Wednesday, November 3, 2004
Diary of a Huffleduffer
By Aodhfionn: "Rose Zeller just wants to be a Gryffindor, have a cat, marry Ron Weasley, play professional quidditch, and have twelve children. Unfortunetly that's not so easy when you're a first year Hufflepuff who manages to get detention every night. Still you can hope, right?"
Laughing At Nemesis
By DJ Drummond: "A look at the World to come, from the perspective of a slightly unorthodox Fundamentalist."
Monday, November 1, 2004
Chris Baty's Approach to Writing: NaNoWriMo
Not unlike scenes from Fear Factor scripts, if you give details of this upcoming challenge to writers, many might slide their chairs rapidly away from mid-century roll-top desks or kitchen tables where gunpoint-gray laptops stare, electrified, at the rules of this game.
A few writers will scoff. Many will say it just can't be done. Some will be intrigued.
Fifty thousand words.
Approximately 175 pages.
Thirty days.
That's the concept behind Chris Baty's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)—aspiring novelists are asked to write fifty thousand words (approximately 175 pages) between November 1 and November 30 of each year. Prizes? There are none. Cash awards? Zilch.
Is this man insane?
If Baty is insane, he's not alone: as the sixth annual NaNoWriMo looms closer, an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 writers will sign on with hope, angst, panache, ambivalence, and maybe-just maybe-a hint of insanity.
Baty, a freelance writer and author of the book, NO PLOT? NO PROBLEM! A low-stress, high-velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days, recently spoke with WordSmitten about NaNoWriMo and what it takes to write a novel in thirty days.
AVOIDING CLOISTERED MISERY
WORDSMIITTEN: What prompted you to start National Novel Writing Month? What prompts you to keep it going?
CHRIS BATY: I think a lot of it was just kind of worshipping novels, and wondering if I could write one myself. I'm an only child, and kids who grow up without siblings often have a pretty intense relationship with books. I remember reading myself into carsickness every year on our annual family drives from Kansas City to Mississippi or Colorado. Without brothers and sisters to help pass the time, you just naturally end up using books to fill that void. They're like little portable friends.
So that explains the "NoWri" parts of NaNoWriMo. The "Na" and the "Mo" parts stem from the fact that I always have a much easier time getting something done when other people are doing it alongside me. It's sort of a classroom mentality: when everyone is working towards the same goal, it's easier to stay focused. Having so many friends on board seemed like it would make the writing process a lot less scary, and it makes the time management aspects of it more appealing. Writing a book by yourself tends to involve a lot of social sacrifice. This is especially true if you have a full-time job, and are trying to write a book on evenings or weekends: just when you're ready to relax and have fun with friends and loved ones, you have to exile yourself to some lonely room where you sit by yourself and type.
By roping all my friends into writing a novel in a month, I kind of avoided that. The writing process became less of an isolated, cloistered misery and more of a book-themed block party. It was pretty neat.
As for the motivation for keeping it going--running NaNoWriMo is the best job in the world. I spend about five months out of my year working on NaNoWriMo, and it's a wonderful, exhausting, and totally inspiring experience. The rest of the year, I'm a freelance writer, which is satisfying as well, but a little lonely. Organizing NaNoWriMo is the exact opposite, and I get a contact high every year from all the people realizing their hulking creative potential. I feel unbelievably lucky to be a part of that.
WORDSMITTEN: In the six years you've been organizing NaNoWriMo, what's surprised you the most? What have you found to be the most frustrating?
CHRIS BATY: I think I've been consistently amazed at just how powerful the human imagination is, and how capable everyone is at churning out a reasonably coherent story in a limited amount of time. When you only give yourself thirty days to write a book, your brain stops fussing so much over each sentence and just goes. Somehow this rush actually improves, rather than detracts from, your writing. It's weird, but when you evaluate each day's output by word count rather than quality, you don't fall into that self-hating despair that tends to sabotage adults' attempts at creative play-which means you are exponentially more likely to see the project through to the end.
The most frustrating thing about running NaNoWriMo is slowly getting phased out. In previous years, I tended to try and do too much of the work myself. Which made October and November kind of a nightmare as I tried to handle all the tech support, general questions, graphic design, fundraising and bookkeeping, pep-talk writing, and store-running myself. I was also writing my own novel on top of this. It got to the point where I wasn't sleeping very much, and having nightmares every night about server hacks and misplaced t-shirt orders.
I'm now able to hire administrative, tech support, bookkeeping, and graphic design help--which means things are much less stressful for me.
FUNDING LIBRARIES
WORDSMITTEN: Can you tell us a bit about NaNoWriMo's relationship with Room to Read? Why such an emphasis on social interaction and significance?
CHRIS BATY: For the past couple of years, I've been going back and forth on the idea of making NaNoWriMo a non-profit corporation. From my conversations with directors of Bay Area non-profits, though, I've realized that establishing and running a non-profit takes a dedicated staff, a lot of year-round energy, and much more money than the small amount we raise every year through donations and t-shirt sales.
And as much as I love NaNoWriMo, I don't want to spend all year working on it. But despite the fact that we won't be an official 510(c)(3) anytime soon, I was still keen on channeling all the collective energy of NaNoWriMo towards some form of social good. So last year I spent some time researching literacy organizations that we might adopt-and that's how I found Room to Read.
Room to Read (www.roomtoread.org) is a nonprofit corporation started by a former Microsoft executive who decided he wanted to bring books and reading to kids in poverty-stricken places like Cambodia, Nepal, and Laos. They've not only built libraries-over 1,000 have been established to date-and train library staff, but they also hire local writers and illustrators to produce cool children's books in the local languages. These books are published in-country, using local printers. So Room to Read is not only turning kids onto books and reading, but they're also sending positive economic ripple effects through the entire country. It's kind of an amazing project, and we'll be giving 20% of our net proceeds from site contributions and t-shirt sales to their Cambodian library program this year. Through Room to Read, you can establish a library in an existing school for $2,000; we're hoping to get at least two, maybe three NaNoWriMo-sponsored libraries built in areas that could otherwise not afford them.
WORDSMITTEN: This year, you expect anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 people to attempt to write a novel within 30 days-what is it about writing that hooks people? Why do people agree to write 50,000 words in no more than 30 days?
CHRIS BATY: I think some of NaNoWriMo's appeal is in its "quick-fix" approach to creativity. Everyone is so busy with work, family, and friends that they don't really have time to work on things that are enriching but not essential. When you barely have time to buy groceries, the idea of signing up for painting classes or French lessons is beyond the pale.
NaNoWriMo, because it only lasts a month, serves as a manageable and satisfying dunk in the old creative juices. However busy someone's schedule may be, they can usually find two hours a day, five days a week, to dedicate to a book. And what a huge pay-off for a relatively small investment! Most of us spend ten hours a week watching TV. To trade a few "Cheers" re-runs and some prime-time couch-potato'ing for a novel seems too good to be true. But that's really all it takes.
