NaNoWriMo

This was me exactly! Wonderful (at least I think so) novel in 2005, and then pure and utter carp for 2006. I'm so glad to know I am not the only one who misses NaNo when it is over!

For me at least - it is all about the deadline! I am SUCH a huge procrastinator! But the deadline makes me rush to finish! I have the type of personality that works hardest under pressure - so NaNo is PERFECT for me :)

You don't actually write into their site. You can write in any word processing program you enjoy, during the month of November, and periodically you save your document as a .txt document instead of .doc, and upload it in their counter program to see how many words you have so far. During the last five days of November, they upgrade their word counting program to decide if you "win" or not by having enough words or not. They don't keep your novel or anything, and noone reads it except you unless you want to share it :) In 2005 I shared a lot of what I wrote, and actually posted every single chapter on my myspace blog because I loved it. This year noone got to read ANYTHING because I wrote such horrible, horrible crapola! As for other writing sites - did you know there was a site where some people try to write a novel in JUST ONE WEEKEND? It's a three day weekend. But seriously - that is too insane for me at the moment! There is also a group on livejournal that does something similar to NaNo only in February I think, and the NaNo people have NaNoEdMo in March where you can put in a certain number of hours editing your NaNovels from November. Lots of fun stuff! And the forums on the NaNoWriMo site are lots of fun, too :)

Still don't know yet what the script will be about, but I'm sure I'll know by April or so. As far as publishing the first book, I've had trouble even getting agents to read some sample chapters because it's not in the same genre as DaVinic Code (D*mn that Dan Brown), so I'm probably going the Lulu route. I had them print the free one we get after WriMo, and the quality was really good. I'm using a freelance editor to tighten it up, and have talked to a few publicists as well. Just keep plugging along and good things will happen.

That is very encouraging :D I'm a bit of a wimp myself, and afraid of going the self-publishing route because of all the WORK involved in publicity, and getting stores to carry it, and getting the word out there. BUT, I have heard of people who made that work, and got their book carred by national chains, and now have regular publishers who publish their new books. So it can be done. I guess I'm just afraid that I'm such a procrastinator I'd never get anything done, and therefore it would be a waste of money. I hope it works out for you! If it does, maybe I'll give that a shot myself, and make myself actually do the work and not procrastinate :)

I was thinking of Script Frenzy too!! I'm a teacher, so June would be PERFECT for me :) (Unless I go to Germany with my best friend.) (We'll see if I can swing the costs.) What might your script be about? The novel you are trying to get published = are you self publishing, do you have a publisher, do you have an agent? How did you find a publisher/agent if you have one? Share, please :)

It really is - that's what I try to explain to all my creative friends! It's not really whether or not you "win," since that's really just an icon on a website, or a downloadable certificate. It's really about actually MAKING TIME to write daily! That's the exciting part - so many of us just say, "One day I'm going to write a novel" without ever actually doing anything about it. But November can be "that day." :)

It sounds like that was a really fun introduction to NaNoWriMo. I think it would be a lot more fun if I had other people around me doing the same thing. That is partly why I volunteer each year to be my area's ML. But it would be even MORE fun to actually know the people I was getting together with to write during NaNo :) And prizes for finishing first - that is never a bad thing. Prizes are good :)