What to do after NaNoWriMo

Writing in the Sky by Shinichi Maruyama

If you found a month madly dedicated to one project exhilarating amidst the exhaustion :-) there are more challenges throughout the year, some lasting a month, some a week, some 3 days, some 24 straight hours. :-) (The NaNoWriMo folks aren't affiliated with any of these except Script Frenzy.)

From the I Wrote a Novel, Now What? page at the NaNoWriMo site which might have more challenges added throughout the year (plus a few free contests). (For readers in the future, if you've stumbled across this page during November, the link probably won't work. A fresh page will go up early December.)

December
NaNoFiMo.org - National Novel Finishing Month (December). Goal: 30,000 words.
De-PlotWriMo - Plot Writing Month (December). Goal: Refine the plot arc of your first draft.

Varies or throughout the year
NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month (Year-Round). Goal: Post every day for a month.
WriYe - (Year-Round). Goal: Set a word-count goal for the year and work towards it between January 1 and December 31.
48 Hour Film Project - (Varies; operates via tours around the USA, lasts 48 hours). Goal: Create a short film in 48 hours.
SciFiWriMo - Science Fiction Writing Month (Year-Round). Goal: choose a target word count and reach it in a month, writing sci-fi or fantasy.
750 Words (Year-Round). Goal: write 750 words a day. Includes month-long challenges.

January
JanNoWriMo - Goal: Write either 50k or your own word-count goal in January.

February
FAWM - February Album Writing Month (February). Goal: Write 14 original songs in a month.

March
NaNoEdMo - National Novel Editing Month (March). Goal: Commit to 50 hours of novel editing.

April
Script Frenzy - NaNoWriMo's sister challenge (April). Goal: Write a 100-page screenplay, stage play, comic book, or set of TV scripts in April.
RePoWriMo - Refrigerator Poetry Writing Month (April). Goal: Write poetry using only refrigerator poetry magnets.
April Fool's - (April). Goal: Set a word-count goal for yourself and fulfill it by the end of the month.

May
National Picture Book Writing Week - (First week of May). Goal: Write 7 picture books in 7 days.
NEPMo - National Epic Poetry Month (May). Goal: Write 5,000 lines epic poem in May.
SoFoBoMo - Solo Photo Book Month (Between May first and June 31). Goal: Create a solo photo book within 31 days.
Story A Day - (Throughout May). The only rules: Write a story a day. Finish them. Note from me: this could easily be harder than NaNo if your stories are more than 1667 words each! :-) If you'd like to keep word count under control you might want to check out the various forms of Flash fiction.

June
ComiKaze - Create a 24 page comic in 24 hours. Participants pages are posted at the Pulp Faction forums.
WriDaNoJu - Write a Damn Novel in June (June). Goal: Write 50K in the 30 days of June. It's perfectly situated six months from November so you have optimum time to prepare for WriDaNoJu and NaNoWriMo.
SoCNoC - Southern Cross Novel Challenge (June). Goal: Write 50,000 words of fiction.

July
JulNoWriMo - July Novel Writing Month (July). Goal: 50,000 words for a new or unfinished manuscript.

August
AugNoWriMo - August Novel Writing Month (August). Goal: Write a novel in one month.

September
3-Day Novel Contest - (September). Goal: Write a novel in three days. They've been doing this since 1977. So cool!
SeptNoWriMo - September Novel Writing Month (September). Goal: Set a word-count goal and edit, write, or edit and write throughout the month of September!

October
24 Hour Comics Day - (Date changes annually, lasts 24 hours). Goal: Draw a 24-page comic in one 24-hour period.
GothNoWriMo - Gothic Novel Writing Month (October). Goal: Write a gothic novel in October.

November
NaPlWriMo - National Playwriting Month (November). Goal: Write a play in one month.
NaNoMango - The manga alternative to NaNoWriMo. Either 30 penciled, 15 inked, or 10 completely finished pages of a comic book in 30 days.
PiBoIdMo - Picture Book Idea Month (November). Goal: Write 30 ideas in 30 days.

24 Hour Comic Book Challenge

Next Saturday, October 2, starting at 3PM, the 24 Hour Comic Book Challenge begins. The goal is to create a complete (penciled, inked, and lettered) 24 page comic in 24 hours.