I think the other allure of NaNoWriMo is the fact that it gives practical, respectable adults a one-month vacation in novel-land. For one month, we get to step out of our hum-drum lives and just live our fantasies of what it means to be an artist. For me, it means making unbelievable messes in my apartment and drinking so much coffee that my eyeballs twitch. I stay up too late and eat a lot of junk food and throw office supplies around just for the hell of it. But for that month, I also see things with a more enlightened eye. I listen more closely to other people's conversations, and pay more attention to body language and gestures. It's as if you gain a sixth sense while writing a novel, a probing little eyelet that goes out and explores the world to see if any of it can be transformed into novel-fodder. That sixth sense, coupled with the ability to hurl staplers at the wall when you're frustrated, is a real joy.
Finally, I think people sign up for NaNoWriMo for the social opportunities. NaNoWriMo is one of the few non-dating Web sites out there that is based around real-world, face-to-face interactions. Wherever you live in the world, there's a good chance that there's a NaNoWriMo chapter somewhere near you, organizing write-ins, get-togethers, and parties in November.
DON'T HIT ME, I'M A WRITER
WORDSMITTEN: What advice would you give to someone who really wants to write a novel during National Novel Writing Month, but is a bit ambivalent?
CHRIS BATY: I would whack them over the head and say, "What are you waiting for? Give it a shot! You have nothing to lose!" And then I would apologize for hitting them, and then recommence my yelling-because you really don't have anything to lose. If you end up writing 50,000 words and hating them all (which you won't) then you've only invested a month in the thing. And you can bury it in your backyard and never think about it again.
But if you end up writing a 50,000-word novel and being kind of surprised by how surprisingly okay it is, then you've leapt way, way ahead in your writing schedule, and gained a host of valuable writing insights that you couldn't get any other way, and you now have this manuscript that you can then revise to perfection. If you so choose. Either way, you can forever after brag about your feat to attractive strangers in bars and coffee shops. What could be better?
WORDSMITTEN: You've written a book entitled No Plot? No Problem: A low-stress, high velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days. The title seems pretty self-explanatory, but can someone really write a novel in 30 days with relatively low stress and relatively high velocity? And did it take you longer than 30 days to write your book?
CHRIS BATY: It did! It took me about four months to write the book-and it took me five years of struggle and over-caffeinated epiphanies to collect all the questionable bits of strategy and advice that I dispense in it.
Yes, absolutely, I think that the first draft of a novel can be done quickly and without a lot of stress. The key is in leveraging three things:
1) The liberating power of speed.
2) The terrifying accountability of a deadline.
3) The reassuring notion of inherently flawed first drafts.
The first one, speed, means you're staying focused on forward momentum, not allowing yourself to dwell on your writing faults and fears. It's all about output and improvisation, and the measure of success is measured in brute word count, rather than literary aesthetics. It's counterintuitive, but writing for quantity rather than quality actually nets you both.
The second means you're forcing yourself to write daily or almost daily, which gives you intensity and focus that does great things for a book. When writing a novel in a month, your imagination is forced to wade into unknown, frightening plot developments that it would normally try to postpone indefinitely.
The third point means that you just accept the fact that your first draft is going to need a lot of fixing, and that you will do that fixing later, after your entire story has emerged and you have a better sense of what tweaks are needed. In No Plot? No Problem! I encourage writers to not read any more than an orienting paragraph from the previous day's work when sitting down to write. When you read any more than that, you inevitably-and prematurely-start deleting things, which sucks you into this overwhelming process of trying to make everything perfect right then.
When you embrace the idea that you are going to write some really miserable prose at various points during the month, you can just laugh when it happens. And keep going. You'll always be able to fix it later, before anyone sees what a horrible writer you really are.
FROM ONE MONTH TO MAINLINE SUCCESS
WORDSMITTEN: Have there been any publishing successes that arose from NaNoWriMo?
CHRIS BATY: There have! In the past few years, the second novel written under the aegis of NaNoWriMo will be coming out: Time Off for Good Behavior, written by Lani Diane Rich and published by Warner Books. Lani's story is pretty great-she hadn't tried novel writing before, but was intrigued when she stumbled on the NaNoWriMo Web site back in 2002. She signed up, wrote a book, and was surprised by how unsucky it was. She edited it and showed it to an agent, who loved it-as did Warner Books, who ended up giving her a two book deal. Her book is coming out in October of this year.
WORDSMITTEN: What made you become a writer?
CHRIS BATY: I just kind of stumbled into it. I have two degrees in anthropology, and hadn't really thought about being a writer until I started doing music reviews for the school paper at University of Chicago, where I was finishing up my master's program. I'm a huge music nerd, and something just sort of clicked with the reviews I was writing. From there, I moved back to the Bay Area to work as an editor at a dot-com. I loved being around words and writing, but after a year and a half at the Web site I decided I wanted to give freelancing a try. That was five years ago. I've been doing a mix of articles on music, travel, and popular culture ever since. It's a weird life, but a pretty neat one. This spring, I got to go live in Singapore for a month to write an article on Vince McMahon and professional wrestling. What other career lets you do that?
Also, on the fiction-writing side, thanks to NaNoWriMo, I have five mediocre first drafts hanging around. I've spent the summer working on a major overhaul of one of them, and hope to have it ready to go out to editors by this November.
WORDSMITTEN: Where do you see NaNoWriMo five years from now? Ten years from now?
CHRIS BATY: These things all have a life span, and at some point NaNoWriMo will become outdated and square. For now, though, it all just feels tremendously exciting. There are so many good novels out there that didn't exist before NaNoWriMo-along with all the friendships that have started at local NaNoWriMo chapters and parties. Hopefully, No Plot? No Problem! will help induce some artistic jubilation into lives far beyond the reach of the NaNoWriMo Web site
I guess the bottom line is that I think we all are capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for. And it's been great watching that idea spread around the world these past five years.
-----
The National Novel Writing Month Web site can be found at www.nanowrimo.org. For those writers who face their gunpoint gray computers and say, "Hah! Thirty days is too long, give me three weeks, and give me a stinking novel." We want to hear from you. We want to see the results.
[Tim Ljunggren / WordSmitten]
A few writers will scoff. Many will say it just can't be done. Some will be intrigued.
Fifty thousand words.
Approximately 175 pages.
Thirty days.
That's the concept behind Chris Baty's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)—aspiring novelists are asked to write fifty thousand words (approximately 175 pages) between November 1 and November 30 of each year. Prizes? There are none. Cash awards? Zilch.
Is this man insane?
If Baty is insane, he's not alone: as the sixth annual NaNoWriMo looms closer, an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 writers will sign on with hope, angst, panache, ambivalence, and maybe-just maybe-a hint of insanity.
Baty, a freelance writer and author of the book, NO PLOT? NO PROBLEM! A low-stress, high-velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days, recently spoke with WordSmitten about NaNoWriMo and what it takes to write a novel in thirty days.
