Thursday, November 4, 2010

Off and Running

We are at the start of day 4 of NaNoWriMo. By now, or at least by the end of the day, you should have 6668 words written for your novel, but don't worry if you are behind, there's still plenty of time to catch up. All you'll have to do is write a few hundred extra words each day, and you should be fine. Or, you could always try to do what I'm planning to: spend a day or so and just write a lot of words. Personnally, I'm aiming for 7-10k words over the next 48 hours, which will be more managable for me since I've got the next two days off work. If I manage that, it'll catch me back up and give me a bit of leeway for those days I might not be able to write, or write as much.

And you can join me! I'm heading to William's Coffee Pub tonight here in Guelph, aiming to get there around 7pm and planning to stay until they close, simply to write. There's already a handful of other WriMo's are thinking of joining me.

Don't forget, if you join us tonight, why not bring some of those books you were thinking of donating for the book drive, as well? I don't have an exact count at the moment, but I would estimate I've got about 400 books so far, and would love to add a huge chunk to that tonight.

Hope to see you tonight, and if not, happy writing!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Global Attention

I see that this blog has already attracted at least some attention from far outside the area. Not to fear, NaNoWriMo is available for anyone, where ever they are in the world, to participate. All you need is the desire to attempt writing a 50,000 word novel in November. You can check it out and sign up here: NaNoWriMo

Unfortunately, the Great NaNoWriMo Book Drive has a less global reach, but there are book drives for it being run locally in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom. If you live in one of those countries, keep your eye out for book drive flyers, or check out the regional forums on the NaNoWriMo site to see what's going on in your area.

An idea that was posed by someone from Australia, for those who are unable to participate in the book drive because of location: do one anyway! Organize a book drive and sale in your town/city/community, and then sell those books off yourself, sending the money raised directly to the Office of Letters and Light as a donation. The money still goes to a good cause, and you'd still be helping out.

Any questions, or suggestions for ideas for the book drive, feel free to share!

Welcome!

Time is counting down quickly! Only 11 and a half days until NaNoWriMo starts, and we all begin our journey toward those 50,000 word novels in 30 days. How many of us actually have a plot worked out yet? Is anyone planning on going the seat of the pants method, with no plot figured out before November 1st?

Myself, I'm working on plotting out my novel, but I'm at most halfway done, and that's if my scenes don't run on the short side.

But, I'm also the Bookdriver-in-Chief for the Guelph area in the Great NaNoWriMo book drive. So far, I've got 132 books donated, but I'm a long way from my goal of 3,000 books by December 10th.