back too far, don’t try to start rewriting, just get to the end.

I live in Barre, Vermont which calls itself the "Granite Capital of the World." Outside our town are enormous quarries, so when I speak in local schools every child has a mental picture of a granite quarry. "You know how hard it is to get granite out of the quarry," I say. "You have to carefully score the rock and put the explosive in to make the great granite block break loose from the face of the stone. Then you have to attach the block to the chains so that the cranes can lift it slowly out of the hole and put it on the waiting truck. That’s the first draft. It’s hard, dangerous work, and when you’ve finished, all you’ve really got is a block of stone. But now you have something now to work on. Now you can take your block down to the shed to carve and polish it and turn it into something of beauty. That’s revision."

But first you’ve got to get that block of granite out of the earth, friends. You won’t have anything to make beautiful until you do that. Now go back to work. That means you too, Katherine.

Best wishes,

Katherine Paterson

Katherine is the author of Bridge to Terabithia, Jacob Have I Loved, and The Great Gilly Hopkins. You can learn more about her and her work by visiting her website.
__________

My favorite words in her pep talk are "the log jam broke and I found myself moving forward." But I also like the image of our rough draft as being "a block of stone." Yep, at this point in my writing, my novel feels like a heavy slab of granite that can never be shaped into a real story. Which one of those stones is YOUR novel?

Week Two pep talk from Chris Baty

2008-11-09T23:42:00.004-05:00

Dear NaNoWriMo author,

I am writing with excellent news.

The high-speed noveling deities have seen fit to bless us with five whole weekends in November. This hasn't happened since 2003, and the fact that we have three more weekends ahead of us pretty much guarantees that each and every one of us will coast to an easy NaNoWriMo victory. But even in cakewalk years like 2008 (ahem), it's sometimes nice to have short-term goals. So here's my idea: What if we all plan on getting at least 15,000 words by this Monday before we go to bed? That's slightly behind pace, but if we can pull it off, we'll levitate up into an important new stage of the noveling journey.

That stage is called Plot.

Week One of NaNoWriMo tends to be all about characters. Our imaginations have been leaving a lot of them on our doorsteps lately, and it’s pretty much all we can do to bring them in, give them names, and teach them the rudiments of steering their battle-yaks. Then our doorbell rings, and we're rushing off to welcome another group of newcomers to the party.

Because of this, the first week of November is largely a matter of crowd control. I love this part of NaNo, because it's hard to mess it up. This phase also contains one of the greatest moments of novel-writing—that point when characters first unstick themselves from the page and begin interacting with the world around them, revealing aspects of their lives and personalities we hadn't known were there.

This is a sweet moment in the noveling adventure, but now it's time to move on. Getting through the next week of NaNoWriMo will require we set our stories in motion by sending some winds of change howling through our characters' lives. The sooner we do this, the better. If you're stuck for story-launching ideas, consider borrowing from the menu of time-tested plot devices: deaths, firings, loves-at-first-sight, siege ladders quietly appearing against ramparts, disappearances, robberies, accidental wealth, plagues, road trips, illnesses, kidnappings, a shortage of gummi bears when there had appeared to be many gummi bears, mysterious letters, shocking discoveries, betrayal, and wiener dogs.

Any of these things will likely alter your characters' lives forever, which is tough for them but a boon for your book. Still, getting up the nerve to foist these game-changing events onto people you just met is a little daunting. It's easy to worry that you'll blow your potential-filled opening with a lame plot that takes your novel in the wrong direction.

Happily, there are no wrong directions in NaNoWriMo. The only bad plot move you can make in the next week is lingering too long at your story's crossroads, vacillating over the right path. Be bold. Plunge in.

And while you're sprinting through the second stage of your novel, know that some winds of change will likely be blowing through your own life as well. Week Two tends to be when the novelty of NaNoWriMo wears off, and the difficulties of making so many tough decisions in such a short time period add up. Enthusiasm dwindles, fatigue rises, and we begin squinting at our manuscripts, thinking, "This derivative pile of crap is my literary statement to the world?"

Everything gets better soon, trust me. You remember that jolt you felt when your characters first spoke up? Keep writing, and it will happen again. But this time, it will be your whole book rising off the page, pulsing with electricity and life. Today's tangents will become tomorrow's arcs, and unforeseen connections will tie up your loose ends in a way that will make you want to slap your head and holler at your accidental brilliance.

So turn off spell-check. Leave those ungainly sentences on the page, and let your punctuation be imperfect. And whatever you do, don't read your previous day's entire output. The next seven days are all about moving forward. Let's focus on hitting our daily word-count goals, and, before we know it, Week Two will be behind us, and the wonders of Week Three will begin.

See you on Monday at 15K!

