Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts

Saturday, October 29, 2011

3 reasons I hate NaNoWriMo

[caption id="attachment_1808" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="No, I'm not participating. Should you?"][/caption]

This time of year, thousands of authors are gearing up for a month of uber-productivity. They're canceling weekend plans. They're figuring out how to re-set their alarm clocks. They're shifting work deadlines so they never, ever have to work late. At least not for the next month. And they do these things for a single purpose: to write a novel in 30 days.

Yes, next month is NaNoWriMo. And I hate it.

Sorry, but it's the truth. The mere thought of this causes a Cheney-like sneer to dominate my features. My eyes being to auto-roll at the mention, and I start looking for sharp objects to end the pain. One way or another.

On the surface, NaNoWriMo is a great idea. You join a thousands-strong peer group and achieve the unthinkable; you write your own novel, and you do it in 30 days. No editing. You just write. You shock your brain into a routine that keeps your butt-in-seat, forces you to pound on the keys, and just keep going until you hit (at least) 50,000 words. Then... you win.

All of that? I love. And hate.

I hate NaNoWriMo for 3 basic reasons:

  1. Repeat offenders. NaNoWriMo, at its core, teaches you that yes, you can put the requisite work in to write 50,000+ words. Congrats. You've done it. You know you can. You have what it takes inside you. And you did it in only 30 days. Imagine what you could do with 365 days?

    But you forget that last part. You've somehow become conditioned that the only time you can write is in November, and the only way you can complete a novel is to do it all within a month.

    What are you, Pavlov's dog? You did it! Great. It's time to move on. It's time to incorporate writing into your daily routine. It's time to move from doing a novel activity and becoming a novelist. Did you think high school was so great that you wanted to repeat it again? Of course not. So stop it. Get serious with your writing.

  2. Premature epublication. The writing process is not over when your word counter ticks past the 50,000 mark. That's just the first draft. And since every author will tell you that their first published novel sucked compared to their other works, imagine how terrible your first draft ever really is!





    This is reality. Writing leads to re-writing. Lots of it. And then it leads to editing. Which feeds back into more re-writing, more editing... Rinse. Repeat.

    You are not done when you hit 50,000 words, or on November 30th. But I will bet money that around mid-December, every eBook publishing marketplace will see a new crop of "NaNoWriMo 2011 Winner!" books show up on their virtual shelves. I know for a fact I'll be bombarded with "winners" presenting me audio book-versions of their freshly "completed" books for Podiobooks.com. Hold the fort! NaNo just ended days ago! How did you go through all the revisions, editing, production, design and the rest of the things necessary to create a digital book for publication in a matter of days? Oh... that's right. You didn't. Writing is just the beginning.

  3. Not everyone is cut out to be a writer. I hesitate to use the word most because it assumes I have knowledge of over half the population, and I obviously don't. But I'm going to break my own rule and say this: Most people do not possess the skills to write a cogent novel. And I'll go so far to say that most people could not be taught the skills to write a cogent novel. And of those that do, most won't put in the time, energy and effort to get better at the skill of writing. Like a never-was cover band, they'll continue to pump out the same low-level work and never, ever improve.


If you've made it this far, you're either fist-pumping in the air with me or just looking for my contact info to tell me what a giant douchebag I am. Thanks to the former, and it's under contact for the latter.

Having said all of this, I remain committed to helping indie authors and publishers be even more awesome than they already are. But that presumes a certain amount of awesomeness to begin with. And yes, I can point to a myriad of awesome indie authors. These are the people who elicit a little squee from me when they publish a new book.

So see? I'm not a cold, heartless bastard who's trying to keep you from expressing your creativity. Far from it. I'd just like you to do it better. Much, much better. If you don't know if you have what it takes to write a novel, then I highly urge you to take part in NaNoWriMo this year. Or next. And then once you've learned that you can, it's time to learn the rest of what it means to be a writer today. Because you're just getting started!

Oh, and because someone will ask: No, I've never participated in NaNoWriMo. I'm not a novelist. And I have no desire to be one. My love/hate relationship is much more pragmatic than simple jealous anger.

Let the hate mail begin.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Social Media for Authors a smash success!

