This week….
BRACE. Yes, it’s Halloween, and if any of you agents out there need a scare, just click here. AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Run away!!! Run away!!!!
(I kid NaNoWriMo. Although your family would like to see more of you. Also, when I last tried to visit the NaNoWriMo website it said the server was overloaded. Where is my blood pressure medication?)
And for all of you beginning hastily written novels out there, you may find that beginning a novel is…. not that easy! You may be pleased to know that even the pros get the beginning novel blues, and May Vanderbilt recently posted on the difficulty of finding your way at the beginning of a novel.
One of the other elements of the Google settlement that hasn’t received as much attention is that they are going to create a Book Rights Registry that will manage the money generated by Book Search, which will give rights holders an incentive to step forward and claim their work. Could this be the IMDB-for-books that GalleyCat and O’Reilly Media have been speculating about?
Fellow San Franciscan Danielle Steel started a blog!! I couldn’t be more excited about this development.
As you may be able to tell from this blog, I am nearly as fascinated by Thomas Nelson CEO/blogger Michael Hyatt as I am with reality TV cameo regular Collier Strong. Frankly, if the election were between Obama, McCain, Collier Strong and Michael Hyatt I would have a very difficult time deciding who to vote for. Where was I? Oh! After someone e-mailed him about how much money employees could save if they didn’t have to dry clean their work attire, Michael Hyatt changed the company dress code to embrace jeans. Needless to say, Thomas Nelson employees are ecstatic.
And finally, international bestselling author Jeff Abbott needs your help, and this is the fun kind of help: he wants to know about your favorite bar. If you read this blog, I know you have a favorite watering hole.
Have a great weekend! Happy Halloween!
Margaret Yang says
Happy Halloween, Nathan! What’s your costume going to be this year?
Nathan Bransford says
I’m trying to figure out how to go as a rhetorical question.
Deaf Brown Trash Punk says
Happy Halloween, too!!! Don’t pig out on chocolate and candies too much!
Margaret Yang says
I see, so you’re going for the scary costume.
Scariest costume I can think of=circus clown.
Crimogenic says
Happy Halloween Nathan!
I have never participated in NaNoWriMo and don’t think that I ever will. It’s a scary thought to me…. uh, I just checked out the website and it’s serious overloaded, sllllooowwww.
Nathan, I thought you were going as “The Hills”, now if you can just figure out how to incorporate the “feel” of the show into your outfit. 🙂
C.D. Reimer says
Nathan, your Halloween costume is Alan Greenspan?
I can usually write a great beginning and sometimes a great ending, but it’s the middle where I find myself deep in the weeds, the doubts starts to creep in, and the kiss of death is near. This is where Post-It Notes and a dart board comes in handy.
dan radke says
I’m doing NaNo.
On December first you’re going to get the worst query you’ve ever seen.
Amity says
LOL. I am doing NaNoWriMo for the first time, and the site really is swamped. I’m donating money in hopes they can get more servers. I’m NaNo-ing in order to meet other crazy people in my area; I already write about 2000 words/day (unless I’m editing) so it’s not that daunting.
I do feel REALLY bad for the agents who receive NaNo submissions in December. Poor dewy-eyed people who wrote their first two-hundred pages, they mean so well but please, please wait a month and read your work before you send it.
Kat Harris says
I wish the company for which I work would embrace jeans in the dress code.
🙁
Happy Halloweener!
Furious D says
1. I used to do NaNoWrimo, and got two pretty good mini-novels that I combined into one big novel, out of it, but the last time I got so competitive trying to beat my speed I just became an insufferable boor. Also I’m too busy working on too many projects as it is. So I’ll be skipping this year.
2. Ironically, when I wrote the novels on NaNoWrimo, all I had were the openings. Nothing else, and it still all made sense in the end.
