Chris Baty's Blog, page 249

30 Covers, 30 Days 2011: Day 18

Today's cover is brought to you by the talented Elena Giavaldi, who designed this image in 24 hours:

Letters to a Root-Beer Flavored Moon by Evangeline Crow

Casper "Copper" Denali is your average guy; well, your average guy with a male-oriented love life, and an eccentric best friend and on-and-off boyfriend, Tomas "Tom" Raynor, whom he's known since he was eight. There are some major problems, though. The first on the list in October of 2013 is the fact that he's just found out that his younger sister is pregnant (by Tom), that his other childhood friend, Alice Lidden, is about to move away, and that his favorite bookstore just closed. 

To top it all off, Casper picks up a small bottle at the beach, a bottle which contains a postcard with a fantastical looking device on it, the words 'wish you were here', a small journal entry, and a return address from some place called 'Atlantis'.

As Copper's family slowly disintegrates around him, he's forced to make a leap of faith, and try to meet up with his Atlantean penpal. 

All this while the bridges that hold the water out of Atlantis are slowly cracking, and one Atlantean discovers that his penpal is suddenly making a trip to the world of the deep to come see him.

Elena Giavaldi  was born in a small town in northern Italy, and moved to New York in 2008 to look for fortune (yes, in the middle of a world financial crisis). After having worked in Italian book publishing, she finally had the chance to taste the American version. She worked for Rodrigo Corral and freelanced for different publisher. She is currently Art Director at Mucca Design.

Pep Talk from Christopher Paolini

The YWP has hosted a lot of amazing pep talks this year, but we're especially proud to have Christopher Paolini give us some mid-month advice. Christopher wrote the first book in the Eragon series when he was 15, and his most recent installment was an instant blockbuster (489,000 copies!) upon its release last week. Which one of our young writers will be the next Paolini-eque success?

Dear NaNoWriMo Participants,

No doubt you are currently hard at work on your novel for this year's contest. As someone who once wrote 200,000 words in three and a half months, I know exactly what you're going through.

So. Here's my advice based on over 10 years of working to deadlines.

First, writing your book is going to be difficult. Know this. Accept this. Embrace this. It may be fun as well, but make no mistake, what you're attempting is a major undertaking.

Second, pace yourself. Because it's going to be difficult, you don't want to burn out. Save the late nights and early mornings for the last week, week-and-a-half of your effort. You may be writing at a quick jog, but don't break out into an all-out, fear-driven, there's-a-bear-behind-me pace until it's absolutely necessary. Conserve your creative strength. You're going to need it. (On a related note: avoid making big decisions not related to your writing. A person can only make so many good decisions over the course of the day, and you want them to go into your novel.)

Third, if you haven't already, think about where your story is going next. If you're going to be flying headlong through the pages, it's good to have a road map. That said, don't be afraid to deviate from your plan if a good idea strikes you during the process.

Fourth, if you're stuck, go for a 15-minute walk. If you don't feel like going, that means you've been sitting at the computer/typewriter/paper for too long. Get up and get the blood flowing. It'll make all the difference.

Fifth, don't worry about punctuation, spelling, or formatting. Those are easy to fix. Instead, worry about pacing, characters, and setting. Get those right, and no one will care that you put a comma in the wrong place.

Sixth, a casual tone (like this letter) is quicker and easier than formal. Nevertheless, use whatever voice best suits your story.

Seventh, tea is a big help. Black or green tea in the morning—Lapsang Souchong is a favorite of mine—cinnamon in the afternoon. Why cinnamon? For some reason, it helps keep my mind sharp. Don't have black or green tea later in the day unless you're in your last big push, then you can have a second in the afternoon, when you start to flag.

Eighth, try to relax when you can. Watch a movie, have dinner with your family, blow up enemies on an Xbox 360 or PS3. Just don't think about the book.

Ninth, try to reach for your word-count goal every day. But, don't feel bad if you get less on a certain day. You will get less on some days. Trust you'll also get far more on other days.

And tenth… don't give up! You can do this! It may not seem like it day to day, but as long as you keep putting words on the page, you will get to the end of this. And who knows? People may actually like what you've written. And that's the best reward of all.

Fellow authors, I salute you. Luck in battle.

