Dear NaNoWriMo 2010,

Greetings. I regret to inform you that I will not be attending your thirty-day party of crazy this year.

(I know. I'm sad, too.)

My decision is based on the seven fairly lengthy essays and eight paintings I must complete throughout November. Unlike you, they all need to be polished make sense down to the last line and comma.

I'm pleased to note that NaNoWriMo is offering web badges for people who can't participate in, but would still like to support, you and your courageously wacky participants. I've placed one in my sidebar; I think it looks quite nice.

Good luck and inspiration to all 2010 NaNo-ers! I leave you with "The NaNoWriMo" song from ALL CAPS and a link to last year's NaNo-themed interview with Stephanie Perkins, whose first novel (started as a NaNo draft) is coming out this December! Exciting stuff.



Best,

Dear NaNoWriMo,

I haven't been speaking to you since Wednesday, and that's because we're through. We had a good run--30,005 words, a whole thousand more than last year. Alas, there was just too much crazy in my November to write 50,000 words with you this year.

And rather than auditioning ideas with you all weekend when I wasn't buried in my homework, I decided to walk away from my laptop, enjoy Thanksgiving with my family, and act like I'm on a holiday break. I enjoyed it.

We had some good times too, NaNo. You forced me to sit down and find the time and discipline to write down those ideas floating around my imagination, and then you brought me even more ideas. Those were beautiful times, and I'll always love you for that.

I don't know if we'll see each other next year, but I look forward to at least another thousand words if we do.

With love and best wishes,

PS: Good luck to all you Wrimos who are still writing! You can do it, and there's one heck of a standing ovation waiting beyond the finish line. Go you.

Author Interview: Stephanie Perkins

November is National Novel Writing Month (often shortened to NaNoWriMo), an event that challenges people to write 175 pages (50,000 words) in 30 days. When I heard about it last year I thought, "That's nuts. These people are nuts. I have to sign up." And then I wondered, "Is anyone ever successful?"


The answer to that question is yes! And to celebrate all the possibilities NaNoWriMo brings and get a few NaNoWriMo tips, I decided to interview a successful WriMo writer.

Today I have the pleasure of posting an interview with author Stephanie Perkins, who graciously answered my NaNoWriMo questions via e-mail. Stephanie has two NaNoWriMo novels under her belt and her first book, Anna and the Boy Masterpiece, will be released by Dutton in Fall 2010. ___________________________________________

Do you make detailed plans before plunging into NaNoWriMo?

Oh goodness, no. This is, without a doubt, the biggest and most common mistake among participants. There's often a misconception that NaNo is about writing a book in a month. I mean, National Novel Writing Month. It's there in the title! But that's really not what it's about. It's about creating a first, very very rough draft that you can eventually — with a lot of hard work — turn into a novel. Many participants believe they have one month to write a BOOK. A good one. One that they can sell, that people will want to read. So they do all sorts of outlining and research before beginning, sometimes months in advance! But the problem with this is that the more you know about your story beforehand, the more pressure you put on yourself to write something GOOD. And few people (I'm certainly not one of them) can write a GOOD book in a month. So what happens? The participant starts the novel, realizes that the words coming out aren't nearly as beautiful and perfect as the idea they had in their head and in their notes, and they become frustrated and discouraged. It becomes impossible to move forward. And if you aren't moving forward during NaNo, it's over.

The founder of NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty, recommends only one week of preparation in his fantastic book No Plot? No Problem!. Solid advice. It gets the gears in your brain turning, but it's not nearly enough time to turn your idea into something perfect, and therefore, unattainable.

Was writer’s block a problem for you during NaNoWriMo? If so, how did you overcome it?

Yeah, a little bit. I'm a slow writer, so not having the time to think my story through is both liberating and frustrating. I hit road blocks frequently. This was where Chris Baty's book came in handy again. He talks a lot about how to keep the story moving forward, even when you have no idea what's supposed to happen next. Anything from freewriting (this is what I do most frequently, my NaNo drafts of Anna and Lola have horrifyingly long passages of nonsense), to interviewing your characters, to introducing random llamas into a scene just to see how your characters react or to give them something to talk about.

Again, this has a lot to do with distancing yourself from that notion that NaNo is about creating a capital-N Novel, rather than what NaNo works best at, which is pushing you to create as many ideas as possible within a one month span. Who cares if all of the ideas are good? One or two WILL be, and that's where you begin writing/revising in December, with the ideas that worked.

So . . . just barrel through it. Write anything. Seriously. Anything. Word count is still word count!

Do you have any must-have objects with you while you write?

Ritual was more important for me the first year. I had a green plastic flower ring that a friend had given me, and I wore it whenever I sat down. It was a nice reminder of the support I had behind me. (My family and friends have always been tremendously supportive. I am lucky.) Now that I'm used to sitting for long periods of time and big writing pushes, I only keep around the necessities — laptop, research books, notes, coffee, tea, and gum.

And OF COURSE coffee, tea, and gum are necessities!

Describe your NaNoWriMo experience in three words.

Life-changing month. (Oh man. That sounds so unbelievably corny, but it's true.)

What, in your opinion, is the best reason to participate in NaNoWriMo?

NaNo is fantastic for people like me who have a difficult time writing first drafts. It forces you to spit one out, quick and dirty. And then you get to move on to the better stages — beefing up the story, cleaning and tweaking it, and making the language sparkle! If it weren't for NaNoWriMo, I would not be in the position that I am today. I doubt that I'd even have a complete first draft by now.