Chris
NaNoWriMo

ML Appreciation Day! (I'm celebrating by attending a write-in)

2008-11-08T17:15:00.001-05:00

Dear magnificent MLs,

On this day of appreciation, I wanted to write a little bit about a subject you may already be very familiar with: your awesomeness.

Not only are you able to write a novel in a month (which I am realizing is a Herculean feat!), but you help others to do the same with your encouragement and the endless creative energy that you all represent. I don't know how you do it, but the point is that you DO, and you do it so well. Thank you for your tireless efforts on behalf of NaNoWriMo. Without you, this incredibly wordy and creativity-producing event wouldn't be nearly what it is today.

It has been such a pleasure to work with such a devoted, giving, and motivated group of people, and you are made all the more amazing by the fact that you do all of this as volunteers! You inspire me.

With great admiration,

Lindsey

Week One pep talk from Philip Pullman

2008-11-07T23:32:00.000-05:00

Dear NaNoWriMo author,

You've started a long journey. Congratulations on your resolution and ambition! And the first thing you need to remember is that a long journey can't be treated like a sprint. Take your time.

The second thing you need to remember is that if you want to finish this journey you've begun, you have to keep going. One of the hardest things to do with a novel is to stop writing it for a while, do something else, fulfill this engagement or that commitment or whatever, and pick it up exactly where you left it and carry on as if nothing had happened. You will have changed; the story will have drifted off course, like a sh ip when the engines stop and there's no anchor to keep it in place; when you get back on board, you have to warm the engines up, start the great bulk of the ship moving through the water again, work out your position, check the compass bearing, steer carefully to bring it back on track ... all that energy wasted on doing something that wouldn't have been necessary at all if you'd just kept going!

But once you've established a daily rhythm of work, you'll find it energising and sustaining in itself. Even when it's not going well. This is a strange thing, but I've noticed it many times: a bad day's work is a lot better than no day's work at all. At least if you've written 500 words, or 1000 words, or whatever you discover is your most comfortable daily rate of production, the words are there to work on later. And when you do visit them in a month's time, or whenever it i s, you often find that they're not so bad after all.

The question authors get asked more than any other is "Where do you get your ideas from?" And we all find a way of answering which we hope isn't arrogant or discouraging. What I usually say is "I don't know where they come from, but I know where they come to: they come to my desk, and if I'm not there, they go away again." That's just another way of emphasising the importance of regular work.

You know which page of a novel is the most difficult to write? It's page 70. The first page is easy: it's exciting, it's new, a whole world lies in front of you. The last page is easy: you've got there at last, you know what's going to happen, all you have to do is find a resonant closing sentence. But page 70 is where the misery strikes. All the initial excitement has drained away; you've begun to see all the hideous problems you've set yourself; you are horribly aware of the minute size of your own talent compared to the colossal proportions of the task you've undertaken. That's when you'll want to give up. When I hit page 70 with my very first novel, I thought: I'm never going to finish this. I'll never make it. But then stubbornness set in, and I thought: well, if I reach page 100, that'll be something. If I get there, I reckon I can make it to the end, wherever that is. And 100 is only 30 pages away, and if I write 3 pages every day, I can get there in ten days ... why don't I just try to do that? So I did. It was a terrible novel, but I finished it.

The last thing I'd say to anyo ne who wants to write a novel is not actually a piece of advice, but a question. It's this: are you a reader? Every novelist I know—every novelist I've ever heard of—is, or was, a passionate reader. I don't doubt that someone with determination and energy, but who didn't read for pleasure, who only read for information, could actually write a whole novel if they set their mind to
it and followed a few rules and guidelines; but would it be worth reading? Would it give any pleasure beyond a mechanically c alculated sort? I doubt it. Novels that last and please readers are written because the novelist is intoxicated by the delight and the endlessly renewable joy that comes from engaging with imaginary characters—with story; and that engagement always begins with reading; and if it catches you, it never lets go. Write a novel if you want to win a competition, or impress your friends, or possibly make some money—do so by all means. But if you're not a lover of stories, a passionate and devoted reader, don't expect your novel to please many readers.

On the other hand, if you do love reading, if you cannot imagine going on a journey without a book in your pocket or your bag, if you fret and fidget and become uncomfortable if you're kept away from your reading for too long, if your worst nightmare is to be marooned on a desert island without a book—then take heart: there are plenty of us like you. And if you tell a story that really engages you, we are all potential readers.

Good luck!

Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman is the award-winning author of the His Dark Materials trilogy. You can learn more about him and his work at his website.