– Christopher Paolini

30 Covers, 30 Days 2011: Day 17

Today's cover was brought to you by the incredibly multi-talented Bráulio Amado, who designed this cover in less than 24 hours:

WANTED: Monster Making Apprentice by Ayesha123Play

Adrienne Vaudelay, a teenage girl, is desperate for money to go on a safari. After searching through newspapers she comes across a strange advertisement in the job section: 

"Interested In Working With Fascinating and Unique Creatures? I seek a diligent young adult to assist me with working with these amazing creatures. The faint-of-heart need not apply. Must be unafraid of fangs, and venomous, dangerous living things. Must have high level of curiosity. Contact J. Delerone"

Assuming it's just snakes, Adrienne goes ahead and applies for the job, without looking closely at the contract. Until she realises this isn't any old job. She just signed on to be an apprentice in making the strangest and most DANGEROUS monsters that only myths spoke of. Well, they WERE myths until now…

Bráulio Amado is a young Portuguese graphic designer & illustrator currently working at Pentagram NYC. He also runs a small DIY record label named Sleep City and travels around the world with his band Adorno. He actually doesn't use Comic Sans anymore – www.iusecomicsans.com

Donation Day Thank You!

Thank you so much to everyone who donated or bought something in the OLL store for Donation Day yesterday! In 24 hours, you contributed $51,645! As the parent nonprofit of NaNoWriMo, we'd think it a feat to reach 50,000 units of anything in a short amount of time. But raising that much money for NaNoWriMo and the Young Writers Program makes us absolutely ecstatic. And so, so grateful.

We had over 1,400 people donate yesterday. That's the kind of grassroots support that most nonprofits would give their organizational eyeteeth for. To our amazing donors on Donation Day and throughout the year—we appreciate you so much, and we look forward to using your contribution to make the world a more inspiring place.

- Chris B.

Writing with a Kindergartener

This year, I have the pleasure of participating, not only in my 10th NaNoWriMo event, but also doing so alongside my five-year-old daughter. She's always been imaginative, but previously wasn't able to sit still long enough to participate. Now, though, my big kindergartener is ready for the Young Writers Program!

I set up a camera for her, and she tells me her story, in all its rambling, slightly incoherent glory. I finally (as of today) wrote more than she did, but she's been steadily skunking me in word count!

It has been so incredible to see my own daughter take to writing the way I've always hoped at least one of my kids would. I guess it was inevitable. I did fail NaNoWriMo 2005 because I had her on November 16th (I still got 18K that year, though!), so she was born into the madness. It was natural that she should eventually join it. Yesterday, she thrilled me even more by joining me at a write-in, and asking me to help her write more of her story by herself. She drew her pictures, and then told me what she wanted to write. I wrote the sentence down, and she faithfully transcribed it. I didn't correct her grammar.

She's got such a fertile imagination! Her story is so much fun. It's about a little unicorn who's afraid of lightning. She's also got a little blue cat who's afraid of heights, there's a trip to Australia, and they live in a bamboo forest. Her working title is The Little Unicorn.

One of her best lines so far is actually the inspiration for my own novel.  She's describing the unicorn's little sister:

"And she also is the same color of Mozart. She is white and orange just like Mozart."

In this case, Mozart is actually our cat, a marmalade longhair lump of fur. But that line has become so much more!

It triggered the start of my new novel. I'd written about 900 words on my original idea (a retelling of J. Sheridan Lefanu's pre-Dracula novel Carmilla), but was going nowhere. One of my local Wrimos mentioned "Hey, 'The Color of Mozart'… That would make a great title for a novel!"

And you know something? She was right! Those four little words have started me down the path to my own, very new novel.  I started all over, and have a great new idea that's providing me with the potential for much more fertile plot ideas.

I'm still having trouble finding the time to write, but it has been so much fun to transcribe my daughter's work in all its unedited glory.

Now I have dreams of spending the next ten years writing with my daughter. Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but a girl can dream, right?

I'll admit that I know it's possible; there's one family in our local group who does it together. The oldest daughter started it, and got her mom into it. Then her dad, and now that the oldest has moved on to college, the youngest child has started too. Is it wrong of me to hope for the same thing?

Have any of you ever done NaNoWriMo with a child or another family member?

– Heather Dudley

30 Covers, 30 Days 2011: Day 16

Happy Donation Day to you! We are on a mission to raise funds for NaNoWriMo and the Young Writers Program to keep projects like 30 Covers, 30 Days, and stories like the ones we share on this blog possible. There are some fun prizes being given away each hour to our donors; keep an eye on our Twitter feed! Today's cover is by the worldly and wonderful Chin-Yee Lai:

The Other Side of Visible by jobydog

Thomas Wright is a resident of a nursing home who finds a red silk cloak lying in a chair in the facility's dayroom. Just looking at the cloak causes the elderly man to become invisible. More importantly, it takes his failing memory back to when he first began to experience the sense of being invisible to others. 