AVOIDING CLOISTERED MISERY
WORDSMIITTEN: What prompted you to start National Novel Writing Month? What prompts you to keep it going?
CHRIS BATY: I think a lot of it was just kind of worshipping novels, and wondering if I could write one myself. I'm an only child, and kids who grow up without siblings often have a pretty intense relationship with books. I remember reading myself into carsickness every year on our annual family drives from Kansas City to Mississippi or Colorado. Without brothers and sisters to help pass the time, you just naturally end up using books to fill that void. They're like little portable friends.
So that explains the "NoWri" parts of NaNoWriMo. The "Na" and the "Mo" parts stem from the fact that I always have a much easier time getting something done when other people are doing it alongside me. It's sort of a classroom mentality: when everyone is working towards the same goal, it's easier to stay focused. Having so many friends on board seemed like it would make the writing process a lot less scary, and it makes the time management aspects of it more appealing. Writing a book by yourself tends to involve a lot of social sacrifice. This is especially true if you have a full-time job, and are trying to write a book on evenings or weekends: just when you're ready to relax and have fun with friends and loved ones, you have to exile yourself to some lonely room where you sit by yourself and type.
By roping all my friends into writing a novel in a month, I kind of avoided that. The writing process became less of an isolated, cloistered misery and more of a book-themed block party. It was pretty neat.
As for the motivation for keeping it going--running NaNoWriMo is the best job in the world. I spend about five months out of my year working on NaNoWriMo, and it's a wonderful, exhausting, and totally inspiring experience. The rest of the year, I'm a freelance writer, which is satisfying as well, but a little lonely. Organizing NaNoWriMo is the exact opposite, and I get a contact high every year from all the people realizing their hulking creative potential. I feel unbelievably lucky to be a part of that.
WORDSMITTEN: In the six years you've been organizing NaNoWriMo, what's surprised you the most? What have you found to be the most frustrating?
CHRIS BATY: I think I've been consistently amazed at just how powerful the human imagination is, and how capable everyone is at churning out a reasonably coherent story in a limited amount of time. When you only give yourself thirty days to write a book, your brain stops fussing so much over each sentence and just goes. Somehow this rush actually improves, rather than detracts from, your writing. It's weird, but when you evaluate each day's output by word count rather than quality, you don't fall into that self-hating despair that tends to sabotage adults' attempts at creative play-which means you are exponentially more likely to see the project through to the end.
The most frustrating thing about running NaNoWriMo is slowly getting phased out. In previous years, I tended to try and do too much of the work myself. Which made October and November kind of a nightmare as I tried to handle all the tech support, general questions, graphic design, fundraising and bookkeeping, pep-talk writing, and store-running myself. I was also writing my own novel on top of this. It got to the point where I wasn't sleeping very much, and having nightmares every night about server hacks and misplaced t-shirt orders.
I'm now able to hire administrative, tech support, bookkeeping, and graphic design help--which means things are much less stressful for me.
FUNDING LIBRARIES
WORDSMITTEN: Can you tell us a bit about NaNoWriMo's relationship with Room to Read? Why such an emphasis on social interaction and significance?
CHRIS BATY: For the past couple of years, I've been going back and forth on the idea of making NaNoWriMo a non-profit corporation. From my conversations with directors of Bay Area non-profits, though, I've realized that establishing and running a non-profit takes a dedicated staff, a lot of year-round energy, and much more money than the small amount we raise every year through donations and t-shirt sales.
And as much as I love NaNoWriMo, I don't want to spend all year working on it. But despite the fact that we won't be an official 510(c)(3) anytime soon, I was still keen on channeling all the collective energy of NaNoWriMo towards some form of social good. So last year I spent some time researching literacy organizations that we might adopt-and that's how I found Room to Read.
Room to Read (www.roomtoread.org) is a nonprofit corporation started by a former Microsoft executive who decided he wanted to bring books and reading to kids in poverty-stricken places like Cambodia, Nepal, and Laos. They've not only built libraries-over 1,000 have been established to date-and train library staff, but they also hire local writers and illustrators to produce cool children's books in the local languages. These books are published in-country, using local printers. So Room to Read is not only turning kids onto books and reading, but they're also sending positive economic ripple effects through the entire country. It's kind of an amazing project, and we'll be giving 20% of our net proceeds from site contributions and t-shirt sales to their Cambodian library program this year. Through Room to Read, you can establish a library in an existing school for $2,000; we're hoping to get at least two, maybe three NaNoWriMo-sponsored libraries built in areas that could otherwise not afford them.
WORDSMITTEN: This year, you expect anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 people to attempt to write a novel within 30 days-what is it about writing that hooks people? Why do people agree to write 50,000 words in no more than 30 days?
CHRIS BATY: I think some of NaNoWriMo's appeal is in its "quick-fix" approach to creativity. Everyone is so busy with work, family, and friends that they don't really have time to work on things that are enriching but not essential. When you barely have time to buy groceries, the idea of signing up for painting classes or French lessons is beyond the pale.
NaNoWriMo, because it only lasts a month, serves as a manageable and satisfying dunk in the old creative juices. However busy someone's schedule may be, they can usually find two hours a day, five days a week, to dedicate to a book. And what a huge pay-off for a relatively small investment! Most of us spend ten hours a week watching TV. To trade a few "Cheers" re-runs and some prime-time couch-potato'ing for a novel seems too good to be true. But that's really all it takes.
I think the other allure of NaNoWriMo is the fact that it gives practical, respectable adults a one-month vacation in novel-land. For one month, we get to step out of our hum-drum lives and just live our fantasies of what it means to be an artist. For me, it means making unbelievable messes in my apartment and drinking so much coffee that my eyeballs twitch. I stay up too late and eat a lot of junk food and throw office supplies around just for the hell of it. But for that month, I also see things with a more enlightened eye. I listen more closely to other people's conversations, and pay more attention to body language and gestures. It's as if you gain a sixth sense while writing a novel, a probing little eyelet that goes out and explores the world to see if any of it can be transformed into novel-fodder. That sixth sense, coupled with the ability to hurl staplers at the wall when you're frustrated, is a real joy.
Finally, I think people sign up for NaNoWriMo for the social opportunities. NaNoWriMo is one of the few non-dating Web sites out there that is based around real-world, face-to-face interactions. Wherever you live in the world, there's a good chance that there's a NaNoWriMo chapter somewhere near you, organizing write-ins, get-togethers, and parties in November.
DON'T HIT ME, I'M A WRITER
CHRIS BATY: I would whack them over the head and say, "What are you waiting for? Give it a shot! You have nothing to lose!" And then I would apologize for hitting them, and then recommence my yelling-because you really don't have anything to lose. If you end up writing 50,000 words and hating them all (which you won't) then you've only invested a month in the thing. And you can bury it in your backyard and never think about it again.
