Chris Baty's Blog, page 113

Pro Tips for Making Friends Through the NaNo Community

November is full of challenges—from supervillains to coffee shortages—so it’s important to have support from the community to help push your writing towards the finish line. Today, writer and ML for the USA :: Kansas :: Topeka region Lissa Staley shares her thoughts on how to make friends through NaNo and build your dream team:

This
is your chance. The time is now. All around the world, in your region, or in
your own city, people who share your creative values are joining together this November to write novels. These are your people, this community of frantic fiction writers, and they are inviting
you to join them.

Maybe
you don’t know anyone else who writes fiction, or you haven’t written a novel
before. Maybe right now you don’t have writing friends, or you worry about how
your writing will compare to theirs. That’s all about to change. When you build
a community of fiction writers during NaNoWriMo, you are building
friendships that may reach beyond November and beyond writing.

You are befriending amazing people. NaNoWriMo is populated by people
who believe that seemingly impossible things (like writing fifty thousand words in
thirty days) are achievable and worth doing. In November, you see the same
people at events or online. You begin by connecting with people around writing
and then find you can connect in other ways. You may find another writer who
has something in common with you—someone who knits, or appreciates your
Firefly references, or loves licorice, or is obsessed with Sherlock Holmes. 

You
may find yourself trying new things because of conversations you had with your
new writer friends—watching Star Trek, or playing Dungeons and Dragons, or
reading The Princess Bride. You may discover future beta readers, editors, and
collaborators or form book groups or critique circles.

“To me, NaNoWriMo is so compelling because the more that people encourage each other, the more we all win.” 

Or—you may not. You don’t have to become best friends with every writer you meet.
I have writer friends who I only talk to during November. The focus on quantity
of words means that I can cheer a fellow writer on to victory without knowing
anything about what they are writing or sharing any goals beyond that 50,000
word finish line.

To
me, NaNoWriMo is so compelling because the more that people encourage each
other, the more we all win. The shared experiences are richer for all of us
when we attend events, participate in word wars, post in the forums, and create
inside jokes during the act of writing fiction together. Here in Topeka,
Kansas, we give out “Ask Me About My Word Count” stickers and create an
intentional safe space for writing without judgement. We can support each
other’s writing endeavors because we are only competing in word sprints.

Be on the lookout this November for your own writing community:

Introduce yourself online in your local forums. Add local writers as writing buddies and send them a few supportive messages during the early weeks of writing.
Inspire others. Share quotes, encouragement, memes, plot twists and ideas for boosting word counts.
Put time to write on your calendar and prioritize it. Attend local events, or advertise your own impromptu write-in at a popular coffee shop, bookstore or library.
Ask for help! Use your forums in your region to suggest a writing dare or word war. Be on the lookout for opportunities to help other writers with encouragement or challenges.

In
NaNoWriMo, writers cheer each other on as part of their writing process. Your individual words count for more than just your
personal goal; you contribute to the regional word counts and the total on the
main website. We write novels in November because we want to be part of
something bigger than ourselves; in addition to the goal and the
deadline, NaNoWriMo gives solitary writers the opportunity to create community.

This
November, make friends while you make your story.

Lissa Staley became a novelist in 2003, approximately a month
after signing up for NaNoWriMo on Halloween.  She became the Topeka,
Kansas Municipal Liaison in 2004 and has talked people into writing
novels in November ever since. She also hosts Come Write In programs as a
public librarian, and helps writers learn the skills for self publishing through
the Community Novel Project at tscpl.org/novel.

Top photo (from the Night of Writing Dangerously 2016) licensed under Creative Commons from Buster Benson on Flickr.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2017: Day Ten

Every November, during National Novel Writing Month, thirty professional designers volunteer to create book cover art inspired by novels being written by aspiring authors from around the globe. Why? To encourage new, diverse voices, and help build a more creative world.  

30 Covers, 30 Days is presented in partnership with designer and author Debbie Millman. Read more about these NaNoWriMo 2017 novels-in-progress, and the cover designers, below.

