How Many Words was That? An Interview with Renda Dodge

Renda Dodge is a local writer, recently published novelist, liaison to the Seattle NaNoWriMo writers group and five-time NaNo champ. Recently, she took a break from churning out her sixth NaNo novel to answer a few questions for us about the event.

Joseph Lambert: How long have you been a liaison to the Seattle NaNoWriMo writing group?

Renda Dodge: I have been a municipal liaison since 2007, so this is my fourth year. I love the organization (Office of Letters and Light) and what they do for writers, especially young writers, and it’s my way of giving back. Anyone who knows me knows that September-December are sucked into the NaNo volunteer void.

JL: What was your original inspiration for participating in NaNoWriMo?

RD: In early 2005, I joined a writing group. That group wasn’t doing much for me. We’d have small assignments and put out some short stories, but I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to tackle the daunting task of writing my novel. The idea became a thing to be feared instead of something ambitious I could be excited about. I spent a lot of time in the writing reference section of Barnes and Noble, I was searching for a book that would make it all make sense. Even after years of college creative writing classes, I still hadn’t written anything longer than 4,000 words. I stumbled upon "No Plot, No Problem!" by Chris Baty. It wasn’t the title so much as the sub-title that got me "A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days." (I personally believe that no plot is a big problem, but that’s not really the point of the book.) I read it in a day (it’s really tiny), and I loved the concept of putting aside all inhibitions and writing 50,000 words in one month. Apparently, all I needed was permission. Luckily I found the book in October. My first NaNoWriMo was that November.

JL: How many years have you participated in NaNoWriMo?

RD: Every year since 2005, so this is my sixth. I didn’t "win" the first year. The goal is 50,000 words and I hit 24,000 (or so, I can’t remember the exact number any more). The thing is, I was really proud of those words. It was a lot more than I had ever written on a single story. I was giddy. The difference between my first year and the years following is that I didn’t reach out to the community. And really, the community is the reason I keep doing NaNoWriMo. Because while NaNoWriMo gave me permission to write a novel in 30 days, it also gave me the confidence to write novels outside of November. I write all the time now, as a career as a matter of fact, but I keep coming back and participating in NaNo for the community. Writing is such a solitary craft, it’s so exciting to see others as excited as you are about writing.

JL: Your first novel, "Inked," was written during NaNoWriMo. Did you keep working on the novel into December, or did you set it off to the side for a while? What was the process like after finishing the marathon of writing and having this massive stack of papers to sift through?

RD: I took about a week off, but I was too excited to set it aside for too long. It was the first novel that I wrote during NaNoWriMo that I was truly excited about. I knew that it had the seed to grow into something much bigger and better, and it did. It took five full rewrites, characters changed and plots became more fully developed. It took months. Writing the first draft took me 30 days, but revision took me about a year of full-time work. The term "National Novel Writing Month" is slightly deceptive. Yes, you’ll write a novel, it will have a story and characters, but there’s a lot of work to be done once you’ve finished. I tend to tell serious writers, who are often the biggest skeptics, it’s more like "National Novel Drafting Month." But the difference is that you now have something to work with, you got black on white, and you didn’t have that before you started.

Brave authors attempt to write a novel in one month

photo courtesy of Flickr user Valeriana Solaris

When envisioning a novelist at work, it’s easy to picture a tortured artist laboring for months over a single paragraph or the precise rhythm of a sentence.

The agonizing process of writing and rewriting can go on for years, and some of the world’s most lauded novelists produce only a handful of books during their entire career.

That’s one way to write a novel, but it’s far from the only one.

As the 200,000 writers currently taking part in National Novel Writing Month can attest, writing a novel can also be a lightning-quick process where revisions and nit-picking go completely by the wayside.

NaNoWriMo, as the participants refer to it, is often called a writing marathon, but in reality it's more akin to a sprint.

Here’s how it works: Would-be novelists sign up for NaNoWriMo and begin their journey at 12:01 a.m. on November 1. By midnight on November 30, their goal is to have produced a 50,000-word novel.

That’s about 1,666 words per day. Assuming they sleep eight hours each night, the writers are responsible for producing just over 100 words of prose each and every waking hour in November.

Seattle writer Renda Dodge is currently writing her sixth NaNoWriMo novel and has served as a municipal liaison for the past four years.

As a liaison, Dodge works with many of the nearly 6,000 locals taking part in NaNoWriMo. She leads weekly “write-ins,” where participants gather at a local coffee shops or bookstores to write and encourage each other.

Dodge, who’s a published novelist, is part cheerleader and part taskmaster when dealing with fellow writers.

She knows how daunting a task NaNoWriMo can be, and she said offering support to the community of writers is what keeps her going.

“It’s absolutely about the community,” she said. “To be able to get all these people together, encouraging each other and having fun, that’s why I keep doing it.”

Like many struggling writers, Dodge had always wanted to write a novel but was intimated by the level of commitment it required. By forcing her to start and finish the novel in a single month, Dodge said NaNoWriMo gave her permission to take a stab at long-form writing.

None but a delusional few expect the novels produced during NaNoWriMo to be great, and that’s the whole point. Event organizers accurately describe the task on NaNoWriMo's website, saying “Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.”

When the dust settles and the pens, laptops and typewriters are finally put away, the participants who actually finished their novels celebrate the end of November with a “Thank God it’s Over” party.

To help fund the various parties and write-ins that happen during the month, NaNoWriMo is collecting used books to sell. Books can be dropped off at any of NaNoWriMo's write-ins or at Capitol Hill's Hugo House on Saturdays. Collected books will sold via betterworldbooks.com, with the profit going to benefit the Office of Letters and Light, which is the organization that puts on NaNoWriMo as well as various Young Writers Programs around the world.

[Conor Christofferson / Capitol Hill Komo]

Lincolnites get involved in National Novel Writing Month

Crete Middle School teacher Mary Unger (middle)
 helps students Nick Barber (left), 11, and Noah
Keck, 10, work on their novels as part of the
program for November's National Novel Writers
Month. (JACOB HANNAH / LincolnJournal Star)

The maxim goes: Everyone's got a book in him.

Every November, tens of thousands of would-be novelists set out to prove it.

November is National Novel Writing Month, the 12th annual writing program that gives writers an absurd goal: write a 175-page (or 50,000-word) novel from Nov. 1-30.

The program started in 1999 with 21 writers in the San Francisco Bay Area and has since grown to 200,000 participants in 90 countries. More than 1,000 Nebraskans are banging out their NaNoWriMo books this month; more than 200 of them are in Lincoln. Ages range from tween to octogenarian.

All this month the Lincoln group is hosting "write-ins" throughout town, in which writers shut themselves into a room for a few hours and get some words on the page.

The goal isn't to write a masterpiece - or even a very good book, for that matter, said Lisa Kovanda, liaison for the Lincoln group and three-year NaNoWriMo participant. The goal is to finish. Think quantity over quality; fine-tune it later. Better can wait.

Kovanda's first year, she "started with nothing more than a sentence scribbled in a notebook," she said. "I didn't have a plot and really had to make it up as I went along."

But she finished. This year, she's about 20,000 words into her latest attempt, "Letters to Lucy," a supernatural thriller about an arachnophobic writer struggling to come up with a plot for a new novel (another maxim: write what you know) who finds himself tangled in a web of terror and nasty flesh-colored spiders.

NaNoWriMo "gives me the freedom to run with something," said Kovanda, who writes novels outside of November, as well. "It takes a little more editing in the end. But it gives me a chance to break out of what I usually do."