But if you end up writing a 50,000-word novel and being kind of surprised by how surprisingly okay it is, then you've leapt way, way ahead in your writing schedule, and gained a host of valuable writing insights that you couldn't get any other way, and you now have this manuscript that you can then revise to perfection. If you so choose. Either way, you can forever after brag about your feat to attractive strangers in bars and coffee shops. What could be better?
WORDSMITTEN: You've written a book entitled No Plot? No Problem: A low-stress, high velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days. The title seems pretty self-explanatory, but can someone really write a novel in 30 days with relatively low stress and relatively high velocity? And did it take you longer than 30 days to write your book?
CHRIS BATY: It did! It took me about four months to write the book-and it took me five years of struggle and over-caffeinated epiphanies to collect all the questionable bits of strategy and advice that I dispense in it.
Yes, absolutely, I think that the first draft of a novel can be done quickly and without a lot of stress. The key is in leveraging three things:
1) The liberating power of speed.
2) The terrifying accountability of a deadline.
3) The reassuring notion of inherently flawed first drafts.
The first one, speed, means you're staying focused on forward momentum, not allowing yourself to dwell on your writing faults and fears. It's all about output and improvisation, and the measure of success is measured in brute word count, rather than literary aesthetics. It's counterintuitive, but writing for quantity rather than quality actually nets you both.
The second means you're forcing yourself to write daily or almost daily, which gives you intensity and focus that does great things for a book. When writing a novel in a month, your imagination is forced to wade into unknown, frightening plot developments that it would normally try to postpone indefinitely.
The third point means that you just accept the fact that your first draft is going to need a lot of fixing, and that you will do that fixing later, after your entire story has emerged and you have a better sense of what tweaks are needed. In No Plot? No Problem! I encourage writers to not read any more than an orienting paragraph from the previous day's work when sitting down to write. When you read any more than that, you inevitably-and prematurely-start deleting things, which sucks you into this overwhelming process of trying to make everything perfect right then.
When you embrace the idea that you are going to write some really miserable prose at various points during the month, you can just laugh when it happens. And keep going. You'll always be able to fix it later, before anyone sees what a horrible writer you really are.
FROM ONE MONTH TO MAINLINE SUCCESS
WORDSMITTEN: Have there been any publishing successes that arose from NaNoWriMo?
CHRIS BATY: There have! In the past few years, the second novel written under the aegis of NaNoWriMo will be coming out: Time Off for Good Behavior, written by Lani Diane Rich and published by Warner Books. Lani's story is pretty great-she hadn't tried novel writing before, but was intrigued when she stumbled on the NaNoWriMo Web site back in 2002. She signed up, wrote a book, and was surprised by how unsucky it was. She edited it and showed it to an agent, who loved it-as did Warner Books, who ended up giving her a two book deal. Her book is coming out in October of this year.
WORDSMITTEN: What made you become a writer?
CHRIS BATY: I just kind of stumbled into it. I have two degrees in anthropology, and hadn't really thought about being a writer until I started doing music reviews for the school paper at University of Chicago, where I was finishing up my master's program. I'm a huge music nerd, and something just sort of clicked with the reviews I was writing. From there, I moved back to the Bay Area to work as an editor at a dot-com. I loved being around words and writing, but after a year and a half at the Web site I decided I wanted to give freelancing a try. That was five years ago. I've been doing a mix of articles on music, travel, and popular culture ever since. It's a weird life, but a pretty neat one. This spring, I got to go live in Singapore for a month to write an article on Vince McMahon and professional wrestling. What other career lets you do that?
Also, on the fiction-writing side, thanks to NaNoWriMo, I have five mediocre first drafts hanging around. I've spent the summer working on a major overhaul of one of them, and hope to have it ready to go out to editors by this November.
WORDSMITTEN: Where do you see NaNoWriMo five years from now? Ten years from now?
CHRIS BATY: These things all have a life span, and at some point NaNoWriMo will become outdated and square. For now, though, it all just feels tremendously exciting. There are so many good novels out there that didn't exist before NaNoWriMo-along with all the friendships that have started at local NaNoWriMo chapters and parties. Hopefully, No Plot? No Problem! will help induce some artistic jubilation into lives far beyond the reach of the NaNoWriMo Web site
I guess the bottom line is that I think we all are capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for. And it's been great watching that idea spread around the world these past five years.
-----
The National Novel Writing Month Web site can be found at www.nanowrimo.org. For those writers who face their gunpoint gray computers and say, "Hah! Thirty days is too long, give me three weeks, and give me a stinking novel." We want to hear from you. We want to see the results.
[Tim Ljunggren / WordSmitten]
National Novel Writing Month 2004
National Novel Writing Month was the brainchild of Chris Baty, a twenty-something caffeine-addled writer who wanted merely to "democratize novel-writing, and bring the empowering, hands-on joys of artistic creation to everyday lives around the world."
Achievable Goals.
The idea? Write a novel of 50,000 words in one month. In 1999, at National Novel Writing Month's inception, there were 21 participants all in the San Francisco Bay area. Now, in its sixth year, National Novel Writing Month is an international undertaking with its own web site and 40,000 participants. It is expected that of these, 5000 will succeed in their attempt to finish the 50,000 words between November 1 and midnight on November 30, 2004.
Crazy? Perhaps.
I was fortunate enough to convince a handful of these speed writers to step away from their laptops and their carpal tunnel syndrome long enough to give me the insider's lowdown on this wild undertaking. Due to time considerations, I was only able to choose from those in nearby (USA) time zones for our late night chat, but as you'll see, NaNoWriMo crosses boundaries of age, location, and background.
Anne: This is my fourth year doing NaNo.
Richard: Yep. 2001 and 2003. Finished 50K both years
Colonia: This is my first year.
Teresa: This is my first year.
April: This is my first year.
Sara: Yes, in 2003. Lost miserably. I'm excited to try again.
MF: Have you attempted a non NaNoWriMo novel before?
Anne: I have, but it didn't work out very well. NaNo gave me the motivation to get it finished.
Richard: Yep. I have a couple under my belt. My first, Adventureworld, dates from when I was in 8th grade, about 1982. It's pretty awful. I have another from 1999, LTM, that I never finished.
Colonia: Not really. I've written random fanfictions here and there, and I did write this pretty weird story called The Magic Book when I was in the second grade, but I'd never considered attempting anything that could be considered a novel until I heard about NaNoWriMo.
April: I've completed a few rough drafts, starting in eighth grade, and one novel is finished except for final revisions and editing.
Teresa: I've started one that I haven't yet finished. I think I write in real time - the novel will span 30 years and I'm in about my 5th year of it.
Sara: Always dreamed of attempting, yes. Actually attempted, no. The perfect candidate for NaNo.
MF: What made you want to do NaNoWriMo?
Anne: I knew I had a novel ... or 2 or 6 in me, but I could never manage to finish. I'd just re-write the same chapters over and over. When I heard about NaNo, I thought a word count and a deadline to shoot for would help me finish. And it did.
