SHHH!
Don't disturb Kit Minden. She's writing.
And writing. And writing.
A demanding 1,666 words a day, which she hopes will total 50,000 words by the end of the month.
Minden is one of seven area writers participating in National Novel Writing Month, an annual event for which aspiring authors pull their writing projects from life's back burner and place them squarely on the front by penning a 50,000-word work of fiction.
And, they've got only the 30 days in November to do it.
Quantity, not quality, is the key, said Minden, founder of the Fredericksburg Writer's Workshop, a local writing group that meets twice a month at Tea Tyme & Whatnots on Caroline Street.
"The commitment is just to write it, to do what you didn't imagine you would do," Minden said.
The 30-day effort, nicknamed NaNoWriMo, was started in 1999 by Chris Baty, a freelance writer who is now the author of "No Plot? No Problem," published in October by Chronicle Books.
Back then, Baty was determined to write a novel in a month and encouraged 20 of his friends to do likewise.
"I have a personality where the simplest tasks become exhibitionistic acts, with people looking and monitoring. I thought if I was accountable to someone besides my own lazy self, it would get done easier," Baty said in a telephone interview from California.
Baty and his friends knew their writing wouldn't result in stunning literary accomplishments, but that didn't matter as long as the words were out of their heads and onto a page.
"The ultimate goal was to tell people we were novelists," he said. "No matter how badly the work turned out, we could tell everyone we'd written novels.
"And, we wrote pretty mediocre books, but from having been conjured out of caffeine vapors of a single month's work, we were excited by how well, relatively speaking, they turned out."
Members of the fledgling writing group also learned a lot about personal creativity from their efforts.
"Everyone on the planet Earth has untapped creative ability," Baty said. "Even if we don't know what we're doing, it can still be an enriching process."
The write-a-novel-in-30-days concept caught on. Last year, more than 25,000 writers participated in NaNoWriMo. As of last week, this year's entrants total more than 34,000, Baty said.
Baty's Web site, nanowrimo .org, warns writers that the result of their frenzied month of toil probably will be abysmal. But, better to set the bar too low than expect too much, he said.
"When you shoot for crap, you could get something better than you would when shooting for gold," he said.
Still, most beginning writers are paralyzed by the thought that their prose will prove to be awful, Baty said.
"That's our worst nightmare, to sit down and write and be just lousy, embarrassingly bad," he said.
NaNoWriMo's tight deadline and admonition against editing in the early stages of the manuscript gives writers permission to be that bad.
"You give yourself permission to be in a first-draft state of mind, to relax and make mistakes. By doing that, you can tap into these wonderful parts of your imagination," Baty said.
Even when their muse is in full creative swing, however, amateur authors--who by day are accountants and truck drivers, lawyers and waiters--are quickly discouraged when their work doesn't turn out to be as wonderful as the books they read, Baty said.
"They don't realize how many drafts it took for a great book to become a great book," he said. "So when, by the third paragraph, their writing is not like the great books they've been reading, they think they should stop writing, bury the book in the back yard and pretend it never happened."
There are no prizes for completing NaNoWriMo's 50,000-word goal, other than a mention on the Web site. In fact, no one even reads the hastily crafted sentences. Instead, after officials tabulate the word count on the thousands of computer disks participants send, the disks are discarded.
Even so, by midnight of Nov. 30, many who've yammered for years about penning a novel will enter the sparse fraternity of those who can say they've actually done it.
Very few of the novels that result from NaNoWriMo are of publishable quality, Baty said. So far, only two have been produced by mainstream publishers.
"Your novel won't be Michelangelo's 'David.' More like a chunky block of marble that vaguely resembles David," Baty said.
Minden developed five writing projects to choose from for the event: two ghost stories, two witch stories and a fantasy.
"I'll pick the one that works the most easily," she said.
To encourage herself and others, Minden has invited all area NaNoWriMo participants to come to her Fredericksburg home to write.
"We'll help each other make it through to the end," she said.
An end that, for Minden, is only 38,338 words away.
[MARCIA ARMSTRONG / Fredericksburg]
Monday, November 8, 2004
Friday, November 5, 2004
Word warriors: Want to write a novel in 30 days?
For years, Hemingway haunted Thom Mahoney. The author of such books as "The Old Man and the Sea" howled in Mahoney's ears, sweeping through the 49-year-old Greeley man's brain every time he attempted to write his own novels.
Mahoney had the dream and the desire, but he, like many writers, also had the demon. In this case, Mahoney's demon took the form of one of the country's greatest writers who scorned every sentence that Mahoney put on a page.
Then he heard about National Novel Writing Month, and, for 30 days, the demon dissipated.
