Nanowrimo Tips

Even though I'm not Nano-ing this year, I'm still full of opinions. Matter of fact, a whole lot of writers are giving out tips this month on The Writers Rainbow blog. There's a new tip posted every day.

As you can see from this badge, the last time I actually completed my Nanowrimo task (50,000 words in one month) was way back in 2006. I've tried a couple of other years and failed for various reasons (I'm sure they were perfectly good reasons).

My one WINNER became a teen adventure novella, "Eagle Quest." Set in the Klamath Wildlife Preserves in southern Oregon, a group of teens hike into the Eagle nesting site at Bear Lake Preserve, only to run into more than one danger, plus several shady characters.

The Kindle edition is only 99 cents on Amazon. The paperback is still a bargain for $6.49 on Amazon.

My Tip for Writers's Rainbow is still preserved in the final book (which is now much shorter than 50K). Since it's a self-pub (ahem, INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER TALKING HERE), the cover is pretty basic. I don't believe in spending money for covers and typesetting. I'm a DIY self-pubber; no vanity presses for me. I don't pay anybody for anything I can do myself (with the help of some terrific crit partners catching my typos).

Tis The Season

NaNoWriMo season, that is. The November madness will soon be upon us. What is it, you ask? Sheesh, have you been hiding in a coal mine? Okay, if you're not a novelist (I sort of am), you probably don't give a big whoop anyway.

NaNoWriMo happens during November--all month long, so forget about going to the relatives for Thanksgiving. If you're participating, you just won't have time for that. Oh, yeah, that's only if you're American. The rest of the world has November open for anything they want to do.
The concept is to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month. For some, this is entire novel. For real novelists, that's about half a novel. Since I primarily write for the kiddies, 50K or less is fine.

On the Nano website, you can delve into the forums which offer help, plot ideas, challenges, tricks for getting word count, suggestions for the proper herbs to keep you going, and general encouragement. You can join a specific group (there's a group for just about any flavor you are) and/or a regional group (your city, state, province, canton, or whatever). Within regions, Nanoers can also meet in the flesh for write-ins, gripe sessions, pizza, and shoulder-crying.

Interesting in hitting your inner editor over the head with a sledgehammer and stuffing them into a closet for a month? Go check it out. Maybe it's just the type of madness that will help you get that novel out of your head and onto your computer hard drive.

National Novel Writing Month

Oh, yeah, they also support literacy campaigns for kids with your donations.

Two Steps Back

NaNoWriMo is all about pounding out words until you get to 50,000 or more. The biggest mistake one can make is to start thinking of whether the words thus pounded really belong in the novel(la) or not. I committed that error and went downhill by removing stuff I just know won't be in the final story.

Other nanon-ers are telling me how wrong I was to do that. Well, I'll keep trying to write things that actually belong in the book. When I'm still short of the 50K near the end of this month, I may retrieve the junk and shove it back into the manuscript. I'm proud, but not that proud.