Richard: The challenge and the opportunity to actually FINISH something. I'd had ideas for novels running around in my head for years that I had never done anything with. NNWM forced me to commit. Just like Anne, I guess.
Colonia: Well, I've always wanted to write a novel, and it seemed like sort of a fun thing to do. I always love doing those crazy things that nobody in their right mind would think are at all possible, which is why I was so attracted to NaNoWriMo.
April: I've been working on the same story on and off since 1995, and wanted to write a second. This is motivating me to take a break from editing and actually get it written.
Teresa: My daughter and her friend signed up to do it and after hearing my daughter discuss it, I decided to give it a go.
Sara: The camaraderie with other people trying to do the same challenge at the same time, as well as the deadline that helps me make the challenge a priority in my life for a while.
MF: What was your pre-writing work? Outlines? Character development?
Anne: I don't use outlines. My characters kind of tell me where the story is going. I have a basic idea of the story, but I never know what's going to happen next. When Nov. 1 rolls around, I just start writing and the rest is a surprise!
Richard: I did some world building and outlining for about four months; though my friends and I have been developing the setting since about 1997.
Colonia: The only pre-writing that I actually did was to think of the characters' names and to think of the basic idea for the novel. I don't think that I actually wrote anything down until
the First, even though it's legal to do that sort of thing before November.
April: I'm writing a prequel to my first story, so much of the plot work was already completed. I am simply fleshing it out and adding more details now.
Teresa: On 11/1, I signed up and saw that I was supposed to start from scratch, so after panicking, I Googled on "Random Plot Generator" and got something. (Six words to turn into a story.)
Sara: Nothing formally organized, but I have pages and pages of notes and I also created some topics related to my story on index cards to use to write about for 15 minutes when I get stuck. Anything to help me keep moving forward.
MF: What is your writing strategy or routine?
Anne: Uh, I don't have one really. I just write whenever I feel the urge. Sometimes I go an entire day without writing anything. Other days I write 5,000 words. My only strategy is to have lots of caffeine on hand ... for the 5,000 word nights.
Richard: I usually sit down after work and churn out about 2,000 words. Sometimes if I have some downtime at work, I'll write a little bit there as well. Yesterday I was able to write 1,000 words at work. No real strategy here.
Colonia: I carry a little notebook around school with me all the time, and I work on my novel during classes, mostly Biology class. When I get home, I type up everything that I've written, and keep going until I meet my 2,500 words per day. I try not to take any days off. I haven't yet.
April: I've broken my plot into scenes, and before writing each scene, I break it down further into steps. If one scene is too short to meet my word quota, I'll do two. I aim a little higher than the minimum because I'll need to devote at least one or two days later in the month to research.
Teresa: Sheer panic, writing, checking my word count, panicking and writing
some more.
Sara: I have written one scene at a time, in whatever order they come. I will be editing them into "proper" story order after November is over. For now, my goal is just to get my ideas out of my head and into actual words.
MF: Is it hard to keep momentum? What energizes you?
Anne: Sometimes it's hard to keep momentum but then I remember I only have until the end of the month so I have to get it done. Caffeine. Caffeine. Caffeine. That and remembering the satisfaction I get from finishing.
Richard: I love seeing the word count go up. Also, I love my story and seeing what happens next. Some days, it's just sheer cussedness that keeps me going. I can't drink much caffeine, unfortunately.
Colonia: Sometimes it's hard to keep momentum, but I know that I'm not going to let myself go to bed until my word quota's finished, so I just try to not procrastinate it too much. Besides, I find my plot fairly interesting, so I'm usually anxious to get it written. Besides, I love to watch the little blue bar get bigger and bigger and bigger...
April: I only had two days where it was hard. Once I set up a routine, it went more smoothly. What keeps my motivation up is that I enjoy to write and have a lot of fun both creating the story and learning for it. And yes... coffee helps.
Teresa: I've convinced a few friends to join me in this challenge and now I will be too embarrassed to tell them I didn't finish, so I keep on going. Also, I want to find out what happens in my story!
Sara: Chris's pep talks are always, always just what I needed to hear that week! He's amazingly motivating and reminds me to keep it FUN. I forget that sometimes in the heat of the frustration.
MF: What is your word count so far?
Anne: 30,0050 ... and, for the life of me, I don't know how I wrote that many words in 10 days.
Richard: 18,892 words.
Colonia: 31,594
April: 22887, but I'm not done for the day.
Teresa: 17600
Sara: 17,916
MF: Can you give me the 20 cent description of your novel?
Anne: Gina, a newspaper reporter, is trying to find out who is kidnapping her online friends and posting porn pics of them on the 'net. In the meantime, her lawyer husband is trying to uncover a mystery about elder abuse.
Richard: A young woman on a distant planet becomes embroiled in a massive conspiracy while investigating the mysterious death of her husband. Meanwhile, civil war is looming.
Colonia: Well, I can't really give too much of a description without giving a lot away, but it's basically about this girl, Anælicia, trying to get to this Land of Truth, called Verdira, and the people that she meets on the way, and their trials and tribulations, and all of the things that they learn about themselves on the way.
April: Essentially, my novel is Biblical fiction, the account of roughly the first half of King David's reign from the point of view of Amnon, his firstborn son. Sort of an insider look at the internal politics and court intrigues.
Teresa: this will be tough, but I think it's something like this: Anya discovers that her family in Burroughs Corners, middle America is far from ordinary and mundane when she slips through time portals in corn mazes and Walmart.
Sara: A recent college graduate lands her dream job as a Personal Reporter / Career Historian for a rising-star musician.
MF: Do you feel like you've hit your stride with your writing? Are you in the groove?
Anne: With this particular story, yes? But I know I still have a lot to learn and I'll keep getting better, as will my stories.
Richard: Absolutely. I have a very firm grasp of the story and where it's going. It's still practice, though; I have many more novels plAnned.
Colonia: Definitely. I've never written anything this long, and I never thought that I could possibly write thirty-one thousand words in just ten days.
April: Yes. I was having a little bit of trouble with the battle scenes that comprise the middle portion of the novel, so I'm saving them for last, and the rest is moving along well.
Teresa: I wish I could hit a faster stride, but this is pretty good.
Sara: Definitely not, but I'm learning so much every day, I'm bound to find it soon. I hope.
MF: How is the rest of your life faring under this duress?
Anne: Other than losing a lot of sleep, I don't have any problems. I only work part-time, so that's an advantage. And I don't have children. Another definite advantage. I don't know how people with children do this!
Richard: Not bad. My work is not suffering, and my wife understands perfectly, having gone through this herself (though she's far too involved in other projects to participate this year). I haven't lost any sleep.
Colonia: A lot more smoothly than I thought. Shockingly, I haven't really been losing that much sleep, and all of my teachers seem to be giving a lot less homework than they did in October, for some odd reason or another.
April: I normally budget 1-2 hours a day for writing and related work anyway, so I'm simply using that time for NaNo this month. I'm single and have no children, so I have enough time.