This month, novelists around the world are attempting to earn that title by punching out 50,000 words by the end of November. Since the program began in 1999, it's exploded from a small dare between founder Chris Baty and his friends to about 35,000 writers around the world this year. Last year 25,000 took part, and more than 3,500 completed the goal.
Emphasizing quantity over quality, the month is meant to encourage all those would-be writers to just do it and subtract the pain from the prose. Sure, the writing might be horrible, but then again, it might not be unreasonably bad.
Mahoney didn't write his novel during November, the official month affectionately called "Nano" or "Nanowrimo" by the writers who participate, and he won't be doing it this year, either. But he took the idea and used last February as his month. He raced past 50,000 words by the middle of the month and finished with 150,000.
"I had a major blast," Mahoney said. "It's really easy to get up at 2 in the morning and just write."
Mahoney, who has written four painstakingly troublesome novels, has big plans. He will be published. He will be on Oprah's book list. He will be sold in Kings Soopers. But none of those dreams have anything to do with fun. The month liberated him. After all, that doubting voice, the Hemingway scream, as Mahoney calls it, gets drowned in the sea of words that writers have to produce to meet the goal. Authors don't write 1,700 words a day for 30 days by listening to those voices, even if they come from a spouse.
"For the first times in 20 years of rejection," he said, "writing was a hoot."
Baty, founder and moral supporter behind Nanowrimo.org, pushed the idea on a few friends five years ago, mostly because he wanted some inspiration to finish a novel. He had dreams, too, but mostly, the impetus came from caffeine.
"None of us were aspiring fiction writers," Baty said in a phone interview. "Actually, most of us weren't writers at all."
But it turned out to be fun. Writers got to talk smack, a macho activity usually reserved for football players. They bragged about how many words they had, even if some of it was the Declaration of Independence, just to get things going. It was so much fun, in fact, word spread. Friends of friends started to join up. And then, in the third year, the blogs started.
Once all those Web bloggers started linking to the site, thousands began to join. He got some press, including a bit on National Public Radio. It used to be a joke, but in that third year, it became real, and for Baty, it became a full-time job just to get everyone signed up.
Now for five months out of the year, Baty promotes the event and his book, "No Plot? No Problem!" NaNo is now a company, with staff members and T-shirts and people who give out bumper stickers and pens to chapter heads in cities across the country. Now his role is head cheerleader, that Richard-Simmons-type guy who tells you how great you are at those self-improvement seminars. He sends out e-mail messages once a week to all the participants, messages of warmth that read, "you are awesome" and "we're all in this together."
"It turns out that writing a novel doesn't take a great idea, or a miraculous gift for pacing or dialogue," Baty wrote in his first message. "It just takes dedication. And a deadline big enough to injure a water buffalo."
This will be Eric Anderson's third year as a participant, and in those first two years, he demolished the deadline, with 56,000 words and 65,000 words. This year, however, may not be as smooth.
"I wrote 300 words this morning," Anderson, 42, of Greeley said Monday, the first day of the event. "And I thought, 'I'm in trouble.' "
So Anderson is looking forward to Thanksgiving. Not just for the turkey and mashed potatoes, but that's a four-day weekend crying out for lots of writing time, enough to sail in under the deadline.
"By just agreeing to play along with the ridiculousness of the gag, you put it aside for a daily routine," Anderson said. "It works for me."
Jeremy Dennis, 21, a senior at the University of Northern Colorado, calls himself the poster child for good ideas. He hopes participating in the event for the first time will help him get those ideas on paper. His novel is about a college-aged werewolf, but it's not a horror novel. He's a nice werewolf. Maybe. Dennis will see where he takes the story. Or, more likely, where the story takes him.
"It's a good kick in the pants," Dennis said. "You can weed out the best stuff later."
THERE'S STILL TIME
Yes, National Novel Writing Month is underway, but there's still time to sign up. Go to www.nanowrimo.org to sign up or for more information on writing a 50,000-page novel in 30 days.
[Greely Tribune]
Mahoney had the dream and the desire, but he, like many writers, also had the demon. In this case, Mahoney's demon took the form of one of the country's greatest writers who scorned every sentence that Mahoney put on a page.
Then he heard about National Novel Writing Month, and, for 30 days, the demon dissipated.
This month, novelists around the world are attempting to earn that title by punching out 50,000 words by the end of November. Since the program began in 1999, it's exploded from a small dare between founder Chris Baty and his friends to about 35,000 writers around the world this year. Last year 25,000 took part, and more than 3,500 completed the goal.