My daughter Kat and I will be there, pencils, inking pens and paper at the ready :-) You can check at the ComicsPro site to see if there's a hosting site near you. Of course anyone can do it at home, knowing that people all over the world are hunkering over their drawing tables or computer tablets at the same time, but a group can often be inspiring and energizing :-)

If you make it all the way through the 24 hours, you can submit a copy of your comic to the archives at Ohio State University.

How much preparation you do before the 24 hours begins is up to you since it's a personal challenge rather than a contest but you can't start the comic until the 24 hours begins. The original challenge was created in 1990 by Scott McCloud for himself long-time fellow comic artist Steve Bisset. Scott's rules were you needed to begin with no preconceived idea, no character sketches! The rules for the Australian version are: "The Challenge is to create a comic in 24 hours, in whatever medium you're comfortable in. Use ink, computer graphics, paint, magazine photos, crayons; use paper, bristol board, wacom tablets - it doesn't matter." So it's up to you! It's your comic. Your challenge.

One tip Scott passed on is the pages should generally have more than one panel (to feel like a comic book) but don't try to do more than 4 panels per page. (It's hard enough as it is!)

These are not pretty comics :-) The finished product will be glaringly imperfect but the point is to get past the perfectionism block to complete a story. Tip: If you're spending more than an hour (sketching, inking, lettering) on a page, you're going too slow.


Here's some online comic creation sites. Not guaranteeing any of these will help with a 24 hour comic, but they look like fun :-) Some might be useful for storyboards. The Marvel site will create a 22-page comic but perhaps it does so much for you that it might take the challenge out of the challenge.

Marvel's Superhero Squad
This is nifty. You can create either a comic strip or comic book (up to 22 pages) starring Marvel Superheros. Choose the page layout, drag over resizable characters, backgrounds, objects, words balloons. Download when you're done.

Stripcreator at Make a comic
1-3 panels. Simple pull down menus to choose location, funky characters, emotions and so on. Slick and simple. Could be good for quick storyboards.

Make Beliefs Comix
Click and drag from 20 characters with many emotion options, word balloons, captions and objects. You can even write in Latin (among other languages)! There's also a monthly contest there for comics created with Make Beliefs Comix.

Pixton: Click and Drag comics
Multiple layouts for strips and comic pages.

ToonDoo
I didn't register to check it out, but the 1-3 panel strips on the main page suggest you can draw your own characters. It looks like you can create your own characters and emotions so you can use them over again.

What to do after NaNo

Here's a list of upcoming writing challenges posted at the NaNoWriMo website. On that page there are also "Thoughts on publishing" and "Tips on rewriting."

• Script Frenzy - NaNoWriMo's sister challenge (April). Goal: Write a 100-page screenplay or stage play in April.
  
  
• NaNoFiMo.org - National Novel Finishing Month (December). Goal: 30,000 words.
  
  
• JaNoWriMo - January Novel Writing Month (January). Goal: 50,000 words, or whatever goal you set.
  
  
• FAWM - February Album Writing Month (February). Goal: Write 14 original songs in a month.
  
  
• NaNoEdMo - National Novel Editing Month (March). Goal: Commit to 50 hours of novel editing.
  
  
• JulNoWriMo - July Novel Writing Month (July). Goal: 50,000 words for a new or unfinished manuscript.
  
  
• 24 Hour Comics Day - (Changes annually, lasts 24 hours). Goal: Draw a 24-page comic in one 24-hour period.
  
  
• 48 Hour Film Project - (Varies; operates via tours around the USA, lasts 48 hours). Goal: Create a short film in 48 hours.
  
  
• Book in a Week - (Begins on the Monday of the first full week of each month, lasts one week). Goal: Write a novel.
  
  
• Mad Challenge - (Varies). Goal: Complete a variety of point challenges issued by moderators, including writing 10,000 in 5 hours.
  
  
• April Fool's - (April). Goal: Set a word-count goal for yourself and fulfill it by the end of the month.
  
  
• 3-Day Novel Contest - (August 30-September 1). Goal: Write a novel in three days.
  
  
• NaPlWriMo - National Playwriting Month (November). Goal: Write a play in one month.
  
  
• NaNoMangO - The artist's alternative to NaNoWriMo (June and November). Goal: Draw 30 pages of sequential art in one month. (Though try searching on NaNoMangO and the year. There are several communities that host this.)
  
  
• AugNoWriMo - August Novel Writing Month (August). Goal: Write a novel in one month.
  

Script Frenzy

For those who brought you National Novel Writing Month, now comes Script Frenzy!