Teresa: What life? Seriously, though, I usually am writing before my kids get up and after they go to bed with a few minutes grabbed here and there in between. I am not sleeping well.
Sara: Everyone I've told has been so excited for me and supportive. I have people who allow me to send them scenes and encourage me constantly. I've been very lucky.
MF: After NaNoWriMo… what's next?
Anne: Editing! Not just for this story but for two others I'm working on, and hoping to submit to publishers soon.
Richard: Rewriting! Plus outlining a large project I've been planning for several months. And I have several short stories I'm planning on revising or submitting for publication. I want to do this for a living in 5 years.
Colonia: Looking forward to being an active part of NaNoEdMo - National Novel Editing Month (not a real month, by the way). Although, I must admit, I don't think that editing the novel will be nearly as exciting as writing is.
April: Revision and editing. I think NaNo's timing worked out great for me, because this way I can look at both stories together and edit them simultaneously for consistency. And many (more) hours will be spent at the library.
Teresa: I need to start on my non-fiction book. And maybe, finish the novel I started five years ago.
Sara: I hope to have learned to be disciplined to write every day because I want to keep practicing. I dream of publishing a "really good something" someday, so I will always be working towards that.
MF: Thank you all so much! Best of luck!
[Mark Flanagan / About.com]
Achievable Goals.
The idea? Write a novel of 50,000 words in one month. In 1999, at National Novel Writing Month's inception, there were 21 participants all in the San Francisco Bay area. Now, in its sixth year, National Novel Writing Month is an international undertaking with its own web site and 40,000 participants. It is expected that of these, 5000 will succeed in their attempt to finish the 50,000 words between November 1 and midnight on November 30, 2004.
Crazy? Perhaps.
I was fortunate enough to convince a handful of these speed writers to step away from their laptops and their carpal tunnel syndrome long enough to give me the insider's lowdown on this wild undertaking. Due to time considerations, I was only able to choose from those in nearby (USA) time zones for our late night chat, but as you'll see, NaNoWriMo crosses boundaries of age, location, and background.
Anne, 44: PennsylvaniaMF: Have you done NaNoWriMo in previous years?
Richard, 36: California
Colonia, 15: Massachusetts
April, 24: Texas
Teresa, 45: Massachusetts
Sara, 28: Nevada
Anne: This is my fourth year doing NaNo.
Richard: Yep. 2001 and 2003. Finished 50K both years
Colonia: This is my first year.
Teresa: This is my first year.
April: This is my first year.
Sara: Yes, in 2003. Lost miserably. I'm excited to try again.
MF: Have you attempted a non NaNoWriMo novel before?
Anne: I have, but it didn't work out very well. NaNo gave me the motivation to get it finished.
Richard: Yep. I have a couple under my belt. My first, Adventureworld, dates from when I was in 8th grade, about 1982. It's pretty awful. I have another from 1999, LTM, that I never finished.
Colonia: Not really. I've written random fanfictions here and there, and I did write this pretty weird story called The Magic Book when I was in the second grade, but I'd never considered attempting anything that could be considered a novel until I heard about NaNoWriMo.
April: I've completed a few rough drafts, starting in eighth grade, and one novel is finished except for final revisions and editing.
Teresa: I've started one that I haven't yet finished. I think I write in real time - the novel will span 30 years and I'm in about my 5th year of it.
Sara: Always dreamed of attempting, yes. Actually attempted, no. The perfect candidate for NaNo.
MF: What made you want to do NaNoWriMo?
Anne: I knew I had a novel ... or 2 or 6 in me, but I could never manage to finish. I'd just re-write the same chapters over and over. When I heard about NaNo, I thought a word count and a deadline to shoot for would help me finish. And it did.
Richard: The challenge and the opportunity to actually FINISH something. I'd had ideas for novels running around in my head for years that I had never done anything with. NNWM forced me to commit. Just like Anne, I guess.
Colonia: Well, I've always wanted to write a novel, and it seemed like sort of a fun thing to do. I always love doing those crazy things that nobody in their right mind would think are at all possible, which is why I was so attracted to NaNoWriMo.
April: I've been working on the same story on and off since 1995, and wanted to write a second. This is motivating me to take a break from editing and actually get it written.
Teresa: My daughter and her friend signed up to do it and after hearing my daughter discuss it, I decided to give it a go.
Sara: The camaraderie with other people trying to do the same challenge at the same time, as well as the deadline that helps me make the challenge a priority in my life for a while.
MF: What was your pre-writing work? Outlines? Character development?
Anne: I don't use outlines. My characters kind of tell me where the story is going. I have a basic idea of the story, but I never know what's going to happen next. When Nov. 1 rolls around, I just start writing and the rest is a surprise!
Richard: I did some world building and outlining for about four months; though my friends and I have been developing the setting since about 1997.
Colonia: The only pre-writing that I actually did was to think of the characters' names and to think of the basic idea for the novel. I don't think that I actually wrote anything down until
the First, even though it's legal to do that sort of thing before November.
April: I'm writing a prequel to my first story, so much of the plot work was already completed. I am simply fleshing it out and adding more details now.
Teresa: On 11/1, I signed up and saw that I was supposed to start from scratch, so after panicking, I Googled on "Random Plot Generator" and got something. (Six words to turn into a story.)
Sara: Nothing formally organized, but I have pages and pages of notes and I also created some topics related to my story on index cards to use to write about for 15 minutes when I get stuck. Anything to help me keep moving forward.
MF: What is your writing strategy or routine?
Anne: Uh, I don't have one really. I just write whenever I feel the urge. Sometimes I go an entire day without writing anything. Other days I write 5,000 words. My only strategy is to have lots of caffeine on hand ... for the 5,000 word nights.
Richard: I usually sit down after work and churn out about 2,000 words. Sometimes if I have some downtime at work, I'll write a little bit there as well. Yesterday I was able to write 1,000 words at work. No real strategy here.
Colonia: I carry a little notebook around school with me all the time, and I work on my novel during classes, mostly Biology class. When I get home, I type up everything that I've written, and keep going until I meet my 2,500 words per day. I try not to take any days off. I haven't yet.
April: I've broken my plot into scenes, and before writing each scene, I break it down further into steps. If one scene is too short to meet my word quota, I'll do two. I aim a little higher than the minimum because I'll need to devote at least one or two days later in the month to research.
Teresa: Sheer panic, writing, checking my word count, panicking and writing
some more.
Sara: I have written one scene at a time, in whatever order they come. I will be editing them into "proper" story order after November is over. For now, my goal is just to get my ideas out of my head and into actual words.
MF: Is it hard to keep momentum? What energizes you?
Anne: Sometimes it's hard to keep momentum but then I remember I only have until the end of the month so I have to get it done. Caffeine. Caffeine. Caffeine. That and remembering the satisfaction I get from finishing.