Emphasizing quantity over quality, the month is meant to encourage all those would-be writers to just do it and subtract the pain from the prose. Sure, the writing might be horrible, but then again, it might not be unreasonably bad.
Mahoney didn't write his novel during November, the official month affectionately called "Nano" or "Nanowrimo" by the writers who participate, and he won't be doing it this year, either. But he took the idea and used last February as his month. He raced past 50,000 words by the middle of the month and finished with 150,000.
"I had a major blast," Mahoney said. "It's really easy to get up at 2 in the morning and just write."
Mahoney, who has written four painstakingly troublesome novels, has big plans. He will be published. He will be on Oprah's book list. He will be sold in Kings Soopers. But none of those dreams have anything to do with fun. The month liberated him. After all, that doubting voice, the Hemingway scream, as Mahoney calls it, gets drowned in the sea of words that writers have to produce to meet the goal. Authors don't write 1,700 words a day for 30 days by listening to those voices, even if they come from a spouse.
"For the first times in 20 years of rejection," he said, "writing was a hoot."
Baty, founder and moral supporter behind Nanowrimo.org, pushed the idea on a few friends five years ago, mostly because he wanted some inspiration to finish a novel. He had dreams, too, but mostly, the impetus came from caffeine.
"None of us were aspiring fiction writers," Baty said in a phone interview. "Actually, most of us weren't writers at all."
But it turned out to be fun. Writers got to talk smack, a macho activity usually reserved for football players. They bragged about how many words they had, even if some of it was the Declaration of Independence, just to get things going. It was so much fun, in fact, word spread. Friends of friends started to join up. And then, in the third year, the blogs started.
Once all those Web bloggers started linking to the site, thousands began to join. He got some press, including a bit on National Public Radio. It used to be a joke, but in that third year, it became real, and for Baty, it became a full-time job just to get everyone signed up.
Now for five months out of the year, Baty promotes the event and his book, "No Plot? No Problem!" NaNo is now a company, with staff members and T-shirts and people who give out bumper stickers and pens to chapter heads in cities across the country. Now his role is head cheerleader, that Richard-Simmons-type guy who tells you how great you are at those self-improvement seminars. He sends out e-mail messages once a week to all the participants, messages of warmth that read, "you are awesome" and "we're all in this together."
"It turns out that writing a novel doesn't take a great idea, or a miraculous gift for pacing or dialogue," Baty wrote in his first message. "It just takes dedication. And a deadline big enough to injure a water buffalo."
This will be Eric Anderson's third year as a participant, and in those first two years, he demolished the deadline, with 56,000 words and 65,000 words. This year, however, may not be as smooth.
"I wrote 300 words this morning," Anderson, 42, of Greeley said Monday, the first day of the event. "And I thought, 'I'm in trouble.' "
So Anderson is looking forward to Thanksgiving. Not just for the turkey and mashed potatoes, but that's a four-day weekend crying out for lots of writing time, enough to sail in under the deadline.
"By just agreeing to play along with the ridiculousness of the gag, you put it aside for a daily routine," Anderson said. "It works for me."
Jeremy Dennis, 21, a senior at the University of Northern Colorado, calls himself the poster child for good ideas. He hopes participating in the event for the first time will help him get those ideas on paper. His novel is about a college-aged werewolf, but it's not a horror novel. He's a nice werewolf. Maybe. Dennis will see where he takes the story. Or, more likely, where the story takes him.
"It's a good kick in the pants," Dennis said. "You can weed out the best stuff later."
THERE'S STILL TIME
Yes, National Novel Writing Month is underway, but there's still time to sign up. Go to www.nanowrimo.org to sign up or for more information on writing a 50,000-page novel in 30 days.
[Greely Tribune]
Thursday, November 4, 2004
Quantity, Not Quality: National Novel Writing Month
It's the middle of November, and for many of us, that means desperately trying to keep up (or catch up) with our goals for National Novel Writing Month.
For anyone who hasn't already heard about it, NaNoWriMo is a month-long challenge to write an entire 50,000 word (175 page) novel by midnight, November 30. The emphasis is on quantity, not quality, encouraging writers to ignore their inner editors and just get the words out.
In the words of NaNo's creators, "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 talked to some previous NaNo winners, asking them to share their wisdom for reaching the finish line with those of us participating for the first time.
Debbie Ridpath Ohi, a Toronto-based freelance writer who was a NaNo winner in 2002, said keeping focused on the goal and looking for support from friends and other writers was vital.
"Whenever I started falling behind my daily wordcount goal, there was always a temptation to give up," she said. "But one of my reasons for publicly announcing my participation in Nanowrimo was to give myself that extra motivation. Peer pressure is a wonderful thing in a situation like this."