While chunks of pages are just rambling, Kovanda admitted, there's good stuff there, too. It's raw, honest writing that might not have emerged if she'd had more time to think about it.

Crete Elementary teacher Mary Unger is not only working on her third attempt at NaNoWriMo, she's also convinced 13 of her fifth- and sixth-grade students to participate as well.

"Someone's got 13,000 words already," she said. "Another student's got 5,000. A little girl has 8,000. Some who have signed up have already fallen off, though."

Not everybody makes it, obviously. In fact, only about a sixth of participants finish. But the ones who do get a softbound copy of their novel free of charge printed by the National Novel Writing Month organization. Then you're technically a published author, though you might not get Random House to put your book in tens of thousands of households across America.

But you'll have your book. You'll get to put yourself on your shelf, good book or bad.

Admittedly, most are bad. At least at first.

But a few National Novel Writing Month books have gone on to be published, and some have become best-sellers. Sara Gruen's "Water for Elephants" started out as a NaNoWriMo book.

Unger's own book, a 1700s-set historical novel of which she's about 25,000 words in, is "so bad," she said. "It's so much better in my head."

But, she said, she's got plenty of time after Nov. 30 to make it something worth reading.

Some of the books being written by Lincolnites:

• "Huachuca Sunrise": Gunslingers Sid and Jake find love in 1870s Arizona.
• "Bloodmage": Drunk, washed-up detective Casey is hired to find a missing woman, but the trail leads through a world of magic, mysticism, danger and Casey's own past.
• "My List of Grievances Against Humanity": An unspecified amount of time in the future, most of humanity's strings were cut. This is the story of those who survived -- among them an orphan, a pragmatist, a wishful biker and the one who caused man's demise.
• "The Fall of Joy": A coming-of-age story about a young boy growing up in a dysfunctional family.
• "Teacher's Lesson": Lynne is living the dream, doing what she's passionate about. But an assignment she cannot turn down sends her back home. Now her passions and her past collide, with lives on the line.
• "Lessons from a Road Trip": Brielle loses the one thing she loves the most: her brother Nathan. Heartbroken and angry, she takes off on a road trip with only a handwritten note to her parents and coworkers.
• "Thin Air": A woman is vanishing - disappearing into thin air. Soon, all that will be left of her is her butter-yellow station wagon, filled with the minutiae of 20-some years on the road, abandoned at a Kinko's copy center in Jacksonville, Fla.
• "What a Year": Woman trouble, missing persons and a psychotic best friend conspire to make what seems like misery into the greatest adventure of Marshall's life.
• "No Sex For Old Dogs": An elderly scientist with ALS gets a new lease on life when she's offered a fully prosthetic body and an opportunity to pick up research she was forced to abandon decades ago. But her field of study has changed over the years, and a growing, unhealthy competition between government and corporate interests for her research puts her principles and life at risk.

[MICAH MERTES / Lincoln Journal Star]

We’re Almost Halfway Through National Novel Writing Month…

Don’t stop now! There are two whole weeks left
to finish your novel.

It’s like speed dating for writing, if a speed dating session ended with a wedding. November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. It started as a challenge back in 1999 by a writing group in San Francisco, and has since exploded into an online steel-cage prose match, attracting more than 100,000 would-be novelists around the world. The challenge: 50,000 words in 30 days. At stake are literary bragging rights. Once your word count has been verified by the web team at NaNoWriMo, you’re a winner. Of course, if you publish your novel and it becomes a bestseller like Sara Gruen did with her NaNoWriMo manuscript Water for Elephants —well, that’s just gravy.

But how to get to that winner’s circle? NaNoWriMo has made “noveling” a verb and turned a solitary endeavor into a team sport. Regional groups form, write-ins are hosted, and writer’s block is quashed by committee. Participants claim real estate at coffee houses, libraries and bookstores to write collectively. “When you have such a big group, you can reach out to the community and have them push you,” says Renda Dodge, the Seattle liaison for NaNoWriMo.

Seattle has one of the most active regional groups—this year, more than 5,500 local writers are registered. We even have a mascot (the duck). At public venues, writers place a rubber duck next to their laptops to indicate they are participating in NaNoWriMo. There must be a booming rubber duck trade in Seattle these days, considering we won the competition’s “overall word count” and “donations” categories in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

This year, the stakes are higher: Seattle has challenged the Atlanta WriMos to see who can dominate in average individual word count. It’s the Ducks v. the Pandas, and they’re talking plenty of smack. “Hey Atlanta, you should go to some of the many amazing places in your city for novel inspiration. Places like your airport, or your Coca-Cola museum, or your…well, that’s it, really,” Seattle WriMo’s CowOfDeath posted. IcyBrian, an Atlanta WriMo, fired back: “I thought about going up to Seattle for a visit once, but instead I decided to not get swallowed up by a major corporation.” Okay, so it isn’t 8 Mile style, but it’s a start.

Go to nanowrimo.org to sign up or to follow the action, or visit the Seattle group’s Facebook page. There’s a halfway point party and all-day write-in at Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, on Saturday, Nov 13, from 10-6. Expect “prizes, contests, fellowship and fun.”

[Hilary Meyerson / Seattle Met]

Get Inspired: Ten NaNoWriMo Premises We Would Totally Read (And Four We Liked Anyway)

We’ve all been there. You have this earth-shatteringly great idea for a novel, or a screenplay, or a hit family musical, and it’s totally original and better than all the other dreck that is out there and will outsell the pants off that Stephenie Meyer character.

And then, you actually try to sit down and write the thing. And by “write,” we mean type a few paragraphs before curling into the fetal position and crying, or being completely absorbed by Internet distractions.

Sound familiar? Enter National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo if you’re into the whole brevity thing, equal parts marathon and sprint, where intrepid bestsellers-to-be push pens and cheer each other on in an effort to finish a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. According to the NaNoWriMo website, more than 160,000 people participated in last year’s competition, officially logging more than two billion words. And yes, these novels do get published—perhaps the most notable example is Sara Gruen’s acclaimed Water For Elephants, which was drafted during NaNoWriMo.

Your correspondent attempted NaNoWriMo this year at the urging of a friend, but, like many, threw in the towel before hitting the 1k mark. But that didn’t stop us from looking around to see what other WriMos were working on. Amid all the tales of amorous orcs and dystopian futures (not that either of these things are not awesome), we found a few premises that delved from the usual fare. Maybe after reading these synopses and excerpts from this year’s competition, you’ll be ready to conquer your own writer’s block.

If this list doesn’t inspire you to break out the ol’ word processing machine, this list of literary dares from the Atlanta region (a.k.a. NaNoLanta) just might help you get moving. Our favorite dare? “Include the Kraken.”

Four Days of the Dragon: A Zombie Apocalypse Love Story
Author: ShayDeeWil
Region: Atlanta, Ga.
Synopsis: Dragon*Con. Zombies. Patrick Stewart. Chainsaws. Geek love.
Excerpt: “I once read that the most irritating noise to humans was the sound of cutlery scraping across a plate. Until today, I had thought it a reasonable possibility. Now I know better. The most unpleasant noise in the universe is the reverberating whine of a chainsaw working its way laboriously through human bone in the vast echo chamber of a hotel atrium.”

The Batmania Alternative
Author: MrBen
Region: Melbourne, Australia
Synopsis: A series of short stories:
“Hector, The Horse Love Doctor” – A talking horse dispenses love advice to people who don’t need it—while being very annoying and not a little disturbing.
“Quest Ad Infintum” – A particular boy is randomly chosen every year to undertake a dangerous quest to save his village. Now that he’s turned 27 he’s getting rather sick of it. This may be the year he finally cracks.
“Spy vs Spy” – Two spies with rather differing methodologies are put together on a dangerous mission, and only their mutual hatred of one other will keep them alive.
“The Lost Morning” – A creature of the night yearns to see the dawn, and he won’t listen to those who know better.
“Wannabe Weatherman” – After 15 years of failed attempts to pass the weatherman exams, John decides it would be easier to make the weather match his predictions than the other way around.