Richard: I love seeing the word count go up. Also, I love my story and seeing what happens next. Some days, it's just sheer cussedness that keeps me going. I can't drink much caffeine, unfortunately.
Colonia: Sometimes it's hard to keep momentum, but I know that I'm not going to let myself go to bed until my word quota's finished, so I just try to not procrastinate it too much. Besides, I find my plot fairly interesting, so I'm usually anxious to get it written. Besides, I love to watch the little blue bar get bigger and bigger and bigger...
April: I only had two days where it was hard. Once I set up a routine, it went more smoothly. What keeps my motivation up is that I enjoy to write and have a lot of fun both creating the story and learning for it. And yes... coffee helps.
Teresa: I've convinced a few friends to join me in this challenge and now I will be too embarrassed to tell them I didn't finish, so I keep on going. Also, I want to find out what happens in my story!
Sara: Chris's pep talks are always, always just what I needed to hear that week! He's amazingly motivating and reminds me to keep it FUN. I forget that sometimes in the heat of the frustration.
MF: What is your word count so far?
Anne: 30,0050 ... and, for the life of me, I don't know how I wrote that many words in 10 days.
Richard: 18,892 words.
Colonia: 31,594
April: 22887, but I'm not done for the day.
Teresa: 17600
Sara: 17,916
MF: Can you give me the 20 cent description of your novel?
Anne: Gina, a newspaper reporter, is trying to find out who is kidnapping her online friends and posting porn pics of them on the 'net. In the meantime, her lawyer husband is trying to uncover a mystery about elder abuse.
Richard: A young woman on a distant planet becomes embroiled in a massive conspiracy while investigating the mysterious death of her husband. Meanwhile, civil war is looming.
Colonia: Well, I can't really give too much of a description without giving a lot away, but it's basically about this girl, Anælicia, trying to get to this Land of Truth, called Verdira, and the people that she meets on the way, and their trials and tribulations, and all of the things that they learn about themselves on the way.
April: Essentially, my novel is Biblical fiction, the account of roughly the first half of King David's reign from the point of view of Amnon, his firstborn son. Sort of an insider look at the internal politics and court intrigues.
Teresa: this will be tough, but I think it's something like this: Anya discovers that her family in Burroughs Corners, middle America is far from ordinary and mundane when she slips through time portals in corn mazes and Walmart.
Sara: A recent college graduate lands her dream job as a Personal Reporter / Career Historian for a rising-star musician.
MF: Do you feel like you've hit your stride with your writing? Are you in the groove?
Anne: With this particular story, yes? But I know I still have a lot to learn and I'll keep getting better, as will my stories.
Richard: Absolutely. I have a very firm grasp of the story and where it's going. It's still practice, though; I have many more novels plAnned.
Colonia: Definitely. I've never written anything this long, and I never thought that I could possibly write thirty-one thousand words in just ten days.
April: Yes. I was having a little bit of trouble with the battle scenes that comprise the middle portion of the novel, so I'm saving them for last, and the rest is moving along well.
Teresa: I wish I could hit a faster stride, but this is pretty good.
Sara: Definitely not, but I'm learning so much every day, I'm bound to find it soon. I hope.
MF: How is the rest of your life faring under this duress?
Anne: Other than losing a lot of sleep, I don't have any problems. I only work part-time, so that's an advantage. And I don't have children. Another definite advantage. I don't know how people with children do this!
Richard: Not bad. My work is not suffering, and my wife understands perfectly, having gone through this herself (though she's far too involved in other projects to participate this year). I haven't lost any sleep.
Colonia: A lot more smoothly than I thought. Shockingly, I haven't really been losing that much sleep, and all of my teachers seem to be giving a lot less homework than they did in October, for some odd reason or another.
April: I normally budget 1-2 hours a day for writing and related work anyway, so I'm simply using that time for NaNo this month. I'm single and have no children, so I have enough time.
Teresa: What life? Seriously, though, I usually am writing before my kids get up and after they go to bed with a few minutes grabbed here and there in between. I am not sleeping well.
Sara: Everyone I've told has been so excited for me and supportive. I have people who allow me to send them scenes and encourage me constantly. I've been very lucky.
MF: After NaNoWriMo… what's next?
Anne: Editing! Not just for this story but for two others I'm working on, and hoping to submit to publishers soon.
Richard: Rewriting! Plus outlining a large project I've been planning for several months. And I have several short stories I'm planning on revising or submitting for publication. I want to do this for a living in 5 years.
Colonia: Looking forward to being an active part of NaNoEdMo - National Novel Editing Month (not a real month, by the way). Although, I must admit, I don't think that editing the novel will be nearly as exciting as writing is.
April: Revision and editing. I think NaNo's timing worked out great for me, because this way I can look at both stories together and edit them simultaneously for consistency. And many (more) hours will be spent at the library.
Teresa: I need to start on my non-fiction book. And maybe, finish the novel I started five years ago.
Sara: I hope to have learned to be disciplined to write every day because I want to keep practicing. I dream of publishing a "really good something" someday, so I will always be working towards that.
MF: Thank you all so much! Best of luck!
[Mark Flanagan / About.com]
Monday, October 11, 2004
Starring: Lisa Corey
Tenth grade English teacher Lisa K. Corey of Bennett High School in Buffalo, New York, stumbled across the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) Web site while searching for interesting lesson plan ideas. This "novel" approach to writing invites participants to create a 50,000-word narrative in the month of November. It places emphasis on quantity, not quality, in order to help inexperienced writers put aside their fears and start to write. Many teachers now are applying the NaNoWriMo approach to the classroom.
"Last year was the first time I used NaNoWriMo in my classes," Corey told Education World. "Rather than ask students to devote the entire month to writing as a required activity, I offered it as an extra credit or grade-change assignment.
Of her 150 students, about 80 elected to participate. Fewer actually submitted their compositions for Corey's review, but the effort and originality in those works impressed the teacher.
"I'm used to hearing, 'No way! That's too much!' when I tell my students they need to write a 225-word essay on their June exam, so it was wonderful to see how many of them wrote several thousand words!" said Corey. "My highest student word count was approximately 20,000."
Although some educators might find it difficult to abandon "scheduled curriculum" in lieu of an entire month of writing, Corey argues that NaNoWriMo is "scheduled curriculum" and a worthy endeavor.
"All English language arts teachers are required, as part of the curriculum, to help students better their writing skills," she explained. "What better way could there be to attack everything -- from capitalization and paragraphing to development and conversation writing -- than through a novel-writing challenge? It's a wonderful opportunity for students to write creatively while still addressing all the grammatical issues we face on a daily basis."
With her students' needs in mind, Corey feels it's unlikely she'll present NaNoWriMo as a requirement in the future, but she's certain that her use of the event as an optional assignment will continue for a long time.
She advises teachers who are new to the program to:
"Last year was the first time I used NaNoWriMo in my classes," Corey told Education World. "Rather than ask students to devote the entire month to writing as a required activity, I offered it as an extra credit or grade-change assignment.