30 days to a finished script. If you know nothing about writing scripts, and my few-days-ago prompt wasn't enough, there are tips and essays on script writing at the website, a plot machine (with some very bizarre plots that would be a true challenge to adopt ;-), a young writer's program, forums and some other goodies. :-)

From Chris Baty:

Thanks to Earth's slouchy axis, NaNoWriMo's contingent of Australian and Kiwi authors get to take part in NaNoWriMo in the summer. It's always sounded so nice to us---warm weather, cold drinks, and a few pages of prose between laps in the pool---that we wanted to share the experience with the northern hemisphere.

Which is why we're proud to announce the birth of a second major event in the Office of Letters and Light family. Script Frenzy---in which first-time scriptwriters and old pros get together to write feature-length movies and plays in June---has launched.

Like NaNoWriMo, it's free to participate. And also like NaNoWriMo, we're going to spend a great, hilarious month pushing our creative limits, getting in over our heads, and churning out pages of brilliance and embarrassing drivel. In Script Frenzy, you can even write with a partner!

Do you love watching movies? Ever been moved by a play?

It's time you wrote one. Come join the Frenzy. You can even sign into the Script Frenzy site using your NaNoWriMo username!

Six word memoir

Write your memoir in 6 words and submit it to Smith magazine for potential inclusion in a book to be published in 2008 by HarperCollins.

Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words. The result was "For sale: baby shoes, never used."

Since SMITH [magazine] celebrates the personal side of storytelling, our twist on this classic concept is the six-word memoir--the short, short true story of your life.

It could be the title of your autobiography, or maybe your epitaph. Shorter than haiku and meatier that a one-liner, it truly makes you take stock of who you are. Try it.

Here are some examples from the website:

Barrister, barista, what’s the diff, Mom?
– Abigail Moorhouse

"What? Lemony Snicket? Lemony Snicket? What?"
– Daniel Handler

"My spiritual path is 100 proof."
– John House

"He wore dresses. This caused messes."
– Josh Kilmer-Purcell

"Yes to every date, met mate."
– Maria Dahvana Headley

"Shy Jersey kid, overcompensating ever since."
– Ariel Kaminer

"Take a left turn, then fly."
– Hillary Carlip

"Haunting dad, spotlight mom, retrieving marriage."
– Nell Casey

"Big hair, big heart, big hurry."
– Larry Smith

Eight thousand orgasms. Only one baby.
– Neal Pollack

I still make coffee for two.
– Zak Nelson

"On the seventh word, he rested."
– Stephen J. Dubner

National Novel Writing Month is almost here!

Next month is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! It's a challenge started by Chris Baty to produce a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days, starting November 1 and ending midnight November 30.

Yes, it's insane and yes, it's a lot of fun :-)

My daughter, Kat (15), and I have done it for the past 2 years.

The great part about NaNoWriMo is that when the goal is to produce words rather than "good writing" then amazingly creative things flow out. Well, a lot of junk too! But when you turn off your inner editor, that little voice that says "No, that's no good, that won't work," you free yourself up to be more creative.

You can plan -- think up a basic story outline -- but no writing until Nov 1. (That's in 2 Wednesdays.)

I've done it with no plan 2 years in a row and it's worked out great. Even had a few hours to spare. ;-) Considering that the novel I've been picking at for the last 20 years hasn't gotten beyond (it's embarrassing to say ;-) 100,000 words of notes, actually finishing something and seeing the ideas flow without being planned was enlightening to say the least :-)

(When you're done you upload your work to the Nanowrimo word counter and it automatically counts your words. It's very generous about what it considers a word. No one reads it. It's just shear number of words.)

The first year we did it we set our goal at 1700 words per day (which would be 51,000) but some days the writing doesn't flow as well and some days get very busy (there's Thanksgiving and preparation in there!) so last year we set our daily goal as 2000 which gave us some generous padding.

Someone asked me last year how much time it takes and I was hesitant to say because for us it's a lot. But I read Chris Baty's book, No Plot, No Problem, and he said it takes 1.5 to 2 hours a day on average. Most people doing it also have jobs or go to school so that's all the time they can give it. So the answer to how much time will it take is that it will take us much time as you give it, basically! If you give it all day, it takes all day. If you only have 2 hours, it takes 2 hours.

Get free books in return for writing

Someone just posted this. Thought I'd pass it along:

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