NaNoWriMo
September 3, 2009
- I teach in the south and we start school earlier and earlier every year it seems. Northern schools start after Labor Day, the traditional day, but we started school August 17th. The teachers were back a week and a half prior to that. I don't care that we get out the last day in May when summer is just getting started and I have to pack my bags and re-shelve my books, unroll my posters, stick ...
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September 1, 2009
- Learning is about more than simply acquiring new knowledge and insights; it is also crucial to unlearn old knowledge that has outlived its relevance. Thus, forgetting is probably at least as important as learning. –Gary Ryan Blair ( Mind Munchies: A Delicious Assortment of Brain Snacks!) I spent the weekend at Context 22, a science fiction/horror/fantasy conference in Columbus, Ohio this ...
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August 14, 2009
- The following is the letter I wrote to the brave group of folks who started–and yes, finished–books with me last fall. I thought it might be useful to anyone gearing up to write a book. If you want to join my group, check it out HERE. Dear Book Writers,Why a Frame? Why are we starting with plot (and character)?It has been my experience that the hardest thing to go back and put into a novel ...
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July 7, 2009
- I just stumbled across the NaNoWriMo thread on this website. My Inner Editor is still laughing, albeit in that sinister, Ming the Merciless sort of way. She knows I am completely in thrall to her, and I will always do her bidding, no matter what. But I must admit, doing an end run around the old IE and spewing forth prose-and plenty of it-directly from the id is awfully appealing. I ...
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March 18, 2009
- Dear Off-Season Novelist,Greetings! If you're like me, you've been doing everything under the sun to avoid starting in on that novel rewrite. Happily, I'm here with an opportunity to help you put off thinking about novel revisions for another two beautiful months.It's called Script Frenzy and it's organized by us here at the Office of Letters and Light. Script Frenzy runs from April 1 to April ...
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February 7, 2009
- Script Frenzy is nearly upon us, and the great minds at the Office of Letters and Light (more commonly known as NaNoWriMo) and their fearless leader, Chris Baty, have joyously flung open the doors of insanity and recklessness to script writers. As with NaNoWriMo this past November, in which I had thirteen, COUNT 'EM! 13!!!, teenagers finish 30,000 + word novels, I have about eight students ...
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January 15, 2009
- I've nearly finished the second run-through of my NaNo novel. I make many many revisions for each poem I write, so I'm a little suspicious that such a big work is going so well. I'm slowing down, as of tonight, and letting Mary Oliver's words from Rules for the Dance echo in my ears:Revision is absolutely necessary. If something is easily too good to alter, thank the gods, but don't expect it ...
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December 28, 2008
- Writing is a process, they tell me. I've opened the novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo several times since November: re-read the first few chapters, edited a few paragraphs, formatted it into double space. I've read the NaNoWriMo "So I wrote a novel, now what?" page. In fact, I read it twice. The tips are helpful, but what I really want is a clear outline with definitive steps, sort of like ...
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December 25, 2008
- The second annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is coming up in February. Check out entry rules and so on at www.amazon.com/abna My novel is too short for the contest, but all of the NaNoWriMo folks should be interested in this.Best,Ruth :)
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December 13, 2008
- Yeah! I finished my book - a teen love story! I've been thinking of that story for 20 years and finally got it in the computer. Thank you Red Room for bringing NaNoWriMo to my attention. Now that I'm done, maybe I can read all those pep talks NaNoWriMo sent out. I wish a similar competition existed for nonfiction works - I like writing memoirs. Maybe some contest does that I'm ...
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