Untitled
Author: mrs_moesy
Region: Salt Lake City, Utah
Synopsis: Steampunk murder mystery set in Salt Lake City in 1870.

One-Ranger Island
Author: kartoshka
Region: East Bay, Calif.
Synopsis: A lone park ranger fantasizes about the lives of other people, one of whom is probably fictional.

Wir sind für die Musik geboren (We Were Born For The Music)
Author: Raven SIlvers
Region: Singapore
Excerpt: “The Australian people — the original Australians, not the white settlers who came onto their land much, much later (over forty thousand years later) — believed that that all of creation was dreamt into being. They call it the Dreamtime. They have songlines, sacred verbal maps of the Australian continent, which helped their people navigate the vast expanses of Australia’s interior and its desert. They also believed that the songs had to be sung by every generation, or else all of creation would cease to be. They believed in the music.
Fast forward several thousand years, and now we have string theory. No matter what your feelings are about string theory, it posits that the world is made up of vibrating filaments and membranes of energy. Does that sound familiar to you? Like, say, how a piano or a guitar works?
In a guitar, the strings vibrate. These disturbances in the air resonate inside the body of the guitar to produce an audible sound.
It’s essentially the same thing in string theory. All matter is made up of tiny strings of vibrating energy. Essentially, we’re the disturbances in the air that were amplified into sound. Or, in this case, being.
So, these two systems of belief (have you seen how emotional theoretical physicists can be?) are separated by over forty thousand years. But why do they sound so similar?
Maybe because the world, this world at least, is made out of music. It may not be music as we understand it, but when you come down to it, it certainly is a kind of music.”

November Nurtures Nonstop Novelling

Last Monday was the first day of November, and for sugar-shocked children and groggy college students, it spelled the end of a fantastic and eventful Halloween season. But for hundreds of thousands of ambitious would-be storytellers across the world, November 1st marked the first day of the most hectic month of the calendar year: National Novel Writing Month.

Held every year throughout November, National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is a celebration of hardcore writing and looming deadlines. Participants strive to write a novel of no fewer than 50,000 words, all within the confines of month of November. The writer then submits his or her novel—which usually averages at about 175 pages— to the NaNoWriMo website’s official word-counter, which checks the length and pronounces all who complete the task winners.

The challenge is not just for seasoned writers. Anyone can participate, and people from all walks of life do. Stay-at-home-moms, teenagers, working adults and even stressed and overtired college students set aside time every November to finish a novel.

A Daunting Task

The contest operates on an honor system. The word-counter is a computer program, and has no idea whether or not the participant started writing before November 1. It also has no way of checking whether the content it is counting is an actual story, or if it is one block of text copied and pasted again and again. But that would violate the honor code, and be pointless, anyway; the only prizes for a NaNoWriMo victory are a winners’ certificate, eternal bragging rights, and a 50,000-word story to call your own.

The tools of the writerly trade.
Photo Courtesy of Flick mcplemens

The NaNoWriMo novel is, above, all, a draft. As it is a large story written in a very small sliver of time, it certainly does not have to be literary. Chris Baty, who hatched the idea of NaNoWriMo among his friends in the Bay Area in 1999, knew from the start that the novels produced wouldn’t be great, or even good.

“The 30-day deadline helps you be less precious about every sentence,” wrote Beaty in an interview posted on the project’s website. “Yes, it’s hard to leave errors and awkward prose on the page, but the most important thing is to stay focused on the goal of getting a beginning, middle, and end of your story written in 50,000 words.”

Deadline Frenzy: Writing a Novel in 30 Days

About 200,000 writers will participate in National Novel
Writing Month, a project that challenges participants
to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. (Getty Images)

If you invite Dan Scholes to a party this month, he's probably going to decline.

He's cleared his calendar of all obligations except his job as a groundskeeper at the University of Florida. He will spend his November writing.

Scholes, 44, is one of about 200,000 writers participating in National Novel Writing Month, frequently abbreviated to NaNoWriMo, or simply NaNo, a writing project taken on by professionals and amateurs alike.

The project challenges participants to write a 50,000-word novel, the equivalent of 175 pages, in 30 days. That breaks down to about 1,667 words per day.

Scholes has written podcasts and short stories for the past two years but has never attempted to craft a full-length book.

"I've had an idea for a novel for a long, long time," Scholes said. "NaNo is the push I need to get those ideas out of my head and onto paper."

The first National Novel Writing Month was held in July 1999. Chris Baty, a freelance writer from the San Francisco Bay Area, recruited 20 friends for the project. He was curious to see if a strict deadline would motivate writers. Six reached the 50,000-word goal.

In 2000, the month was moved to November, when the distraction of sunny summer days does not tempt writers into procrastination.

Today the Office of Letters and Light, a non-profit organization based in Berkeley, oversees NaNoWriMo as well as Script Frenzy, where writers attempt to complete a stage or screenplay in 30 days. Baty is executive director.

Lindsey Grant, program director for NaNoWriMo and a writer herself, said about 18 percent of participants will write 50,000 words by the end of the month. Grant said the project is designed to encourage everyone, from the seasoned novelist to the amateur writer, to write on a daily basis.

"The title of 'author' is this much sought after but very rare thing," said Lindsey Grant. "We're trying to make writing a little more accessible to people."

For some, the task seems daunting.

12 reasons to ignore the naysayers: Do NaNoWriMo

Photo: Writer's Block I. Credit: Drew Coffman via Flickr.

If you want to write a novel in 30 days, don't let anyone stop you. Not even Salon's Laura Miller.

Miller, who I usually find thoughtful and sweet, has written an anti-NaNoWriMo column -- "Better yet, DON'T write that novel" -- that is at best wrongheaded, and at worst, smallhearted. Miller would lay the blame for too many writers -- and not enough readers -- at the foot of NaNoWriMo, the project that challenges would-be authors to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November.

The too-many-writers trope is echoed by people who publish literary journals, who see more submissions than subscriptions, and those in the publishing industry who'd simply like to sell more books. Even if it is true -- which I'm not convinced it is -- there are certainly other factors, including the hundreds of MFA programs in creative writing, that swell the ranks of hopeful writers.

And is a large pool of hopeful writers really a terrible thing? Are there not thousands more marathon runners than medalists, more home chefs than pros who might ever run a restaurant kitchen? What's wrong with an enthusiastic amateur class of writers? Who says they're not readers, anyway? I've yet to see anything more substantial than a dinner party anecdote.

Here's a quick rundown of Miller's argument, and where it goes wrong.

1. Miller writes: " 'Make no mistake,' the organization's website counsels. 'You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create.' I am not the first person to point out that 'writing a lot of crap' doesn't sound like a particularly fruitful way to spend an entire month, even if it is November."

In fact, spending a month "writing a lot of crap" is more fruitful than many things, including much of the fun, casual cultural consumption we regularly engage in. It's more fruitful than watching TV, playing video games, spending hours on Facebook or Twitter. It might not be more fruitful than innoculating children in an underdeveloped village, but we're not talking about people quitting the Peace Corps in order to do NaNoWriMo. The only thing "writing a lot of crap" can genuinely be said to be less fruitful than is writing well.

