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If you’ve been following me over on Neatorama, you know that I spent most of November trying to throw a novel together for NaNoWriMo. And I did! Sort of. I mean, I got the 50,000 words. I’m not sure it qualifies as a novel yet. But I have hope – if these 10 people turned their NaNo novels into real, published pieces you can find at your local bookstore, maybe I can too.
1. Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants. She’s kind of the NaNo poster child. I read this book and absolutely loved it, by the way. It’s being made into a movie as we speak!
2. Lani Diane Rich – Time Off for Good Behavior and Maybe Baby.
3. Lisa Daily – The Dreamgirl Academy.
4. James R. Strickland – The Looking Glass.
5. Gayle Brandeis – Self Storage.
6. Jessica Burkhart – High Jumps at Collins Academy.
7. Kathy Cano-Murillo (the Crafty Chica!) – Love Shine.
8. Rebecca Agiewich - Breakup Babe.
9. Ann Gonzalez – Running for My Life.
10. Kalayna-Nicole Price – Once Bitten.
Lani’s latest book, “Wish You Were Here” was her NaNo last year (2007) also.
posted by Renee Somebody on 12-4-2008 at 8:27 pm
I think it’s so cool that you did this. Between all your regular writing, your job, and whatever home improvement projects are currently underway, where’d you find the time to bang out 50,000 words?
posted by Jason English on 12-4-2008 at 8:42 pm
It depends on the day Jason. Sometimes it feels impossible, like I budgeted extra word goals per day because I took a 5 day trip to Nashville. But during and after Nashville I felt listless and uninspired. But I tried to write a few (hundred) words each day. Then a few days in a row I caught fire.
I’m sure Stacy feels the same. You just have to push yourself to do something.
posted by Scott on 12-4-2008 at 9:43 pm
I pretty much stopped talking to my husband between the hours of 7 and 10 every night. He gets home at 6:30 and we go to bed at 10, so you can see where he didn’t enjoy November much. Or maybe he did :)
also, I lacked a social life in November. I tailgated one Saturday earlier in the month and that was about it.
posted by Stacy Conradt on 12-4-2008 at 10:11 pm
Think its awesome your deciding to write a novel, best of luck with it, I’m sure it will be a great read Peace
posted by zda777 on 12-5-2008 at 8:10 am
I’ve gone for it 3 times and finished once, and another year I came within 5000 words. I didn’t even try last month, unfortunately. It’s always fun to go back and see the junk I came up with, but there are always some gems in there.
Didn’t know Water for Elephants was a nano book, that’s impressive. I thought I read she did a lot of research on it, but maybe that was done at another time, or maybe she just has amazing time management skills.
posted by Josh on 12-5-2008 at 9:27 am
Congratulations, cheers, and hallelujah for you! Great job. I wrote a book last year (being published in 2009), but I took about four months to do it. I’ve thought about tackling NaNoWriMo, but I write non-fiction, so I’d have to have all the research done beforehand and really carefully arranged, which may be sort of stretching the rules.
They also do a screenwriting blitz in the month of April (NaScreeMo?). So get ready to write that hit movie — you can’t do worse than what’s out there now.
posted by Southern Buddhist on 12-5-2008 at 10:33 am
great info! didn’t know of nanowrimo…great idea! Bravo on the accomplishment Stacy!
posted by s on 12-5-2008 at 7:26 pm