Ohi also stressed the importance of turning off the critic within. "One of the goals of the whole Nanowrimo experience is to allow yourself to write without self-censoring, to get over those pesky writing blocks. Editing can come later, if that's what you want," she said.
S. Jennifer Stewart-Boyd is the municipal liason for Rhode Island, with 75-100 writers participating in her area this year. She was a NaNo winner in 2002 and 2003. She said she tells the writers in her area not to give up in the second week, when most participants are feeling the most fear, doubt and despair.
"If you can make it to thirty thousand words, it gets so much easier. Since I completed it the last two years, I have a lot more confidence now in my ability to see it through, even if I'm behind," she said.
Stewart-Boyd herself was behind in the middle of the second week, but determined not to give up. "I'm still certain I'll make it," she said. "Just before it started this year, I looked over my two previous works, which I'd printed out and put in binders. It felt like a real book, and I thought, 'You did this, and it's a great accomplishment. You can do it again.'"
Most important, most of the writers agreed, was to keep going and see it through to the finish.
"Even if you only write a hundred words a day, keep at it, and see it through," Stewart-Boyd said. "Whatever you do, don't give up. It helps a lot to talk to others who are going through it, and that's why we have write-ins, so that the writers will encourage each other, just by being there and going through the same thing."
In order to motivate herself, Stewart-Boyd said she rewards herself every thousand words or so. "I get a break, to do whatever I want. I play videogames, take myself out, whatever is fun and feels special. I buy this hard-to-find stuff, Republic of Tea's Writer's Chai, and I allow myself a glass about every finished page or so. When I haven't met my goal, I deny myself fun and special things, even make myself eat cold cereal instead of hot food. Every five thousand words, I get ice cream, which is one of my favourite things.
Sebastian Raaphorst, a software developer from Mississauga, Ontario, is in his fourth year as a NaNo participant. He said the key to finishing is to resist going back to delete what you've written.
"If you do that, you'll almost certainly give in to temptation again and again, and you'll fall far behind. Save the refinement for December 1st, or even better, January 1st when you've finished apologizing to your friends and family for ignoring them for a month.
Even worse, Raaphorst said, is resisting the urge to completely scrap your novel and start over.
"It was particularly bad this year, and by day six, my novel very nearly found its way into my PowerBook's trash can; however, I forced my way through it, and cranked out a huge wordcount on days seven and eight, and everything fell into place: the plot, the characters, the dialogue, etc... Perseverance is the key!"
Rich Thomas, a Customer Support Engineer from San Jose, California, said the hardest part is writing every day. His advice is that it's important to know when to be hard on yourself, and when to loosen up.
"Sometimes you need to keep going even if it is not going well. Sometimes it's just a matter of sticking it out," he said.
Thomas's final piece of advice: "done is beautiful."
"Every once in a while you will need to just write something. No matter how bad it is right now, if you keep on going, you will write something good later. That's what your goal really is.
Megan Hoffman, a student at the University of Delaware, is a first-time participant. She said that for her, the biggest challenge is staying close to the computer.
"I go home maybe twice a month to do laundry. I visit my friends for the weekend in other states. It's so easy just to forget about the novel for a few days, and I really have to work hard to get back into writing regularly," she said.
She uses the peer pressure/competition method to keep herself motivated. She also carries around paper to jot down notes for herself during the day.
"You have to budget time and have things plotted out in advance. It makes a world of a difference," Hoffman said.
Stewart-Boyd said that reaching the halfway point without giving up was an important factor in finishing.
"In 2002, I was afraid to tell anyone what I was doing, even my closest friends -- even the person I was dating -- because I didn't know if I was up to the challenge," she said. "But by halfway through the month, I knew I could do it, and I told everyone. After that, I knew I had to finish, because people I knew were pulling for me to do it."
Some final words of encouragement from Ohi:
"It's incredibly easy to start writing a book, much more difficult to finish one," she said. "So what if it's not the best quality? At least you've got one under your belt; you can now start editing, or move on to your next project."
[Erin L. Nappe / Toasted Cheese]
For anyone who hasn't already heard about it, NaNoWriMo is a month-long challenge to write an entire 50,000 word (175 page) novel by midnight, November 30. The emphasis is on quantity, not quality, encouraging writers to ignore their inner editors and just get the words out.
In the words of NaNo's creators, "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 talked to some previous NaNo winners, asking them to share their wisdom for reaching the finish line with those of us participating for the first time.
Debbie Ridpath Ohi, a Toronto-based freelance writer who was a NaNo winner in 2002, said keeping focused on the goal and looking for support from friends and other writers was vital.