Miller quotes it, but misses the essential point: for a hopeful writer to "just create." It's the act of doing that's important. Knitters don't knit because their friends need more hats. But so far, there hasn't been a "Better yet, DON'T knit that scarf" manifesto.

2. Miller writes: "And from rumblings in the Twitterverse, it's clear that NaNoWriMo winners frequently ignore official advice about the importance of revision; editors and agents are already flinching in anticipation of the slapdash manuscripts they'll shortly receive."

Clearly, NaNoWritMo encourages revision; why blame them for those that don't do it? Also, the publishing business has a way of dealing with unwanted manuscripts: It's called the slush pile. There's nothing easier than rejecting a clearly bad book.

Also: Can I take this moment to protest the use of "rumblings in the Twitterverse" as a news source? Not that I'm immune. But.

3. Miller writes: "Why does giving yourself permission to write a lot of crap so often seem to segue into the insistence that other people read it?"

Goodness! Who is insisting? I get dozens of e-mails every day from publicists for books I'll never have a chance to glance at, let alone crack open or read. While I find the barrage annoying, I certainly don't think anyone is insisting I read anything. They're asking. And quite often their pleas go unheard.

4. Miller writes: "The last thing the world needs is more bad books."

The last thing the world needs? We have war and disease and greed and hunger. Books, even bad books, are hardly our biggest problem.

5. Miller writes: "NaNoWriMo is an event geared entirely toward writers, which means it's largely unnecessary."
If it's unnecessary, NaNoWriMo would not have grown from 21 participants in 1999 to 167,150 last year. It's necessary for them. And of those who tried last year, 130,000 didn't finish -- there is clearly a gap between the hopeful and successful NaNoWriMo writer. In other words, a need.

The novel-writing challenge: 50,000 words in 30 days

November is National Novel Writing Month, a US-based initiative that sees would-be authors around the world pledge to complete a 50,000-word work in 30 days. Zaineb al Hassani talks to the organiser and some of the participants

As the clock struck midnight on Sunday tens of thousands of people began a journey into the creative unknown, all participants in the increasingly popular annual event known as NaNoWriMo.

Otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo was started by the San Francisco native Chris Baty in the summer of 1999. The main aim is to produce 50,000 words - the equivalent of 175 pages - of a novel in 30 days.

Participants must sign up to the website, www.nanowrimo.org, and upload their work before midnight on November 30. Uploading verifies the word count (you can scramble the document beforehand if you're worried about putting your manuscript into a stranger's hands). People who successfully complete the challenge are listed as official winners and can collect a certificate. But with no tangible rewards beyond this, what exactly is the point?

"It's always been a delightful moment when I've explained this to strangers," says Baty, the executive director of The Office of Letters and Light - the charitable organisation through which NaNoWriMo is run. "I think for most people it just feels really great. Tackling a large creative project, you never feel more alive than when you set a goal that's slightly bigger than yourself and then nail it. Additionally, I think that spending a month exploring your imagination is truly one of the best things you can do."

Taking place throughout the whole of this month, and now in its 12th year, NaNoWriMo has so far welcomed 612,935 people to its fold, and between them they have produced more than seven billion words. Not bad for a non-profit, participant-funded event that initially saw a mere 21 people take part - producing a total of six winners.

Not that reaching the 50,000 mark is the most important thing to achieve, at least according to NaNoWriMo's programme director, Lindsey Grant: "We encourage a lot of people to write just to write and not even worry about that word goal because, ultimately, they're going to write more during November than they would otherwise.

"Whether that's 1,000 words, or 15,000 words, or whether they reach the 50,000 goal or go beyond, what gets us so excited is that instead of thinking about writing, people are actually doing the writing.

"It still sounds daunting, even when you say it'll be fine, it'll be 30 days' work. But the remarkable thing about it is that when you break it down into that daily total - 1,667 words - it becomes infinitely manageable."

Of course, there is no guarantee that those words will be any good. But one of NaNoWriMo's aims is to rid people of their fear of producing less -than-stellar work, as well as forcing them to take risks.

Hollie Parker, a 27-year-old PR executive based in Bahrain, agrees: "The most important thing I think I've gained is the knowledge that writing a book isn't as impossible a task as it may seem. Until I took part, I never thought I'd have a chance at being a novelist. With (almost) one book under my belt, though, and hopefully a second one from this year's NaNoWriMo, I'm just that extra step closer to realising my dream."

As for the rules, they are simple enough. Starting from scratch, wrimos must write an original piece of work and upload it on to the official website for verification before midnight on Tuesday, November 30.

Brian Chapman, a 37-year-old English teacher based in Amman, says that he finds the deadline helps to spur on his creativity. "I think NaNo is an incredibly important cultural phenomenon. It is a perfect example of how technology has changed the way we interact and get things done in this world. NaNo is extremely important to me. Not to be overly dramatic, but it strikes a creative vibe deep in my soul. I love the writing part, I love the challenge part, I love the connecting with people part."

Reminder: NaNoWriMo starts today!

I always like the first of the month, because it feels like a fresh start. Nov. 1 is particularly special because it marks the beginning of National Novel Writing Month, which encourages participants to pen a 50,000-word novel in 30 days.

Now is the perfect time to sign up, and the website includes tools like a blog, pep talks, writing tips, regional writing groups, a word count tracker, even merchandise.

Here's an introductory video to kick things off:



I've participated in NaNoWriMo before, and it's a fun exercise to get the writing muscles flowing. You may not get your quickie novel published, but the next book might be a winner!

Good luck to all of this year's participants. Now go finish some pages during your lunch break...

[Brent Jones / USA Today PopCandy]

NaNoWriMo: Taking the novel-writing plunge

It's Nov. 1, which for some people merely means it's the first day of that special month that gives us permission to stuff our faces with roasted white turkey meat and heavily Cool Whipped slices of pumpkin pie.

But for the aspiring scribes among us, this date signifies the beginning of NaNoWriMo, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month, a fall tradition that challenges wannabe fiction writers to bang out a book in 30 days.

The goal: Get 50,000 words (about 175 pages) into a Microsoft Word document -- or your copy-composing medium of choice -- by midnight Nov. 30. Magical, mind-altering prose is not the objective. The discipline of getting it done and getting something down every single day is what you're shooting for.

As someone who attempted this three years ago, I can tell you it isn't easy. I fell far, far short of my goals and ultimately gave up well before the Thanksgiving Day tryptophan kicked in. But it was still an enriching experience and one that allowed me to crank out a few chapters of a story that I was genuinely enjoying telling before, you know, I got lazy. And if I can get my backside in gear, I might even give it another shot this year.

So for those about to rock NaNoWriMo, we salute you. And, if you're so inclined, we invite you to send us very tiny snatches of your work as the pages proliferate. E-mail me throughout the month with the strongest sentence or two from your great American (or non-American) novel, and I'll attempt to post some of the better efforts right here in Celebritology, where we usually write about famous people but also relish the opportunity to write about regular people who just might have the talent to capture the spotlight themselves someday.

Because novel writers -- they're totally in it for the fame.

[Jen Chaney / The Washington Post]

Indie Bookstores: ‘Come Write In’ with NaNoWriMo

Want a great way to bring writers — a.k.a. readers, a.k.a. insatiable bookavores — into your bookstore? Host write-ins all November long by partnering with the world’s best writingpalooza, NaNoWriMo. There are materials for participating bookstores, including a window cling, a press release, several web badges and links for your store websites, even a list of suggested books for a display.

