Last night GC and I attended the National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) kick-off event, which was at the Yang Sheng restaurant at the corner of Somerset and Bronson.
My mother always said if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all, so I’m not going to say anything at all about the food at the Yang Sheng. (Actually that was Bambi’s mother who said that. My mother used to say “By the time kids are fit to live with, they’re living with somebody else.”)
There are close to 100,000 people registered for Nanowrimo this year, and we’re each going to try to write the first draft of a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. If you’d like to join, you can sign up here. (Add me as a writing buddy if you want – I’m registered as zoom.)
People have been asking me questions about it, so I’ll do a little Q&A here.
Q. Are there prizes for best novel?
A. No.
Q. How do you win?
A. By writing 50,000 words of a novel in November.
Q. Who reads the novels?
A. Nobody.
Q. What’s to stop you from writing the same word repeated 50,000 times?
A. Nothing.
Q. What’s your novel going to be about?
A. I’m writing a dark romantic thriller about online dating, self-betrayal, hidden blogs, horrifying secrets, and a clash of precariously balanced personality disorders. It’s set in that place where love and hate masquerade as each other, and where you can’t trust anybody – not even yourself – because nothing is as it appears.
Mmmm, that plotline sounds familiar.
Oh. Wait!
That’s the story of my life … too.
What is your 15 word one-liner as suggested by the snowflake method? You recommended the snowflake so I tried it out and so far, I like the method. My one-liner is “A dog discovers that only he can save the neighborhood tree.” I have got the next summary done too and have started to flesh out the dog character. But I haven’t got a name for my dog yet! When I find the right name, it will go “click” I am sure.
Time to get the bifocals changed. I read “sneak peek at my navel”.
When do we get to see the hair?
I am glad that I didn’t make it because I would have given everyone the current flu/cold that’s going around my family. But I’m doing NaNo again too
I still have to decide if I’m continuing with my favourite old characters or doing something wacky and off the cuff this year. Also Yang Sheng sucks, and the MSG would have scared me away if I had been healthy (and I’m not the only one).. Maybe I’ll see you at the write-ins!
It was actually Thumper’s father. And she said, “Thumper, what did your father tell you this morning?” and he responds, “If you can’t say somefin’ nice, then don’t say anyfing at all.” Just to show my complete and total obsession with Disney. =P
I can’t wait to read it.
I’m doing it too! And like Julia, my novel involves dogs. And the people who meet in a dog park. And an old man with a secret. Oh dear, is that sounding cliched? Yikes!
And we have the plague here, so I had to miss the kick-off.
My friend did this one year and posted it as a blog, as she wrote, so we could keep up.
I like the idea of posting on the blog as we go along … I wish I had an idea even if it were cliched or crazy or darkly melodramatic … I have nothing … and November starts on Sunday!
I’m doing this, too, but my own amended version, which I’m calling Coyo-NaWriMo. I’m committing to 1000-1500 words/day, five days/week, and I’m using a novel I’ve already been writing for a couple of years now (the chunks already written aren’t going towards my word count). I hope to get 20,000 words written by the end of November!
Good luck Zoom!!
I love novels ….read and write both……
Coyote there is a nanowrimo rebel (those committed to not following the rules
forum, sign up and you can still take advantage of the support the site offers.
Yoiks, I just realized this will be my NINTH year doing NaNo. Hoping to get another book out of it this time.
Good luck, have fun!
Mudmama: Is this on the regular site?
Zoom, the novel sounds like the story of my life. Good luck, I am sure it will be great. I hope GC finds something to write about.
deBeauxOs Рha ha ha ha ha! Touch̩.
Julia – I gave you a whole paragraph but you only want a sentence??
Grace, I assure you there will never be a sneak peek at this navel on this blog.
Reyl, thank you for sparing us the flu exposure. I still have the MSG headache. How many times have you done NaNoWriMo?
Conviviad…I stand corrected. I bet that’s Disney’s most frequently mis-attributed quote. Am I right?
Cheryl, well, I don’t know if it’ll ever be made available for actual reading. I don’t expect to get a good novel out of this…I just expect to blast through some of the barriers.
Laurie, I don’t think it sounds cliched. It sounds good. Dog parks are interesting places, where many people intersect. Excellent settings for gossip and poorly kept secrets.
La Canadienne, I know somebody who’s doing it that way this year!
Oma – that’s definitely one way to kill two birds with one stone during a busy month.
Good luck WC – yup, you’re a Nanowrimo rebel.
Beauty Salon London – are you spamming me?
Mudmama – you’re a rebel too. I considered it.
Crafty, have you been doing this since the beginning? Do you send your book off for the free one-copy publishing each time? What’s your genre?
WC – I think you can find your fellow rebels in the Nanowrimo forums, under genres.
Katie – thanks, me too. 😉 I’m almost envious of GC having a completely blank slate to start with. Almost.
This is my fifth nano! I love it, and have missed the last two years. So I’m kicking myself in the pants with completely random vampire fiction this year. Have you done Nano many times?
Nope, never before. I’ve thought about it a few times, and I even registered once, but I never buckled down and wrote anything until this time.