NaNoWriMo :: NaNoWriMo Blog

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."

I felt like one of the great novelists of old, bravely pursuing storytelling fame without the distractions of being a parent.

NaNoWriMo compelled me to convert our little-used travel trailer into a writer's cabin. It was perfect: away from the household hullabaloo yet within reach of the wireless AP, with a little fridge, and a table to set up on. I took my dinners out there and pounded the keyboard far into the night, bottle of scotch at the ready. I felt like one of the great novelists of old, bravely pursuing storytelling fame without the distractions of being a parent. Now, having experienced my absence while I was out writing my NaNoNovel, my wife encourages me to move into it permanently. Yay! Thank you NaNoWriMo!

—Don

Dreaming about writing for three decades, Don grew up in the East Bay but now resides in bucolic splendor far from the city.

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I needed to talk about it, so I finally admitted my crazy obsession with National Novel Writing Month to my husband.

It was late October. I was sitting at the keyboard, filling in dates and to-do’s on my November 2007 calendar page. November was shaping up to be a nonstop month, packed with family and social obligations; I was already feeling overwhelmed. When an email came in from the NaNoWriMo coordinator for Tucson, who I knew casually through BookCrossing, I sighed a big sigh as I replied that there was no way I would have time to even think about entering. My calendar was crammed. There was no 'me' time. There never was any 'me' time.

I tried, but I couldn’t get the ‘NaNo bug’ out of my mind. Plot lines and characters' voices were racing around in my head. I needed to talk about it, so I finally admitted my crazy obsession with National Novel Writing Month to my husband. At the same time, I acknowledged the impossibility of being able to fit in any time to write.

Sensing my disappointment, and understanding me better than I understood myself, he knew it was time for me to put myself first. It had been a rough year. Family obligations were burning me out. He pushed me to jump in, to give it a try. No pressure, no goal in mind, no worries about reaching the 50K minimum word count, just get my feet wet this time. He would do what he could to help me free up time to write.

So, I started writing. A storyline took shape and my characters began living their lives. I reached 7,157 words on November 3rd and, to my surprise, I discovered that my characters still had more to say. I stayed up late at night, my husband patting my shoulder as he headed off to bed alone, honestly pleased to see me absorbed and charged-up in a project of my own. I kept writing.

I hit 17,000 words, and my characters wanted to go on. Their complicated lives needed resolution. November unfolded. I planned birthday parties, made calls to social workers regarding an elder-care situation, and still found time to write. I hit a wall at 24,000 words. My husband encouraged me to talk the plot kinks through, and I hit the keyboard again, renewed. His 60th birthday came and went—the surprise party was a roaring success—and I kept on writing.

By November 17th, I was over 34,000 words. A novel was actually forming—a story with a beginning, a middle, and the ending I knew I could write. My eyes burned and pins and needles had settled into my right hand, but now I couldn’t stop. Not reaching the 50K goal was no longer an option. I needed to write as much as the story wanted to be told.

I hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for 12 and still managed to find time to write without neglecting my houseguests. And I did it. I reached the November deadline with 55,054 words. I had drafted my first novel. My husband cheered my accomplishment and even bragged a bit about me to his friends. But it didn’t end there.

My husband is an amazing man. On Valentine’s Day 2008, he told me that he’d been working on a special gift for me since my birthday (in early Feb.), and it was finally ready to be picked up. I wasn’t to ask any questions, just sit tight and be patient. We drove into town and turned into an older residential area. I was asked wait in the car while he knocked on the door of one of townhouses. I waited as patiently as I am capable of, and wondered if the gift might be a set of custom-made bookshelves. I’d really been wanting some new bookshelves.

A few minutes later my husband got back into the car and dropped a heavy object, awkwardly wrapped in paper towels, into my lap. Completely bemused, I peeled back the paper towels and unwrapped a hard-back book, the title in gold letters: Skipping Stones by Lynn Nicholas. My NaNoWriMo draft. My book in print. Tears blurred the title. I just couldn’t believe he had done this.

My husband could barely contain his excitement. He had tracked down a book-binder—an elderly gentleman who does custom book binding out of his home—and, with the help of the editor in his office, he had my NaNoWriMo rough draft formatted for print, created an author's bio page complete with a photo, and had my manuscript bound as a hardback book. He couldn’t have bought me a more incredible gift if he had gone to Tiffany's.

I swore to myself that I would never complain about my husband again (fingers crossed, of course). While my 'novel' is rough and raw and, if I ever finish it, will end up barely resembling the very rough draft, this hardbound copy marks a milestone. It represents a setting a goal and reaching it. It marks a formal starting point. Seeing my words bound between the book covers was an indescribable feeling. Knowing that my husband understood how much this accomplishment meant to me was an even better feeling.