Forbidden Fruits

A Women’s Fiction novel being written this November by NaNo participant Brenda Nicholson in the United States.

In a world where growing food can be a criminal act, a group of women band together to become guerrilla gardeners for a cause. Their plan? To stealthily use open spaces in their subdivision to help provide sustenance to their poorer neighbors. They have to dodge the old nosy neighbor and local government leaders, but in the end they succeed in making lasting friendships and bringing change.

Cover Designed by Roshanak Keyghobadi

Roshanak Keyghobadi is an artist and scholar who regularly writes about contemporary art and design. She holds a doctoral degree in Art and Art Education from Columbia University and her MFA and BFA are both in Graphic Design. She blogs at artCircle.

So, You Want to Write a Book? Get the Answers with The Great Courses Plus

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. While it may seem like your list of questions about writing, editing, and publishing gets longer with every day of NaNo, The Great Courses Plus, a NaNoWriMo 2017 sponsor, is here today with some courses that may answer your most pressing creative questions: 

Where do I start?

What does it mean to show and not tell?

When do I use an Oxford comma?

How and when do I edit my own work?

Is this a dangling modifier?

Will my novel stand out?

What’s the best word for…?

Once I’m done, how do I (and should I) query agents?

When it comes to writing, there are lots of questions. And, luckily, we’ve got lots of answers.

The Great Courses Plus gives you unlimited access to streaming videos from the greatest professors in the world. These expert resources can help you navigate from the Once Upon a Time of sitting down and starting your novel to the Happily Ever After of your published work, and to each of the dotted i’s and crossed t’s in between.

Our esteemed selection of literature and writing professors know what it’s like to struggle, to get stuck in the details, to hit a wall, or to feel overwhelmed with possibilities once your book is actually done. We’ve curated a list of resources below to help you along for every step of the way, and the professors have provided some words of wisdom to help keep you inspired and motivated:

Need some inspiration? Check out “Mystery & Suspense Fiction”, “Great Utopian and Dystopian Works of Literature”, “Folklore and Wonder Tales”, or “How Great Science Fiction Works”.

“Storytelling is core to the human experience––you shape your identity through stories. Who we are, where we come from, why we’re here––these are all life-shaping stories. If you don’t know your story, you don’t know yourself.”

––Hannah B. Harvey, professor of Folklore and Wondertales

Want to take your writing to the next level? Watch “Building a Better Vocabulary”, “Building Great Sentences”, or “Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques”.

‘Whatever your motivation turns out to be, and whatever struggles and triumphs you have with writing and publishing, I hope the act of creation provides … meaning in your life.”

––James Hynes, professor of Writing Great Fiction

Time to brush up on the basics? Try “English Grammar Bootcamp” or “Becoming a Great Essayist”.  

“Each of us has the capacity to write meaningful essays that tap into the heartbeat of humanity.”

––Jennifer Cognard-Black, professor of Becoming a Great Essayist

And when you’re done? Don’t miss “How to Publish Your Book”.

“There’s no single publishing path that’s right for everyone. The correct choice depends on your goals and your personality as a writer.”

––Jane Friedman, professor of How to Publish Your Book

30 days of writing and 50,000 words: that’s no small feat. But, with some help from The Great Courses Plus, we know you can do it.

Happy writing!

30 Covers, 30 Days 2017: Day Nine

Every November, during National Novel Writing Month, thirty professional designers volunteer to create book cover art inspired by novels being written by aspiring authors from around the globe. Why? To encourage new, diverse voices, and help build a more creative world.  

30 Covers, 30 Days is presented in partnership with designer and author Debbie Millman. Read more about these NaNoWriMo 2017 novels-in-progress, and the cover designers, below.

Tales from Autumnland: The Beginning

A Children’s novel being written this November by YWP participant Emmeline Harrison in Canada.

Mabel and Amelia Chastain live in a world that is always autumn. They have no parents and are ridiculed and ignored by their peers and elders alike. So they enter to the woods that surround their village to try and cross to somewhere better. There, they meet a bear, doll people, and Aspen—a boy who leads them further into the forest. He calls himself the “King of the Forest,” and invites Amelia and Mabel to stay with him in the forest…forever. 