Week One pep talk from Jonathan Stroud

2008-11-05T15:50:00.004-05:00

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

You could write a novel about the act of writing a novel. It's a heroic act. (Or so I tell myself as I sit here in my garret study, chewing my nails, scratching my nose and staring blankly at my screen. That's what this is, I say grimly: a heroic act.) Why is it so heroic? Because it fits the mythic pattern of all great legendary heroes' lives. It's the story of a mighty quest accepted, of a long journey undertaken, of insuperable obstacles overcome and finally—in your case after 30 painful days—of lasting triumph won. It would make a fine movie, apart from the scratching the nose bit—probably starring Charlton Heston. Full of dramatic highs, dreadful lows and endless tedious bits when the audience goes out to make a cup of tea. It's an epic, all right, and we're all in it together.

Here's how it works for me. At the beginning there's a kind of honeymoon period, where I'm pretty excited by the idea in my head, and the possibilities it evokes. Sure there are a zillion details to be worked out later, and plenty of things that don't yet mesh, but that's ok—we've lots of time. I write the odd fragment and chuckle over the occasional piquant joke. I do a bit of research, visit museums wearing black roll-neck sweaters, scribble ideas down on napkins in coffee houses. It's a pleasant calm before the storm.

Then things darken a little. Time is pressing. I want to get to grips with the novel, but I haven't a clue how. This is the 'phony war' period. I now apply myself seriously to work, but the trouble is that it doesn’t hold together. Scenes start promisingly but peter into nothing. Main characters turn out to have all the zest of a cardboard box abandoned in the rain. Dialogue is lousy. Description descends into wall-to-wall cliché. No fragment lasts more than two or three pages before being printed off and tossed aside. And still the real writing hasn't begun.

In fact, without a few imperatives to nail things down, it's quite possible for these first two periods to last forever. Honeymoon and phony war: one of them's breezy, the other's frustrating, but both are equally deadly to the hopes of any novel. The author might easily stay scribbling, doodling, crossing out and reworking forever. The heroic quest deteriorates into a dog chasing its tail.

That's why a deadline—like the one you're working to—is such a good idea.

With my Bartimaeus Trilogy I had a big fat fantasy novel to write each year, three years in a row. One novel a year? That's not so hard. Or so I thought. Then I figured out that what with the time taken up with editing and revising my manuscript, and then with printing and distributing it, I actually had about five or six months to get the first draft done. And it wasn't long before I was mired in the phony war period, with lots of fragments, half-ideas and wasted weeks behind me, and saw my deadline looming.

So I did exactly the same thing you're doing this November, and set myself a strict schedule of pages per week to get the first draft done. In my case this worked out at about 100 pages per month for 3-4 months. Each day I kept strict records of what I achieved; each day I tottered a little nearer my goal. Five pages per working day was my aim, and sometimes I made this easily. Other times I fell woefully short. Some days I was happy with what I got down; some days I could scarcely believe the drivel that clogged up the page. But quality was not the issue right then. Quality could wait. This wasn't the moment for genteel self-editing. This was the time when the novel had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into existence, and that meant piling up the pages.

So I did it, one page at a time, even when it was like pulling teeth or squeezing blood from a stone. I did it. And you can do it too.

This is just a first draft, after all. It doesn't have to be a perfect thing. I once met an author who claimed only to write when actively inspired. She was a fine and venerated writer, so I didn't let my jaw loll open too widely in her presence, but I didn't really buy her claim, and I still don't buy it now. If 'inspiration' is when the words just flow out, each one falling correctly on the page, I've been inspired precisely once in ten years. All the rest of the time, as I've been piecing together my seven novels, it's been a more or less painful effort. You write, you complete a draft in the time you've got, you take a rest. Then—later, when you've recovered a little—you reread and revise. And so it goes. And little by little the thing that started off as a heap of fragments, a twist of ideas trapped inside your head, begins to take on its own shape and identity, and becomes a living entity, separate from yourself.

Getting that first draft out is a horribly hard grind, but that (perversely) is where the joy of it lies. There is nothing better for me, nothing more uniquely satisfying in the whole process of making a book, than the sensation at the end of each day—good or bad, productive or unproductive—when I look over and see a little fragile stack of written pages that weren't there that morning. A few hours earlier they didn't exist. And now they do. In a strange way this is more actively thrilling than even holding my finished, printed, book in my hands. It's where the magic lies. Alchemists tried for centuries to turn base metals into gold. Every time we sit down and put words on paper, we succeed where they failed. We're conjuring something out of nothing.

So what does my advice boil down to? Sweat blood, churn out the pages, ignore the doldrums, savour the moments when the words catch fire. Good luck with your novels. Those old legendary heroes may not have sat around like us drinking cold coffee and tapping steadily at their keypads, but for them—and for us—it's the journey that's the thing. That's where the fun is.

Jonathan

Jonathan Stroud is the author of the Bartimaeus Trilogy. You can learn more about Jonathan and his work at his website.