For the non-obsessive writers among you, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, a period of 30 days formerly known as “November” that involves frenzied nonstop fiction formulating with a total goal of 50,000 words by the 30th. The focus is on quantity, not quality. Producing 50,000 words in 30 days pretty much guarantees that your inner editor had better shut up, or you’ll never get there. What a liberating idea! You don’t need to be good; you just need to sit down and write.

This novel challenge (dreamed up by NaNoWriMo founder and freelance writer Chris Baty) began in 1999 with 21 writers, and has grown over the years from a personal project to an international phenomenon numbering, in 2009, 119,301 adult participants and more than 35,000 kids and teens in 1,200 classrooms. A few years ago, NaNoWriMo started a wildly popular international Youth Writing Project; 3,000 school and library groups are participating this year.The YWP has its own very appealing website and resources for teachers.

NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program website

As the “Come Write In” press release says, “NaNoWriMo is the largest writing contest in the world, with participants in nearly 450 cities and towns around the globe. In 2009, over 160,000 people took part in the free challenge. And while the event emphasizes fun and creative exploration over publication, more than 30 NaNoWriMo novelists have had their NaNo-novels published, including Sara Gruen, whose #1 New York Times bestseller, Water for Elephants, began as a NaNoWriMo novel.” Wouldn’t it be great to know that part of that book was born in your store? Children’s book and YA writers who have produced published NaNo novels include Amelia Atwater Rhodes (Persistence of Memory), S.A. Bodeen (The Compound), Jessica Burkhart’s first Canterwood Crest title (Take the Reins), Sarah Dooley’s (Livvie Owen Lived Here), Ann Gonzalez (Running for My Life) and Denise Jaden (Losing Faith). (One disappointing note, though: NaNoWriMo, which values indie bookstores, uses links to Amazon instead of Indiebound in its media kit.)

Bookstores can get involved by hosting write-ins — daytime or evening writing sessions where participants can bring their laptops, preferably drink gallons of coffee, and write their little hearts out in fellowship with their writing comrades. Since participants pretty much put their lives on hold for a whole month, these get-togethers break the solitude of NaNoWriMo and reassure writers that, even if they are totally insane to embark on this writing journey, they are not alone.

They also have the coolest merch in their fundraising shop. There’s a new poster each year, new designs for tote bags and t-shirts and mugs, and — my favorite of all — merit badges. Real ones, like the kind your older sister had all over her Girl Scout sash. These aren’t for starting fires and doing community service, though; they’re for things like Caffeine Abuse, Word-Count Padding, Random Ending, and Victory.

This year also marks the organization’s first Great NaNoWriMo Book Drive, which enlists the help of people from all over the country to collect used books, send them to be sold at an independent online bookstore, which donates the proceeds to the organization and literacy efforts. The book drive guide says it best: “To run this book drive, we have partnered with Better World Books, a socially conscious online book store that has diverted 33 million books from landfills and raised more than $8 million for its nonprofit literacy partners by selling used and new books online. Better World Books provides the online book drive portal, sends free supplies, transports the books, and offers guidance for book drive coordinators.” Bookstores might consider starting a book drive in their regions this year or next.

Picture Book Idea Month website badge

If you have lots of picture-book writers in your area, invite them to participate in their own version of NaNoWriMo. Writer Tara Lazar spun off the NaNoWriMo idea into Picture Book Idea Month, which charges writers with the challenge of, well, of what the title says: coming up with a picture book idea every day.

Are YOU participating in NaNoWriMo, as a bookstore or as a writer — or both? Let us know, and we’ll cheer you on!

[Elizabeth Bluemle / Publisher's Weekly - ShelfTalker]

Chris Baty interviews with Mark McDonald

It was a dark and dangerous night as I walked into the heavily draped Julia Morgan Ballroom near Chinatown, in the heart of old San Francisco's financial district.

More than two hundred darkly dressed shadowy figures hunched over closely packed tables, where eerie lighting from dozens of computers cast a sickly pall upon faces strained with intensity. It looked like a scene out of a film noir; at least one character would die tonight.

It was "A Night of Writing Dangerously" and we were the murderers.

From the mind of Chris Baty comes, "A Night of Writing Dangerously".

I was here to attend "A Night of Writing Dangerously", a party hosted by Chris Baty, who, ten years ago, created the idea of holding an annual Internet event called "National Novel Writing Month", where thousands of aspiring writers try to write a 50,000-word novel during the thirty days of November. This night, more than 200 writers donated $200 ($300 per couple) to attend the party. They raised $34,115.51 to benefit Baty's organization, and its associate organization, the Office of Letters and Light.

National Novel Writing Month began with the idea that people feel they want to write a book someday, but that day never seems to come. For those who sign up for the free internet experience, that day … or more accurately, 30 days, comes on November 1st, when they begin writing their novels, download them to the web site, and attempt to meet the deadline by midnight on November 30th.

Jennifer Anthony reached over 41,000 words.

During the month, they are encouraged to keep the words flowing, not in an elegant, refined, ready-for-publication manner, but in a mad dash to get 50,000 words downloaded in a rough draft of a book they could very well edit and one day publish.

When I walked into the Julia Morgan Ballroom, it took me a few minutes to find an open chair. And before I could sit down, a large school bell was being rung by someone who had just reached 50,000 words. It was about 6:30pm,the party already had writers reaching the 50k finish line, and it was only day 22.

Chris Wentworth of Southern Ontario, Canada celebrates reaching 50,000 words.

I spoke with Chris Baty, the originator of National Novel Writing Month:

"The idea of writing terrifies some people", he said. "But when you just write without being critical, just getting those words down shows you your capabilities. It takes you away from your day to day, and shows what happens when you stretch yourself." Back in 1999, he and a few college friends who thought they might someday want to write a book decided they would probably never get around to actually doing it. He figured if you write 50,000 words, you have a 175-page short novel. He put this idea on the Internet, and today there are over 120,000 registered writers and 600 schools participating in what is known as NaNoWriMo month.

I asked him about the Young Writers Program, part of the Office of Letters and Light, which helps kids and teens get excited about writing. In 2008, there were over 22,000 students taking part in NaNoWriMo's youth program, which provides workbook exercises, promotional materials and encouragement. (Young Writers Program)

"Being a kid has a lot of drudgery, but when they start writing, they build (their) world and come alive," he said.

Chelsea won, saying: "I can't stop crying, I just killed off one of my main characters!"

"About 6% of the participants who write through the thirty days have gone on to revise, find an agent, and pursue what they have written," he told me.

If 100,000 participate, 6% means over 6,000 of these "crazy writers" have gotten serious about writing, and want to see their work published, on the book shelves, and in the hands of readers. Many have been published already.

The night was filled with fun, the film noir theme was fun and adventurous, and we had lots to eat.

Figures from the site, 2008: 119,301 participants and 21,683 winners.

Number of words officially logged in 2008: 1,643,343,993
Current number of words for 2009: 1,924,987,017
This writer's current word count: 18,191 and counting…

[Mark McDonald / Santa Barbara Edhat]

Mountain View writers tackle National Novel Writing Month

For some, the month of November brings with it dread of the cold. For others, thoughts turn to turkey and stuffing.

But for National Novel Writing Month's many diehard participants, November means writing.

National Novel Writing Month — NaNoWriMo for short — challenges professional authors, aspiring writers and plain creative types to produce a 175-page, 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Now in its tenth year, the program has resulted in good times, new friendships, purple prose, demolished writer's blocks, countless reams of senseless stream-of-consciousness writing, and at least one success story: the New York Times bestseller "Water for Elephants."

For many, if not most, participants, the goal is simply to reach the word count. To help writers reach this goal, "write-ins" are held regularly around the Bay Area, including one at East West Bookstore on a recent Monday. Ten people showed up to write together in a quiet, focused group.