Of her 150 students, about 80 elected to participate. Fewer actually submitted their compositions for Corey's review, but the effort and originality in those works impressed the teacher.
"I'm used to hearing, 'No way! That's too much!' when I tell my students they need to write a 225-word essay on their June exam, so it was wonderful to see how many of them wrote several thousand words!" said Corey. "My highest student word count was approximately 20,000."
Although some educators might find it difficult to abandon "scheduled curriculum" in lieu of an entire month of writing, Corey argues that NaNoWriMo is "scheduled curriculum" and a worthy endeavor.
"All English language arts teachers are required, as part of the curriculum, to help students better their writing skills," she explained. "What better way could there be to attack everything -- from capitalization and paragraphing to development and conversation writing -- than through a novel-writing challenge? It's a wonderful opportunity for students to write creatively while still addressing all the grammatical issues we face on a daily basis."
With her students' needs in mind, Corey feels it's unlikely she'll present NaNoWriMo as a requirement in the future, but she's certain that her use of the event as an optional assignment will continue for a long time.
She advises teachers who are new to the program to:
- Write with their students.
- Encourage students to get together for writing circles outside of school.
- Discuss their personal writing process with students. Include everything from the type of paper you prefer to the type of writing utensil you use most often -- anything that makes the process solid for them.
- Offer incentives.
- Make deadlines attainable.
For more information about National Novel Writing Month, visit the Web site.[Cara Bafile / Education World]
Sunday, October 3, 2004
Reconciliation: In The Beginning
By Luther F Tyler: "Two people. Opposing factions. Road trip. What could possibly go wrong?"
Sunday, September 5, 2004
Shed 250 pages in just 30 days!
In 1999, anything seemed possible. Blame "irrational exuberance." Blame Silicon Valley.
"Back then," Oakland's Chris Baty recalls, "it seemed entirely feasible, nay inevitable, that my friends and I would spend three tiring years in the workforce -- throwing Nerf balls at each other and staging madcap office- chair races -- and then cash in our hard-earned stock options, buy a small island somewhere and helicopter off into blissful retirement."
So why not try to write a novel in a month?
"Being surrounded by pet-supply e-tailers worth more than IBM has a way of getting your sense of what's possible all out of whack," Baty says.
On top of all that, a new millennium was nigh, and surely peace, love and a cure for AIDS were near at hand, Y2K worries notwithstanding.
"We were in our mid-20s, and we had no idea what we were doing," he says. "But we knew we loved books. And so we set out to write them."
Write they did, inviting the whole country to join them by launching, that November, National Novel Writing Month -- or NaNoWriMo -- which continues to this day.
During that first month of noveling, a "heart-fibrillating amount of coffee" was consumed as Baty and 20 friends used every spare moment to write furiously, without taking any time off from work.
Of that group, six made it to the finish line with the obligatory 50,000 words (or 250 pages -- the length of "The Great Gatsby," Baty reminds us). None of them got published, but hey -- this race has no losers. Just participating is an adventure.
"It's a chance to take a 30-day vacation from everyday life," Baty says. "For people who probably don't have a lot of opportunities to tackle huge creative projects, it gives them the structure and adequate levels of deadline- driven terror to take this project and nail it."
Now, what has been learned -- call it survival skills -- is available in a book called "No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days," just out from Chronicle Books (which is not affiliated with this newspaper).
"Just getting a first draft of a novel can take years and years," Baty says. "But when you accept that the first draft is going to be horrible, you can write through those dismal, despairing moments and really revel in the creative process."
Since 1996, Baty has written five novels. "Two of them are so horribly bad that I'll never look at them again," he says with a laugh.
"But two of them I like, and I've spent this summer rewriting one that I do hope to get published."
It's a comic novel ("very Nick Hornby 'High Fidelity,' " Baty says) involving "an American guy who is a Scottish music nerd who did a year abroad and met a woman there who hated Scotland."
She's a computer programmer. She needs a green card. Somehow, the casual carpool from Oakland alters each of their lives forever ...
We will say no more.
But we will leave you with one choice piece of advice from Baty's book, a useful tidbit for writers of every stripe: "Don't write within view of a bed.".
(To learn more about National Novel Writing Month, visit www.nanowrimo.org. For a list of writers who have had their 30-day novels published, go to Frequently Asked Questions.)
[Heidi Benson / San Francisco Chronicle]
"Back then," Oakland's Chris Baty recalls, "it seemed entirely feasible, nay inevitable, that my friends and I would spend three tiring years in the workforce -- throwing Nerf balls at each other and staging madcap office- chair races -- and then cash in our hard-earned stock options, buy a small island somewhere and helicopter off into blissful retirement."
So why not try to write a novel in a month?
"Being surrounded by pet-supply e-tailers worth more than IBM has a way of getting your sense of what's possible all out of whack," Baty says.
On top of all that, a new millennium was nigh, and surely peace, love and a cure for AIDS were near at hand, Y2K worries notwithstanding.
"We were in our mid-20s, and we had no idea what we were doing," he says. "But we knew we loved books. And so we set out to write them."
Write they did, inviting the whole country to join them by launching, that November, National Novel Writing Month -- or NaNoWriMo -- which continues to this day.
During that first month of noveling, a "heart-fibrillating amount of coffee" was consumed as Baty and 20 friends used every spare moment to write furiously, without taking any time off from work.
Of that group, six made it to the finish line with the obligatory 50,000 words (or 250 pages -- the length of "The Great Gatsby," Baty reminds us). None of them got published, but hey -- this race has no losers. Just participating is an adventure.
"It's a chance to take a 30-day vacation from everyday life," Baty says. "For people who probably don't have a lot of opportunities to tackle huge creative projects, it gives them the structure and adequate levels of deadline- driven terror to take this project and nail it."
Now, what has been learned -- call it survival skills -- is available in a book called "No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days," just out from Chronicle Books (which is not affiliated with this newspaper).
"Just getting a first draft of a novel can take years and years," Baty says. "But when you accept that the first draft is going to be horrible, you can write through those dismal, despairing moments and really revel in the creative process."
Since 1996, Baty has written five novels. "Two of them are so horribly bad that I'll never look at them again," he says with a laugh.
"But two of them I like, and I've spent this summer rewriting one that I do hope to get published."
It's a comic novel ("very Nick Hornby 'High Fidelity,' " Baty says) involving "an American guy who is a Scottish music nerd who did a year abroad and met a woman there who hated Scotland."
She's a computer programmer. She needs a green card. Somehow, the casual carpool from Oakland alters each of their lives forever ...
We will say no more.
But we will leave you with one choice piece of advice from Baty's book, a useful tidbit for writers of every stripe: "Don't write within view of a bed.".
(To learn more about National Novel Writing Month, visit www.nanowrimo.org. For a list of writers who have had their 30-day novels published, go to Frequently Asked Questions.)
[Heidi Benson / San Francisco Chronicle]
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