Publishing a book involves a lot of revising. Is NaNoWriMo in your plans this year, or will you have your hands full working on Anna and Second Novel?

Yes, I'm participating! It's true my hands are full — I'm still shaping Lola and the Boy Next Door (formerly known as Second Novel) into a working draft, and Anna and the Boy Masterpiece will probably hit the line editing stage smack in the middle of November — but absolutely, I'm doing it. NaNo changed my life. It brought me Anna (and her delicious boy), and I will be eternally grateful for that. I'm positively giddy to star this year's project. Something NEW. What a relief!

Any tips, tricks, or words of NaNo wisdom that you’d like to share?

I learned two important things last year. First of all, I did the Bad Thing — worked on a project that I had a lot of preconceived ideas and notions about — and it was dreadful. Seriously, do NOT do this to yourself. I spent the entire month agonizing at how awful it was, whereas my first year (when I had no idea what my story was), I was just happy for the high word count! So this year, I'm starting with a significantly blanker slate.

The second important thing I learned was to nail down the tense early on. I never picked one last November. Never. I wrote some of Lola in first, some in third, some in present, some in past. (I told you my NaNo drafts are terrible!) I didn't think it would be a big deal in revisions, but it turned into a HUGE ordeal. I had more salvageable ideas in that draft than I realized, so when I moved them into my REAL novel, it required several weeks of painstaking revisions to get them all into the same voice. I won't make that mistake again! So bite the bullet and pick a tense within the first few days. Even if you decide on a different tense for your next draft, it'll still make the transition easier.

Not that you would be as silly as me and not pick a tense. I mean, really. What was I thinking?

Thanks for the fab interview! . . . . GOOD LUCK! And if you or any of your blog readers are looking for a NaNoWriMo cheering squad, I love having writing buddies. You can add me here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/230633

— Steph
_______________________________________

Actually *looking down at my shoes* choosing a tense was a problem for me last year. Thanks for the awesome advice, Steph!

You can read more about Stephanie's NaNoWriMo experience HERE, and I strongly recommend visiting her enormously entertaining blog HERE.

NaNo-ly yours,

November is National Novel Writing Month!

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is an annual event that challenges participants to write a 175 page (or 50,000 word) novel in one month. NaNoWriMo is more about the fun and the making-it-happen than it is about writing a perfect work of fiction: the only thing that matters is that WriMo writers finish. It's an invitation to take that dream of writing a novel and make it real.

When I heard about it last October I thought the whole thing was crazy--and I wanted to do it. I told some friends, and my then friend and dorm neighbor/now friend and roommate Kayla decided to attempt NaNoWriMo with me.

October 31st rolled around, and we dressed up in our Halloween costumes and signed a contract that entitled us to mock each other if we did not meet the 50,000 word goal.

Me and Kayla all dressed up and NaNo-naive. I'm the cat; she's the iPod ad.

We went about our Halloween festivities all optimistic and giggly. And then November came. I started excitedly writing my novel and promptly ran into a wall. I'd decided to write a story that I'd been outlining and turning over in my mind for about two years--and I liked that story. I did not, however, like any of the words I was pounding out, and I felt like I was letting my story down.

That was a great costume idea. So great I'm posting another picture of it.

And Blogger is doing that thing again where it stops letting me press "enter" and put space between my paragraphs, so the text is about to become very cramped--sorry!)

And then I got slammed with boatloads of homework and gave up trying to write daily. In order to meet the deadline, Wrimo Writers need to type approximately 1,667 words per day. Many days I didn't attempt writing any words because it had become so daunting.

With Thanksgiving Break, however, came freetime, and I decided to give my novel my all. At this point, though, I was so behind that I needed to type almost all day every day of break, and I decided that I could find better ways to spend my precious days off. I gave up at 29,000 words.

Kayla got busy and never started her novel, and since neither of us finished, there was no mocking.

Kayla's friends from a university in another town. They dressed up as Jack and Karen from Will and Grace. They're more fun than my NaNo sob story, so it's okay if you've stopped reading that and are just looking at the pictures.

It's been nearly a year since I signed my first NaNoWriMo contract, and I'm doing it all over again this Halloween--and this time I'm determined to have fun and make those 50,000 words happen.

I may not have finished last year's WriMo challenge, but I learned a lot in the attempt. For one, since NaNoWriMo novels are not meant to be perfect and polished as they are being written, it really doesn't take that long to write 1,667 words per day. Forty-five minutes to an hour tops. Knowing this makes the scheduling factor less intimidating, and I feel more sure of being able to make time for NaNoWriMo.

I am also planning less and writing from new ideas that I brainstormed yesterday--new ideas means less pressure to write something "good", and if I should ever return to my old idea, I discovered many useful things about it.

Aww, look! It's Jack and Karen again.

I'm excited to do NaNoWriMo again, and I see it as win-win whether I finish it or not. I've wanted to write a book--not necessarily as a career--ever since I was five years old and made one with crayons about my cat, and NaNoWriMo is a great opportunity to do that. Without that deadline and all those other crazy WriMo writers it's too easy to say I'm too busy right now; I'll finish a rough draft Someday. (A day which has a habit of never coming around.)

And if I fail again? I'm sure I will have learned many new things in the process.

In celebration of NaNoWriMo and all the possibilities it brings, I interviewed Stephanie Perkins, a successful NaNoWriMo writer whose first novel, Anna and the Boy Masterpiece, will be released by Dutton in Fall 2010. This is Bookduck's--and my--first author interview, and it will be posted tomorrow. Come visit for some NaNo chat and handy NaNo tips!

NaNoWriMo-ly yours,