Diane Holcomb, a book buyer for East West Bookstore, is participating in NaNoWriMo for the third time this year. Writing what she describes as a "'Sleepless in Seattle,' mainstream love story," she doesn't have time to focus on perfect writing.

Instead, Holcomb says, she just writes as much as she can.

"You do write a lot of garbage, but something wonderful comes out and it takes over," she said. "You know you're not going to come away with the best American novel, ready to send to a publisher, (but) you'll have a rough draft."

The concept of quantity over quality — proselytized by NaNoWriMo founder Chris Baty in his book "No Plot? No Problem!" — seems to be the particular draw for many participants.

Bridget Flynn, a freelance editor and writer who lives in Mountain View, believes the deadline and required word count is the perfect impetus for people like her, forcing them to get the raw story on the page.

"We really need this. Because the ones who procrastinate are also the ones who I think judge their own work really harshly," she said. "If you judge your work you're going to sit there and agonize over each paragraph and I think in the end, 'You don't produce.'"

Sue Wilhite, a tarot reader and assistant manger at East West Bookstore, also finds the deadline helpful. She has published two books already, the second of which took her seven years to complete.

"NaNoWriMo is really forcing me to drill down and focus," she said. "It certainly makes (writing) the priority choice of a number of things I can do."

Holcomb and Flynn both said that putting thoughts to the page is a very personal process. Holcomb finds that ordinary observations made in her everyday life — such as meals she's eaten, or outfits she sees on the street — keep cropping up in her writing.

"It all just goes into the pot," she said. "The subconscious makes all of this make sense; it's like a waking dream."

Flynn says she's proud of the very act of writing, even when the quality is not her best. At the Monday night write-in, she said, she sat down and cranked out 10 pages in a single session.

"I felt powerful because I was being true to myself by writing this story," she said. "This story is a part of who I am. It's an expression of me, and I finally feel comfortable enough to express that part — so I'm really proud of myself for that."

[Dana Sherne / Mountain View Voice]

On their marks, get set, NaNo!

She's a modern-day Hemingway scribbling as she eats, except on a laptop instead of a napkin -- and at the Santa Cruz Diner, where inspiration must strike among all the booths of loud, costume-clad customers.

Lisa Quintana and her party of 15 began churning out their novels at the diner on Halloween night.

Quintana and her group are among 372 people in Santa Cruz County who are registered to participate in National Novel Writing Month, a creative writing effort held annually since 1999. The project aims to support aspiring novelists as they attempt to write 50,000 words -- what would fit on perhaps a thousand napkins, or 200 double-spaced pages -- during the 30 days of November.

The Office of Letters and Light, the Oakland-based nonprofit behind National Novel Writing Month, encourages people to mince words for once and call the event NaNoWriMo.

The "national" part of its title a bit of a misnomer, as NaNoWriMo boasts international participation. Sara Nelson, a 21-year-old linguistics major at UC Santa Cruz, did NaNoWriMo during a study-abroad program in England.

"With crazy English people and alcohol and novels, only good things can happen," Nelson says. She started a vampire novel from a pub in Brighton. This year from the diner she'll write about a blind kleptomaniac.

The project's Web site explains that being able to "dramatize the [novel-writing] process at social gatherings" is as much a perk of NaNoWriMo as a finished novel.
Another benefit of is the support of volunteer mentors like Quintana, a six-year NaNoWriMo veteran whose first novel won First Prize at the East of Eden writer's conference.

Quintana and Nelson are spearheading the Santa Cruz writers this year. They organized the kickoff at the diner and plan to hold a "Thank God It's Over" party at the end of the month.

"I don't get paid to do this, but I think it's important to help people tell their stories," says Quintana.

The 44-year-old has a tech job in Silicon Valley and a family in Boulder Creek. She says her son plans to participate in the Young Writers Program, in which an under-17 crowd sets its own word-count goals. Her teenage daughter is participating in the event with Quintana, and at the diner she takes a seat at a table next to her mom's.

Dave Empey, 46, sat in a booth by himself, wearing a grey wig. Empey wrote a novel from his La-Z-Boy recliner in 2008, but he says he's committed to coming to some local NaNoWriMo meetings this year.

The Santa Cruz group will meet thrice weekly in November -- at coffee shops, UCSC and after hours at a donated storefront.

Writers who elect not to attend meetings can interact on the online forums, which are bustling in November as participants -- some proud, others sheepish -- share their latest word counts, achievements and hurdles.

And everyone receives periodic e-mails from NaNoWriMo headquarters, the first of which reads like a gym's January newsletter, with reassurances that "it's OK to not know what you're doing," advice to "embrace imperfection and see where it takes you," and valuable hindsight from veterans to stick it out because completion of the project "will make you want to yodel."

Wrimos will submit their novels to the Web site for word count validation between Nov. 25 and Nov. 30.

"They must have no lives, no jobs," Quintana says of people who reported unusually high word counts in the first week.

"Or they're using the lorem ipsum generator," Nelson quips, referring to the traditional placeholder text publishers often use to fill space.

It's one esoteric topic among many that the writers discuss before they start writing at midnight. Others include Isaac Asimov "He worked on many projects at a time"; the Star Trek exhibit that recently opened at the Tech Museum in San Jose "The props are phenomenally amazing"; and the Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" novels "Do we think the movies will make it to the end of the series?".

When the date on one writer's laptop switches over to Nov. 1, an announcement is made. The fourteen writers, half of them writing longhand, begin NaNoWriMo.

A few minutes after midnight, another UCSC student pushes aside an empty basket of fries and takes out a spiral-bound notebook. "I need a last name for a character."

Quintana doesn't look up from her laptop or miss a beat. "Male or female?"

"Male, first name Orlando."

Quintana pauses. "I'm trying to remember the last spam name I got -- that's where I get my names from."

"What was your first boyfriend's last name?" someone asks.

"I've never had one," the student says. "Does preschool count?"

Quintana chimes in with Oeudreheo. "O-e-u-d-r-e-h-e-o," she spells as the student scribbles it down.

Only 49,999 more words to go.

[Laura Copeland / Santa Cruz Sentinel]

National Novel Writing Month observed locally

Local writers gather at Panera Bread
on Hotel Drive on Friday to kick off
National Novel Writing Month.

Around the world hundreds of thousands of novelists are penning sordid tales of romance, bone-chilling thrillers, head-scratching mysteries, and sagas of mysterious artifacts from fantastic worlds. Some of those intriguing stories are being written right here in Turlock.

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it’s known, kicked off on Sunday and will run through Nov. 30. Last year, approximately 120,000 writers took part in the race to write 50,000 words and complete a novel from start to finish in just 30 days. By the end of the month, more than 21,000 had become novelists — many for the first time.

“The 50,000-word challenge has a wonderful way of opening up your imagination and unleashing creative potential like nothing else,” said NaNoWriMo Founder and Program Director Chris Baty. “When you write for quantity instead of quality, you end up getting both. Also, it’s a great excuse for not doing any dishes for a month.”

Baty himself is a 10-time NaNoWriMo “winner,” though winning the challenge simply awards participants with a printable certificate. The finished manuscript is the true reward for NaNoWriMo participants, however.

On average, about 18 percent of participants become winners. More than 30 NaNoWriMo novels have been professionally published, including the No. 1 New York Times Bestseller “Water for Elephants,” by Sara Gruen.

For most of the self-styled “WriMos,” however, publication isn’t the end goal of the month. It’s simply a love of writing that draws most to a November spent huddled in the warm glow of a computer screen, and a dream of becoming a novelist.

