m. c. de marco

Q:Marrije, you have the highest user number of any participant or staff
member at NaNoWriMo. How has this high-profile position affected your
noveling? Does the status go to your head? Does it make you nervous?
A:Wow, I knew I had the highest user number of any Mere Mortal, but mine is even higher than those of Staff Members? That is a bit intimidating, yes.

So far, my beautiful and much-loved number hasn't given me too many airs or diva-esque demands. However, it does make me feel a grave responsibility to turn up each year and to finish in time with enough words, particularly so Chris Baty will not note my absence and be sad. So far, I haven't let him down: I'm seven-for-seven, and well on track for my eighth win.

I think my user number actually means the most to my dad, who is so happy to see me as the very first result whenever he visits the NaNoWriMo website.

Marrije is a business person by day and a writer by night. She is currently testing whether her true writerly calling is to be a horror novelist, not the Literature person she used to think she was.

There is a list of Chesley Award winners in the news section of the ASFA web site. Here it is:

• Best Cover Illustration – Hardback Book: Donato Giancola, The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald (Tor)
• Best Cover Illustration – Paperback Book: Donato Giancola, Crystal Dragon by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (Ace)
• Best Cover Illustration – Magazine: Cory and Catska Ench, Fantasy & Science Fiction, 3/07
• Best Interior Illustration: James Gurney, Dinotopia : Journey to Chandara (Andrews McMeel)
• Best Gaming Related Illustration: Donato Giancola, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (Sigil Games Online)
• Best Product Illustration: Todd Lockwood, “War of Angels”, poster for Bullseye Tattoo
• Best Monochrome – Unpublished: Donato Giancola, “Season of Change”, Pencil and Chalk on Toned paper
• Best Color Work – Unpublished: Donato Giancola, “Red Sonja”, Oil
• Best Three Dimensional Art: Vincent Villafranca, “Conscious Entity and Its Maker”, Bronze
• Best Art Director: Irene Gallo, Tor Books
• Award for Artistic Achievement: Michael Wm. Kaluta

We have seen news of two UK-based children’s awards recently. The first set are the Royal Mail awards for Scottish children’s books. These awards are interesting in that they are voted on by the young readers themselves. The winners have just been announced and from the look of this Guardian article the winners in all three age bands are science fiction or fantasy of some sort:

• 0-7 Years: Billy Monster’s Daymare by Alan Durant and Ross Collins
• 8-11 Years: DarkIsle by DA Nelson
• 12-16 Years: Bunker 10 by JA Henderson

Contrast that with the children’s book short list for this year’s Costa Awards (formerly the Whitbreads). These awards are juried, and while there are four books on the short list, not one of them appears to have any speculative element.

• Share tips on how to care for your poor, abused hands
• Learn about what can cause Word Count Validator discrepancies.

Q: Anna, last year you wrote three novels simultaneously during NaNoWriMo! Were you successful? Did the ambition of yesteryear change your approach to NaNo '08 at all?
A: I was triumphant, reaching over 50 K on each, and realizing what’s possible during those thirty days. For my first NaNo in 2006, I hit over 100K, and the next year had a feeling another strong November could be on the horizon. No ideas for 2007 hit until August, then they came fast and furious. By the end of October, I had a trio of stories, and couldn’t say "No" to any of them. Completing the hat trick was really satisfying, but a lot of work. I wrote in blocks; morning, after lunch, then in the evening, each tale getting its own time slot. Not much else was accomplished during that time, but I actually finished two of the three novels in November, for a total word count of just over 183,000. (The last wrapped up in early December 2007, when I became reacquainted with my stove, dishwasher, and mounds of laundry.)

For 2008, I had been planning on again writing multiple stories, but am only working on one. Moving house, renovations, and proofreading my 2006 NaNo manuscript for publication have usurped some of my time. Knowing it’s possible makes me wistful that perhaps in 2009, I might again go for more than one story. (I did ponder it for about half a minute, but wrapping teapots and hauling furniture quickly snapped me back into reality.)

