Tag: author events

Author Inspiration, book marketing, Outskirts Press News, Promotions

Don’t Wanna Go Slow? Give NaNoWriMo a Go!

Tick-tock, tick-tock … Only two days til NaNoWriMo! Have you registered yet?

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo (nan-no-RYE-moe) for short, is an Internet-based creative writing project that challenges writers to pen 50,000 words in the month of November. The virtual event started in 1999 with fewer than two dozen writers and grew to an estimated 200,000-plus participants in 2010. As a sponsor of the 2012 NaNoWriMo, we at Outskirts Press are eager to get this month-long party started with record participation!

Have you always wanted to write a novel? Are you currently a writer, but haven’t yet found the motivation to start your next project? Are you curious about what ideas might flow out of 30 days of intensive, stream-of-conscious creativity? With the event starting on November 1, there’s still time to register for the challenge of a lifetime, and even do some preliminary planning.

Though the NaNoWriMo challenge is designed so that the entirety of your writing is done between November 1 and November 30, you can still do some prep work. Choose your topic. Outline your plot. Ask your friends and neighbors for feedback and suggestions. Then dust off your keyboard and get ready to hit the ground running on Thursday.

Remember, in order to meet the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 in one scant month, count on averaging 1,667 words — roughly two hours of writing time — per day. Increase your daily weekday quota to 2,381 words if you plan to take weekends off.

Start your participation in the 2012 NaNoWriMo by joining a regional group so you can communicate with other participants, spitball ideas, share tips and gather wisdom from those who’ve successfully completed the challenge before. Many seasoned NaNoWriMo authors have valuable input that can help you plan and execute your project.

NaNoWriMo is a fantastic exercise for new authors to use as a kick-start to their writing efforts, or for experienced authors to loosen up and switch up to a more stream-of-consciousness style for a while — whatever gets the creative juices flowing. However, this month of crunch time can be more than a mere exercise. Many of the submissions to NaNoWriMo have gone on to get published! As a self-published author, the decision on whether to polish and publish your NaNoWriMo creation is solely in your hands.

Start Self-Publishing Now!

Author Inspiration, Survey Poll

Are You a NaNoWriMo Veteran? Tell Us Your Story!

We’d be willing to bet that all you writers and would-be authors who plan to participate in the 2012 NaNoWriMo are gearing up — thinking about plot points, imagining your main characters, envisioning how your seat-of-the-pants writing experience is going to conclude. You may be nervous about the process. You probably would love some inspiration.

National Novel Writing Month, shortened to the catchy NaNoWriMo (nan-no-RYE-moe), is an Internet-based creative writing project that challenges writers and would-be authors to pen 50,000 words in the month of November. As a proud sponsor of the 2012 NaNoWriMo, Outskirts Press is encouraging our self-published authors to register for this challenge of a lifetime, and we expect we’ll be well-represented — in quantity and in quality.

Well, we have another challenge (don’t worry, it’s a much smaller task). We want to hear all about your NaNoWriMo journey! Did you successfully complete the 50,000-word goal? Better yet, have you published or do you plan to publish the results of your NaNoWriMo book challenge? What challenges did you face? What did you learn from the experience? Tell us your NaNoWriMo story in a reply to this blog post.

If you haven’t already, we also recommend joining a NaNoWriMo regional group so you can share your writing tips and gather wisdom from others who’ve successfully completed the challenge. We know many of our seasoned NaNoWriMo authors have valuable input that can others plan and execute their own project. We’d also encourage you to share your Outskirts Press success with your pals on the NaNoWriMo forums. Do you have a custom book cover you want to show off? A tale of how easy it was to publish your NaNoWriMo book? Let your fellow NaNoWriMo participants know about it. It may be all the inspiration they need to muscle through November.

Remember, NaNoWriMo is a fantastic exercise for either new authors to use as a kick-start to their writing efforts, or for experienced authors to loosen up and switch up to a more stream-of-consciousness style for a while — whatever gets the creative juices flowing. Many of the submissions to NaNoWriMo have gone on to get published! As a self-published author, the decision on whether to polish and publish your NaNoWriMo creation is solely in your hands.

Start Self-Publishing Now!

Uncategorized

A Novel in 30 Days? Go NaNoWriMo!

National Novel Writing Month, shortened to the catchy NaNoWriMo (nan-no-RYE-moe), is an Internet-based creative writing project that challenges writers and would-be authors to pen 50,000 words in the month of November. Though it started in 1999 with fewer than two dozen participants, it’s estimated that more than 200,000 tackled the challenge in 2010. We’re hoping that 2012 will see record numbers — and we want Outskirts Press to be well-represented!

Outskirts Press is proud to be a sponsor of the 2012 NaNoWriMo and we’re encouraging our self-published authors to register for the challenge of a lifetime. Consider it the writer’s equivalent of the Boston Marathon, but without the blisters (you can still carb-load if you’d like). The difference is that instead of running your 26.2 miles in one slow, steady session, you’re probably going to be running it in a series of short sprints.

Who knows, you might want to churn out your 50k in one fell swoop, but in all likelihood, you’re probably going to want to write consistently every day from November 1 through November 30. Considering most authors require many months, even years, to plan and compose a quality book, don’t get caught up in creating a pristine tome in 30 days; the quest for perfection will only slow you down. Remember, no one expects a great American classic to spill out in a few short weeks, so don’t get caught up in any editing. Focus on just quantity for now — you can tackle the quality later.

Here’s why: In order to meet the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 in one scant month, you’ll need to average 1,667 words per day. For most writers that’s probably going to mean a daily commitment of about two hours. If you take weekends off to decompress, up the daily weekday quota to 2,381 words. If you’re saving all your work for the weekend, count on putting in full days and cranking out about 6,250 words per writing day. And if, like many writers, you procrastinate until the last week to write your novel (perhaps during a post-Thanksgiving vacation), you’re looking at 7,143 words per day for seven days. We don’t recommend it, but hey, some folks thrive on pressure!

We do, however, recommend joining a regional group so you can communicate with other participants, spitball ideas, share tips and gather wisdom from those who’ve successfully completed the challenge before. Many seasoned NaNoWriMo authors have valuable input that can help you plan and execute your project.

NaNoWriMo is a fantastic exercise for new authors to use as a kick-start to their writing efforts, or for experienced authors to loosen up and switch up to a more stream-of-consciousness style for a while — whatever gets the creative juices flowing. However, this month of crunch time can be more than a mere exercise. Many of the submissions to NaNoWriMo have gone on to get published! As a self-published author, the decision on whether to polish and publish your NaNoWriMo creation is solely in your hands.

Start Self-Publishing Now!