Tonight I taught the Social Media for Aspiring Authors class at Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe. Not to toot my own horn (again), but I think it was smash success. The audience really seemed hungry for the content, and kept leading me right to my next point. And I only had to pull the "It's 2010" card once! Based on the feedback, I'm certain that Brandon and I will be working on a more formal workshop schedule. Excellent!

For those that made it: thank you. I truly enjoyed all of your comments and feedback. Thank you for being such an attentive audience.

And for those who didn't... well, it's hard to convey what we covered. I considered posting my outline, but I don't think in complete sentences. And I sure as heck don't outline that way. But here are the broad strokes:

  • We spent a good deal of time talking about the power of free. This is always a contentious topic, especially when talking to authors. And while I received a few questioning looks when I started, I think I won them over. Not that I attempted to convince them to give their stuff away for free. Not at all. But I did convince them that some authors are finding ways to use free to gain readers, book deals and real sales. They also walked away understanding this trend isn't a flash in the pan -- it will continue. And they have to try and work in that world.

  • I introduced my "Three Tees that Plague Underpublished Authors" concept. It went over well and I think made my further points hit home that much stronger. They are:

    1. Quality -- Can you hire the rest of the production team to make your book exceptional?
    2. Quantity -- You need more where that came from. Period.
    3. Obscurity -- By and large, people aren't waiting to steal your work. Because they don't know your work exists.

    Who said anything about them starting with "T"?

  • Done is better than perfect, great is better than OK, but success comes when you create something that is truly remarkable. Those terrible books that are terribly popular? They are so because they are remarkable. How do you create something remarkable? [Insert Your Answer Here]

  • Yes, we got specific on social media properties. But it wasn't the focus. Nor should a talk like this ever focus on tools. Tool-specific talks can, but not a survey class. We covered Gmail (there was and is a purpose, trust me), Google Alerts, Facebook, LinkedIN and blogging. Notice anyone missing?

    One common misconception I had to correct at least twice -- updating once a month. That's not nearly enough. How much is enough? Well... more is better than less. If you're trying to do weekly, someone is successfully doing it daily. YMMV.


[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Evo Terra signing Anne's book, courtesy of Nick Bastian"]Evo Terra signing Anne's book[/caption]And then suddenly, the two hours were over. Yes, like that. And someone brought a copy of one of my books and asked me to sign it! Thanks, Anne!

But not to worry. I'll be back. Based on the questions during the class and the feedback I heard afterward, there's a great need for more of this. Let's do it! Keep watching here and the Changing Hands website. I'm sure you'll see more -- and more formalized -- classes with me starting up quickly!

Quick question: do I stick with "for Aspiring Authors" or switch over to my personal favorite " for Underpublished Authors"? I'm obviously biased, and much of this depends on what CH wants to do. But your comments would be helpful to steer us in the right direction...

Friday, December 25, 2009

Using word clouds as reader and author

I'm a rather verbose person by nature. As a kid, I never worried much about having a 500 word report prepared by the end of the week. I usually had it done by the end of the period.

When I wrote Podcasting For Dummies, I had to learn to curtail much of that. That's a very different writing style. But I've adopted it. And I think it makes my writing more effective. I also give props to Patrick McLean for being an inspiration. Seriously, if you want to know how to write clearly, concisely and effectively, you couldn't ask for a better writing coach than Patrick.

Which brings me to the discussion of the 4322 four thousand, three hundred twenty-two (4,322) word blog post by Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President of Product Management for Google. The title was The meaning of open, a topic of some import with me. So I read it. All of it. Whew. Now I'm tired. I'm glad I read it. But chances are, you won't take the time. It's simply too long. He's approaching the halfway mark of a novella.

Luckily, the advent of the web -- speaking of open -- has provided a visualization tool that helps. Wordle is a free service that lets you paste in text and create an on-the-fly word cloud. The more a word is used, the larger it appears in the loud. There are other factors involved as well. Here's the word cloud of Mr. Rosenberg's blog post:

[caption id="attachment_51" width="500" caption="Word cloud for really long Google blog post"]Word cloud for really long Google blog post[/caption]

While it's a poor substitute for actually reading the work, it can provide valuable insight. Insight that helps you decide if you should read the whole thing or not. Conversely, this could be a helpful self-check measure. Create your own word cloud out of something you are writing. Does the cloud match your intent? It should. If it doesn't, you didn't use the right words.