In 2007, Viki Sprague of Patterson found herself facing a serious illness, possibly near death according to doctors. She’d heard of NaNoWriMo before, some time after the event’s 1999 founding, and had always wanted to write a novel. Staring down her own mortality, there didn’t seem to be any better time for Sprague to set off into the world of novel writing, she said.

Sprague said she set out to pen a mystery based on a story she read in the Oakland Tribune in the 1970s. The article told of a woman who committed suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning, locking herself in a car trunk with a stack of romance novels and a bag of Hershey’s Kisses.

Thanks to some good-natured prodding from co-workers, Sprague became a winner in her very first NaNoWriMo, writing 53,000 words in a month.
“It changed the way I write,” Sprague said.

The one challenge Sprague said she faced during that first NaNoWriMo was a lack of a local support group, the sort of which can be found in communities large and small around the world. Unfortunately, the nearest to Stanislaus County was located in Stockton, simply too far to travel on a routine basis.

Emboldened by her experience and wishing to share NaNoWriMo with others, Sprague signed on to serve as NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaison for the Modesto region in 2008. As she sits in Turlock’s Panera Bread for weekly write-ins, she now wears a shirt that reads, “Yes, I am in charge here,” offering up whatever advice she can to the aspiring novelists typing up fantasies and works of literature alongside her.
“It’s like being a den mother and a cheering section and a mentor all wrapped into one,” Sprague said.

Finishing 50,000 words in just a month is no small task. Last year Sprague set out on a more ambitious NaNoWriMo project, a tale of twins in Jim Crow-era Georgia with revolving points of views. She didn’t quite finish, though her words are counted among the total of 1.6 million words written in last year’s NaNoWriMo.

This year Sprague has even more on her plate, undertaking a mystery novel — her “official” novel — as she attempts to complete last year’s book, serve as municipal liason, and act as moderator for a discussion forum on the official NaNoWriMo.org Web site, “making sure everyone plays nice in the sandbox.” The forum, titled “NaNo Rebels” is dedicated to those like Sprague who are bending the rules of the event by working on a novel that has already been started, a non-fiction book, or even a play.
Sprague says that, through her increasing involvement with the challenge, she’s come to learn more about Office of Letters and Light, the Oakland-based non-profit that operates entirely on donations and administers NaNoWriMo. Funds raised are used to teach creative writing to children, challenging fourth and fifth grade students in Canada to compete in a shorter version of NaNoWriMo, build school libraries in Vietnam, and even to help students here in America.

Sprague considers herself fortunate to have a husband who tolerates her “unique hobbies,” especially in the whirlwind month of November. But earlier this year she realized how much her “hobby” means to her — and how important her husband’s support is — when on a cruise to Alaska her husband referred to her as a writer for, what she can remember, was the first time.

Sprague says that, even though NaNoWriMo kicked off on Sunday, it’s not too late to join this year’s effort. After all, you’re only about 5,000 words behind if you start today, she notes, and she believes anyone can become a novelist.

“It’s just a matter of putting your butt in a chair and writing it,” Sprague said.

The Turlock NaNoWriMo group meets at Panera Bread on Hotel Drive at 6 p.m. every Tuesday. For more information about NaNoWriMo, to sign up online, or for further details about local meet-ups visit www.NaNoWriMo.org.

[Alex Cantatore / Turlock Journal]

Book Keeping: Speed-Writing For Success

"All at once" is not the way most people write their first novel, but that's what Jessica Burkhart did.

In 2006, as a 19-year-old college student, Burkhart wrote a 50,000-word manuscript in 30 days, along with nearly 13,000 other writers. As a participant in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), it was quantity over quality. Most participants compare it to running a marathon; most participants shove their completed manuscripts into the darkest reaches of their computer files, thinking, 'Anything I wrote this quickly can't be good.'

When the month-long writing spree ended, Burkhart started revising Take The Reins, a story about tween girls at a competitive equestrian school. A month later, an agent found a blog post she'd written about the novel and asked to see the manuscript. The rest is history: The Canterwood Crest series is now five books long, with seven more to come. And it all started with a marathon, madcap, month-long writing frenzy...

[Rachel Kaufman / mediabistro.com]

November is for Nanowrimo

Have you always wanted to write the Great American Novel but struggled to find motivation and time? Well friends, let Nanowrimo be your guide. Nanowrimo, short for National Novel Writing Month, begins November 1st and lasts until midnight November 30th. It is "thirty days and nights of literary abandon."

The idea of the contest (now in it's 11th year) is to write a 175-page novel (or 50,000 word) by the end of the month. Nanowrimo is more about quantity than quality and writers have the month of December to edit their novel. In 2008, there were over 119,000 participants and more than 21,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline. The contest rules are fairly simple and writers upload their novels on the website in order to be eligible for a winner's certificate at the end of the month.

Nanowrimo was founded in 1999 by Chris Baty and twenty other writers. That year the contest was held in July and of the 21 participants, only six met the goal. By 2003 there were 25,500 participants and 3,500 finishers. Nanowrimo is now run by the Office of Letters and Light, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California. Nanowrimo isn't just for amateur authors, many published authors do it as well. Ally Carter, wrote her third Gallagher Girls novel Don't Judge a Girl By Her Cover during Nanowrimo. This year authors like Maureen Johnson, Tamora Pierce, Kristin Cashore and Jasper Fforde will be participating and offering advice to writers.

For more information about Nanowrimo, visit the Nanowrimo website.

[Danielle Dreger-Babbitt / Seattle Books Examiner]

'The Pledge' to publish Writing Group

There are writer's groups and then, there are Writer's Groups. Why do some groups just seem to fade away, and others stay together and actually publish? The difference is organization, dedication and determination. This is what you will find when you meet the members of ‘The Pledge’. As founder, Tim Yao explains, “’The Pledge’ originally started off as the pledge to publish, and the whole concept behind that was we had written stories for Nanowrimo, and that was a November thing and we wanted some kind of continuing writer’s group so that we could help each other get published."

Members of the first writing group met through their participation in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, in 2006. Tim was the Municipal Liaison for the Naperville region and kept the momentum going throughout the year with emails, Jabber chat and regular meetings. “In previous incarnations, the pledge had been a little bit more of a social group. We had more outings in previous years than we did this year. We decided early on that we needed something to focus the group with. The previous years, we had written some short stories, more as a way to practice giving critiques of each other’s work, than anything else. And so this year, we decided to actually write and publish, self-publish, a short story anthology; a little more ambitious, but not as ambitious as maybe we could have been. This seemed a little bit more, almost like a working relationship, to jointly produce the anthology. It was more productive than in previous years.”

The current group has been together since NaNoWriMo, 2008. “We started with 12, we finished with 12. We had some people who almost dropped out along the way but we managed to pull them back in. In a way, it was kind of an extension of what you see with NaNoWriMo, where some have described it as trying to ‘herd cats’. And I think there was some aspects to that with ‘the Pledge’; getting people to meet deadlines and get everything done. But we’re finally at the point where we have finished the stories, the work has been put together and edited; we are close to having a cover done, and we should be able to get it up on Amazon very shortly.” Tim Yao has been Municipal Liaison, or head ‘cat herder’ of the NaNoWrimo Naperville region and of ‘the Pledge’ since 2006.

