National Novel Writing Month Archives - Page 3 of 4

Come NaNo with this Mo

The setup for NaNoWriMo at home, if I need to ... — (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

National Novel Writing Month is about a week away; the time of year when thousands of people around the world agree to sit down daily, write 1600 words, towards a goal of 50,000 words by the end of the November.

I’ve attempted NaNoWriMo (much cooler abbreviation) three times in the past five years. The first time, Thanksgiving did me in. I didn’t finish. The second time, I finished on time, and turned the manuscript into my first published novel, Saving Peace. The third time, I didn’t hit 50,000 by December 1st, but I did by the 5th or so. The manuscript turned into my third published novel, The Dohmestics. This is my fourth time out at NaNo and I’m more excited than ever and ready to share.

Sign up to NaNoWriMo with me as your writing coach in the online learning environment known as a MOOC. Completely free! I will post weekly assignments, advice, examples to help us get to our goal of a completed first draft. You’ll also have access to a discussion forum where all other learners will be posting examples, asking questions, and commiserating in our race to 50,000 words. Even if you don’t ‘finish’ or ‘win’, NaNo is fantastic fun because we are all in it together. This is the second MOOC I’ve taught; the first one was a Personal Essay course that had 100 people sign up, 50 people make it to week one, and 20 or so complete an essay.

What have you got to lose?

Doha is Trending on Twitter But You Probably Still Won't Know Where It Is

English: United Nations Framework Convention o... — English: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change nations: Green: UNFCCC Member Peach: UNFCCC Observer Gray: Not party to UNFCCC (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was hard at work getting in my NaNoWriMo word count. An early morning nursery run and forced seclusion to makeup for the other three weeks in November when I produced my first short film and hosted a delightful Thanksgiving.

I hit my goal of 4,000 words this morning and did what any respectable writer does, hopped over to Twitter for a mental break. Imagine my surprise when I saw my city of residence, Doha, the capital of the city state of Qatar, trending worldwide. For you non-tweeps, that means so many people in the world are using that hashtag that it’s now like a thing. Why are so many people tweeting about the city whose previous distinction was that it was most likely to be mixed up with Dubai? Doha is trending due to the influx of people expected for the COP 18 conference

You’re probably thinking I like showing off acronyms, but I didn’t make up the short code for National Novel Writing Month, nor can I take credit for the UN Climate Change Conference.

Don’t worry, I’m not being elitist. In fact, I’m proud to host fellow blogger and science writer Emily Alp because she is going to give you a run down of all the acroynms related to the world’s largest conference on the issue that more and more people are find impinging on their everyday lives: climate change.

Emily explains the hows and whys of this annual gathering: “Convention of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meetings have been happening in cities around the world for the past 17 years. The meetings involve active participation by representatives from virtually every country (a.k.a. party) in the world in talks about climate change. The first such meeting, COP1, was held in Berlin in 1995. Shortly thereafter, in 1997, at COP3 in Kyoto, Japan, the parties put forth the Kyoto Protocol, which laid out a strategy to legally bind specific countries to reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets.”

Read the full piece and stay tuned to Emily’s blog as she’ll be posting daily throughout the conference.

For those of us who live in Qatar, this is both an interesting and concerning event. The emails about the expected 20,000 delegates (no that’s not a typo) have put residents into a quandary about how much worse the traffic (already bursting at the seams). The ironies of our SUV loving, gas guzzling home hosting the world in a discussion about emissions and all things environment are many.

Stay tuned for updates as we brace for the next two weeks. I’m interested to see how long Doha remains a trending topic on Twitter.

Not to NaNo… Featuring Wenona Hulsey

As you know, I’m a bit behind on my NaNoWriMo project this year but with the husband away for the week, hoping to kick it into high gear. I’ll be sure to update you on how that goes; my meager 8,000 words may not stand a chance at recovery during this third week when everyone else who stayed on track is churning out tens of thousands.

I’m hosting on the blog today writer and NaNo veteran, Wenona Hulsey to share her perspective on why she decided to pass on participating this year.

Wenona spends her time scaling rooftops, kicking bad guy tail and rescuing small kittens from tree tops. But during the time when she isn’t asleep, she’s a mother of two beautiful children and works a full time day job. She lives vicariously through great books and creates magical worlds in her spare time. She is also an avid social networker who loves to meet new people.

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To NaNoWriMo or not to NaNoWriMo? That is the question many writers are asking right about now but I have decided not to NaNo this year.

Okay some of you may be saying what is this strange language she is speaking?? So for those of you who are unfamiliar with this NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month. It’s held every November and the goal is to write a 50 thousand word novel in 30 days.

Yes, 50K in 30 days is doable, believe it or not. I did successfully completed the even in 2011 and I felt very proud that I could wear my “winner” t-shirt out in public just so people can ask “What is a NaNoWriMo?” every time they read my shirt lol.

But even though all the writing is done strictly in the 30 days there is a lot of prep time that you need to do beforehand even if you are normally a “pantser” who doesn’t use an outline. It’s hard to write that much in that time frame without at least a shell of an outline and the biggest chunk of your research finished. You will end up with a story that goes way out in left field leaving you staring at your computer screen for hours and that’s why I’m not doing NaNo this year. I’ve had way too much on my plate to even jot down a few notes.

So this year I will be cheering those brave souls on from the side-lines as I secretly wish I would have found the time to join in. I will be writing though at my own pace. I plan on finishing the third draft of my upcoming novel and going back to work on a novelette that I’m adding to the “Blood Burden” series. Next year I will hopefully be able to join in on the long nights, keyboard banging, and screen staring fun that is Nation Novel Writing Month. Best of luck to everyone this year!