I tried quite a few titles for this post, including “Rob’s Pencil” but you can see why that probably wasn’t a good choice. Or am I too attuned to undergrad forms of humor?
You may have read my writing process post on the blog last week which is part of a “hop”. In the blogosphere, this means bloggers link up when we are all writing about the same topic or theme.
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.
