NaNoWriMo: The Journey of Four Authors

Kendra at Reader’s Edyn and I are teaming up to help clear up all the hype about NaNoWriMo in our little piece of the blogger blogosphere and shed some light on the importance of the event. Our talent extends to reviewing and well, er... end of talent. After that, we got nothing. No writing a novel us! BUT, we are all about supporting our authors/fellow bloggers who are participating in NaNoWriMo. We thought it would be fun to follow the journey of four aspiring authors who are using NaNoWriMo to write a book. Additionally, each week (starting next week) we will have a guest appearance by an author who is both published and using NaNoWriMo - a different one each weak. Since we are featuring different authors, we ask that you hop over the other one’s blog each week for an in depth look at this EPIC journey. If you enjoy yourself, please follow us and the authors. We will provide contact info for everyone.

This mini-hop is dedicated to the awesome efforts of every author out there; recognizing the crazy roller coaster that starts with an idea and eventually evolves into a book produced for our reading pleasure. This ain’t easy, Yo! So, we are here to show all of our authors some love!

What is NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The purpose of NaNoWriMo is to encourage writers everywhere to write a book in one month. Hence, this event runs from November 1st – 30th. The focus of NaNoWriMo is quantity and quality hits the road during November. Why, you ask? Simple. Because getting your thoughts and ideas down is one of the most important elements in the writing process. The editing, revising, polishing, etc. - also very time consuming stuff - can wait until after November 30th to be addressed. Basically, write your booty off for the entire month and go back to polish the finer points afterward.

NaNoWriMo is supposed to give impetus to aspiring authors who have excuses like, “I wish I could write a book.” - or - “I’ve always wanted to do that.” Well, now you can! You take a month and give it your best shot.  Is everyone going to accomplish all of their goals set for NaNoWriMo? Unlikely. However, getting started is the biggest hurdle and we are here to encourage our peers.

Get this: last year NaNoWriMo had over 200,000 participants with over 30,000 of them exceeding 50,000 words when 2010 NaNoWriMo was over. No small feat, that. Additionally, all participating writers are able to buddy up with other participants. Everyone encourages everyone else. How awesome is that? Uh – completely awesome! *nods*

The very essence of NaNoWriMo is stated very succinctly in this quote taken from their website:

“Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.  (http://www.nanowrimo.org/whatisnano)

Now, you ask, “but, you keep saying ‘aspiring authors.’ Isn’t NaNoWriMo only for those who have yet to write a book?” Heck no! There are a ton of accomplished and published authors who are using NaNoWriMo! And guess what? As a special treat, we will both be featuring a guest author each week telling us her thoughts on NaNoWriMo. So don’t forget to visit my buddy’s blog to check it out. How spectacular is that? Freakin’ fantastic if you ask me!

So, for people like us who would never dream of tarnishing the writing process with an epic piece of crap (which is why we will stick to reviews) and who had no clue what all the NaNo-whatever hooplah was all about, does it make more sense now? We are supporting our NaNoWriMo participants and all the others out there because it means the authors who participate have the potential to create a masterpiece. Honestl, how can we not support them in this endeavor? We can’t! Plain and simple. So, join me and Kendra at Reader’s Edyn on this courageous adventure where four aspiring authors carve a path into the writing process. We will follow them through their successes and frustrations of NaNoWriMo. And don’t forget, we will have some amazing published authors along the way sharing their thoughts with us. Woot!

