#NaNoWriMo Fails

We're a few days into November which means, like every year, that thousands of aspiring writers are sweating with dread. As NaNoWriMo ended last year I had to console multiple people in outright hysterics - just as I finished comforting one, the next IM’d me. After three hours, I think I ran out of patience. It’s for such things that I'm writing this again this year, to reminded you that National Novel Writing Month is imaginary and you’ll all be fine no matter how it ends.

There are a few dozen professional authors with whom I speak regularly. None of them are currently doing #NaNoWriMo the way it’s intended. Most aren't doing it at all; I'm not, either. A few are using the community aspects and inspirational messages to psych themselves into getting as many words as they can for their projects – most of which, I think, are going to finish at double or more the 50,000-word goal line whenever they do finish. Novels are how they pay their bills, and they just wanted progress on hard projects.

I frame this in terms of what they do to ask you something simple: what do you want out of this thing?

Do you want a publishable book? Bullshit! Almost no one in the history of almost everywhere has ever written a decent novel in one month. Maybe Stephen King, maybe once, out of a career headed for triple digits.

Are you doing it for camaraderie with other writers? Then enjoy the bonds you're forming. And good news: those people will still be around in December, so you can still talk to them, encourage them, and share your work with them.

Are you trying to start writing again? Then you did, and if this art form expressed something from within you that nothing else reaches, you probably ought to keep going. Maybe writing this, maybe something different, maybe something shorter. You've got a lot of November left to experiment, and if it doesn't work, then maybe December is your National Short Story Writing Month, where you nail a smaller thing that squirmed out of the novel, to feel that you can conquer an idea. Or maybe you just keep pace until this novel itself has an end.

Is the high demand stressing you out, wrecking your outline, or otherwise leaving you unable to work effectively? Then start over with a more generous time table. There are eleven months before the next NaNo, and many talented people will be writing during those, including every single professional author I know. It is actually legal to keep writing today. You have my permission.

Look: today's word count doesn’t make you a novelist. Unless you were contracted to someone for a manuscript by today, you haven’t failed at jack shit. You will only fail if you don’t embrace what you wanted out of this before you die.

Also, take it for granted that if you die, there’ll be greater concerns than word count.

#NaNoReMo Ends

Today ends February, and so goes 2013's National Novel Reading Month. I've seen several people knocking off their classics in the last few days, and I've got particular pride in Tony Noland for finally conquering Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. I really ought to get to that, especially after how much I enjoyed The Crying of Lot 49.

Middlemarch's 1,000 pages too me twenty days, including the two I spent stuck in trains and depots. Having an enormous classic is a great way to pass long waits and, it turns out, to keep strangers from talking to you. It's easily one of the most ambitious novels I've read and has made me question many of the conventions of satire and social criticism. There's an essential empathy, a mandatory understanding behind any unkind action, that makes most conflict-writing feel... well, "lazy" is a nice way of putting it. You can read my full review right here.


I'll pitch that we run it in January next year, 2014, for a few reasons. January would let everyone start the year off with conquering a classic, and there's a little New Years power to such things. January also has three more days than most Februaries, and there would be no unintentional slight against Black History Month, one of the few "official months" I hold in serious reverence.

If you have a National Novel Reading Month wrap-up post, please link to it in the comments. I'll create a junction post here for fellow readers to blog hop across.


1. Cindy Vaskova's tremendous closing on Frankenstein.
2. Eric Krause finishes Princess of Mars.
3. Tony Noland finishes Gravity's Rainbow.

So, who's finished? And what are you reading next? I'm deciding between Brandon Sanderson's The Final Empire and Joe Abercrombie's Red Country.

#NaNoReMo Megapost

National Novel Reading Month begins February 1st. The rules are simple:

1. Find a classic novel you've never read, preferably one you've been meaning to read for a long time.

2. "Classic" is up to your definition. If you feel Beloved is a Modern Classic, you read it.

3. Between February 1st and 28th, read the book.

4. Join in on Twitter, blogs and Facebook to discuss your journey through the classic. You're even welcome to come back discuss the books in comments threads on this post.

I've chosen Middlemarch, a social commentary on 1800's England by Mary Anne Evans, under the pen name George Eliot. I've wanted to read it ever since missing registration for a class on it in college. Les Miserables came close, but my copy is 1,400 pages, and that's simply too long for me to be sure I'll finish in a month with beta reading, more medical tests, and at least two big road trips. Middlemarch's 1,000 pages as far as I'm willing to push it. It's technically eight books in one - a collected serial. Fortunately, Catherine Russel is picking up my slack, having chosen Les Mis for her own #NaNoReMo!

If you've picked your book, please mention it in the comments here and I'll add you to the post. I'm going to link any blog or Twitter accounts so people can check out reading progress. Feel free to blog across the month as you get insights into your book, or tear through it and move on to still more classics.

