Saturday, December 02, 2006

National Novel Finishing Month

National Novel Finishing Month: "NaNoFiMo is a challenge based on, but not affiliated with, National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, which challenges participants to write 50,000 words in November. NaNoFiMo is a challenge to finish an existing project in December. This project can be your NaNo novel or anything else, but it should be a partially written novel, not a complete draft in need of editing. (There's NaNoEdMo for that.) If you were disappointed when you found out you weren't supposed to use a work in progress for NaNoWriMo, this is the place for you and your half-written novel. If you didn't finish in NaNoWriMo, this can be your chance to redeem yourself."
NEW TO ME

good ideas for writers

National Novel Writing Month - News and Radio: "
A: Daniel(Dad): If it wasn't for my children's encouragement to turn off my inner editor, I never would have made it. There were days I couldn't write at all because everyone else was on the computer, so I had to do some late night typing after the rest of the family were in bed, and (ahem) I did manage to squeeze in a few thousand words at work (but don't tell my boss). Word Count: 51,000.

Catherine (Mum): Prioritizing. Leaving the TV off and realizing how much time is wasted on the television. We had a lot going on (we are hosting a public speaking conference from November 27 to December 2, so we knew we had to finish our novels a little quicker than 30 days); we made NaNoWriMo a priority for our family in the month of November. Word Count: 52,000.

Katie: Every day after I got up I would write out four or five things that I wanted to happen to my characters that day; so when I got my turn on the computer I didn't have to waste time thinking 'what's going to happen next,' I could just type. The other thing was Dad letting me stay up and write really, really late while everyone else was in bed. Word Count: 101,000 in two novels."

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Professional Grant Proposal Writing

from my email:-
The Grant Institute's Grants 101: Professional Grant Proposal Writing Workshop will be held at th University of Texas at San Antonio, January 17 - 19, 2007. Interested development professionals, researchers, faculty, and graduate students should register as soon as possible, as demand means that seats will fill up quickly.
Please forward, post, and distribute this e-mail to your colleagues and listsers.

All participants will receive certification in professional grant writing from the Institute. For more information call (888) 824 - 4424 or visit The Grant Institute website at www.thegrantinstitute.com

and, for example, the same applies to applications for disability pensions in UK, and how you write within the formula is just as important as being duly qualified.

sunday afternoon

National Novel Writing Month - Forums - England :: Birmingham - Third write-in (Sunday, 19/11/06 from noon onwards at Starbucks on New Street):

6:48 and I am just got out of bed and switched on my MacBook Pro before anything else
I am not photographing the dawn again
(see http://snaps4.blogspot.com/2006/11/early-start-saturday.html oops just seen the typos )

I was undecided whether to come or not today Sunday
I have been distinctly underwhelmed by Stephen's negativity
and by the silly woman who want to hide their faces -
vanity or fear ??

any way I will probably not do another blog about the show
but in the second interval anyone who would like some publicity, please make yourself known and I will do a mini interview or two

if you want to be a successsful writer you have to do several things including:-

produce work of marketable quality
in quantity enough to make a living
sell it
get known

my blogs get 150 to 200 page views daily and google picks up some of my stuff within hours

one day they got 1500 hits but i have not fathomed out why.
I know I have readers in UK USA Denmark Australia ay least

back to the photo and other blogs
I like to help people
'make your self useful' is a motto I learned from a millionaire I used to work for.

I regularly use the formula "from my email"
and some of my correspondants really like to appear anonymously on the web

TIP so if you also use beta.blogger.com for self publishing
(I decided to use blogger as my publisher in 2003)
you will find by editing the dates you can control the order of the chapters on screen

just drop me a line if you want to publicize your own writing
If I make a link to your web page it will help your google ratings
BTW blogger beta is now best

see you guys at Starbucks New Street. Birmingham UK from 12:00 pm and some of us will hang in to nearly 5:00 pm

see the thread - Forums - England :: Birmingham - Third write-in (Sunday, 19/11/06 from noon onwards at Starbucks on New Street)

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

details for our third BIRMINGHAM write-in:

National Novel Writing Month - Forums - England :: Birmingham

from my email:-

Firstly, well done to everyone from Birmingham & the West Midlands - we passed the million word mark today, and that's a brilliant achievement by all of you.