—Lynn

Lynn (59) lives in Tucson, AZ with her huband, David, and her Australian Terrier, Lizzie. Writing has always been a private passion; NaNoWriMo has pried her out of the closet. 2007 was the first year she entered. She is looking forward to trying again in 2008.

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"Pretty quickly I decided that the only thing I wanted to write about was writing itself."

"Autumn of senior year is grueling. You enter it thinking you have it all together, tired of high school and ready to graduate. Many hope to go on to college, and that was definitely me in Fall 2006. I wanted early acceptance to my first-choice college and the comfort of knowing I wouldn’t have to worry come spring; my future would be laid out for me, steam pressed and unwrinkled. Unfortunately, it turned out that everything I had ever heard about college applications was true, and what really didn’t help was the personal essay.

My English teacher’s advice was to write about our accomplishments, or important experiences in our lives that (let’s face it) glorified us in some way. I am not big on writing about myself in the first place, and as far as building myself up and talking about something I’d accomplished? Too bad I’d spent high school ditching class, not researching a cure for cancer.

Pretty quickly I decided that the only thing I wanted to write about was writing itself. It was something I felt like I could talk about without feeling like a complete ham or like it would blend in with a million other essays all talking about how awesome their personality is and how that can’t be perceived in an essay so universities everywhere should change their system. I realized though, that I couldn’t just write about what writing means to me, or that I’ve written my whole life. Had I really pushed myself and dropped out of high school, maybe I’d have a book published and I could write about that. Then again, if that had happened, I wouldn’t be writing a college admissions essay in the first place.

That’s when it dawned on me. Why not write about NaNoWriMo? I’d been doing it since sophomore year while all but one of my friends thought I’d gone utterly mad (mind you, they already thought I was pretty strange for 'writing for fun.' What a concept!) and it was a great way to express how I felt about writing while building myself up a little bit.

I’ve never won NaNo, not once in the past 4 years. Honestly though, (and I will be corny for just a moment so bear with me because you probably feel like this too) I feel pretty kickass just for finishing a chapter. Getting past the first ten pages. Completing a major plot point. Every year of NaNo, I feel like a winner, just for taking time for myself to do something I love, and to do it intensely. That’s where I found its 'magic', so that even less-than-perfect me could write an admissions essay that I didn’t want to pulverize.

I didn’t get early acceptance, which resulted in three worry-lines on my forehead that won’t go away. (I’m only a teenager! I don’t deserve wrinkles yet.) It wasn’t the clear and comfy future that I wanted, but I did get accepted eventually to my backup school. After a year there, I’ve decided that I like it much better than what was my first-choice college. I’ve also decided that I want to be an English teacher, so maybe someday I can get a classroom of kids to feel that magic and see the reward that there is not only in writing, but in doing something for yourself every once in a while, regardless of the consequences. You don’t have to be perfect; you just have to find a way to give yourself a little love."

—K.J. King

K.J. is a Pacific Northwest college student who spent her freshman year perfecting the art of chugging 200 degree Fahrenheit espresso while running in obnoxiously high-heeled (but AMAZING) boots and still arriving to class on time.

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"He went from impish 71-year-old to bedridden man who couldn't speak, so I tapped out my frustrations in a novel about a family getting naked by mistake when their car breaks down near a nudist camp."

"In November 2005 I finished my NaNoWriMo novel despite a case of pneumonia. I believe my illness was induced by the stress I felt when my father had a stroke. He went from impish 71-year-old to bedridden man who couldn't speak, so I tapped out my frustrations in a novel about a family getting naked by mistake when their car breaks down near a nudist camp. Footnote to novel: my father regained his speech and limited physical ability. My husband and Ibought him a tricycle for Father's Day, 2007.

Last fall, I was 800 words into my novel, feeling pretty good that it was 11 a.m. and I'd written enough to deserve the mini candy bars I had munched. The phone rang and a man told me that my husband had been in a horrific accident. End of that novel.

The upside of that dramedy? My husband still has his hand, we are fighting an $11,000 helicopter bill, and I am writing profiles for college magazines rather than novels for fun and pleasure. Things were pretty lousy for a while but a couple of months ago, everything began to seem normal.

Two weeks ago, my dad had another stroke, and perhaps because I was novelistic when he had his first one, I am thinking of finishing the novel I didn't finish last fall. Between trips to visit him at rehab, words drift at me like clumps of clouds. Downstairs, the cupboard still holds the crappy candy that accompanied the candy bars I ate November 1st.

Will I try NaNoWriMo again? Yes, because regardless of the writing month's associations with grave family situations, I believe in its zany inspiration.

Besides, I'd buy deadlines at the mall if they sold them."

—Amy Halloran

Amy is a writer living in upstate New York with her family and 15 chickens.

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