Some of the benefits of writing more than one NaNoNovel? When writer’s block hit, it was great to consider another project. I didn’t have to cook much last November, with Thanksgiving taking place at my sister’s house. Having just moved back to California, I went to write-ins and met some lovely folks (the South Bay NaNo community was a great support, as they are once again this year).

Even though 2008 has been full of other projects, I’ve been able to spread the NaNo-word to the chaps sorting our electrical and kitchen repair. (Not to mention gathering future novel fodder about the home remodeling business!)
NaNoWriMo has been such fun. Maybe three in one month sounds crazy, but with a patient spouse and kids, fantastic MLs, and more than a few cups of Yorkshire Tea, the words do emerge! If you’re feeling like 50 K needs an extra kick, let your imagination take over. You never know what’s in the back of your brain, waiting to escape.

Anna Scott Graham is a California native and NaNo enthusiast, having participated since 2006. With two of her three children off to college, writing has kept her somewhat busy and fairly sane. She loves a strong cup of English tea and her first novel, NaNo 2006’s Drop the Gauntlet, will be published by FEP International around Christmas.

Hey there Beautiful Word Warriors!

When you go to the Edit Novel Info page under My NaNoWriMo, you'll notice something new. The Word Count validator is on! We wanted to get the validator up and running a little early to give you time to try it out before we turn on the validator's ability to crown NaNoWriMo winners on November 25th.

Until the 25th, you can just paste your novel into the box, and hit submit, and our robots will count it, and then update your word-count for you. The text is then deleted from our system. The word-count our robots come up with will be slightly different than the count from your word-processor (all word-counters use slightly different methods to determine what counts as a word). So test it out now to see if we're adding to your count, or taking away from it.

Anyhoo, from November 25th through November 30th, everyone who pastes a 50,000-and-over manuscript into the validator will become an official NaNoWriMo 2008 winner, and a shower of certificate-y and web-badge-y goodness will result. I'm looking at the certificate right now, and love it so much that I keep wanting to hug it.

Pasting your 50K+ manuscript into the validator between November 25 and November 30 is the only way to become an official NaNoWriMo winner.

I bolded that so you know we mean business.

And remember: You can scramble that beast before pasting it! Instructions are in the text below the word-count validator.

Shooting for a 4K evening tonight,

Chris

• Do something you never thought you'd stoop to
• Sing the NaNoWriMo Theme Song

“Is fate tied to a pizzeria in Wisconsin?”

That’s the fortune in the cookie your character just broke open. It’s confirmed the nagging feeling they have and they’re off to Wisconsin to find that pizzeria.

Will fate lead them there? Maybe they should check in with another fortune cookie once they get to Wisconsin ;-)

What will they find? True love? The fate of the universe? Something less cliche?

(Can you work this into your NaNo? If it’s too left-turnish for your main character, you could send off an annoying character on a quest. Or someone walks in with the fortune looking for their fate. A character could leave it on the table then the server finds it and gets wildly excited. Possibilities limited only by imagination :-)

(This is from an ad for Lucky Brand jeans and Wisconsin musician Cory Chisel. The back story is a bit more mundane than the quote but still interesting. It’s in the comments if you want to read it when you’re done.)

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I'm the final set of proofreading eyeballs on the celebrity pep talk emails before they go out, so I get my pep on a little bit early. I read Janet Fitch's pep talk today (due in your inbox tomorrow), and it really changed my story for the better. Try a character shove! You'll be glad you did. This will make sense tomorrow, I promise.

Thinking about celebrity author pep talks made me remember Neil Gaiman's pep talk from last year, which was so good we would send out again this year if we weren't already so blessed with a bounty of new pep talkers. If you're still stuck in the 20,000s and wondering if you should really keep going, please check it out.

Also, I totally agree with WrimoRadio producer Diane: Your answers to the Question of the Week for this Monday's WrimoRadio are absolutely hilarious.