#NaNoReMo Readers List
1. Catherine Russell: Victor Hugo's Les Miserables
2. Danielle la Paglia: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
3. Tony Noland: Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow
4. John Wiswell: George Eliot's Middlemarch
5. Andy Hollandbeck: T.H. White's Once and Future King
6. John Gray: John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
7. T.S. Bazelli: Toni Morrison's Beloved8. Eric Krause: Edgar Rice Burroughs's Princess of Mars
9. Beverly Fox: Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby 
10. Paul Philips: BOTH Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives and H.G. Wells's The Invisible Man
11. Janet Lingel Aldrich: Victor Hugo's Les Miserables
12. Katherine Nabity: Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
13.  Ross Dillon: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
14. Maria Kelly: Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles 
15. Katherine Hajer: Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon
16. Helen Howell: Bram Stroker's Dracula
17. Icy Sedgwick: Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto
18. Susan Cross: Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice
19. Cindy Vaskova: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

20.Rachel Frink: Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

21. April L. Hamilton: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

#NaNoReMo: National Novel Reading Month

February will be National Novel Reading Month. It’s a simple idea. We’ve all got at least one classic book we think we ought to read and have put off too long. Last year people flocked around the hashtag as they put away classics; I finally read Jane Austen, and am hoping for better results this year. I have six titles in mind, and the literary guilt may actually be killing me.

Check your shelf. Check your conscience. Isn’t there something long removed from the Bestseller’s List you think you ought to read? Be it for craft, for history, or some gap in your personal English canon. #NaNoReMo is about catching up with the classics.

One thing that bothers me about National Novel Writing Month is it isn’t located in a country. “National” is a poor word choice for a program that’s clearly international. Yet it’s popular, so #NaNoReMo will double the dubiousness. Not only can you read it in any nation of your choice, but your classic doesn’t have to be a novel. Want to brush up on Virgil or Ovid? Go for it. The rule is to read a classic.

We’re using a personal sliding scale for "classics." Some people don’t think Jules Verne is a classic author. I don’t like to talk to those people, but they exist, and so they can read someone else. But if you do think he’s a classic writer who deserves your time, then it’s your choice.

It begins on February 1^st. We’ll be on the honor system; nobody cheat and start reading now. In advance you’re welcome to hop onto blogs and Twitter to chat about your potential choices. Our hashtag is #NaNoReMo. Then join us throughout February as we discuss our progress through our chosen classics. If it works the cross-pollination of encouragement will increase our reading lists as well as encourage us to finish reading great works.

I’m actually asking for advice on my choices. Each is too big to expect to read together.

• George Elliot’s Middlemarch
• Alex Haley’s Roots
• Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables
• Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations
• Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities
• And the book that lost to Austen last year: Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita

I’ve wanted to read them all for years, and have owned a copy of Roots since 2007. Wolfe and Bulgakov seem the most likely to entertain, while Les Mis has the greatest mystique with all its hype and plethora of adaptations. I can’t mention the book on Twitter without someone gushing. And I’ve never read Hugo, never read Elliot, never read Haley, and was only ever exposed to Dickens’s Christmas Carol. It’s a lot of literary guilt.

Is there one of the above you’d most like to subject me to, or read me digest? I know how much people enjoyed watching me squirm over how insufferable Pride and Prejudice was last year.

#Nanowrimo Fails

Yesterday I consoled two friends who failed to write 50,000 words in a month. Just as I finished comforting one, the other IM’d me. After three hours, I think I ran out of patience. It’s for the hysterics I both witnessed and heard about yesterday that I’m writing this today, to reminded you that National Novel Writing Month is imaginary and you’ll all be fine.

There are a few dozen professional authors with whom I speak regularly. None of them were doing #nanowrimo the way it’s intended. Most didn’t do it at all; I didn’t either. A few used the community aspects and inspirational messages to psych themselves into getting as many words as they could for their own novels – most of which, I think, are going to finish at double or more the 50,000-word goal line. This is how they pay their bills, and they just wanted progress on hard projects.

I frame this in terms of what they did to ask you something simple: what did you want out of this thing?

Did you want a publishable book? Bullshit! Almost no one in the history of almost everywhere has ever written a decent novel in one month. Maybe Stephen King, maybe once, out of a career headed for triple digits.

Did you do it for camaraderie with other writers? Then it only matters how you bonded. And good news: those people are still around, so you can still talk to them, encourage them, and share your work with them.

Did you do it to start writing again? Then you did, and if this art form expressed something from within you that nothing else reaches, you probably ought to keep going. Maybe writing this, maybe something different, maybe something shorter. Maybe December is your Short Story Writing Month, where you nail a smaller thing that squirmed out of the novel, to feel that you can conquer an idea. Or maybe you just keep pace until this novel itself has an end.

Did the high demand stress you out, wreck your outline, or otherwise leave you unable to work effectively? Then start over with a more generous time table. There are eleven months before the next November, and many talented people will be writing during those, including every single professional author I know. It is actually legal to keep writing today. You have my permission.

Look: 50,000 words in a month doesn’t make you a novelist. Unless you were contracted to someone for a manuscript by today, you haven’t failed at jack shit. You will only fail if you don’t embrace what you wanted out of this before you die.

Also, take it for granted that if you die, there’ll be greater concerns than word count.