Their plan was to travel through the forest to a better life, but now that they’re there, do they really want to leave?

Cover Designed by Justin Kuntz

Justin Kuntz is an Idaho born designer, strategist, entrepreneur, educator and thinker. After toiling away in the hot dust and under the red thumbs of corporate bosses, Justin went rogue and started a brand and interaction agency, Creative Soapbox. Today he is planted in Eugene, Oregon with his wife, three kids, dog and two cat beasts.

“Don’t waste time responding to the naysayers. Don’t dwell on...

“Don’t waste time responding to the naysayers. Don’t dwell on what they’ve said. Stay true to your vision.” ––Dean Koontz

Our amazingly multi-talented Customer Service Captain, Wesley Sueker, has illustrated quotes from this year’s Pep Talks! Check out Wesley’s other work on DeviantArt, and read the rest of Dean Koontz’s pep talk here.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2017: Day Eight

Every November, during National Novel Writing Month, thirty professional designers volunteer to create book cover art inspired by novels being written by aspiring authors from around the globe. Why? To encourage new, diverse voices, and help build a more creative world.  

30 Covers, 30 Days is presented in partnership with designer and author Debbie Millman. Read more about these NaNoWriMo 2017 novels-in-progress, and the cover designers, below.

The Infinite Lives of Sho Sakamoto

A Science Fiction novel being written this November by NaNo participant S.A. Reed in the United States.

Sho Sakamoto is little more than a collage of mysteries, held together by a few strings and some glue. 

That’s how Koen sees him, anyway. At least Koen knows a few things: Sho, who vanished from their town when he was seven, recently reappeared in the middle of a road near Koen’s house and claimed to remember nothing from his ten-year absence. After befriending Sho, Koen learns something even more mysterious: Sho has an inexplicable, secret gift for manipulating plants, and can grow them in the blink of an eye with his mind alone.

After Sho disappears again, presumed drowned in a rip current, Koen refuses to believe that Sho’s mysteries are unconnected. His suspicions are confirmed when Sho returns and confesses to the most absurd secret yet: he’s an interdimensional runaway who spent his ten-year absence in a world without a sun. What’s more, Sho’s also being chased by Ximena, a quick-witted but unenthusiastic assassin tasked with bringing Sho back to the world he escaped. 

With the help of Koen and genius biology student Imani, Sho will face where he’s been, where he must go, and the dangers of treading the line between the two worlds he desperately wants to separate for good—and finally confront the reason he’s been given every one of his unfathomable abilities.

Cover Designed by Joseph Schwartz

Joe Schwartz has been a graphic designer for more than 25 years, including a ten-year stint as an art director for the NBA. He now spends most of his time as a design educator in New Jersey at Spotswood High School and Kean University’s Michael Graves College. In his role as a design education advocate, Joe is a founding member of the DESIGN-ED coalition, a nonprofit organization that promotes design education in K-12 schools.  Joe has been happily married to his wife Dawn for 23 years and has two sons, Jonathan and Jason.

Pro Tips from a NaNo Coach: Help! I’m 10,000 Words Behind!

NaNoWriMo is well under way, and whether you’re at 5,000 words or 50, you may feel like your word count—and your morale—could use a little boost. Today, author and podcaster Mur Lafferty reminds us that NaNo isn’t just about reaching 50K: 

So you started strong, and then fell off. Or something came up. Work happened. Car broke down. Cat got pregnant. Neighbor died. Life happens.

Or, maybe, you JUST found out about NaNoWriMo and thought it was a great idea—but then you looked up, saw it was already November, and are kicking yourself about missing the grand launch.

Oh well. Might as well quit. You can’t possibly catch up. But next year, right? You will totally be there.

Hold on there, camper. Just listen to me for a second.

The stated goal of NaNoWriMo is to make it to 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s what the event is on the surface. But in reality, it’s so much more.

NaNoWriMo gives you permission to write whatever you want, at whatever quality you want. No one cares how good it is; you just need to get some words down. It gets you moving, gets you writing, and moving toward that feeling of accomplishing a heck of a lot of words.

