First Draft In a Month

My best friend started the countdown last night – four hours and some minutes.  Unfortunately she was only off by a day.  But now, in a little less than four hours, I’ll start writing the first draft of my next novel as part of the National Novel Writing Month extravaganza. 

NaNoWriMo is a project from the Office of Letters and Light, a San Francisco bay-area nonprofit organization.  The point of NaNoWriMo is to write long fiction at a fast and furious pace.  The goal is to produce 50,000 new words between November 1 and November 30. 

For many struggling novelists, finding time to write is the biggest challenge.  During NaNoWriMo, a writer is encouraged to spew words on the page, always moving forward without editing or censoring.   This actually leads to impressive output as long as one isn’t daunted by the daily goal of 1,667 words.  I find it helps to use resources like A Writer's Book of Days by Judy Reeves to avoid writer's block and unlock creativity in surprising ways.  I sometimes create a fortress of inspiration just to keep failure at bay.  

This will be the sixth year I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo; after sputtering starts in 2005 and 2007, I’ve come up with three straight winner years in 2009, 2010, and 2011.  I pitched a revised version of the novel written in 2009 at this year's Romance Writers of America National Conference and had an editor at a major publishing house request the full manuscript!

If you’ve ever thought to yourself, ‘maybe I should write a book’, I suggest you give this NaNoWriMo a try.  As an added benefit, friends and family who wouldn’t tolerate a loved-one disappearing for months at a time more easily accommodate a single month of writing madness -- as long as the writer promises to pick up chores or childcare again come December 1.  Hope to see you in the Winner’s Circle this year!

Tagged ... I'm It

I’m not a person susceptible to peer pressure.  I dress up for Comic-Con no matter which day I attend.  I drive the speed limit, even on the freeways in California and no matter how fast the other traffic is going.  I used public transportation to commute to work daily when I lived in the Central Valley even after another passenger told me that only ex-cons and homeless people rode the bus.  And while it took me ten years to get my undergraduate college degree, I never smoked pot.  Not even once.   

So I would seem unlikely to fall for a facebook-posted challenge from a friend.  Except for the fact that the friend is Gayle Carline and the challenge is writerly.  In an electronic twist to the old-fashioned chain letter, she included me in something called the Lucky 7 Challenge which basically goes like this: 

1. Go to page 7 or 77 in your current manuscript (fiction or non-fiction)
2. Go to line 7
3. Post on your blog the next 7 lines, or sentences, as they are – no cheating
4. Tag 7 other authors to do the same.

In the spirit of the game, here are the seven lines from the romantic suspense novel I entered into this year’s Golden Heart contest from the Romance Writers of America (and currently undergoing revision):

“Thanks.  I want each of you guys writing up your own statements.  Nothing fancy, just how you remember things from the time we got separated from the rest of the task force until the chopper found us.”

“We’ll put our heads together,” Jake said, “and give them an ironclad textbook example of good old-fashioned American firefighter heroism in the heat of battle.”

Danny laughed.  “I’m not looking for a Nobel prize winner for literary fiction.  Both of you grab a pen, a piece of paper, and a separate table.  This isn’t a group project.”

Now let’s see what we get from my seven writer friends:

Todd Wheeler

Melanie Hooks

Michele Scott

Carrie Vaughn

Lynne Marshall

Jennifer Haymore

Charlene Sands

Look who I saw at SCWC*SD26

I Am So Busted.  The number one rule in every book, every online article, every podcast I've saved to my smartphone playlist, and every Romance Writers of America National Conference workshop I've ever listened to on the topic of blogging is the same:  content is king.  Posts to a blog need to be timely and frequent.  Two or three posts a week is the minimum for new material - if the goal is to attract and keep readers.  

Which is exactly why I didn't need to take a hiatus of more than a week.  But I did.  But before you  stop reading, drop me from your email feed, or cancel your follow, allow me to plead guilty with an explanation.  


I still haven't recovered from the awesome Southern California Writers' Conference in San Diego this past weekend.  I urge you to check out the highlights and award winners, and make plans to join us next year (or this September in Newport Beach!) Thank you, MSG, Wes, Chrissie, Cricket, Jeremy, Janis, Linda, Jean, Laura, Drusilla, Mark, Matt, Andrew and all the workshop leaders for making this a very special time!


I plan to go into more detail about SCWC in the coming weeks and months, but for now I want to share one major highlight:  

This was Saturday evening just after introducing agent Paul Fedorko and best-selling author T. Jefferson Parker prior to the banquet.  I'd be hard-pressed to name two finer gentlemen in the world of contemporary publishing.  It was my pleasure to spend a few quality minutes with both of them during the weekend.  


I hope I didn't freak them out too much, gushing my appreciation of the works they've brought to me as a reader over the years.  But how else could I react?  This SCWC felt like the literary equivalent of the World Series and these two men are on the all-time All Star team!  Thank you guys for your kindness and understanding. 


I'll give you a hint of which book I bought at the conference that I've already started reading.