Given up in his infancy by a myserious woman wearing a red dress who may possibly have been his mother, he was raised in an orphanage run by Sisters, with other children possessing odd powers. His maternal grandfather arrives for the first time on Thomas's seventh birthday to reveal a story to him but then leaves him there in the home. Every year thereafter, the grandfather returns with a new tale, until Thomas's twenty-first birthday, when the visits cease.

At each important milestone in his life, Thomas is saved by his ability to become invisible. His grandfather's ramblings seem to impart some sort of wisdom regarding this ability, but Thomas is never sure of the meaning. He has led a solitary life and feels he has missed out on the most important thing of all: love and emotional attachments. He wonders what he has been saved for all these years, as he outlives all the people around him.

In the end, the enchantment seems to have left him only with his declining health and advanced years. He has begun to doubt the reality of his invisibility over the years. He has lost each red article of clothing that has imparted the magic and he awaits his end in a home for the elderly. But just when he has resigned himself to the fact that perhaps it was all in his imagination, he finds the red cloak and feels the power across the room once again…

Chin-Yee Lai is a designer who enjoys all aspects of book design.

Today is Donation Day! Hooray!

We're a grassroots, participant-funded nonprofit. If you believe in what we do, please keep NaNoWriMo and the Young Writers Program going strong by making a donation. Our goal today is $100,000. Thank you so much for helping us give a creative boost to kids and adults around the world this fall!

The YWP's NEO Novelists

Each year, NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program offers underserved classrooms the opportunity to borrow NEO word processors—simple, rugged little laptops—for their November writing. We asked a few of those teachers to give us updates on how their young novelists are doing this month!

Melanie Kish Kirkman – Shuksan Middle School, Bellingham, WA

NaNoWriMo is highly motivating for my students. They love that they get to set their own goals and work on a story of their choice. The materials online are extremely helpful for students and fit well with our curriculum and the Common Core. My students ask over and over throughout the day about when we will start writing time. They work on stories at home, over lunch, and come to school early just to write! My favorite story is about a student I have with autistic spectrum disorder. He has a hard time writing by hand, but has excelled with his NaNoWriMo story. He has eight chapters written in a thoughtful, carefully plotted story about mysterious weather changes. It is his one moment throughout the day where he can be focused and show the world all of his thinking.

My students have always been motivated by the NaNoWriMo, but having the NEOs has helped tremendously. I wish we had them for everyday use! My students love checking their word counts and watching their writing grow to meet their goals. I have students with learning disabilities and they are all able to use their NEOs to show their thinking. I've watched reluctant writers grow daily into novelists.

Michelle Stimpson – Bryant Middle School, Salt Lake City, UT

We are halfway through our third NaNoWriMo with the help of the Young Writers Program. Writing a novel in a month has become one of our favorite school projects, and this year we have four teachers and over 200 students participating.

The English Language Learners in my English Language Development courses love writing novels and in the past, their only complaints have been about the numerous NaNo-related injuries that occur during the month of November—hand cramps, blisters, paper cuts, and the like. So this year, I applied for and won a grant to receive 25 NEOs on loan from Renaissance Learning. (Can you hear the thunderous cheers from my 75 students?)

Our English Language Learners come from immigrant and refugee families and many have limited access to technology. Not only are the borrowed NEOs helping us write our novels and are lots of fun to use, they are helping us to improve our keyboarding skills. Because the students' novels will be transferred to Microsoft Word documents, we will also enjoy the experience of using spell-check and grammar-check during the editing process in December. And best of all? No more Band-Aids!

Jasmin Churchill – Decker Elementary School, Las Vegas, NV

NaNoWriMo is proving to be quite the ride for my fourth graders! Wild bursts of inspiration are immediately followed by debilitating cases of writer's block. Unique characters, hilarious conversations, and nail-biting scenes are swimming in seas of misspelled words and punctuation errors. Some kids are stuck in their rising action, while others think they're done after writing two pages. Many students have doubled their word count goals, but of course another accidentally pushed "CLEAR FILE" and wiped out every last word he'd written.