Making my move in the 30K Before Bedtime on Wednesday Rally,

Chris

Today on WrimoRadio, we’ll hear your answers to our Question of the Week. Thanks to everyone who responded—your answers were fantastic! Once again, we’ll visit with our NYC Nanos, who describe what to expect in Week Three and relate a NaNo anecdote of serious badliness that is very appropriate for this week.

To answer this episode's Question of the Week, just grab a computer and a cheap microphone, fire it up, and say the following: "My name is [your name] and I’m from [where you live] and the worst line of prose I’ve written this month is [blank].

Make sure your answer is 15 seconds or less and saved as an MP3 or WAV file, and then email it to us at wrimoradio@nanowrimo.org. We'll put as many of them as we can fit on the air every Monday!

Be sure to tune in on Wednesday, when we interview Nanos who have taken on the challenge along with their coworkers.

This episode of WrimoRadio is brought to you by RedRoom.com!

This week’s music:
“WrimoRadio Theme Song” by Chris Baty
“Tells second shot” by AjT
“Magic JB Jazz” by AjT
“Petite Elora” by AjT
“I’m No Father My Brother My Brother I’m Only A Son” by Brian Butler

Thanks to the Podsafe Music Network for the tunes!

Q: Charlotte, last year you created a write-in game that turned into a 25,000-word story! What exactly was this writing exercise, and what ever became of the story?
A: I can’t really remember how it started, but some of us decided to write something collectively, each one in turn adding a thousand words or so. We called it an “exquisite cadaver” after the surrealist game where each player in turn draws a part of the human anatomy, not really knowing what part of the body he is transplanting it to because the paper is folded.

In reality we cheated a little on the original exquisite corpse premise because we were allowed to read what had been written before. Otherwise our story would just have turned out an even sadder pile of mush than it actually is!

Anyway, it was all organic growth, since we had absolutely no outline to start with. We just had a bible we tried to update as we were going, adding in new characters so that we could keep track of the story's progress. We also used it to set stupid challenges to each other. It was huge fun and in the end, we even saw a real story developing there. The characters really did spring to life.

We had a main character we called Michou, because we didn’t know what else to call him. Michou is a rather weak guy, he isn’t exactly your typical action hero, but boy do things happen to him. He is a writer of fiction in a parallel universe where writers get enrolled into big teams churning out debilitating TV scripts by the kilometer, under the surveillance of big bad thugs and vicious fiction-cops. In this cruel world, Michou is desperately looking for Mary-Sue, the woman of his dreams, while trying to escape a whole selection of bad guys that includes his own hell-raising, bike-riding, bounty-hunting grandmother. He is crushed (but also aroused) when he suddenly discovers that beautiful Mary-Sue has been cloned. There are thousands and thousands of her, but which one is his real true love?

Also, I should add that Chris Baty stars in Michou’s adventures...

Sadly, Michou did not win the ’07 NaNoWriMo edition. We only got about 25, 000 words out of him, and after a while, we all had to switch back to our original NaNo stories, which probably was the sane thing to do. But we still think fondly about Michou and we talk about him sometimes. We really do miss him.

Cadavre Exquis, the NaNoWriMo user we created to register our word count, scared a couple of people on the forums. He is not playing this year, but some day (maybe next year?) he’ll wake up and start haunting the Wrimos again. And when he does, don’t look at Anaël, Jo Ann, Maikie, Denis, Sarra or Eva for help. We’re innocent. None of us can remember the account password.

Further to our report on the Canadian graphic novel controversy, Neil Gaiman notes that when he was informed that one of his Sandman stories was up for a World Fantasy Award he insisted that they credit Charles Vess as well.

