NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

Writers live in a world different from the rest of humanity. Usually, they live in their own worlds; the ones they create inside their heads and hope to communicate to the rest of the world. Getting these writers to collaborate on anything would be like herding cats, right?

Almost.

Welcome to November, or as we call it: NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month.  In November, writers from all ages and all genres come together to face the ultimate writing challenge.  These writers challenge themselves and each other to complete a 50,000 word novel over the 30-day course of November. Individual writers have raised funds on a per-word basis.  Teachers have challenged their students to participate.  Nano means different things to different people, but anyway you slice it, it can be a great tool to inspire creativity, and create accountability.

My own experience with Nano has been mixed, largely due to my own level of dedication to my writing.  I completed over 50,000 words in 2007, completing one of the novels in my Cyberpunk series featuring Leon “Catwalk” Caliber as the protagonist.  You can read an excerpt here. The next two years, I didn’t finish because I hadn’t properly outlined and thought out my story.  This year, several factors are contributing to ensure I don’t miss the deadline.

The first is the project I’m working on.  My material tends to be sci-fi and borderline horror. I was invited to work on a collaboration with Dr.Stacia Kelly , a paranormal romance author, and five-time NaNo winner.  Her new chronicles feature undercover urban Samurai warriors, all women, and I was asked to write the male lead in her first book.  Together, we’ve come up with the unlikely pair of Shia Ronin and Ryan Calder; a demon hunter and homicide detective, respectively. Read an excerpt here.

Two other tools immediately come to mind when I discuss my NaNo strategy this year.  First, let’s talk about outlines.  I work much better with my story when it has a concrete start, end and pacing, just like a good movie.  The way we make this work is through the application called Scrivener; available on Mac and in Beta for Windows. Scrivener lets you organize chapter breaks, and applies templates to specifically help you track your word count for your pace during NaNo.

The second tool is one I picked up from established author, J.A. Konrath, writer of the Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels novels.  During the recent collaboration with other authors on the eBook, “Draculas” (reviewed here), Joe used an app called Dropbox to help with remote access and version control.  Stacia and I have used this over the first week when I was all over the country, and we managed to keep pace with our story, even as she worked on another of the Goddess novels in parallel.

I’m behind so far, with only 8500 words completed, but I’m back to the keys after this post.  I plan on completing NaNoWriMo again this month.  How about you?

All the best,

nK