Hello, and happy National Novel Writing Month (season)! You are part of a large family of like-minded individuals who are ready to go crazy! We are here to challenge ourselves and take on the obstacle of writing a Novel in one month! It'll be 30 days of rushing around the house to find a pencil, yelling at the computer for not working right, and a headache of other uncontrollable stresses, but you knew that coming in! Your total amount of time complete this task will be 740 hours, or 43200 minutes, a bazillion seconds, and believe me it goes by fast! It'll be a crazy dash to feed the beast (word counter)! First you'll be subtracting sleep time from the total hours available to write your novel, then eating time, drive time, work time and pee time, you get the point! If you can manage to eat, sleep or pee, that is. I suggest adult diapers, they work well so you'll never have to leave your seat! This will be your opportunity to prove to yourself, to your friends and family, and to your cat, that you, are capable of greatness! This should be horrifying news because you'll have so much power you won't know what to do with it! Only the cool kids like us know how special we are. We have the power to create, to condemn, and the power to dramatize the voices in our head! Have they been giving you mental spanking for years? Great, it's payback time!
If you're new to National Novel Writing Month you might not be familiar with the term Municipal Liaison or ML. What we are is two volunteers (not for pay) in your local area who set up fund raising, press releases, parties, and over all are here to help you. Whether you are having difficulty getting your word counter to update the number of words you have, you need tips to plump up your word count, or need inspiration, we'll be here for you! By the way, a simple solution to "word-bulemia" is to not combine words: "it is" vs "its" "have not" vs "haven't." I've added hundreds of words to my grossly under-sized novels doing this little trick. It's not required, and actually, if you are able, it makes you feel better not to do this. Anyway, we're here to help you! For those of you who are returning this year, we were informed that The Office of Letters and Light will be adding a "word count" tab to every window. So no matter where you are on the Nanowrimo.org page you will be able to update your count (you may have already noticed this, isn't it cool!?).
This year your ML staff is dedicated to make a difference. In past years your ML's have labored, spending their own money to support Kick-Off, and Write-In's. This year we are looking to go above and beyond the awesomeness of previous years by fund raising, and subsidizing the money the every day costs of being in NaNoWriMo. Mostly we would like to have a decent Kick-Off party, and a TGIO party and see ourselves able to enjoy each other's company without having to worry so much about how much money we have in our pocket. We are looking for volunteers who can be depended on to be a treasurer (see below for job discription), to lead weekly "write-ins" and lastly we will need someone who will be our press contact. We've realized this year, just how much needs to be done, and with your help we will procure a super November month. If you are eager to help out, have more than one year of experience with NANO (must have completed word count), and are familiar with any of the above jobs please contact your ML's and let us know of your interest. We will mostly need you in October, and will meet at least 2 times before the Kick Off party.
Also, any questions, comments are appreciated, and can be sent to chocolatequeen, or lollybob818. We'll be happy to help you.
Well, I guess that's everything. You'll be receiving letters periodically to pump you up, and encourage you to meet your goals!
Take care, and write something!
Lyndsey and Nancy
Your Vancouver Municipal Liaisons
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To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don't get over it because 'it' is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve
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Sep 28, 2008 - 16 02
Awesome! Thanks for the intro, Lynds. :) Here's a bit more ML stuff--we need your help!
Hero Wanted:
Please send an email with your interest, and let us know what qualifies you to help with said job.
Treasurer (aka fund raiser)
We are looking for someone who is willing to contact 20 or so businesses in order to gather donations of cash, gift cards and more. Our biggest obstacle this year is time. Most places go through their corporate office for donations, and can not hand out donations without proper paperwork and channels being gone through. We have all of the appropriate paperwork needed for this. We have several leads for possible donaters, but cannot contact them all ourselves. We're simply too busy with other aspects of our jobs to give this the true effort that is needed.
Press (aka Liaison to the newspapers and news stations) -
We are looking to promote National Novel Writing Month as best we can. We have contact information for some of the TV stations, as well as contact information for the newspapers. We will need someone to contact these media and present our press release, and donation requests. This volunteer position will only require 3-6 hours total, but can take more if other media are found.
Write-In Host -
We have the benefit of being a large area and having a lot of folks interested in writing a Novel this year. Because our Region covers so many miles, and is so vast it is our hope that we can get 4-5 write-ins scheduled a week, in various parts of town. Our hope is to have from Battle Ground/Brush Prarie/Yacolt/Amboy to Camas/Washougal/Stevenson/Carson covered with meetings.
We need volunteers who are willing to host weekly Write-Ins. Volunteers must be willing to be present at scheduled meeting once a week, or otherwise find someone to host in their place. In the past we've had difficulties with hosts not showing up, or going to a different location. The truth is that other novelists depended on the fact that someone would be hosing a write-in at that location. So when the host was not there you can imagine the let down, as well as the damper that puts on their motivation to write. The reason NaNo exists is to challenge and create invaluable relationships.
So if you volunteer for a location, please be willing to be at that location for at least 4 weeks (holidays are an exception).
The bottom are some examples (these times have not been verified) of what we are looking for, if you are volunteering please send an email with your name, the location and time you plan to be at the location. If you decide you do not want to host a write-in you are not required to volunteer. We will have a limited amount of write-ins (dependent on participants), and do not want to have 20 going on all over town.
ChocolateQueen wants to hold a write-in every week on Monday afternoons at Panera Bread (in Fisher's Landing). She will be there from 2:00-4:30 or so every Monday.
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Sep 29, 2008 - 09 09
I'd like to hold a write-in once a week at Cafe Sip N Play in East Vancouver. As a stay-at-home Mom and writer, this cafe is wonderful. My daughter can play in their great play area (with a small fee of $3.85), while I write and work (and they have Wi-Fi). I invite other writers with kids to join me (or writers who don't mind working with kids nearby).
I haven't chosen a day yet but will be sometime in the next week, as I'd like to start having Prep-ins! Because I have a lot of prep work to do before November, and I'm sure others do, too!
Cheers!
Carissa
33,271 / 50,000
Sep 29, 2008 - 11 09
That's fantastic, Ris! I didn't know there was a place like that in Vancouver. Somebody is a genius. :)
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Sep 29, 2008 - 15 09
Oh, you think so too? I mean, I was walking around for a long time saying, "I'm such a genius." But the creation of Sip N Play wasn't my first brilliant creation. ...LOL!
Okay okay, I won't take credit for it. Someone took my patent for the name. :(
:) Teasing.
----------To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don't get over it because 'it' is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve
33,271 / 50,000
Sep 29, 2008 - 21 17
LOL!
Psst Lynds--I filled in the Write-ins post. :)
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Okt 4, 2008 - 08 01
Carissa, I had no idea such a place exsisted! Very cool. I have four children so how on earth did I not about this place?? lol!
----------Anne Lacey
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Okt 4, 2008 - 10 01
Anne,
The Sip N Play is indeed an awesome place! I highly recommend it for writing moms (and dads).
I'll be out there on Monday afternoons around 1:30 now through Nano. If you can make it out, look me up. I'll be the one with the laptop, WRITER hat, and nano tee shirt.
Carissa