NaNoWriMo :: NaNoWriMo Blog

Mike, also known as "mclemens" on the forums, is a card-carrying member of the Typewriter Brigade. He used the Beast, a 1951 Royal typewriter, to write 80% of his 90,000+ word 2008 entry!!! Though, as you can see, his family members often "help."

"Sitting here at the furthest point in our home from my sleeping spouse and children, I sit early every morning and try to get about 4-6 double-spaced pages banged out before school and work and other lifetime commitments.

Let's be frank, this is a terrible place to do anything sane. It's cramped, it's cold, and my butt usually starts hating that chair after 45 minutes or so. I have to clamber over an assortment of toys, laundry baskets, and my snoring dog just to get there. Luckily, NaNoWriMo is the complete opposite of sane, so this is the ideal spot for me to work. There's no distractions -- there's no room! -- so it's just me and the typewriter and the paper and the words, locked in heated, beautiful battle."

Linda Cavanaugh is the ML for the SF Peninsula region.

"I actually took this in 2007, but the only thing that's changed is the wallpaper on my computer. And a new box of tissues. :-) This is where I wrote my impressive 32K words in 48 hours to win in 2007."

We recently asked you to tell us about your favorite writing spaces. We got an overwhelming response, and we're still accepting photos! Stay tuned to see your fellow Wrimos' writing spots!

Kyle Cassidy is the founder of Where I Write: Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers. You can also visit his personal website here.

"This is the Club for the Gentry, as it's known. Our house is big enough that my wife and I can each have our own rooms in addition to the common ones we share. I think that having place to call your own (a Room of One's Own if you will) is very important in a creative lifestyle and just to keep a marriage together in general. I can come here and know that I won't be distracted or disturbed by people in other parts of the house. It's got a comfortable reading chair (which unfortunately is usually occupied by a cat and I'm loath to kick them out of it). It has become Where I Work."

Last Thursday the city of Oakland threw a big party to celebrate the "unveiling" of Uptown, the neighborhood where OLL has lived for the last three years. The neighborhood has really come a long way since we moved in, with a ton of great new cafes, bars, and the beautifully restored Fox Theater opening up in the past year. It's an exciting place to be!

Anyway, during the street party, our Development Director Elizabeth and I snuck up into a condo open house and I took this picture down onto the street party below. It showcases the great Fox theater sign, OLL's building, and the enormous black arrow that looms over our office day and night.

Has anyone out there in NaNoLand been to this part of Oakland recently? Does anyone else live with a looming arrow?

Yay, Oakland!

Chris

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!

Wooohoo! I just got back Monday from a three-month sabbatical to Melbourne, Australia. I was there to commune with marsupials, see friends, drink coffees with exceedingly practical names like "flat white" and "long black," spend an embarrassing amount of money on Arnott's cookie products, and hole up with a NaNo-novel I started in 2005.

While I was down under, I read a bunch of great Australian novels, including Steve Toltz's wildly creative A Fraction of the Whole, and Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang. If you've been following the discussions on our Twitter feed, Peter Carey is, ahem, relevant.

(Hint. Hint.)

I also had a chance to meet up for drinks and Mongolian barbecue with the local NaNo groups in Melbourne and Sydney (hello Melbournians! Hello Sydneysiders!). There's nothing better than traveling halfway around the world to eat stir-fry, drink beer, and swap stories with high-velocity novelists.

Below is my favorite photo from the trip, taken by my friend Jane. Has anyone else had the pleasure of hanging out with kangaroos on golf courses? It's the greatest!

So, so glad to be back with Tavia, Lindsey, and Dan here in the office, but so, so missing my underperforming Demons,

Chris

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!

Last week I asked Wrimos to cook up some perspective-bringing comparisons that could help us wrap our heads around this year's record-setting, pants-melting collective word count. I was hoping we'd hit 1.5 billion words, and we ended up clearing that by more than 100,000,000 words.

Here are some of your explanations of how best to understand 1.5 billion's majesty. Got some more calculations to add to this groundbreaking mathematical treatise? Add 'em in the comments! And thanks to Sarah Panian for all her compiling help!

1.5 billion words…