Introductions:

Sara Grayson

• Name: Sara Grayson
• NaNo Name: PoisonRose79
• NaNoWriMo Goals:
• To get SOME writing done every day. I may not hit my goal, but I am trying.
• **To get my heroine and the main antagonist to work with me on this, not against me....grrr
• Contact: Twitter: @PoisonRose79
• Blog: Picked by Poison
• E-mail:Poison Rose

Story Synopsis:

She wanted to find her brother's killer.
When Ebony Blaze finds her brother brutally murdered, she swore she would find and kill the man responsible for taking her protector away from her. Now about to finish her degree and become a cop, she is that much closer to her goal...until Fate intervenes

He wanted her dead before her skills were evolved.
Jesse VanAlbericht came to town with one goal in mind, kill Ebony without being discovered. This seemed easy enough until he discovered her hidden talent, now he's being hunted...by her. Will he be able to keep his secret safe or wind up back in Hell under a different kind of lock-down?

Only Fate knows how things will end.

Kelly Rubidoux

• Name: Kelly Rubidoux
• NaNo Name: Soulswallo
• NaNoWriMo Goals:
• To write the best damn Zombie book ever - or at least write a book with Zombies in it.
• Contact: Twitter: @soulswallo
• Blog: Blog:  Reading the Paranormal
• Goodreadsl:  Soulswallo

Story Synopsis:

My currently untitled epic Zombie story that will have Zombies:

Once upon a time there was a town surrounded by cows and garlic. Then the world ended. Now it's surrounded by cows and garlic and zombies. Bad things happen. Badder things happen. Screaming! Mayhem! Blood! Possibly guts! More bad things!

Warning: Contains a main character that likes to take her clothes off without provocation, a hot boy who used to be a skinny nerd, and a bunch of zombies that like to eat people. Not in a sexy way. Read at your own risk.

Liza Wethers

• Name: Liza Wethers
• NaNo Name :MonsterMaX3
• NaNoWriMo Goals:
• To actually write the book and NOT edit myself out of writing
• Contact: Twitter: @BtweenTheCovers (blog) or @MonsterMaX3 (personal)
• Blog: Blog: Between the Covers

Story Synopsis:

Vampire Blues and Cute Shoes (Working Title)

A story about a woman who stumbles onto the supernatural world on THE blind date from hell. There will be snark, smart assery, and jackassery

Gigi Pryce

• Name: LGigi Pryce
• NaNo Name :Georgiep63
• NaNoWriMo Goals:
• To write 40K
• To challenge myself
• Contact: Twitter: @Gigi_DDLF
• Blog: Bona Fide Reflections

Story Synopsis:

Vampire Blues and Cute Shoes (Working Title)

I came late to the NaNo game and was convinced to do this by my lovely boyfriend and my lovely twitter friends and honestly Laurie was also very encouraging when I told her that I wanted to do it. Since this is my first year doing NaNo I'm only going for 40k where I know that other people are going for 60k. I've also decided that I'm doing this purely for myself and not for any other reason. I'm doing it purely to challenge myself and just see if its something that I can do. Some people are going to actually self pub their manuscripts and they use this as a goal to push themselves in their writing, I'm doing this for pleasure, and I am really enjoying it. I wish I had decided to do it earlier as I would have liked to done more preparation and outlining and done some research but at the end of the day. I'm a creative person and I'm flying by the seat of my pants and honestly I am having a whale of a time.

My story has a working title of Sirens Song and I am calling it a working title because I'm also thinking about calling it the Siren Mysteries.

I'm writing a story about a Siren Named Sydney who lives in a town in florida who uses her Siren Song to solve Mysteries, and to protect Ocean Life. It centers around how she works for the local aquarium and she protects the manatees from getting run over by motor boats. She gets called to see the Sea Witch who is the Queen of all the Sea Fae and she is pulled into Fae politics and she uses her Siren Song to basically solve a mystery and return a stolen object for the Sea Witch that if not returned would Bring the Land and Sea Courts out of Balance.

Anyway, this is what I have so far. I wrote a story about Fae as they are my FAVORITE paranormal entity and I know alot about them. I literally have a notebook full of paranormal story ideas so it was the easiest one for me to choose. Either Fae or Werewolves. In the end, the Fae won.

And that, friends, is an an introduction to NaNoWriMo and our authors. Thanks for stopping by!