3. Google will find a way to screw people, they didn’t get to be so massive by being nice.
4. I heard that Danielle Steel’s blog has already been optioned as a miniseries.
5. He turned down my idea of grey overall uniforms. Felt it looked too “Orwellian” whatever that means.
6. My favourite bar doesn’t exist anymore, thanks to that particularly wild St. Patrick’s Day, when I decided to dress up like John Bull for kicks.
bryan russell says
Nathan, on account of your blog today, I am now being forced to dress up as the bunny from The Holy Grail. And I look terrible in white.
Run away!!! Run away!!!!
Ulysses says
“I’m trying to figure out how to go as a rhetorical question.”
Nathan – ask someone for costume advice, but don’t expect an answer.
I don’t have a favorite watering hole. I don’t drink, to the great relief of the people, animals, and properties in my immediate vicinity.
Ah, NaNoWriMo… my thoughts are here. Reader’s Digest version: there are fifty thousand words for terror.
Marilyn Peake says
Nathan, maybe you should dress up as NaNoWriMo for Halloween. 🙂
I loved May Vanderbilt’s blog entry about starting a new novel. For me, that usually happens when I’m writing the middle of a novel, and I’m just passing through that stage now – extraordinarily painful. No wonder authors refer to their books as their “babies” – giving birth to either is painful.
That’s really cool that Danielle Steel started a blog!
Other Lisa says
Ooh, where is this Thomas Nelson place, and can I work there? I believe every day should be casual Friday.
Gottawrite Girl says
NaNo stresses me out. I don’t want to comprimise quality just to keep the jet-burners fired… Ah well. The adventure continues. I need the nudge. Happy Halloween, everyone!
Anonymous says
“…how to go as a rhetorical question.”
I’d offer a suggestion, but given the nature of the costume, I’m thinking you probably aren’t interested.
🙂
Elyssa Papa says
Hsppy Halloween! If you manage to come up with the costume for the rhetorical question, you must post the picture. LOL.
Anonymous says
I think NaNoWriMo is a good thing as long as people take the effort to finish, edit and vet their novels before sending them out to agents. I’m doing it this year, but have already decided not to sacrifice quality in order to finish (which is what I did last year when I ended up with an unedited, unfinished and unloved manuscript). From what I gather from various published writers, writing around 2,000 words a day while working on a book is reasonable. What derails NaNo participants is the deadline and inexperience. While NaNo staff make efforts to curb the delusions of grandeur that cause people to send off their manuscripts on Dec. 1, said delusions are a bit too prevalent among wannabe novelists — which is why agents get bad manuscripts all the time, not just in December. 🙂
Ryan Field says
“If you read this blog, I know you have a favorite watering hole.”
Darn right!!
ORION says
I make it a point to buy candy and eat it all as in a marina we don’t tend to get many trick or treaters.
Some great links! Thanks Nathan.
I actually signed up for NaNo…just for fun to create something silly.
It’s really the key- keep writing no matter how silly you think it is…
lotusloq says
I really enjoyed May Vanderbilt’s blog. It made me feel so much better about the way I started my novel. We’re on the same page. Thanks May!
I’m not a drinker either. So, no watering hole. I only go as strong as diet Mt. Dew. With an alcoholic grandfather, etc. in my family I was always afraid I’d be unable to stop if I ever started. So I never started. If my addiction to ice cream and chocolate is any indication, I’d be drunk in a ditch somewhere. haha!
Have a happy Halloween!
tooshytostop says
Thanks for the info about NaNoWriMo! Too Shy to Stop just featured a discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham as inspiration for NaNoWriMo participants. You can read the article here.
Betty Atkins Dominguez says
I’m addressing only one of your possible subjects (the Google one has me flummoxed.) I read the article on beginning a story. Actually, That is the easiest for me (I know I’m going to change or delete it at some point in time.) What I have the most trouble with is the ending.
Anonymous says
Nathan, I don’t know how you would dress as a rhetorical question.
I am very pleased with my costume. I simply dressed in black and wore a badge saying “Election Official.”