Katherine Lato, also a Municipal Liaison, joined the group in 2007. She explains how new members hear about and join the group. “We were all part of Nano last year, so we advertised the fact that there was going to be a pledge. We started having Jabber chats and we basically got an email list together of people who were interested. We had a meeting in January, and at that, hammered out the theme for the anthology and basic rules: No more than 5000 words- short stories and you’re going to read each other’s work. We’re talking short stories. We’re going to read each other’s stories. We had to critique three other’s stories in the first round, two other’s stories in the second round with a detailed critique. That requires that you read three entire short stories. One thing I did was make sure that anybody who had given critiques got a critique” Katherine is the editor of the anthology.

Tim adds that there were times when it looked like this wasn't going to happen. "The worst part came some time after or right around first draft. After the first draft, when people had done something, most of them had put something out and we were trying to get the critiques done and then, people seemed to go into that stretch of time where they become busy. Some people started to lose interest and I just had visions of a failed pledge where we had set goals and we wouldn’t accomplish them and it looked like the whole thing was going to falter. That was the worst time." It was a lot of work for everyone involved.

There were no regrets. Katherine explains. “My thought process was it was a way to get to know the members of the group by reading their writing because you get to know a lot about a person by reading their writing. It was a nice way to be able to learn more about each person because you could read everybody’s short stories.“ Tim, “For me, the best time was when we finally regained some momentum and people went through and they produced their second and third drafts and they got the reviews done and we even pulled one writer back from the brink where he hadn’t even finished his first draft, and he went through and completed that, and did all the requirements, and now, it looks like we’re going to have a successful completion.” Mike appreciated the feedback he received on his work, and learned a lot in the process of giving feedback to others. "Hopefully, I tried to make each critique instructive, and as far as I know, nobody got mad at what I said, so it all worked out ok. The best part was the very nice feedback I was getting on my story. That’s always nice to hear. I had no idea how it would be received. I agreed with all of the constructive criticism that I got and was pleasantly surprised that …so people just liked it. “

What are the writer’s hopes for the book? Tim, “I don’t think it’s going to be a critical success. I think these kinds of books tend not to be. But its nice to go through the process and get something out there. And that’s something. I personally enjoy doing this. I hope that we can do it again.” Mike, “One thing that pushes me toward submitting my work as a novelist is encouragement from friends, and here’s something that is published in a book and they’re going to tell me if I should be putting more of my work out there. So this is one more way to push me to get some of my work ready for publication.”

What advice would they give to someone who is thinking about writing, or who wants to finish that novel? With no hesitation, the author’s answers were unanimous. Katherine, “Try NaNo.” Tim, “Yeah, NaNoWriMo. It’s fun, and you do a lot of writing. And writing with a group of people is a lot more enjoyable, I think, than just writing by yourself; maybe I’m more of a social writer” Katherine, “Seriously, try Nano.” Mike, “Or just write. You can’t say you want to be a writer and not do the writing. The more you write the better you get.”

“What do you do for an encore after completing your novel for National Novel Writing Month? At the end of 2008, twelve aspiring novelists came together in a group called The Pledge to hone their writing skills. Together they decided to write a short story anthology. There is an infinite monkey theorem that says that "a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text such as the complete works of William Shakespeare'[Wikipedia]. If monkeys could produce Shakespeare, the novelists believed they could produce a short story anthology; and so, the title "Infinite Monkeys" was born. What is in this book, however, has nothing to do with monkeys. Infinite or otherwise. Each story in this book explores themes of redemption. The stories traverse different genres and moods, ranging from light humor to dark mystery.”

For more information about the Naperville group: http://naperwrimo.org/2009

For more information about NaNoWrimo, National Novel Writing Month: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

[Bonnie Jean Adams / Examiner]

Month of plotting results in novels

November will shortly settle on the valley, bringing with it colder weather, muted landscapes and, for many, the gift of family and friends in the celebration of Thanksgiving.

For a focused few of the area's writers, however, November means something entirely different -- a month of "literary abandon."

National Novel Writing Month, an organization that began in 1999 with 21 friends in San Francisco, has since expanded to almost 120,000 adults and 22,000 young writers around the world. NaNoWriMo, as participants affectionately refer to it, gathers aspiring and even published novelists together each November through the Web site www.nanowrimo.org.

Participants begin writing their manuscripts on Nov. 1 and have until midnight on Nov. 30 to reach the goal -- 50,000 words -- which will effectively change the way they view themselves forevermore. They are no longer closet writers; they are novelists.

"It was just a whim," Tyler Willson, 35, of Winchester, said recently of his decision to join NaNoWriMo at the very last minute, on Oct. 31, 2005. He was sitting at home, then in Texas, on Halloween night surfing the Internet betwixt expectant knocks on the door from trick-or-treaters, when he happened upon a Web page that posed the question, "Do you want to write a novel?"

Willson had not written much of anything since college, but the offer to write a novel in a month was too intriguing to pass up.

"It was really interesting to rediscover my love for stories and words," he said.

Willson completed the 50,000 words, despite not having prepared a plot or characters beforehand. He just made it up as he went along.

"It was a lot of fun," he said. "I remembered how much fun it was to write stories."

Susan Warren Utley, of Front Royal, can relate.

"Year one, when I didn't plan a thing, that was the one that came full circle," said Utley, 43. None of her novels since then has been quite as complete, with a clear beginning, middle and end. She hopes her initial strategy will work for her again this year.

"I've got an idea and I'm trying not to plan," she said.

Having a plot planned out doesn't necessarily help once the writing begins, as Emily Heflin, of Winchester, learned.

"Last year I got stuck, like, 500 words into my story ... and Susan goes 'Kill someone,' [in the book] and I did, and it turned into sort of a mystery, crime novel," said Heflin, 25.

"[This year] I'm writing about corpse snatcher monster spiders, young love and pirates, set in space," she said. "I pick four incongruent concepts and shove 'em all together and see how that works out."

No monetary award could possibly equal the exhilaration felt upon crossing that 50,000-word finish line, which is fortunate because there is no promise of riches for those who win. The prize is in the achievement alone, the knowledge that now exists a novel where a month ago sat a blank desktop document. Moreover, everyone who writes 50,000 words, approximately 175 pages, "wins" NaNoWriMo, leaving the door open for potentially thousands of successful new novelists each year.

"Being a writer is very solitary," said Stacey Graham, 41, of Bluemont. NaNoWriMo is an enormous source of community, she said.

For all their efforts, the writers do receive some notoriety: A downloadable certificate of achievement, their name added to the list of winners and the assurance of assistance in publishing their novel, if they choose to self publish. Most encouraging is the fact that many NaNos (or WriMos, as many prefer) before them have succeeded in publishing their novels, some even through big-name publishers.

After a month of ceaseless typing and, for some, sleepless nights, the tiresome journey will be over and all can then relax -- until next year, for they will be back, and in droves.

The greatest reason they keep coming back year after year to go through the process all over again is for the camaraderie, the excitement and the challenge, the writers said. What could say literary victory like writing a novel in a month?

Despite challenges -- work, family, holidays -- thousands of writers still manage to cross the finish line each year.

"Don't forget, five children," Graham said of her family, laughing.

The road is a long, bumpy one, with plot holes at every turn, but for NaNoWriMo participants, the destination is worth the journey.

"The thing I like most is just the online interaction with people," said Willson.

"It's something I look forward to every November," he said. "As long as I keep enjoying writing, I'll keep doing it. I see no reason to stop."

National Novel Writing Month begins Nov. 1 and ends at midnight Nov. 30. Adults must complete 50,000 words in a month in order to win; children under the age of 18 participating in the Young Writers Program are permitted to choose their goal before beginning on Nov. 1. Teens 13 and older may choose to write as adults and try for the 50,000 word goal. For more information, visit the Web at www.nanowrimo.org.

[Josette Keelor / Northern Virginia Daily]