National Back Up Your Novel Day

2008-11-04T15:28:00.008-05:00

Yesterday Chris Baty posted this on the main page of NaNoWriMo:

We like to celebrate NABUYND at least once a week in November. To take part in the festivities, don a crazy hat, then email your novel-in-progress to your favorite webmail account, save it to a flash drive, or make someone with a photographic memory read the whole thing. Then keep them out of direct sunlight until the next back-up.

It's a good idea, you know. What a disaster it would be if you had only the one copy and (heaven forbid!) someone stole your laptop, or your desktop computer died on November 29th, or everything was lost in a fire, or ... or ...

Hey, maybe these disasters are fodder for extending your NaNovel. Okay, Wrimos, I double dog dare ya to include a NaNo disaster somewhere in your novel.

double dog dare
= the ultimate of dares,
one that you cannot refuse;
to up the ante when something
dared seems especially daunting.

Thinking about my novel

2008-11-03T13:56:00.009-05:00

1. Who is the protagonist or main character? I tried to pick someone I can live with through hours and hours of writing about her life and dealing with her characteristics. She seems to have a mind of her own, however, and keeps telling me how SHE wants to do this project with me.

2. What is the most important problem in the story? It should be something vital to the protagonist and also big enough to keep readers interested and turning the pages.

3. Why does this problem need to be solved right now?

4. How will she solve her problem?

5. When the story takes place may or may not be important in your story, but it is essential in mine because my main character will time travel "In No Time at All" (my tentative title) ... somewhere. I'll have to research TWO time periods.

6. Where, the location or setting of the novel, is also important for my story. Lilli, my protagonist, will start in one place and spend time in another. I have to decide where, partly based on the "when" I choose -- past or future.

7. Before the end of the story, the protagonist will have to grow by learning something important about herself or the forces that impact her life. How will I make that happen?

8. I'll tell the story by covering these points:

self revelation
The main character will change by the end of the book, psychologically or morally, but she'll have to fight for it. Lilli will come to see herself as she really is. By facing the truth about herself, she will either be destroyed or come out of it stronger.
the protagonist's need
At the beginning of the story, she faces a problem (psychological or moral or both), but doesn't know how to solve it. Some deep-seated weakness holds her back from achieving a better or more satisfying life. What is it, and how will she overcome it before the story ends?
the protagonist's goal
This is what she desires to accomplish and what I want the readers to care about. I must be sure to show not only WHAT Lilli wants, but also WHY -- because THAT is the justification for why she does what she does in the story. To get the readers to care about Lilli (a woman in her 70s or 80s) and care whether she succeeds or fails, the goal must be something she wants intensely.
the opponent
The person who tries to keep the protagonist from reaching her goal is the other half of the story, and it's the relationship that matters most. The opponent sometimes wants the same thing as the protagonist, but Lilli's opponent is her daughter, who is trying to accomplish the same thing, but in a different way. Both women want what's best, but they don't agree on what that is. It's a late-life, mother-daughter conflict.
the plan
What will the protagonist do to overcome the opponent and reach her goal? Whatever plan of action Lilli chooses will be blocked by her daughter, sometimes unintentionally. At any rate Lilli will have to change her plan of action -- repeatedly. In other words, her mettle is tested by having to adjust and adapt to achieve her goal.
the big battle
Think of this as the final conflict which determines whose goal is reached, the main character's or her opponent's. This is where all the actions and plans converge. A happy ending means the protagonist (Lilli) gets what she wants. The questions is, Will she? I hope to show the reader the similarities between the two contenders, but also their differences and the conflict between what each of them values most. I want the outcome to be satisfying, whether the ending is happy or otherwise. For me that means my readers will close the book still thinking about the viablity of Lilli's goal versus her daughter's alternate solution to the problem.
new equilibrium
Things return to normal when the main character reaches her goal -- or realizes it can never be achieved. The protagonist will have changed, for better or for worse, as a result of going through these experiences. What we have by the end of the book is something we could call "the new normal." And nothing will ever be the same as before.

9. My outline describes each scene in a single sentence. I hope that gives me enough information to see the whole picture while I'm writing.
__________

So, did I do all of this before NaNoWriMo started? No, but I tried. And it seems like a good idea, doesn't it? Maybe next time. Maybe this year I'll just revise my outline as I go along.

Week One pep talk from Chris Baty

2008-11-01T23:22:00.001-04:00

Dear Writer,

Howdy! NaNo Program Director Chris Baty here. Welcome to the 10th NaNoWriMo! It's great to have you on board.

I'll be sending you one of these emails each week from here until the end of the event. Between my emails, you'll also get two encouraging missives from our panel of celebrity author pep talkers. This week, you'll be hearing from Jonathan Stroud and Philip Pullman.

Okay. Enough chit-chat. It's time to talk geodes.

Geodes, for the geologically disinclined, look like normal rocks on the outside. But when you cut them open, they're filled with all sorts of wonders—bubbly layers of agate, sparkly crystals, elves.