And here’s the deal: whether you write 50,000 words in November, or 5,000, those are words you didn’t have last month.

If you quit now, because you’re behind, or you’re starting late, or you’re discouraged, then there are many words you won’t write just because you feel the event has moved beyond you. Don’t let that stop you!

Confession time: Last year I didn’t hit 50,000 words. I was stressed out because of travel and current events, and only made it to 45,000 words. Some might say AUGH, YOU GOT SO CLOSE! But I didn’t feel regret, or even failure, at all. I wrote 45,000 words that I didn’t have in October, I got a good way into a new project, and I was very proud of myself.

You can move forward with your project if you’re on word 5000, or word 0. Write as much as you can every day. You can be involved with the community, you can go to an event, you can update your word count, you can still participate in NaNoWriMo. If you want to do the math and figure out how you can write 1667 + (missing words / days left) a day, do that. Or you can write 500 words a day and look proudly on those 15,000 words at the end of the month. Fifteen thousand words. That is a solid start to a project that you didn’t have before!

If you quit because you don’t think you’ll get those 50,000, then you won’t even get those 15,000. Or 10,000.

Don’t look at this as an all or nothing, like if you don’t hit 50,000, then you’re a failure. That’s simply not true. Whatever you write today, you will have more words than you had yesterday. And that’s the whole point of this.

I’ll be honest: I’m traveling to a wedding this month, hosting Thanksgiving, going to multiple shows, and doing a daily podcast to support my patrons who are attacking NaNoWriMo themselves. Will I make the 50,000 words? I honestly don’t know. But that uncertainty isn’t going to stop me.

What I do know I will have a lot more words at the end of the month than I have now. And that is a win in my book.

Mur Lafferty is a podcaster, author, and editor. She has two podcasts on writing: I Should Be Writing and Ditch Diggers. In 2017, her book based on ISBW came out, with the same title. When not supporting writers, she co-edits the Podcast magazine Escape Pod and publishes science fiction and fantasy with Orbit Books and Serial Box. Visit her website at murverse.com.

Author Photo by JR Blackwell. 

30 Covers, 30 Days 2017: Day Seven

Every November, during National Novel Writing Month, thirty professional designers volunteer to create book cover art inspired by novels being written by aspiring authors from around the globe. Why? To encourage new, diverse voices, and help build a more creative world.  

30 Covers, 30 Days is presented in partnership with designer and author Debbie Millman. Read more about these NaNoWriMo 2017 novels-in-progress, and the cover designers, below.

Water in a Desert

A Literary novel being written this November by NaNo participant E. Eliot in the United States.

A young archaeologist fleeing her watery past accepts a research grant for an excavation in the Peruvian desert. Alone in the arid landscape, she races treasure-seeking grave robbers to find evidence supporting her explanation of the mysterious and ancient Nazca Lines. But the deeper she digs, the more difficult it becomes to forget an incident that could spill into her work and drag her under…

Cover Designed by Holly Aguliar

Holly Aguilar is an award-winning designer and illustrator, so if anyone does judge your book by its cover, she’s got you…covered. By day, Holly is a Senior Art Director at Balcom Agency, the largest marketing firm in Fort Worth, Texas.

Dear NaNo Diary... (Week 1)

NaNo can be thrilling, challenging, frustrating, and revitalizing––sometimes all at once. This November, we’ve asked NaNo participants to share their daily thoughts in a new series, Dear NaNo Diary. Here are some entries from the first week of NaNoWriMo:

November 1

Dear NaNo Diary,

I embark on this journey, one I’ve attempted many times before, but the winds feel different. With a story I’ve been dwelling on for years being my target, I feel I may be ready, this year, to complete my goal. Thank goodness I have my ToddlerBot’s three-hour nap times to write…but for now, I shall push past these fears and write. Write like the wind. Or stare at the screen like a statue. Which ever way the day takes me.