Secondly, well done to everyone who came to last week's write-in - between the fifteen of us writing for about three hours each, if we'd all been working on the same novel, I think we might well have finished it that afternoon!

For this weekend's write-in, our unofficial deputy ML, John (aka john-g), is going to take the lead. Over to John...

***

Here are the details for our third write-in:

Date: Sunday, 19/11/06 date corrected
Time: 12 pm onwards
Location: Starbucks on New Street


I had thought about a different venue, but the arrangements were getting a bit complicated, so maybe we can try that one another time. Several wrimos have already said how much they liked the previous write-ins at Starbucks, so I won't try and fix something that's not broken.

Once again we will be following the tried and tested routine of 45 minutes of writing followed by fifteen minutes chatting and comparing notes. Stay for as many sessions as you like, and don't worry if you arrive late - plenty of people have been arriving mid-session and just getting stuck into their writing until the break, when they can get to know their fellow novelists.

As Rolnikov and Satu have said before, we are customers of Starbucks at these events, so you will need to buy a drink or two, caffeinated or otherwise. If you have a camera with you, it is always polite to ask people's permission before you take their picture, particularly if you are planning on putting the photos online.

I can't promise any laptops or fancy writing kits, but I may be persuaded to offer miniature mince pies to the most dedicated wrimos (mince pies stimulate the creative glands, as any scientist will tell you).

See you there!

Sunday, November 12, 2006

NaNoWriMo in Darlington UK

National Novel Writing Month - News and Radio:
"Today’s Guest: Annabel Townsend, chef and novelist


Posted by Tavia Stewart on 2006/11/10 2:35:01

Q: Annabel, you are chef and a NaNoWriMo novelist, plus you have transformed your café into a NaNoWriMo “noveling nirvana.”
In Arcadia Tarot Cafe

Working as a chef is a pretty time-consuming profession on its own. Could you tell us what writing your own novel while running a novel-writing headquarters might entail?

A: Well, since I spend all day talking too much to customers, 50,000 words doesn't sound too daunting. Darlington's noveling nirvana is situated at the In Arcadia Tarot Cafe in Darlington, in the north east of England. NaNoWriMo is proving to be very popular at In Arcadia! We now have 16 budding novelists, many of whom signed up at our mulled wine-fuelled Kick-Off Party last week.
In-Cafe discussions have included finding names for fictitious pubs, the links between vampirism and string theory, whether or not to include an as-of-yet unborn Zero-G kickboxing champion as a character, and whether me wearing my cow-shaped noveling hat contravenes Health and Safety rules in the cafe (I don't wear the hat, by the way, just in case). We're doing a special “bottomless coffee cup” for participants, but we're soon going to make it “motivational” coffee---you only get a refill after you've written"

in UK
on the first floor, above

In Arcadia
84 Skinnergate
Darlington
DL1


used to be a danish place name
cf Skindergade cafe - Google Search
"with a K" in central Copenhagen
Skinnargatan - Google Search in Sweden

Friday, November 10, 2006

Week 2 Pep Talk

Hi there! It's Chris Baty again.
And if you accepted the challenge in last week's email, you opened a comfortable word-count lead right out of the gate, increased that lead in the first weekend, and are now sailing far ahead of pace, preparing to plunge into the 20,000s.

You are looking good, feeling great, and your back is slowly accumulating an array of "kick me" signs, placed there by your fellow participants as you sprinted past us. A few signs, though, are a small price to pay for victory.
And you *are* going to be victorious. If you are a day or less from 20K, you have everything it takes to win, and win big. Keep it up. Don't slow down. We admire you, even if you made us feel so bad about ourselves that we had to put those signs on you. . . . .

continues:-
National Novel Writing Month - News and Radio

ALSO if you quit in Week Two, you're going to miss an amazing moment---the moment when your novel begins to click. You'll miss a genius plot twist you can't foresee right now that will suddenly elevate your book from a distressing mess to a sort-of-tolerable mess. And then you'll miss the euphoric breakthrough that follows that twist, when your book improves itself all the way to not-half-bad.