NaNoWriMo is on the horizon again, starting November 1. The global attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days is a lot of things: invigorating, challenging, and inspirational, to name a few. But it can also be grueling, disappointing, and a r ...
I've written about Pacemaker before, but this will be a more comprehensive overview. There are more and more apps out there that help you track what you've already done. Where Pacemaker shines is that it helps you plan how much you need to/can wri ...
Changes are coming to The Monster Novel Structure Workbook! I'm not doing a big launch event or anything, I'm just quietly making these updates and letting them ride. This post details all the yummy new shinies. Plans For a Print Edition I polled m ...
So, you're going to attempt NaNoWriMo this year and you figure now is a great time to also try out Scrivener, cuz, hey, they have discounts and free trials this time of year. Sounds pretty sweet, huh? Then you open Scrivener and realize you have n ...
0Days0Hours0Mintues Last week marked 100 days left before NaNoWriMo. Surely not, you may be thinking to yourself. It can't be that close! Oh, but it is. Most people only start thinking about NaNoWriMo in late September or October. And my fri ...
2017 was not a good National Novel Writing Month for me. Gearing Up Only a few months before November I was hit with an idea, an idea I loved and could foresee growing into something awesome. It was a YA dystopia inspired by some gruesome things bu ...
A short, powerful, reusable online course that will help you prepare for NaNoWriMo! Every year I see writers who either forget about National Novel Writing Month until two months or less before November, or who know it's coming but keep putting of ...
I'm probably the last to the "Year in Review" party, but I have a good excuse! The mountain behind my house was on fire. Literally. See, where we live is very dry and fireworks are banned in the entire municipality. But, someone decided to celebrate ...
It's nearly that time again: National Novel Writing Month. Every November I and thousands of other writers challenge ourselves to write 50,000 words in just 30 days. It's a big goal, and it's really hard, and it's a lot of fun. It's also the way I dr ...
It's finally here! THE MONSTER NOVEL STRUCTURE WORKBOOK is available for pre-order, releasing on September 15, 2018! Beta readers agree, this book will change the way you novel. “I feel like I've won the novel-writing lottery! For the first time ...
Things haven't exactly gone as predicted this year. My habit, in years past, has been to spend the whole summer before NaNo preparing. I outline the hell out of it, which frees my mind up from worrying about plot to concentrate on prose. This year I ...
I'm impatient to get going this year. I mean, there's always some impatience going in, but this year feels stronger than in the past. It's a mixture of excitement and anxiety. And just plain, "But I wanna!" I realize that I didn't actually blog abou ...
There was a time after college when my friend Vijay and I had a lack of external structure. There was no more school, and work was hard to find. So we would meet at a local library to work on our writing together. We spent our days working in studiou ...
There's been a bunch of talk in my spheres lately about what folks are reading to learn about their craft. I found a bunch of new things to explore, and I figure I should share. This week I'll post about the blogs I follow, and later I'll go into the ...
Well, it took me until almost the 11th hour, but I made it. This year I managed to stay above par almost the entire month. I built up a four day buffer. I lost it over the Thanksgiving break. Pies (from scratch, mind you) Turkey Day V ...
Today I broke 44k, which means my win is within the week. According to the official site calculations, I'll finish on the 25, which is a very comfortable win and right on target for my goal of 55k by the end of the month. Oh yes, I may finish early ...
Whaddaya know? 14 chapters and approximately 100 pages in, I hit a slump. There's this theory that says that about 100 pages into a novel, most people hit a wall. It's around the 20-25k mark. Coincidentally, this is typically in the second week of N ...
So, I might be cheating just a little bit. The official rules for NaNoWriMo state: Just be sure to only count words written during the month. Now, I have about 15k of a previous draft of GISELLE sitting on my hard drive. It covers quite a bit of t ...
So, how's that fancy graph thing working out? Not. So. Hot. As you can see, I'm well below the plan. But, Days 1 and 2 both managed to beat the daily minimums, so there's that. Day 1 was a blast. We held a midnight KOP at a diner and I wrote over ...
While checking out the competition browsing our neighbor regions I came across a link to The Pacemaker. It's a super nifty little words-per-day calculator. Set your target word total, designate when you'll be most and least productive, and voila! ...
I first heard about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in 2003. It was my senior year of high school and I was game to try. I was, after all, preparing for a career as a novelist. The project I started, still known as UNTITLED MOBSTER CAPER, ha ...
I have, technically, finished my first draft. It runs all the way from the beginning to the end, minus some missing scenes. The story still known as Statutory State (because I have yet to come up with something better) stands at about 72k. That leav ...