In a nutshell, we're getting the complete NaNoWriMo experience. I couldn't be happier—it's the coolest thing I've ever done as a teacher. The NEOs have been the icing on the cake—the kids feel so grown-up to be typing their novels, and I love that they're sharpening word-processing skills while writing about super-hero dogs and evil bananas. Thanks to the OLL staff for choosing us, and for the wealth of lesson plans, pep talks, dares, forums, etc. that you offer on your site—you've ensured a soft landing for Room 13's collective leap of faith.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2011: Day 15

Happy Tuesday to you! It's officially the midpoint of NaNoWriMo—craziness, I say. To mark the occasion, take a look at today's cover, designed by Christopher King:

The Wonder Room by MrHeywire

In the 1940s, Hazel is a strange woman who has an obsession with time travel and wants to spend an eternity exploring the far reaches of time. A deal with the devil looks like it will make her dreams a reality. But, of course, there's a catch.

In the 1970s, Fletcher is a lonely child whose only friend is a stray dog. When the dog is caught in a house fire, Fletcher goes in to save it, only to need to be saved himself. After his rescue, he becomes strangely disturbed.

In 2009, Andrew meets an old homeless man who seems completely insane, but the things he says seems to make more sense than they should. The friendship that forms between the two leads Andrew closer towards understanding more about the nature of his existence.

The story of an eternal soul that enters a new body when the person dies. Each person the soul possesses is strangely drawn to The Wonder Room. Inside, the soul is temporarily freed from the body and its host fully understands their existence in a moment of ecstasy before dying and the soul is thrust through time and space into another body. Fletcher, however, accidentally breaks the cycle by being rescued from The Wonder Room before dying when he is a child and so spends the rest of his life understanding his existence, though it makes him sound deranged to everyone until he meets Andrew, his next incarnation. And so, a battle with fate begins.

Christopher King is the art director of Melville House Publishing in Brooklyn. As a graphic designer and illustrator, he's produced work for clients including Doubleday, Vintage, Random House, St. Martin's Press, the Criterion Collection, Nike, and others. He's also widely considered to be the world's foremost expert on sandwich architecture. His website is christopherbrianking.com

NaNoWriMo Newlyweds

Sometimes we get emails that are so good we just can't keep them to ourselves. This email from Jonny in Leeds is one of those. We post it here with his kind permission.

Dear all at the Office of Letters and Light,

In 2009, prompted by a customer at Borders in Leeds, UK, where I worked at the time, I signed up to NaNoWriMo.org for the first time. Not four days into my time looking around the forums, gathering ideas for my first novel and checking out other people's synopses, I received some NaNoMail from a Bay Area, CA resident named Kristina Casto who was looking for overseas writing buddies and a chance to share her previous three years' NaNo experience. We got talking on MSN messenger and shortly after on Skype, and soon realised we had much more in common than we thought. By the time NaNoWriMo 2009 was over, Kristina already had plans to visit me in the UK, and we knew we were looking at something special. (Incidentally, I still want to finish my novel from that year, which involved a religion based around the music of David Bowie. It'll happen one of these days.)

Kristina spent three months with me here in the UK, and by the time she went home we knew we couldn't stay apart for long. The next opportunity to see each other in person came around September of 2010, when I flew out to California to stay with her and a friend for four months. Whilst there, we headed to San Francisco for the 2010 Night Of Writing Dangerously, and had an absolutely awesome night (and our fair share of the candy buffet). Shortly before that, however, we'd taken a trip north and I'd asked Kristina to marry me. By the time NoWD came around, we'd been engaged for a month. We talked to Chris Baty and Sarah Mackey and it was fantastic to tell people we'd met through NaNoWriMo.

I left for the UK in January, and we started making plans for Kristina's next visit to the UK—permanently! Kristina came over to Brighton, where we now live, and we planned our wedding. Our invitation (designed by my best man, who is a giant bad-ass) was made to look like a classic Penguin Books cover, and the table centrepieces at the wedding were book-themed.

We were married, surrounded by family and friends, on Saturday September 17th 2011—almost two years after we'd met for the first time on the NaNoWriMo forums. Now, six weeks on from that, Kristina's UK visa has been approved and we're working our way into our third year of NaNoWriMo together.

Thank you for bringing together two people (and surely a few more out there!) who might never have met otherwise. Nothing can quite describe the sense of joy I get from re-telling this whole story to you guys, so I'm going to get back to writing bleak dystopia before this email throws me off my game! :D

With unfathomable thanks and love,

Jonny Casto-Ardern and Kristina Casto-Ardern