Reflections on NaNoWriMo 2011

After my epic fail attempt at NaNo last year I wrote this post. At that time I did not expect to try NaNo again.

Um, I so did NaNo this year and whupped its sorry arse. Can't tell I'm proud of myself, can you?

So, what was the difference between last year and this?

1. I joined an online critique group full of some pretty amazing people with lots of insight. They've taught me a lot.
2. I've attended writing conferences and critique bootcamps (LTUE, Storymaker, UVU Book Academy).
3. I've joined associations for writers (iWriteNetwork, ANWA, Authors Incognito, LUW)
4. Through blogging and conference attendance, I've met and become friends with lots of other writers, many of whom I've met in real life.
5. After attending my second critique bootcamp, some of us formed a local in-person critique group. We range in age from a 15-year-old boy (he's amazing, btw) to grandmothers older even than I am.
6. I learned how to use sprint writing and the pomodoro technique to help me focus and really crank out the words. I love using their timer and will continue to do so when writing and editing.
7. I forced myself to keep writing even when I wasn't sure where to take the story, knowing it was going to change some in the editing process anyway.

When I did NaNo last year, I was very much alone. I had no cheerleader or people with whom to bounce ideas off (except for my sons, who are wonderful but not writers). This year, if I ran into a snag I had three different sprint writing locations  and social groups via Facebook and Yahoo Groups I could go and there'd be writers I could bounce ideas off or get ideas from.

I hear often that writing is a solitary business. It can be, as it was for my first year. But methinks times they are achangin'. I know that not all writers/authors are made of sweetness and light, and I realize many find themselves on different sides of the debate about where the future of publishing will end.

Overall, however, I've found this community to be full of helpful, giving people who are happy to share from their experience. Rather than feeling threatened by potential rivals they are out there cheering us on and more than willing to give us a helping hand.

I think that's why NaNo was such a different experience for me this year. Next year? Real life will determine that but I'm hopeful. I had a tight schedule what with putting on a municipal election that I won't have to worry about next year (I'll be able to attend the writing retreat--squeee!).

What about you? Have you found the writing community to be as friendly as I have? Did you attempt NaNo this year? If so, how are you doing?

And a humorous note, I stole this from Stina Lindenblatt over at Seeing Creative. It made me laugh.

UVU Book Academy Report ... And Queries

My very first writing conference was the UVU Book Academy in 2010. It's a one-day conference held at the local university. I thought it was an amazing event then because I had nothing to compare it to. I was also extremely new and raw to this writing thing. I'd completed one book (and was editing it) and had written 50,000 words of a new project (something I'm dying to get back to).

It was a very different experience this year because I knew people, and I actually understood some of what they were talking about. I even knew more about some stuff than other people there.

Scary. I mean, really. Me? Knowing more than someone else? But it showed me how much I've learned in the last last year. Sometimes those little advancements we make are slow enough we don't notice them.

I got some pictures with people whose blogs I follow.

David Powers King (click here for his blog)

Brenda Sills (click here for her blog)

Michelle Teacress (click here for her blog)

I got to touch base with a wonderful lady I met last year, who's toying with the idea of writing a nonfiction book but hasn't taken the plunge yet. And I connected with two awesome ladies who are members of my League of Utah Writers chapter and my ANWA group--Canda Mortensen and Deanna Henderson. They are a mother/daughter writing team (how fun is that?), and with another author, Cindy Hogan, they've started a writing network called iWriteNetwork. You can check it out here.

Dan Wells, one of my favorite authors, was the Keynote Speaker. You might recognize him from his I Am Not a Serial Killer series (which I reviewed here). Dan also cohosts Writing Excuses (with Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinette Kowal). Dan's funny and addressed a question he gets a lot from people. "Where do you get your ideas from?"

Quote of the day: 

"It is not about ideas; it's about turning ideas into stories.

~Dan Wells

 Dan then went on to demonstrate how ideas are all around us, from news stories to politics to science to casual observation of the people around us. He had people suggest a simple statement and then go on to see how that could be developed by asking questions. Some of the suggestions were funny, but Dan made them hilarious. There were some with real story potential.

Queries

I'm in the process of writing (and rewriting, and rewriting, and rewriting) my very first query. I've done a ton of query writing research and have had several people look at it and will take it to my live critique group on Saturday. It's been quite the experience. It still needs work, but I've made progress, which I find encouraging. Because of this I was particularly interested the the following class today.

Kirk Shaw, a senior editor at Covenant Communications, and Lisa Mangum, author and editor for Deseret Book, presented a class on "Writing Killer Query Letters", which they renamed "Writing Nondreary Query Letters."

Prequery Research

• Read your genre
• Try and find a publisher or agent who already represents books you like to read
• Find out what the publisher's or agent's expections are
• Follow agents blogs who review queries
• Pay attention online to input on how agents/publishers treat their writers. No relationship is perfect, but be cautious about jumping in where the fit doesn't work
• Check page length / word count requirements

Placing Your Story

• Set the genre
• Compare to similar books either in style, voice, or theme where it applies. Don't make it up if there isn't a similarity.

Tone

• Be professional. You can decide to treat it as a business contract proposal (which it really is) or you can try and capture the tone from your book. 
• Get into a simple review of the story

Hook (Lisa took this from a class author Scott Savage taught)

• Who it is about
• What the goal is
• What the obstacle is
• What are the consequences / cost of failure

A great place to see how well hooks can be done is to read the dust jacket of books.

Summary

This should lead them to want to keep reading.

References / Credentials

• Why should they invest in you as a brand?
• Are you a serious writer? What have you done to prove that? Are you already published? Do you attend writers conferences or belong to writers groups to further your knowledge of the craft?
• Can they trust you to be a partner in the publishing process?
• You may share other projects you're working on, even if they aren't finished.
• If it's a series or has series potential, this is where you'd mention that.

They suggested writing your back copy and then writing the book. You can then go back and see if you met your goals and rewrite the back copy.

From the rest of the conference, I came away with lots to think about, especially as I begin the plotting process for my NaNo project.

Have you written a query letter yet?

If not, do you have any plans for when you do?

If you have, do you have any suggestions for us noobs?

LDS StoryMakers Conference

What a season this is to have so many writerly conferences and symposiums happening. It's exciting because there's so much to learn out there, and as I discovered at Life, the Universe and Everything there's a wonderful world of writerly folks all around me.

When I attended the UVU Book Academy last September I saw just a bit of it and was surprised that it wasn't just writers who attended the conference but book reviewers, publishers, animators, agents, and editors. So much networking going on and new friends to make.

If you're one of these folks and you love the world of books, in whatever capacity, you might want to consider checking out their schedule. You can click here or on the LDS StoryMakers Conference logo at the top of the blog.

I signed up to attend a couple of months ago, when I first heard about it from Robin Weeks. I added the Bootcamp session at her suggestion.

Anybody planning to attend?