PinoyWrimos

It’s Day 4, and today is National Back Up Your Novel Day!

We like to celebrate NABUYND at least once a week in November. To take part in the festivities, don a crazy hat, then email your novel-in-progress to your favorite webmail account, save it to a flash drive, or make someone with a photographic memory read the whole thing. Then keep them out of direct sunlight until the next back-up. (Chris Baty)

So don’t forget to back up your novel today! You can email it to yourself, save it in a diskette, flash drive, burn it to a CD/DVD, upload to Google Docs. This will surely save you from lost-novel woes in the middle of the month. :)

At this point you should have 6,668 words in your novel. I can see soaring word counts here and there, and it’s really great to see that. :D If you’re not at that word count yet, fret not, there’s still time! I’m way ahead of my word count, thankfully, but I’m already encountering some roadblocks, but it’s all right. All in novel writing fun. :D

Happy writing!

Just recently (yesterday, in fact), one of my favorite authors, Camy Tang, posted a guest blog on my blog to promote her newest book, Single Sashimi. And since the hype is already here, and I know she also participates in NaNoWriMo, I asked her if she could write a post about the said event. Here’s an excerpt of her post:

I LOVE NaNoWriMo. The original version of Only Uni, which at the time was titled “The Corinthian Rules,” was pounded out during a NaNoWriMo a few years ago.

Then, the published version of Only Uni (I kept only about 10% of the original “Corinthian Rules”) was pounded out at another NaNoWriMo a few years later.

Basically, NaNoWriMo rocks! Who knows how long it would have taken me to write those two manuscripts otherwise?

My biggest problem with my NaNo manuscript is plotting it before the month of November. I am NOT a pantser, I am an anal retentive plotter, and I need to know everything that happens before I start writing.

So the prep time for NaNo is pretty extensive for me. Which can be a drag, because often it takes longer than I think it will.

I usually rely on a few tools in my arsenal…

[Read entire post here]

Yes, I intended to cut it there so you would actually hop over there and read. ;) Camy will be joining NaNoWriMo again this year, so she’ll also be with us in the crazy month ahead! Wohoo!

TWO AND A HALF DAYS LEFT! :)

Camy Tang writes romance with a kick of wasabi. She used to be a biologist, but now she is a staff worker for her church youth group and leads a worship team for Sunday service. She also runs the Story Sensei fiction critique service. On her blog, she gives away Christian novels every Monday and Thursday, and she ponders frivolous things like dumb dogs (namely, hers), coffee-geek husbands (no resemblance to her own…), the writing journey, Asiana, and anything else that comes to mind. Visit her website at http://www.camytang.com/ for a huge website contest going on right now, giving away ten boxes of books and 30 copies of her latest release, SINGLE SASHIMI.

It’s FOUR DAYS till the madness starts! AAHHHH CAN YOU FEEL IT? Can you feel the excitement? Is your imagination on overdrive? Mine is, I just need to catch my imagination and make sure I get all the ideas down!

So I thought I’d share some tips in preparing for the noveling month I’ve picked up from the past four years I’ve been doing this crazy thing:

• Choose your writing software. I’m a geek, I admit it, and this is one of the things I make sure I figure out first. I make sure to find the best writing software for me, as it’s really going to matter for me during the month. Right now I’m toying with Scrivener but I have the full version of Storymill, so it’s kind of a problem. Heh. Let’s see which I like better.
• Arm yourself with writing tools. Other than the software, make sure you have the writing tools you feel most comfortable to use. If you have a favorite pen, stock on it now! If you need a special notebook to gather thoughts, make sure you have it close at hand every time so if an idea hits you, you get to write it down! A cellphone works well too. And some tissue and random scraps of paper — just make sure you don’t lose it. :D
• Get plenty of rest. I know you’d probably like to stay up late to plan for your novel, but trust me, there’s more time where you’d be actually writing than sleeping on November. So make sure you get the proper rest this week. :)
• Stock up on food and drinks. Make sure you have plenty of nutritious food and drinks on hand so your health won’t suffer for November. Also, make sure you have special treats you can give yourself so that when you reach a certain word count, you can reward yourself.
• Find a writing schedule. It can be early mornings, in the evenings, or during breaks in school or at work — find the writing time where you can focus as much as possible (of course, don’t forget to join the word wars, as this will really boost up your word count).
• Get a support group. Some of you may like writing a novel alone, but a support group does wonders. It can be just your readers on your blog, or friends from work or school, or your fellow PinoyWrimos. If there’s anyone who understands the pain you’re going through in November, it’s going to be your fellow Wrimos. They’ll also make sure you reach your goal by prodding you and encouraging you and daring you and threatening you with all sorts of things possible. Seriously.
• Finally, Relax. Don’t get too stressed about how you’d write your novel. Bury your internal editor and allow yourself to just write. Don’t worry about how you wrote it, if some of the facts aren’t true just yet, or if you are having difficulty naming some of the places (I named a coffee shop in my 2007 novel “The Coffee Shop Yet to be Named”) or people — just write. You can worry about editing later. You’re not supposed to come up with an shiny masterpiece, you can transform your first draft into that later, what’s important is just write.

