Publicity

I just listened to the today prog article. I'm very disheartened now by the rather snotty comments made by the literary agent about how bad the nanowrimo thing is and agonising over her slush pile. My advice is don't listen to it till you've reached the end!

Personally, I have found writing without my inner editor very useful indeed in liberating all sorts of things, as well as learning about writing a sustained subject over a sustained period. I know that the product at the moment isn't publishable - I wouldn't even let my husband see it at the moment, let alone my agent. But it's a good start for something, and I'm going to go back and look it over very thoroughly before I decide whether or not its got legs. I certainly won't be sending it to anyone until I'm absolutely sure I want someone else to read it - and I'm aware that it will take at least a year of full time editing to get it anywhere near that position.

I completely agree with Julia Collins about the snotty attitude of the literary agent in the Today interview. That's why I didn't make any comment about it. I also agree it's best not to listen until you've reached the end. But I'm also heartened by Julia's remarks about the inner editor, which I think should be read in conjunction with the radio interview, to get the balance straight.

They also did a piece on BBC Breakfast but I missed it - it's here, under video and audio news, if anyone wants to watch it!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/default.stm

Alas my work computer won't let me watch it. Grrrr.

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Nano 2006 - Crimson Crusade - WON - yet still unfinished!
Nano 2007 - ???? - yummy dose of paranormal fiction

Ah now, that's a bit gentler!

J

I don't have sound on my computer. What was said?

I am assuming (from your comments) that it was something like you can't write a novel in a month, it takes years of starving in a garret?
For the record, last year, I wrote a nano novel, which I tidied up in March, and sent in to a publisher. I haven't heard back yet. (Must look them up.)
In Script Frenzy in June, I wrote a Pantomime. In August, a publisher bought it. So it is perfectly possible to do something on one of these nano type things and have a saleable piece of work at the end. My first published play took three days to write. Honest. Start to finish. 3 days. First publisher I sent it to bought it.
Lee Child will tell you he wrote his first novel in six months and the second half of it in a fortnight. He was taken up by the first agent he approached, they sold to the first publisher approached, now he tops the best sellers, and I for one can't put his stuff down.
This year's effort of mine will need more than tidying up, but c'est la vie. Some of you probably have masterpieces. Don't listen to the snide sneerers.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/wordcount_api/wc/123625

Thanks Hilary!

I feel energised again!

Julia

As another positive Nano comment: I spend a lot of time (too much) on an on-line discussion forum which is frequented by a lot of published writers (and a few editors who actually buy books).

Not one of them said anything bad about Nanowrimo. There's even a thread where people post comments about their nano novels. The usual response is something like "congratulations" (from the published writers as well as those of us doing Nano).

Some of them are even taking part, either officially or unofficially (e.g. using November to write a first draft, along with the rest of us). At least one writer (I've got two of her books, published by Bloomsbury, i.e. not some obscure press, but the same publisher as J K Rowling) said that she always writes her first draft at Nano speeds! (But she doesn't usually wait until November!)

Of course nearly everyone on that discussion group is serious about their writing (even those who aren't already published and aren't aiming to be either). So it doesn't need to be said there that a Nano novel is likely to need editing before it is ready to submit. We all know that.

When I go along my bookshelf, and see books by people who I know are doing Nano, I don't think it's a crazy idea. It might not work for everybody, and we all work in different ways, but it works for some of us. If it works for you, why not?

For me, the rest of the year I write too slowly, and my writing may technically be more correct and more polished, but it comes out flat. (I go to a real life crit group - and I'm basing this not on what they say but how they react.)

I look at what I've written this month, and it's alive: fizzing with plot-energy. Ok, that's just my opinion, and even I can see that a lot will have to be rewritten or cut, but November has shown me that I need to plan less and write more. Nanowrimo is a good way to "write more" and worry about the editing later. No one knows how fast or slow you wrote: it's only the finished product that matters.

It's a good way to get over writer's block, or to break bad habits that are slowing you down (like rewriting chapter 1 over and over again). Ok, so it won't suit everybody - buy you won't know unless you try.

HTH,
Chromo

hear, hear!

I am a short story writer, but I have three abandoned novels, which I left at 15,000 words. I have written more than I ever have on this, and now know a lot more about what a novel entails for the writer. I'm definitely going back to one of those abandoned novels and giving it another go. After Friday, of course ;-)

Do you want to share your forum??

Didn't I say? [fx: looks skyward, hands in pockets, and whistles innocently]

Ok, since you ask, I will, but actually I didn't say at first because it's a genre forum, for F&SF (fantasy and science fiction). Sometimes mainstream (aspiring) writers drop in, and they're made welcome, and it can lead to interesting writing discussions (all genres of writing, including mainstream, have more in common than their differences) but non-genre writers tend to get bored and leave quicker than genre, for obvious reasons (i.e. because we talk about genre stuff).

Akshully, we talk mostly about:

chocolate
cats
cooking
horses
incredibly-expert-topics-you-never-knew-anyone-knew-anything-about[1]
free market economics[2]
writing
writing query letters to agents
etc.

The "forum" is actually a "newsgroup": rec.arts.sf.composition. Newsgroups predate the web, but it's possible to access them via google groups if you just want to look or venture in briefly, but google is Bad because it doesn't make it clear that these are not ordinary google groups. It's much better to use a "newsreader" (there are free ones, or you can use Outlook Express [not recommended] or Thunderbird (a free mail/newsreading program). Send me a nanomail if you need more information.

There are lots (many thousands) of specialist newsgroups on any topic you can imagine, but in the last ten years or so, many of the potentially more interesting ones have degenerated into pointless eternal flame wars, or been taken over by rabid idealogues. Or nutters.

I suspect you are going, "Stop! Too much information!" so I'll stop here!

Chromomancer
[1] I could give dozens of examples. I'll give just one: we have one regular contributor who knows everything about the origins of words. So when I mentioned that I live near a town called Rottingdean (about three miles away), he explained that the name came from "Rota's valley" where Rota was probably some bloke who lived there. This is very disappointing. Despite the total absence of giant toadstools in Rottingdean, I'd always fondly assumed that it must originally been a fetid swamp, full of fungus-blighted vegetation and ghoulish horrors feeding on the decaying corpses of foolish travellers ...

[2] One of the regular contributors is David Friedman - son of the famous economist. He is there to discuss writing - he has had one novel published (so far) - no magic or fantastic creatures in it, it's more like an alternate history, but it still counts as fantasy. But, if you are not careful, he can be provoked into writing long essays about Libertarianism and Free Market Economics LOL. (He is also an expert on medieval Islamic cookery and recipes - see [1].) There are a few other topics that will provoke some (otherwise sane) contributors into long political rants - but mostly people have learnt that these are To Be Avoided at all costs. LOL

I belong to a writers group on line called Critique Circle (www.critiquecircle.com) It's free, although you can buy premium membership, you don't have to. Some writers are published, some are not, some have been writing years some have just started, there are novelists, short story writers, playwrights, memoir writers.... we all encourage and crit each other's work, and it's a nice friendly site. It's busy all year - except in November. In November, critique numbers go down and the site goes quiet. Why? Because they're all doing Nano.
And the nicest thing about doing Nano as part of Critique Circle is the encouragement. As each person gets near to goal, the cheerleaders come out, the applause goes up, and you feel like Dame Kelly Holmes.

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