"Whenever I started falling behind my daily wordcount goal, there was always a temptation to give up," she said. "But one of my reasons for publicly announcing my participation in Nanowrimo was to give myself that extra motivation. Peer pressure is a wonderful thing in a situation like this."
Ohi also stressed the importance of turning off the critic within. "One of the goals of the whole Nanowrimo experience is to allow yourself to write without self-censoring, to get over those pesky writing blocks. Editing can come later, if that's what you want," she said.
S. Jennifer Stewart-Boyd is the municipal liason for Rhode Island, with 75-100 writers participating in her area this year. She was a NaNo winner in 2002 and 2003. She said she tells the writers in her area not to give up in the second week, when most participants are feeling the most fear, doubt and despair.
"If you can make it to thirty thousand words, it gets so much easier. Since I completed it the last two years, I have a lot more confidence now in my ability to see it through, even if I'm behind," she said.
Stewart-Boyd herself was behind in the middle of the second week, but determined not to give up. "I'm still certain I'll make it," she said. "Just before it started this year, I looked over my two previous works, which I'd printed out and put in binders. It felt like a real book, and I thought, 'You did this, and it's a great accomplishment. You can do it again.'"
Most important, most of the writers agreed, was to keep going and see it through to the finish.
"Even if you only write a hundred words a day, keep at it, and see it through," Stewart-Boyd said. "Whatever you do, don't give up. It helps a lot to talk to others who are going through it, and that's why we have write-ins, so that the writers will encourage each other, just by being there and going through the same thing."
In order to motivate herself, Stewart-Boyd said she rewards herself every thousand words or so. "I get a break, to do whatever I want. I play videogames, take myself out, whatever is fun and feels special. I buy this hard-to-find stuff, Republic of Tea's Writer's Chai, and I allow myself a glass about every finished page or so. When I haven't met my goal, I deny myself fun and special things, even make myself eat cold cereal instead of hot food. Every five thousand words, I get ice cream, which is one of my favourite things.
Sebastian Raaphorst, a software developer from Mississauga, Ontario, is in his fourth year as a NaNo participant. He said the key to finishing is to resist going back to delete what you've written.
"If you do that, you'll almost certainly give in to temptation again and again, and you'll fall far behind. Save the refinement for December 1st, or even better, January 1st when you've finished apologizing to your friends and family for ignoring them for a month.
Even worse, Raaphorst said, is resisting the urge to completely scrap your novel and start over.
"It was particularly bad this year, and by day six, my novel very nearly found its way into my PowerBook's trash can; however, I forced my way through it, and cranked out a huge wordcount on days seven and eight, and everything fell into place: the plot, the characters, the dialogue, etc... Perseverance is the key!"
Rich Thomas, a Customer Support Engineer from San Jose, California, said the hardest part is writing every day. His advice is that it's important to know when to be hard on yourself, and when to loosen up.
"Sometimes you need to keep going even if it is not going well. Sometimes it's just a matter of sticking it out," he said.
Thomas's final piece of advice: "done is beautiful."
"Every once in a while you will need to just write something. No matter how bad it is right now, if you keep on going, you will write something good later. That's what your goal really is.
Megan Hoffman, a student at the University of Delaware, is a first-time participant. She said that for her, the biggest challenge is staying close to the computer.
"I go home maybe twice a month to do laundry. I visit my friends for the weekend in other states. It's so easy just to forget about the novel for a few days, and I really have to work hard to get back into writing regularly," she said.
She uses the peer pressure/competition method to keep herself motivated. She also carries around paper to jot down notes for herself during the day.
"You have to budget time and have things plotted out in advance. It makes a world of a difference," Hoffman said.
Stewart-Boyd said that reaching the halfway point without giving up was an important factor in finishing.
"In 2002, I was afraid to tell anyone what I was doing, even my closest friends -- even the person I was dating -- because I didn't know if I was up to the challenge," she said. "But by halfway through the month, I knew I could do it, and I told everyone. After that, I knew I had to finish, because people I knew were pulling for me to do it."
Some final words of encouragement from Ohi:
- One challenge is the temptation to let Real Work interfere with one's dedication to Nanowrimo. Fortunately I got over that pretty quickly.
- Don't do housework. Amazing how much extra writing time you can get that way.
- The microwave is your friend.
- Keep records of your daily wordcount and cumulative wordcount.
"It's incredibly easy to start writing a book, much more difficult to finish one," she said. "So what if it's not the best quality? At least you've got one under your belt; you can now start editing, or move on to your next project."
[Erin L. Nappe / Toasted Cheese]
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
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