Right now I’m really supposed to be planning my novel, so I guess I should go back to that. What other tips can you share to others? Post them here!

The "Magic" NaNoWriMo Rubber Bands

One important thing that all Wrimos must learn this coming November is to be resourceful. Writing 50,000 words in a month (1,667 words per day) is not an easy feat, so it requires a certain amount of skill, motivation, inspiration, imagination, caffeine, sugar and the ability to put whatever you see or put your hands on in your novel.

Here I introduce the Magic NaNoWriMo Rubber Bands.

They look like ordinary bands that come with vegetables available at a wet market, or with whatever bundle you buy that needs rubber bands, or something you can buy in packs at the nearest bookstore. They come in oh-so-common colors: green, yellow and red (some more colorful than that). They look boring, but there’s actually a lot you can do with these magical bands.

Not convinced? Here’s some ideas:

1. When you start to nod off at 2 AM but haven’t made your daily wordcount, thump yourself with this to keep awake.
2. At write-ins, gently flick your band at your competitor’s arm to distract them so you can win the word war.
3. Use a fine sharpie marker to add your own pithy slogans to the band.
4. Trade your band for someone else’s at a write-in to jump start a conversation.
5. Tuck 3×5 note cards into the band to remind yourself of upcoming plot points.
6. Decorate your band with yarn pom-poms to remind yourself that there is beauty in the world. Even after all the terrible things you are doing to your main character.
7. When you get *really* hungry while you are writing, don’t stop to snack, just chew gently on one end of the band (but don’t swallow it!).
8. If you find yourself typing too quickly for your thoughts, use the band to strap all your left fingers together.
9. To help you empathize with your main character as you torture them, use the band to tie your wrists together… and finish the chapter anyway while bound.
10. In the wee hours of the morning, you may find your head growing too big. Use the band as a head band to keep it a manageable size.
11. On day 25, as your hair grows really long and unkempt, use the band as an attractive (but potentially painful) hair-tie.
12. Challenge your writing buddy to a band-flicking distance contest… then get back to writing!
13. Power adapter wires are messy? Use the band to keep them together.
14. Want to write something funny? Strap the band to your nose before you write.
15. Barefoot and distracted as your write? Give your feet something to play with…
16. Need inspiration for a disgusting scene? Chew on the band after you’ve had it around your nose and played with it with your toes! (Ew!)
17. Need to quickly compose a song? Use the band against a hollow object or table and strum yourself a melodic accompaniment.
18. Snap the band when you find yourself thinking of anything but your novel during the entire month (you can use the band as a wrist brace to recover from the repetitive stress injury).
19. When your computer fails and you have to write by hand and your fingers grow numb, use the rubber bands to bind the pencil to your hand so you can continue to write.
20. If you type so much your fingers fall off, use the Magic NaNoWriMo rubber bands to hold them together neatly until you can get the doctor to reattach them.
21. Little kids keeping you from writing? Thump them with the Magic NaNoWriMo rubber bands (gently) until they leave you alone.
22. Hungry and your house is a mess in November? Use the Magic NaNoWriMo rubber bands as a snare for small creatures…
23. Need to view your story from a different perspective? Wear the Magic NaNoWriMo rubber bands over one ear and pretend to be a pirate. Arrrrh!
24. Writing a tense scene? Get in the mood by pulling your Magic NaNoWriMo rubber bands taut so that you can feel the tension!

I’m pretty sure there’s more that these rubber bands can do in the month of November. What else do you think can they do? Let’s make our own list, shall we?

These “Magic” NaNoWriMo rubber bands will be available with the PinoyWrimo loot bags which will be given during the Kick Off Party. The loot bags will only be available for people who sign up for Saturday’s, so if you want one, sign up here! Sign ups will close tomorrow, 5:00PM!

OMG, ONLY EIGHT DAYS LEFT!

* Rubber band idea adopted from Illinois::Naperville region, use of rubber bands taken from NaNoWriMo ML Wiki, data collected over the year. Thank you!

It’s been awfully quiet here recently — I blame work. Anyway, I had a very relaxing reading weekend. Instead of going out, I spent the entire weekend holed up at home, reading. I know it’s very antisocial, but I felt like I need to pay attention to my books since I’ve been too slow going through my To Be Read pile lately.

Anyway, I finished two books this weekend (review will be up soon!), and the second one I finished, Marley and Me by John Grogan made me bawl at the last few chapters. If you’re an animal lover (or, okay, even if you’re not!), read this book! I’m sure you won’t regret it. It made me want to hug our dog after reading.

At the end of the book, there’s a Q&A with the author and I wanted to share this particular question and answer to everyone, since it’s about writing:

Q. What advice do you have for writers?

A. Take the Civil Service exam and hope for a job at the Post Office. No, no, no. Keep a journal and write every day, even when it seems impossible. Read really good writers, and re-read the best parts aloud. Write about what you know and care about. Believe in yourself and your voice. And here’s what I consider the most important part: Take your finished piece and cut it by 20 percent. Relax, you can always restore the lost text. You’ll be surprised how seldom you will feel the need. In my own work, tighter is almost always better.

Great advice. :D Have a great week everyone!