It is turning out to be a good year for Javier Negrete. Last month we reported that his novel, Alexander the Great and the Eagles of Rome, won the Premios Ignotus for Best Spanish-language novel. Now we learn (thanks Petrea!) that he has also won a Semana Negra award. These appear to be a collection of awards for different types of genre literature. The one for SF and fantasy is known as the Premio Celsius 232 (which would translate to the Fahrenheit 451 Award in American, though being geeky SF fans we note that our converter suggests 233 C is closer). We also love the idea of a Premio Hammett for mysteries. A full list of the Semana Negra awards for 2008 is available here.

• Work bafflegab into your novel
• Laugh over your MC's revelations

The Night of Writing Dangerously was a huge success, and more fun than you can shake a tortellini at. Tavia, Lindsey, and I spent this afternoon at the SomArts center stacking up all the rental tables and chairs and getting a little misty eyed thinking about the great people we met. Folks came to write from as far away as Sydney, Edmonton, and North Carolina. Thanks to our attendees and sponsors, the night ended up raising almost $28,000 for our programs! A special thanks goes out to Tupelo Hassman and all her supporters—Tupelo raised $3,100, and went home with the Grand Prize LiveJournal Dell Studio 15 laptop.

Woot. Really. It was one of the happiest nights of my life.

We're still adding up the number of words written, but we'll figure it out this week. And as soon as things calm down, we'll be sending the total in to the Guinness people. Who will likely ignore it. But it's the spirit that counts. If you took photos, please add them to the NaNoWriMo Flickr pool!

Okay! Back to writing, everyone! And thanks to everyone who has sent me smack-talking NaNomails about my word count. This week, I shall rise again! 30K by Wednesday night, baby!

Blaming the fact that I just called you baby (not to mention all of the exclamation points) on the multiple cans of leftover energy drink I consumed during clean-up,

Chris

ps: Write-a-thon photo courtesy of Emily Bristow!

WrimoRadio wraps up Week Two with a visit from Toronto ML Debs, one of the co-producers of the NaNoWriMusic 2008 CD. We’ll hear some selections from the disc, and chat with Debs about the stories behind the songs.

The NaNoWriMusic 2008 CD is an official fundraiser for National Novel Writing Month. To purchase a copy, just drop by Toronto's regional website.

Be sure to tune in on Monday, Nov. 17th, when we kick-off week three with your answers to our “Question of the Week”! Your responses have been terrific!

This episode of WrimoRadio sponsored by CreateSpace!

This week’s music:
“WrimoRadio Theme Song” by Chris Baty
“Abundant Harvest” by Between the Words/Chagall
“Nanowrimo, Nanowrimo” by Victoria Anisman Reiner & Errol Elumir
“Ursula's Magic Garden” by Roben & Ross Goodfellow
“Writer's Block” by Deborah Linden & Errol Elumir
“Stillness Within” by Between the Words/Chagall

Thanks to NaNoWriMusic 2008 for the tunes!

• Shout out - Palindrome style!
• Get support from your fellow late starters

It seems to be fund-raising season for awards, because Jay Lake has just announced a fund-raiser for the Campbell Award, specifically to pay for the pins.

The Endeavour Award is running a fund-raising auction with two very special items up for sale. They are figurines given to Ursula K Le Guin by Hayao Miyazaki. The auction will happen on eBay next weekend (starting November 22nd). Full details for the auction can be found on the Endeavour web site.

I just wanted to post a quick note to wish you a great halfway day! By the end of the day today, we should be at 25,000 words. Whatever your word count (and I'm a pretty good ways behind par), write as much as you can this weekend. My personal goal: 30K by bedtime on Wednesday. Get there with me!

I'll be heading off to the Night of Writing Dangerously venue in a little bit to help Tavia and the volunteer crew get everything set up, and I couldn't be more excited (or nervous---I'm giving the dinnertime talk and my stomach already feels like a warren of weasels have taken up residence in it). We'll try to get some photos of the night up on the NaNoWriMo blog during the event.

Also, in the midst of fire evacuation orders, Diane managed to complete the Friday episode of WrimoRadio! What a trooper! I'll be posting it in a few. She and her family are okay---thanks to everyone for the well-wishes!

More soon,

Chris
20,025 words