Links I love: Are you a crafty writer?
Come on, we all have her hidden in there. (Or hey, you could be a him. If you like to make your own gifts, or have an appreciation for the wry wit of someone who is basically just a two-bit pimp of handmade presents, then you could be cruising this place on a regular basis. I am not going to limit who gets to make stuff in this world based on their equipment for goodness sake). Anyway - back to the point at hand.
If you feel like writing in your spare time (yeah, right. What’s that?), November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).
NaNoWriMo is, simply put, a contest. Just a contest where you compete against the clock (actually, the calendar) to write 50K words by the last second of November. You are racing against yourself here.
For all those frustrated armchair authors that always swear that they have a book in them somewhere, it gives the impetus to put up or shut up. It gives the structure to sit down and do the job. And yes Virginia, there have been people that have had their NaNoWriMo novels published.
The only requirement here is that what you write be fiction. And lest there be any disagreement as to the definition of fiction, the Powers that Be behind NaNoWriMo established long ago the following guideline: “In short: If you believe you’re writing a novel, we believe you’re writing a novel too.” Pretty simple, yes?
Now, I bring this up, because as a crafty chick, I have buckets and lists and pages of resources for how and where and when to publish yourself. And there was a time back in university days when I was capable of writing (and did indeed write) extensive stories as gifts for people.
So, if you think you might have a good story lurking within, this might be just the vehicle to get it out. If you find you like it, at the end of November, I can post a huge resource list of the ways, whys and wheres to self-publish so that you, too, could give the gift of a beautiful story this year.
Maybe you have the next great American novel hidden within. Or maybe, you just want to write a little story about a hare and a tortoise (as long as it is fifty thousand words, mind you). But either way, at the end of the month, not only will you be able to say that you did it, but you might well have the beginnings of a most incredible holiday gift ever.
If you are interested in participating in NaNoWriMo, just keep in mind that 50,000 words breaks down to about two pages a day (maybe two and one half). If you can blather on like I can blather on, then you are golden. Seriously. You are completing against you and the lamppost here. The prize is a certificate of completion. But you might just come out of it with a fantastically written fiction story that you can then decorate, illustrate or whatever you choose and gift it the world over.
The NaNoWriMo website gets really bogged down around the beginning of the month, and frankly, right now their system is a little overwhelmed with the popular response. If it is something in which you think you might be interested in taking part, its probably best to get over there earlier to read up on the whole contest and get a grasp of the hows and the whats. The NaNoWriMo website will give you all the information you need, but if you find that the demand has overwhelmed it, the Wikipedia entry on NaNoWriMo is also very comprehensive and does a great job of explaining the fun.
Other than that, NaNoWriMo is just the satisfaction of sitting down and spewing words on paper. Good bad or indifferent, you will have done it. And if you are a struggling writer, sometimes just having the motivation to get it done is all it takes.
via NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) website
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