Thursday, October 23, 2008

NANOWRIMO

I can't believe that national writer's month is already coming up again. Last year I participated and wrote over 50,000 words in one month. This year I plan on doing things a little different.
It has been a hard year for my writing. It started off with a bang. In February I went to LTUE and got to meet several cool authors. I had a private (well Aly came with me) meeting with Orson Scott Card to discuss the first few pages of my NANOWRIMO story. I spent March and April sending out queries on AND THE SKY FULL OF STARS, and In June I went up to Bosie to see an agent who had requested a partial on the same book. Then I began to get sick and it seemed as if everything just flew out the window. I stopped writing, querying, thinking...Well you get the point.
So here I am, 1 year from NANOWRIMO and not a lot to show for my writing.
The good news is that I am feeling better. The thyroid is under control as well as the diabetes. I have more energy and my characters have popped out of nowhere and started talking to me again. I am even considering going to some writing conferences. The Bad news is...with the remodeling of a home, packing up the old one, and catching up on life that stopped while I was sick, finding time to write is near impossible. But I want to do NANO....just in my own way.
So, I will not be starting with a new story, but one that is outlined in my head and researched. NANOWRIMO encourages you to write a novel from scratch and then use December to edit. I will be starting from Chapter One, but have a lot of things worked out already. So here is a challenge for any of you who want to do Nano, (basically write 50,000 words in November), but don't want to start with a fresh story. Do Nano my way. I will be posting ideas for rewards you can give yourself and ideas throughout November to help you make your goal. If you need someplace to report to you can do it here, and if you finish and really really really want a certificate, I am sure I can come up with something! So just because you don't want to start a story from scratch, don't let that make you give up on the real NANO goal....50,000 words in one month. Oh, and we can also make goals for anyone who is done with a novel, but wanting to polish it, anyone who just wants to make an outline, anyone who wants to spend the month researching. Let me know what your goal is. Together we can get all those novels out of us and onto the shelves!

3 comments:

Tristi Pinkston said...

I'm so glad you're feeling better! That's the major thing right there -- sometimes things have to go on the back burner until we get healthy, and I'm glad you've reached that point.

Meg Stout said...

Cool - I'm planning on doing the same thing (adding 50,00 words in November). I'll just be adding my additional word counts over at nanowrimo.org. (I'm justifying myself (again) under the Zokutou clause (http://www.zokutou.co.uk/theclause.html).

I'm shooting to have something available to turn in for the Codex contest ending 15 December.

Alas, the badges and stuff doesn't seem to do much for me - at least it hasn't in the prior contests so far.

Jewel Allen said...

Sounds great!! I was thinking of doing this already, when you posted, so thanks for the invite. I will be checking in...