As a kid, I was obsessed with geodes. The highlight of my year was a visit to Dick's Rock Shop in Fountain, Colorado. The owner of the store, Richard Stearns, had a crate of dirty, unremarkable, tennis-ball-sized rocks in his Geode Bin. You'd spend an hour hunting through them until you'd picked out the perfect dirty, unremarkable rock.

Richard would then fire up his slab saw and cut the thing in half for you. The machine screamed and spit water to cool the blade, and it was messy and slow. Most of the time, Richard would lose a finger in the process.

That's how I remember it anyway. The details are a little fuzzy after so many years.

When he was done, Richard would present you with both halves of your geode. They'd be wet, and sometimes you'd gaze down into a glittering concavity of purple or green. Other times, you'd cry because you'd stupidly picked one of the geodes where the all the crystals were caked with a calcified layer of elf spit.

As we head into NaNoWriMo, I'm reminded of the feeling I got standing in Dick's Rock Shop, watching as that year's mystery stone revealed whatever magic it possessed. After nine NaNoWriMo novels—most of which have trended more towards elf spit than gemstones—I still get an excited stomach-flutter at the start of November. I can't help but feel giddy as I ponder questions like: Will this be the best novel I've ever written? And, secretly: Will this be the best novel ever written in the history of humankind?

Because it really could be.

Then the writing starts, and by the second sentence, two new questions have occurred to me. Namely: What am I doing? And: Could this be the worst novel ever written in the history of humankind?

And you know what? It really could be. But that's fine. Trust me on this. Don't waste your time measuring the success of your NaNo novel by the sparkle of your prose or the rock-solid genius of your plot. The books we write in November won't start out like the novels we buy in bookstores. Because the novels we buy in bookstores didn't start out like bookstore-novels either.

Nope. They started out as way-less beautiful, way-more exciting things called first drafts. These are the dinged-up cousins to final drafts, and they're packed with crazy energy and laughable tangents and embarrassing instances where a main character's name shifts six times over the course of a single chapter.

Creating this reckless, romantic, and potential-filled beast is the first step in writing a great book. It's also a fantastic workout for your imagination, and monkey-barrels of fun. There's a catch, though. Getting through a first draft will require you leave perfectionism and self-criticism at the door. Fear not: We'll keep them both safe and return them to you in December.

But in November, you are beyond criticism. Because you are doing something that few people in the world have the guts to try—you're packing a huge creative challenge into an already-hectic life. You're juggling work and home; family and friends. With all of that going on, you've signed up for NaNoWriMo. Where you've spent the last few weeks hunting through the bin of possible novel ideas, trying to pick out the perfect one. Maybe you've got yours already. Or maybe you feel like you're not quite ready.

You're ready.

It's November 1, writer.

What say we fire up the ol' slab saw and find out what's in there?

Chris
NaNoWriMo

Celebrating ten years

2008-10-28T09:05:00.000-04:00

Time travel

2008-10-08T16:07:00.006-04:00

I need help with the novel I'll be writing in November. Lilli, my protagonist, wants to time travel to the past. Nearly everyone she's told wants to know one of two things:

Why would anybody want to travel into the past?
... or ...
Wouldn't it be more interesting to go into the future?

So what reasons can anyone give for wanting to go either direction, instead of being satisfied to be here and now?

I need to know right away because Lilli thinks she's figured out what George Orwell knew and can get herself into the past without using his (or anybody else's) time machine. I don't want her to go until I find a way to go with her. After all, a character should share her thoughts with her author, don't you think?

A novel should be scene (heeheehee)

2008-10-06T16:37:00.003-04:00

Through what new scenes
and changes must we pass!
.... Joseph Addison ....
A scene is a series of actions in a single setting that take place during a continuous period of time.

Wikipedia has a list called The Purpose of a Scene. It includes these:

to advance the story
to show conflict
to introduce a character
to develop a character
to create suspense
to give information
to create atmosphere
to develop a theme

So I need to keep asking myself, "What am I trying to accomplish in this scene?"

Women in Art

2008-10-02T17:02:00.003-04:00

This is what my characters seem to be doing as I try to pin them down.

Women in Art

Play it repeatedly. Watch the eyes one time, the mouth next time. See how the hairline recedes and pushes forward. Look at the tilt of the head or the shape of the ear. Which of these women intrigues you the most?

In February I wrote I know these women! Here are some of the women I recognized immediately:

Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881, by Pierre Auguste Renoir.

Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, a portrait by Édouard Manet, dated 1872.

Everyone will recognize the Mona Lisa, but did you notice Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci?

This portrait of Venus is part of a larger painting: The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli.

Okay, your turn. Who are these women? Give the artist's name and/or a URL, if possible.

