NaNoWriMo :: NaNoWriMo Blog

To help you all get to know our new Young Writers Program Director Chris Angotti, we had our rocking intern Candace ask Chris some really important questions.

What’s your favorite way to spend your free time?

I live in Berkeley, so I like to hang around town and go out to local restaurants. I like record shopping, going to movies, watching TV, and running. I like buying good food at farmers’ markets and cooking it. And of course, I like writing.

Have you done NaNoWriMo before? Had you even heard about it before applying for this job?

I’d been hearing about it for years, probably starting in about 2001, mostly on blogs of people who were doing it. But at the time I was in college, and then I was in grad school, and then I was teaching, so it didn’t seem didn’t seem realistic for me. Now, I’m finally forced to!

Any ideas what your novel’s going to be about this year?

Oh gosh… I think I’m going to take Chris Baty’s advice: Start with nothing and see what comes out of it.

And Script Frenzy? We hear there might be a screenplay from the dark recesses of your past that someday might see the light of day?

I like to keep my checkered past as out of the spotlight as I can, but I think I may be able to put something together. Maybe a musical biopic about my fourth-grade rap career? I used to write screenplays with my friends in high school, but nothing ever really got completed... It would be nice to finish a movie script that kept some of that crazy teenage spirit. Probably with fewer walruses as major characters.

What’s the coolest thing you’ve done in the last five years?

That’s an outrageous question. You need to give me a moment, because I’ve done so many cool things in the last five years… Last summer, I drove across the country from New York to Berkeley when I was relocating. Over that year, including that road trip, I was in fifteen states. Otherwise, I was mostly busy teaching… Which is cool by itself, but in a different way.

What did you teach?

I spent three years in New York City teaching middle school and high school English.

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I really wanted to be a game show host or an explorer—oftentimes I would combine the two into some crazy outfit or costume to wear around. I would be holding a microphone and have binoculars strapped to my belt. I’m not sure what kind of game show that would be, but it seemed really awesome at the time.

What are you most looking forward to doing here at the Office of Letters and Light?

I’m looking forward to working on the Young Writers Program websites for both NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy, and making them really teacher-friendly. I want to continue to expand them, to make them more interesting and exciting and fun—not only for educators, but also for students. I think that’s my first priority.

The time has come to send pep talk requests for NaNoWriMo 2010! But first, I ask you: Who do you want, more than anyone else, to pen a pep talk this year?

Here are the authors we’ve already received pep from in the past (and won’t be bothering again for a while):

Piers Anthony
Kelley Armstrong
Julianna Baggott
Lynda Barry
Gayle Brandeis
Meg Cabot
Peter Carey
Kristin Cashore
Janet Fitch
Jasper Fforde
Neil Gaiman
Sue Grafton
Sara Gruen
Brian Jacques
Maureen Johnson
Gail Carson Levine
Robin McKinley
Garth Nix
Naomi Novik
Katherine Paterson
Tamora Pierce
Philip Pullman
Deanna Raybourn
Tom Robbins
Jonathan Stroud

And here are the staff favorites that we‘re already planning to ask:

Nick Hornby
Holly Black
Jonathan Lethem
Susan Cooper
Michael Chabon
Kate DiCamillo
Dave Eggers
Anne Patchett
Jonathan Safran Foer
Anne Lamott
Louis de Bernieres
Lori Moore
Daniel Handler
Natalie Goldberg
Haruki Murakami
Mercedes Lackey
T.C. Boyle
Aimee Bender
Don DeLillo
Ben Marcus
Junot Diaz
Colum McCann
Chang-rae Lee
Zadie Smith

We can’t wait to see who you add to the list!

We've passed the November 30 finish line, and the checkered flag has come down on the 2009 Donation Derby.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Donation Derby, it is an annual fundraising contest in which all NaNoWriMo regions are divided into six animalian leagues: The Kodiak Bears, The Siberian Tigers, The Komodo Dragons, The Wolverines, The Tasmanian Devils, and The Badgers. (Why these animals? Because they are fearsome and cute, much like Wrimos!) To be as fair as possible, we divided the leagues based on their number of homed, active participants in 2008. Because numbers can vary wildly from one year to the next, the Derby compares last year’s average donation amount to this year’s amount.

Like NaNo, which is essentially a competition against yourself, the Donation Derby is a way for each region to see what they can accomplish from one year to the next.

How does one win this Derby of fundraising, fur, and ferocity? A league’s winner is the region with the highest average increase in donations between last year and this year, as recorded at midnight on November 30th.

If we look at total donations, or even average donation per participant, we’re likely to see the same regions coming out on top every year. To encourage everyone to donate, we compared this year’s average with last year’s. And it worked! We are pleased that donation rates are at nearly eight percent this year. Kapow!

The winners for each league are:

Kodiak Bears- USA :: New York :: New York City

Courtesy of National Digital Media

Siberian Tigers- USA :: California :: Elsewhere

Courtesy of ltshears

Komodo Dragons- Australia & New Zealand :: Australia :: Canberra & the ACT

Courtesy of Amy the Nurse

Wolverines- USA :: Georgia :: Augusta

Courtesy of mannyh808

Tasmanian Devils- USA :: South Carolina :: Spartanburg

Courtesy of philcamill

Badgers- USA :: Texas :: Longview

Courtesy of Nick Lawes

Our congratulations and heartfelt thanks to all six winning regions. In addition to the undying gratitude of all of us here at The Office of Letters and Light, the winning regions will also receive:

- A customized web badge to show off on blogs and regional websites
- A special hand-crafted email from Chris Baty
- Their region's name on a trophy, which will live here at HQ

High-frequency waves of appreciation also go out to 2009's three highest overall fundraising regions:

1) Seattle, Washington
2) New York City, New York (also a league winner!)
3) Los Angeles, California

Finally, thanks to all WriMos in every region who donated this year! We quite literally couldn't have done it without you. With your help, we have badger-kicked all previous fundraising records into oblivion!

