NBI & NaNoWriMo

I think we’ve all had a point during out writing when the NBI (next big idea) pops into our head and we want to abandon ship for a newer, sexier model. While I’m proud to say that the discipline beaten into me as a child won’t allow me to do that (I make up for this remarkable trait with many, MANY bad habits) Janet Evanovich has a solution that just tickled me:

"Q: I’m all over the place. I start a book, but then I get ideas for another and yet another; and then I begin those with the intent of coming back and finishing the first ones, which of course never happens. Do you have words of wisdom for a dreamer like me?

JANET EVANOVICH: How about this – you start a book and every time you veer off in another direction, you imagine me standing behind you giving you a good hard smack on the head. "

Yes, Janet slapping me upside the head would just about do it I think.

“Don’t fall into the trap of rewriting chapter one until it’s perfect. And don’t discard everything you write halfway through because you’re sure it sucks. Writing stuff that sucks is part of the learning process!”

-- Janet Evanovich

From what I can gather from our best selling authors if your rough draft doesn’t suck, you’re not doing it right!

 
Celebrate the horror of poorly constructed sentences, unnecessary scenes and character names that all sound the same with a glass of champagne (or maybe a few if you think you’re really going to need your senses dulled for the first read through) because you’re on your way to being the next Nora Roberts!
 
To do or not to do NanoWriMo? I signed up for a course in November and now I’m wondering whether I should have signed myself into a mental hospital instead because I’m considering doing NaNo as well.
 
Does anyone want to volunteer to scrape me off the floor when I collapse?
 
Show of hands, who else is considering NaNoWriMo?

Unorganized Perfectionist

I’m typing this in the dark. That’s right ladies and gentlemen I’m a rebel. Alert the town elders! Actually even though the town elders aren’t with me right now I can practically hear my grandmother’s voice in my head telling me to turn the light on or have my retinas burnt out. Choices, choices…

Unorganised perfectionist. A good friend gave me a notepad with those two words on it. Do you think she was trying to tell me something? You would think it wouldn’t be possible wouldn't you? An unorganized perfectionist. Someone anal should surely have their life together, right? Tell that to the moving boxes (I think they’re breeding).

You’ve probably heard via town crier that Stephenie Meyer was the biggest selling writer in the US in 2008 with 15 million book sales (Romantic Times). The aim of this fact lesson isn’t to bore you senseless but to point out that the lovely Miss Meyer has taken pity on the rest of the unpublished and confessed to harsh rejection in the same manner as which Janet Evanovich confessed to avoiding the agent who wrote an acceptance with a purple crayon on a bar napkin (as you do).

Now I haven’t actually read Meyer's series or watched the movie (which is a first) so I got to be an outsider for once, I got to observe the media frenzy. The truth is you get swept away with the excitement. I know quite a bit about Stephenie having never read a piece of her work! I find that alone, amazing. Imagine the world knowing all about you without having picked up your book because you are THAT good. I say dream BIG! Build an extra house for your dream if you have to ;)!

Stephenie’s story speaks of intimidation with the whole publishing process and luck (the 'L' word has been proven to be a key ingredient in many big successes) and you can read about it right HERE.

Hope it buoys you ;) Let me know your thoughts.