Free Book: "NaNo for the New and the Insane"

2008-10-01T00:46:00.003-04:00

Lazette Gifford, starting her eighth year as a NaNo participant, is offering a free e-book called NaNo for the New and the Insane. It's a collection that includes many tips for doing pre-NaNo work and for how to get the most out of your November writing. If you would like a copy, click on the title.

What I got out of the book (yes, I read very quickly):

Have an outline or overall plan, and then list phases (sections) of your novel on an Excel spreadsheet, a sentence or two for each phase (p. 39). Give yourself thirty things to write about in November, one for each day.

"1. Tristan in a room aboard the ship, resting, thinking about going home, feeling the world changing. It feels like traveling between realities, without any of the work (28 words)." [Only 27 unless you count the number "1" along with the sentences.]

Making character sheets can spark new story ideas (p. 48). List things like name, gender, eye color, height, weight, facial features, personality, fears, traits, profession, relationships, and goals (what she wants to achieve). If you don't need a character now, save him for next time. I'm using last year's characters in a whole different way. (I "won" last year, but the novel never pulled together.)

Decide where to begin because that's what sets the mood of the whole novel (p. 71). Consider the setting, who appears first, what actions are need up front, and who speaks first -- and why. In other words, what should the reader notice first?

When you are stumped and need a transition, throw in an obstacle for your character to overcome (p. 84). Overcoming the challenge must bring your character closer to a goal. Six types of trouble (p. 86) could be transportation, weather, people, accident, enemy, or disaster. But add words to each category, like weather could be rain, drought, or flood. Then use dice for (first) choosing a category and (next) choosing the type. (Looks like fun to me.)

I got an email this morning, which says

2008-09-23T04:30:00.000-04:00

Bookbuddybonnie, you are now an administrator for the group
United States :: Tennessee :: Chattanooga.

Letter from Chris Baty

2008-09-17T06:58:00.003-04:00

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

NaNoWriMo's 10th anniversary year is almost upon us! We have some NaNo news bits for you before the site relaunches on October 1 and another beautiful season of novel procrastination begins.

NANOWRIMO.ORG LOCKED ON SUNDAY FOR SCRUBBING
We'll be turning off new sign-ups, locking the forums, and turning off NaNoMail-sending from Sunday, September 21 until October 1 so we can archive the site and delete all forums posts. This will free up database space for the 800,000 new posts we're expecting this fall. We'll also be deleting all NaNoMails that are more than a year old. If you have any old NaNoMails that you want to keep, be sure to go in and grab 'em before Sunday.

2008 PEP TEAM IN PLACE, RARING TO GO
One of the great things about NaNoWriMo is the pep-talking you get in November. These bi-weekly emails are scientifically calibrated to make you feel so inspired and/or guilt-ravaged that you sit down and work on your novel even when you don’t want to work on your novel. This spring, we asked what authors you would like to receive pep talks from, then tabulated your responses on the NaNoWriMo blog, and sent out invitations to the 50 most-requested folks. Who answered our Invitations to Pep? You'll have to wait until the site relaunches on October 1 to find out. But we're pretty dang excited.

NANOWRIMO SITE SWEETER, MORE SERVER-Y
Thanks to donations from our 2007 participants and our summer vintage-sticker fundraising drive, you'll see some new features and improvements when the site relaunches. These include the ability to update your word count from every page of the site, a place to add a synopsis and book cover image to your author profile, and a more feature-rich NaNoMail. We've also moved your "action links" into your profile (instead of hiding them up in the masthead) and invested almost $10,000 in extra hardware and server testing to give the site as much zip as possible. We know it'll still get very slow right around November 1, but our servers are now rippling with new muscles to help them lift the load better.

Writing suggestions

2008-09-11T13:46:00.006-04:00

Someone suggested writing while listening to a playlist, letting the music suggest the emotional changes in what you're writing. Would that work for me? Not what the young fella suggested, especially in three-minute spurts like this, called writing 1: music to write to! But maybe something else?

What would be on your playlist for writing? Here's one that's a bit livlier, but there's no way I could actually WRITE while listening to this.

A toolbox for emotions?

2008-09-11T06:22:00.006-04:00

Laurie Hutzler's The Emotional Toolbox claims to do all these things:

Sharpen your vision. Strengthen your voice.
Deepen your emotional connection to your project.
Expand your creative process

Clarify the emotion. Capture the character.
Create powerfull emotional connections between characters.
Develop a strong personal bond with the audience.

Focus the story. Find the audience.
Clarify the story's central core.
Tell universal stories that resonate deeply.

How could I resist exploring her site?

The Character Map:
Use this handy map to find your way to the heart of your character. The Character Map™ provides an accurate litmus test of the audience's emotional experience in any film or television project.

The Nine Character Types:
Use this short cut to create vivid complex characters that connect instantly with your audience. The Nine Character Types helps storytellers nail the specific sets of emotional responses that define a believable character in any storyline.