Signed,

Troubledgeek

Dear NaNo Diary,

This is the worst November 1 ever. I have never been less prepared. Or do I just need a perspective shift?  I am Clark Kent bumbling around in my glasses. I am Gregor Samsa on my back wiggling my cockroach legs. I am not a tragedy where it all falls apart. I am Chapter 1 of my rags to riches story.  Wait… What happened to Gregor in the end? Never mind. 

Thanks, Diary!

Signed,

anothermisplacedcomma

November 2

Dear NaNo Diary,

This is so hard…[but] t he harder it is, the better I write.  I want to get in there and feel the depths of emotion and dig out the really great stuff that will mean something.  But I get scared.  This journey for me is a fight against myself.  It is a fight against my weakness, my fear, and my avoidance of the difficult.  I want to be brave. I want to ride the roller-coaster. Will I be able to hold on? I am determined to do so.  (I might cry a little on the way, though).

Breathe––then back to the fray!

Signed,

patti-rose

November 3

Dear NaNo Diary,

I feel awesome. I’ve written 3000 words and the day’s not over yet. And a lot of those words are actually great. So yeah, I feel awesome. And happy.

Signed,

undeadjamie

November 4

Dear NaNo Diary,

…I was worried I was going to lose my steam, throw in the towel, and stall at just about 16k words on Day 4. But I kept going. I put sentence after sentence that didn’t make sense until my scene started to take shape. Now I’m over halfway to my next thousand, which will be 19k, and I couldn’t be happier that I kept trying. Maybe there’s something to the motto “Just keep swimming” after all. 

Signed,

shnuffeluv

November 6

Dear NaNo Diary,

For the first year I’m participating for this, I’m doing great! But… We’re now on the 6th and I began to think to myself: “jeez, didn’t expect my life to be sleeping, eating, working and writing.” It’s harder then I thought, I admit. BUT, I told myself "when I begin, I finish it perfectly,” so I won’t stop. I want to look back at it when it’s finished. I want to hold my story in my hands—my own 50K words. Yes. I’m doing this. See you soon, my friend.

Signed,

Skeilah

We’ll post more NaNo Diary entries as November (and our novels!) progress. In the meantime, you can share your NaNo Diary entries on the official forum post.

Good luck, writers!

30 Covers, 30 Days 2017: Day Six

Every November, during National Novel Writing Month, thirty professional designers volunteer to create book cover art inspired by novels being written by aspiring authors from around the globe. Why? To encourage new, diverse voices, and help build a more creative world.  

30 Covers, 30 Days is presented in partnership with designer and author Debbie Millman. Read more about these NaNoWriMo 2017 novels-in-progress, and the cover designers, below.

Speak Not of Murder

A Mystery novel being written this November by NaNo participant Harmony Williams in Canada.

Alice Anne Walker is more comfortable with the dead than she is with the living. As the assistant to a professor at the Newcastle-Upon-Tyne School of Medicine and Surgery, she spends the bulk of her time with cadavers as she prepares them for anatomy instruction. When she finds a waxed message inside the throat of the latest body to be donated to the school, she knows something is not right. If the message is to be believed, the corpse on her table was murdered.

As a woman in 1839, she is looked down upon simply for holding her position at the school. When the authorities discount her tale, Alice is forced to investigate the matter herself—but she isn’t alone. Thomas Brooks, a city watchman, believes her when no one else does and he’s willing to put his career on the line to help her bring a killer to justice.

But more is on the line than exposing a murderer. The deeper Alice digs into the investigation, the more layers of her past are exposed. Alice hasn’t always been the respectable woman she now plays at the school—and if she isn’t careful, her darkest secrets will come to light.

Cover Designed by Timothy O’Donnell

Creative curiosity has led Timothy to such varied environments as a multinational consumer goods juggernaut (Johnson & Johnson) and a small record label in a residential suburb of London (4AD Records), with posts at MTV, Razorfish, HarperCollins Publishers, 160over90, and Quirk Books along the way. Whatever the environment, he strives to create powerful and compelling work, and to foster a culture of experimentation and discovery. His book exploring the creative process, “Sketchbook”, is available from Rockport Publishers.