We're on our way to reaching $100,000 in donations today, but we are not there yet! Our intern Amy caught Chris and I practicing in the hopes that we do make our goal by midnight tonight.

If you'd like to see the full performance on NaNoVideo, be sure to chip in before 12 AM on November 24! I'd hate for Chris' musical stylings (and my red-hot dance moves) to go to waste.

June 15 marks the midway point for the Southern Cross Novel Challenge, New Zealand's answer to NaNoWriMo. For the Kiwis, June provides the writing-friendly winter weather that we residents of the Northern Hemisphere enjoy during NaNoWriMo.

We're waving from way up here in California and cheering, "Go SoCNoC!"

We're also wondering a few things, like "Do you eat Mint Slices while you're writing?" and "What is the preferred beverage of SoCNoC participants?" and "Where do SoCNoCers fall on the issue of wearing brown with black?"

If there are any Kiwi novelists out there with the answers, please chime in! And keep writing. Only 15 more days to reach 50,000 words!

He may have said 'no' to our request for pep, but we believe that Stephen King himself touched this piece of paper. It now hangs directly between the "Things To Think About" and "Things That Rock Our World" sections of our office bulletin board. While it does not rock our world that he declined to contribute his wisdom and encouragement to NaNoWriMo 2009, it distinctly does rock to have something—anything—that has touched the hand of Stephen King.

2008 was an incredible year for pep. We heard from such literary legends as Philip Pullman, Piers Anthony, and Katherine Paterson (to name a few!).

Let's make the 2009 lineup just as amazing and inspiring. We'd love to know who you'd like to hear from that we haven't received pep from before. Discovered a new favorite author? Have an old favorite author?
Let us know!

Edutopia, a project of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, has published an article about NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers Program in the February 2009 issue of their magazine.

In her lengthy and well-researched article, writer Carol Pogash makes the YWP sound as awesome and successful as it is. In truth, it made me wish that I was once again an imaginative third grader that wrote about magical marmots and evil warthog lords. (Although there is nothing to keep me from writing about that in my next NaNo-novel, I suppose.)

I am pretty excited that such a well-regarded and widely distributed publication like Edutopia not only showcased our program, but captured the surprising and effective alchemy of kids and teens challenged to write as much as they can about anything they like. Three cheers for Tavia and all the inspiring educators and young novelists who participated in YWP 2008!

I am now pleased to present the outstanding and esteemed Emily Bristow, our Captain of Capital Ideas and Austin, Texas' Municipal Liaison for six years running. Take it away, Emily!

Last spring, I was startled to learn that NaNoWriMo begins each season in debt. This year, it took $70,000 in loans to launch the event. Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if we could raise enough money to meet expenses AND have something left over? Then, we'd have seed money for next year, and this loan business could be a thing of the past.

Chris created an online Pilot Fundraising Program, and G.L.,Mandrina, SarahJanet, zotz, and I brainstormed like crazy through the spring and summer. I made some proposals to Chris and found myself with a staff position and a title: the ML Captain of Capital Ideas. My mandate was to move things forward and realize some of the team’s fine ideas.

We turned, as we so often do, to our valiant Municipal Liaisons, asking them to add fundraising to their lengthy list of tasks. And they blew us away with their energy and ingenuity. They created forum posts and emails, passed the hat, designed regional t-shirts, set up raffles, hosted brunches, recorded CDs, and even went caroling for NaNoWriMo.

I spent a chunk of the summer planning a fundraising contest to reward everyone's efforts. It turns out there's an intricate relationship between region size, donation history, and a bunch of other variables. But we don't have a lot of data, so we aren't too clear on what that relationship is. Next year, armed with the information we gather from this year, we're planning to have a much larger and louder contest.

What we do have this year is prizes!

• The winning region names prominently displayed on the NaNoWriMo site
• A lovely icon to flaunt across the internet
• A mighty fine trophy
• A congratulatory email from Chris Baty himself

And we're giving them to five fundraising champions*:


#1: Seattle, Washington at $4,395





#2: Los Angeles, California at $3,394.34





#3: Maryland at $2,980





Our top new region: Bloomington-Normal, Illinois at $1,045





Our top region with <100 participants: DeKalb, Illinois, with 34 participants, at $1,175

*Numbers reflect the regional totals as of December 1, 2008.

Winners! We love ya! And we thank everyone who donated or contributed in non-monetary ways. Without you there would be no NaNoWriMo. We are sincerely grateful.

We didn't make our ambitious goal of "ten for ten" - 10% of participants donating in NaNo's 10th year. But we raised our donor rate from 5.42% to 7.19%, and put $387,328 in NaNo’s coffers.

The means we can keep the servers up, lights on, increase server capacity, and hire a tech director. And! Hire a grant writer. Since we didn't hit the target this time, we're going to need some grants (and loans) to launch next year's event. Or, if you're so inclined – you can give us a head start on next year now!

Many thanks to Pamela McRae for her fabulous work on the winners' web badges!

The best thing about our new, giant poster tubes is not that we can now fit a mug, a t-shirt, and a poster into one cylindrical shipment, but that the tubes are wide enough for us to play robot arms.

That is right! At 4" in diameter (as opposed to our old tubes' measly 3"), these poster tubes can accommodate an adult human arm! This really changes things here at the office. We haven't tried it yet, but we'll let you know how our game of robot legs works out.

I have secured an interview with one of these tubes, so stay tuned for the upcoming daily Q&A. It is bound to be controversial.

And when you receive your giant poster tube in the mail, stick your arm in it! Snap a picture and email to us! We're starting a new series: "Robot arms from around the world."