The Nine Story Types:
Use this strategy to find the emotional engine that will drive your character forward with power and conviction. Think of this engine as the combined power of character motivation, character interaction and character response. The Nine Story Type generates plot and story from the character's emotional core.

I took a look at some of the articles in her email newsletter archives and was impressed by the one from July 2004 that compares The Terminal, starring Tom Hanks, with E.T.

The September 2005 article about Commander In Chief, starring Gina Davis, seems to be especially relevant during this political season. It was a series about a woman VP who moved into the highest office when the President died.

The January 2008 article contrasts two characters: the one with Power of Imagination (Barack Obama) and the one with Power of Conscience (Hillary Clinton). Neither is better than the other, she writes, but it's very interesting to study the differences in how the two see the world.

I think I may subscribe to this newsletter.

Trying to decide?

2008-09-08T02:23:00.002-04:00

You want to do NaNoWriMo yourself, see if you have it in you. But maybe it's too much. Maybe you won't have the time. Maybe you'd feel bad if you can't accomplish what you set out to do.

Mark Twain has advice for you:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Where are we now?

2008-09-06T19:33:00.005-04:00

The countdown has reached eight weeks, a mere 56 days.
Still no word about who will be Chattanooga's Municipal Liaison.
My "yearning" novel isn't where I want to go, so....
I need to come up with something else. .......... I'm in a funk.

Calendar for Chattanooga region

2008-08-31T19:38:00.007-04:00

Ellen, who has more experience with Google calendars than I do, showed me how to share the calendar in the previous post. If you want to share my NaNoWriMo 2008 calendar, send me an email: emerging dot paradigm at yahoo dot com. Please remember that these are only ideas and not set-in-stone occasions, at least not yet.

And there's a copy at the bottom of this blog page for all to see. You'll have to "manually" click to see November 2008, which is all that's there.

The complete text of Snoopy's novel

2008-08-29T16:09:00.004-04:00

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night
by Snoopy

Part I
It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out!
A door slammed. The maid screamed.
Suddenly, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon!
While millions of people were starving, the king lived
in luxury. Meanwhile, on a small farm in Kansas, a boy was
growing up.

Part II
A light snow was falling, and the little girl with the
tattered shawl had not sold a violet all day.
At that very moment, a young intern at City Hospital was
making an important discovery. The mysterious patient in
Room 213 had finally awakened. She moaned softly.
Could it be that she was the sister of the boy in Kansas
who loved the girl with the tattered shawl who was the
daughter of the maid who had escaped from the pirates?

The intern frowned.
"Stampede!" the foreman shouted, and forty thousand head
of cattle thundered down on the tiny camp. The two men
rolled on the ground grappling beneath the murderous hooves.
A left and a right. A left. Another left and right. An
uppercut to the jaw. The fight was over. And so the ranch
was saved.
The young intern sat by himself in one corner of the
coffee shop. He had learned about medicine, but more
importantly, he had learned something about life.

THE END
__________

I don't know who to credit for this "complete" version of Snoopy's novel, but I found it here. See my earlier post on Snoopy ~ my hero.

Possible events

2008-08-28T03:01:00.003-04:00

(click calendar to enlarge)
Ellen said (in the comments): "I can't read the print on this calendar even when I click to enlarge."

Bonnie's response: Sorry, Ellen. I looked everywhere and cannot find a calendar that both fits in a post and is readable. When we actually get an ML (like maybe me?), then we'll have access to a calendar on the NaNoWriMo site. Here's the link to Chattanooga's 2007 calendar:
http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=ZW1lcmdpbmcucGFyYWRpZ21AeWFob28uY29t

In the meantime, all I can suggest is that you copy this calendar, paste it into WORD, and enlarge it. Yes, it will be blurry, but this calendar is more like a reminder to me of what we could possibly do and when.

Basically I have put these things on the calendar:

* daily word goals, at 1667 words per day
* write-ins for all five Saturdays
* write-in on the final Sunday
* write-in on Turkey morning, the 27th
* word wars for Sundays
* reminders that we should celebrate milestones, like:
5,001 on the 3rd
10,002 on the 6th
15,003 on the 9th
20,004 on the 12th
25,005 on the 15th
30,006 on the 18th
35,007 on the 21st
40,008 on the 24th
45,009 on the 27th
50,010 on the 30th
(These numbers are on the word count "calendar" in the sidebar.)
* definitely celebrate the half-way mark at mid-month
* definitely celebrate at the end with a "TGIO celebration" scheduled for December 1st ... call it a PARTY ... you can see it on the enlarged calendar if you squint.

Good news! Those of us in the United States gain an hour on Sunday the 2nd when Daylight Saving Time ends.

