I have just decided what to write for this year’s NaNoWriMo. I had been considering completing one of my two works in progress, which is allowable under NaNoWriMo rules so long as you write 50,000 new words during the month of November.
But instead, I’ve been hit with an inspiration, so I’m planning something a little different this year. There are a few things I will need to sort out (like an outline!) before I can get started on November 1st.
I am sorry I will have to miss the one official NaNoWriMo event I had thought I’d be able to attend (first day write-in) in favor of a previously arranged potluck dinner with some friends I don’t see enough of. Perhaps I’ll manage an impromptu write-in or two in my my Region to reconnect with a few of my pals from previous years. But this year I am quite sure most of my participation will be online.
I hope to reconnect with some of my writing buddies in the NaNoWriMo forums. But that’s just the jumping off point. I’ve begun a StatusNet Federation/GNU social/Friendica group for anyone participating in !NaNo 2013. This group of federates with my Twitter account.
For the last few months I’ve been enjoying another unofficial NaNoWriMo group on Facebook. This is a nice place to chat with other participants, and members Dawn Montgomery and Robert Blair have put together a Twitter List of group members. Since I’ve never actually managed to figure out Twitter lists myself, I just followed everyone on the list. It will be a simple matter to check back and add any late arrivals.
One of this year’s coolest NaNoWriMo goodies is from the long established self publishing platform Lulu, which has launched its Let’s Go Wrimos site where everyone who applies can get a free manuscript review by The Book Genome Projectand a free proof copy of your First Edition Hardcover from Lulu.com.
Another of the new NaNoWrimo sponsors, Wattpadintends “To reward the hard work of NaNoWriters, Wattpad will be offering a $2000 prize to one lucky writer who completes his or her NaNoWriMo novel in November.” I’m not sure what Wattpad is all about, but that is certainly incentive to find out!
When you decide to self publish, it’s important to be as visible as possible. This is a big part of why I am all over the Internet, and why I’ve just set up my “Author Page” on Amazon Central. Unfortunately the Amazon page is a rigidly set up form that limits what and how authors can share our information.
Possibly the most ironic part of the experience was where the page offers the new user an opportunity to view a “sample” page. What displays is Frank McCourt’s Author Page, which demonstrates where the author photo will sit, as well as showing off Frank’s nice black & white title banner. In creating my own banner, I even made sure to use the exact dimensions of Frank’s banner.
The problem is that while my author photograph rests on the left just like Frank’s, alas, there is no way for me to upload my own black and white name banner to Amazon Central, nor any means of creating one on the site. It is possible such banners used to be allowed, but since that is not the case now, Frank’s page does not provide a true example of how an Amazon Central Author Page will look.
Another difficulty was having a limited space for the biography without knowing what the limit was, exactly. The limit is not screen real estate; it makes no difference whether your words are squished together in a single paragraph or spread out in airy paragraphs. The limit is probably by word or character count, but it required trial and error and tinkering to ensure mine ended where I wanted it to. You can exceed the limit but then are left with only an exerpt, not the best way to make an introduction.
The “Upcoming Events” segment had its issues as well. Naturally I intended to add my participation in NaNoWriMo 2013. While the form allows this, but automatically fills in the venue information with the physical address of the NaNo HQ. My participation will be taking place online, not in California. I can see this being a problem for me forever, since the address for the venue for many of my own events will be “online.” Altering the form to allow the inclusion of a URL as an address would be very helpful.
My last problem is that the section requires an Amazon published book title. While I can understand why Amazon would like to encourage this, NaNoWriMo isn’t an event for selling books that are already written, but to encourage the writing of new novels. Including the name of my debut novel was not really appropriate here, but is required by the form, so I was torn between not making use of the space or including information that isn’t quite right. I’m still trying to come up with a way to make it work.
I’ve been distracted by a great many things in my life over the past several months, and am now trying to disenentangle a bit so I can re-engage in the writing part of my life. So today when I stumbled into Litchat, one of my favorite Twitter writing “chats” I stopped in for a while and had a rolicking good time. Connecting with other writers and getting an opportunity to talk shop is important for writers, especially as most of who tend to write in isolation.
LitChat, hosted by Carolyn Burns Bass takes place every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on Twitter. Chats consist of tweets using the hashtag #litchat. It’s possible to follow and participate in the chat from the #litchat Twitter search page or from the external Nurph Litchat service and it seems that Tweetchat is back up and running as well. To use Nurph or tweetchat you’ll need to sign in with your Twitter account. Aside from making it easier to follow the largely freewheeling conversation, the services have the advantage of automatically attaching the #litchat hashtag, which makes participation so much easier. As often happens, my conversation continued even after the formal chat.
Now I need to get my first draft polished and off to beta readers, beta read my brother Larry Russwurm‘s collection of short stories, *and* get ready for NaNoWriMo. October will be a busy month.