People have been frightened.
spinregina says
Even though I’ve read tons of her books, I think I had some pretty hardwired preconceived notions about Danielle Steele…I wandered over to her blog, and I LOVED it. I thought she was incredibly down to earth, and her writing is just so…comfortable. Thanks for pointing in that direction!
Anonymous says
There are monkeys on the NaNoWriMo website (Krista Grotoff interview).
Kyle Smith says
This is the first I’ve heard of NaNoWriMo, and I’m going for it. Why not?
I opened up Word and just started typing, and a few pages appeared with an intriguing start to a story. I really have absolutely no clue where the story is going, but hell…this is fun already.
Maris Bosquet says
Nathan, you mean the Piggly Wiggly shirt wasn’t part of your costume?
Erg, I just got an email from a masochistic friend who invited me to enter the NaNo thingie. Never did it before. Sounds, er, well…like a different experience. For laughs, you know…or self-mutilation…
Maris Bosquet says
Kyle, I don’t know….so far, NaNo is both an exercise in free-flying imagination and a torture session in focus. Good luck to you!
Cari says
Ah, NaNo. My favorite time of year 🙂 I can see why it would be a nightmare for an agent, though. I promise I won’t send you my story.
Kyle Smith says
Maris,
I’m sure at some point in the next days/weeks, I’ll be regretting this decision. But at the same time, I think it’ll be very valuable for me.
In my current “serious” WOP novel, I find myself agonizing over sentence structure and making things sound just right. I also constantly read over what I’ve already written and edit. As a result, progress on it has slowed greatly.
NaNoWriMo seems like a great opportunity for me to unhinge my mind a little and just let a story and prose flow. Plus it puts a pretty hefty floor on the amount of words I need to write daily if I have any hope of completion.
xengab says
I am reading your blog instead of finishing my 5,000 words I need to get done for NaNO today 🙂
Plus I see NaNO as a big long writing exercise and a great way to get a BASIC draft done, and to see if my plot idea will work.
Never fear I would never send my work out before it was gone over with a fine tooth flea comb!
Erik says
Picking a favorite bar is like picking a favorite child.
Wait, didn’t I use that one when we were talking about favorite words? Nevermind.
Maris Bosquet says
Kyle,
I think NaNo is a great opportunity to become unhinged, period! 😛
If you’d like, please drop me an email and I’ll send you the URL for a 60,000-word YA written over the course of three months and revised over two.
And NaNo wants 50,0000 words in 30 days…
Ohboy, what did we get ourselves into???
rooruu says
Ah, so NaNoWriMo is that scary for fine upstanding young agents? Chuckle.
Oh, BOO!
The rhetorical question outfit? You could have gone (obscurely) as a bee (Hamlet reference there).
Billy says
I think NaNo is better than psychotherapy, and cheaper. Sooner or later, you’re going to stumble upon what you’re trying to say! It may not be publishable, but then neither are the records with your shrink. And then there’s Ray Bradbury, who wrote the rough draft for Fahrenheit 451 in seven days. Anything is possible. Mountains move and people walk on water.
Scott says
“In my current “serious” WOP novel, I find myself agonizing over sentence structure and making things sound just right. I also constantly read over what I’ve already written and edit. As a result, progress on it has slowed greatly.”
I hear you, Kyle. I’ve been doing a Donna Tart lately, myself – agonizing over every sentence so that it flows with just the right rhythms and just the right words. Reading back always shows a pesky word repeat or presents me with another way of saying something that has more impact. Some days I love what I wrote, other days I think it’s all wrong.
Here’s hoping I don’t now spend ten years between books like Ms. Tart’s been known to do.
Merelyme says
Happy Belated Halloween!
Kim Stagliano says
I get such a kick out of Danielle Steele’s tresses. It’s not hair, people. It’s definitely tresses. It’s great she has a blog now. Kind of tells us what the “big leagues” think of blogging and the importance.
Time to throw out the Halloween candy now. Burp. Oh, pardon please please….