Snoopy ~ my hero

2008-08-25T02:50:00.019-04:00

Did you notice I've added my favorite writer to the header? Yep, Snoopy's up there typing away. He's long past the opening words of his novel, penned for the July 12, 1965 strip (click to enlarge this cartoon):

You've gotta love a wordsmith who can write in difficult places, like while balancing a typewriter on top of his doghouse. Ah, yes, Snoopy's my hero. And such imagination!

He's a World War I flying ace.

He's Joe Cool, a musician.

And he dances joyfully!

He's a scoutmaster

... and a reader.

Oh, look! Snoopy has been reading my story ... and he's smiling! So you like it, Snoopy?

Schulz summed up Snoopy's character in a 1997 interview: "He has to retreat into his fanciful world in order to survive. Otherwise, he leads kind of a dull, miserable life. I don't envy dogs the lives they have to live."

P.S. Snoopy understands what it's like to be a freelance writer. If you want to read the full text of his novel, click here.

P.P.S Want to read some Peanuts strips? Click here.

Pat on the back

2008-08-18T12:13:00.002-04:00

Bet you're wondering what this picture's all about, huh? I'm getting ready for November and, since my elbow won't bend to allow me to occasionally give myself a pat on the back when I need it, I'm adding this photo to my toolbox (see sidebar).

Here's how to use this tool. Enlarge the photo so it's about the size a hand should be, print it, and tape it on the wall so it's level with your back. Then (and this is the good part) when you need or deserve a pat on the back, bump against the picture a time or two.

Yeah, I see you over there rolling your eyes! But I betcha think of this when you need that pat on the back.

Longing for the past

2008-08-17T21:59:00.007-04:00

"There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it.
There is only an eternally new now
that builds and creates itself out of the Best
as the past withdraws."
~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Jeannie emailed me this quote today. Thanks, Jeannie! It's perfect as an IMPOSSIBILITY to push against as I go ahead and bring back the past anyway. Fiction can do wonders, especially when it's speculative fiction.

11 weeks and counting

2008-08-16T00:32:00.003-04:00

I think I may have found my novel for this year, and it may be in the SF category. No, not exactly Science Fiction (SciFi), but rather Speculative Fiction. Sort of a "what if?" kind of story.

Last year I had a handful of characters and set them on the stage of my mind with no idea what they would do, though I did know a bit about their relationships with one another. This year I'm trying to do more pre-planning, as in setting up some problems to be solved or situations to transcend. Not that I know what they are yet, but I'm thinking, I'm thinking.

The story is about yearning, and I have a couple of ways to look at it:

Yearning to Learn
Learning to Yearn

Is that too cutesy? Will I be able to express these two ideas in a way that makes their rhyming a non-issue?

My protagonist is a woman, specifically, a mother. She's a yearning person, but I have to decide what she's yearning for and why she can't have it. What's the problem? Why is it important? How much does she want it? Why does she want it? How will I get into the story? How will I keep it going? Why will it matter to the reader?

Countdown 2008

2008-08-09T16:30:00.001-04:00

Today is exactly 12 weeks before the start of NaNoWriMo 2008.

12 weeks
84 days
You could ask if this isn't obsessing a bit, and you would be right. The subject is on my mind because today I responded to a distant WriMo who asked, "You said something about being an ML for the next NaNo. What is that?"

ML is short for Municipal Liaison, the person who coordinates activities and events in a particular region. If a group of writers wants to get together OFFICIALLY through NaNo, they need an ML. Until last November, people in Chattanooga were part of the STATE region, which basically meant people were too scattered to meet and have write-ins and a celebration at the end of the month (TGIO party = Thank God It's Over). Mortaine, the woman who agreed to be our very first ML, knew she would be in town during November and volunteered to take on the job of ML here ... she had been ML in Santa Cruz before, maybe several times. She would be gone by early December, leaving us without an ML, so I volunteered for 2008. She began showing me the kinds of things she did ... so that I could do it in 2008. The powers that be haven't chosen the MLs for this year and say they'll be sending out information forms soon. I don't care whether I get the job or not, but attending the write-ins was so helpful (in spite of my original skepticism) that I do hope SOMEONE takes the job. Another way of being in touch with other writers the Forums and the Regional Lounges:
The Regional Lounges of the NaNoWriMo forums are the place to meet up with co-sufferers in your area. Another thing you can do is check out the Municipal Liasions page of this site, starting October 1, 2008. If your area has a Municipal Liaison (a volunteer organizer who oversees local events and get-togethers), you can just send them an email and they'll tell you what's going on in your area.

The forums are a global gathering spot for writers to seek information, support, offer tips and assistance as they write their novels. When you sign up you're automatically a member of the forums, though you have no obligation to visit them or post there. You can learn more about what forums are all about in Cybele's Guide to the Forums.
I am, of course, most familiar with my own town, so here's an overview of what we discussed in Chattanooga and our calendar of events.