Q: Claxton, you recently competed on Jeopardy! and mentioned to Alex (and the world) that you'd done NaNoWriMo five times. Why did you use NaNoWriMo as your interesting fact? Which is harder: Competing on Jeopardy! or writing a novel in a month?
A: I used NaNoWriMo as my fact because I wanted to help draw some more attention to the program. A friend of mine turned me on to it when I took a novel writing class several years ago, and I've been hooked ever sense. It's a great way to get the creative juices flowing, and it's allowed me to really let my imagination run wild. A lot of people have asked me about NaNoWriMo after seeing me on Jeopardy!, and I hope they will take up the challenge this year.
In some ways, writing a novel in a month is very similar to playing on Jeopardy!. Even when you take the time to prepare, you never know exactly which way things are going to go until you actually start doing it. And to do either one requires a good supply of brainpower and nerve.
Last year's entry was particularly tough on me, because it turned out to be the novel I had been trying to write for 16 years. That novel carried a lot of weight for me because of the subject matter (an asteroid impact in a major American city) and because of the motivation (reading Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle when I was in college). I loved the subject - pieces of a comet that wasn't suppose to hit Earth hit Earth - but the execution left me wanting. My goal was to write something better than I read.
Born in Charlotte, North Carolina and raised in the suburb of Mount Holly, Claxton Graham won five straight NaNoWriMos, spanning the years 2004 to 2008. Graham holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication (Mass Communication) from North Carolina State University at Raleigh, and has spent the last eleven years working as a business analyst---specifically, designing forms---for a major financial institution. His other professional experience includes work in civil engineering, commercial audio/video production and advertising. He and his wife live in Charlotte.
