Are you itching for the competition and camaraderie that spurs you to write 50,000 words in November? Can’t wait 6 more months? Online writers are gathering for a May National Novel Writing Month. I need this push to get back in the saddle after four months of traveling, traveling, traveling. Thanks to author Patti O’Shea who twittered the heads up!

Goal: write 50 thousand words in one month, on whatever writing project you desire. You don’t have to start at ground zero on a new project.

Timeframe: May 1 12:00 am – May 31 11:59 pm

Ciara’s Project: I’m going to be working on the same story I was working on for NaNoWriMo, The Gates of Hell, ’bout that werewolf and those ghosts and stuff. Cherry Adair will yell at me if I don’t finish the damn book by October, and I’m scared.

Agent Angela Knight twittered about a new contest today. Can you pitch your book in 140 characters? The Knight Agency (representatives of Nalini Singh, Gena Showalter and Jessica Andersen) is currently running a query contest. You have until April 20th to boil your plot, characters and emotion down into three fabulous sentences. Check out #queryfail on twitter for ideas of what NOT to do.

Here’s a chance to have your project reviewed by one of the agents at The Knight Agency. Submit three compelling sentences (150 words max) about your completed, unpublished manuscript to submissions @ knightagency.net (delete spaces). Write BOOK IN A NUTSHELL in the subject line or it will not be deemed eligible. One submission per project, please. Twenty of the best submissions will be chosen and requested by various agents who will then give feedback on your work…and it may even lead to possible representation. Hurry, the deadline is April 20, 2009. Winners will be notified by May 1, 2009.

I also recommend practicing by writing haikus.

My current WIP:
Cruising for love with
best girl friends. Ruthless tycoon
sweeps her off her feet.

Needs work.

Dreaming writer reads
more than she writes. So many
social networking sites books, so little time.

This is for all you romance bloggers out there who are also aspiring authors. You know who you are. There is ONE WEEK LEFT to enter for a chance to get the first three chapters of your manuscript read by Avon author Jenna Petersen’s agent:

Each month in 2009, The Passionate Pen will be hosting another huge contest with another huge prize as we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the website. Be sure to read the rules FULLY before you enter:

January Contest:

The Prize: A first three chapter read of a manuscript from this month’s industry interviewee, Miriam Kriss of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency. **Please read the rules BEFORE you enter*

Miriam Kriss joined the Irene Goodman Literary Agency just as she was finishing her master’s degree in Fine Arts at New York University, and quickly became one of the hottest young agents in town. Going from Michelangelo to Nora Roberts was not as great a leap as it might seem, as Miriam had been obsessively reading commercial fiction since she found a copy of Judith McNaught’s classic Whitney, My Love in a rented lakeside cabin when she was thirteen. A few pages in, not only were some gaps in her Catholic school education filled, but she was hooked. She reads fast: one hundred pages an hour, a novel a day, and well, that adds up to a lot of books a year. Miriam likes to say Irene knows the market because she’s been doing this for over twenty-five years and is savvy as all get out, but Miriam herself knows the market because she is the market. And that knowledge has paid off for both her and her clients in a big way.

Sales to major publishers include several six-figure deals for first-time authors, and her client list continues to grow. Her first solo sale, also from a first-time author, hit several bestseller lists in its first week out. She has since had numerous clients appear on the USA Today list, as well as two clients who have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, at one point during the same memorable week. What’s more, now that reading is legitimately “work”, she devours two or three novels and manuscripts a day.

How to Enter: Email an answer the following question about The Passionate Pen website:

In what year did Jenna add a diary to The Passionate Pen? (hint, check out the diary page)

Other Rules:

• One answer per email. Extras will be thrown out.

• You must be able to send your manuscript chapters for review by February 2 (one week after the contest closes and the winner is notified). Don’t make the agent wait. It’s bad form.

• By answering the email question you are agreeing to be invited to the Jenna/Jess newsletter. You don’t have to accept the invite, but you will receive an invitation if you are not already a member.

• Winner will be drawn Monday, January 26 and notified that same day. If a winner does not reply to the email by January 30, another winner will be drawn.

Good luck!

So you finished NaNo. Now what? Stick your manuscript under the bed and forget about it? NO! Dust that thing off and get back to work refining and polishing ’till it shines. Here are some books to help you with that task:

1. SELF EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS by Renni Brown and Dave King
2. SOMETIMES THE MAGIC WORKS: LESSONS ON A WRITING LIFE by Terry Brooks
3. THE FOREST FOR THE TREES: AN EDITORS ADVICE TO WRITERS by Betsy Lerner
4. THE LANGUAGE OF THE NIGHT by Ursula LeGuin
5. MANUSCRIPT MAKEOVER by Elizabeth Lyon
6. A WRITER’S GUIDE TO FICTION by Elizabeth Lyon
7. EMPOWERING CHARACTER EMOTIONS by Margie Lawson (buy from her website)
8. DEEP EDITING: THE EDITS SYSTEM by Margie Lawson (buy from her website)
9. THE CAREER NOVELIST by Donald Maass (free download here)

I did it. In thirty days I managed to write 50,000 words, breaking a new personal record and winning for the first time the challenge of National Novel Writing Month. It was a heroic journey: I sailed to new heights and fell to new lows. I wrote the most I’ve ever written in a single day, and gave up all hope of ever writing a single word again. I overcame my internal editor (and, man, that biyatch fights dirty!) and I emerged reenergized about why I write: I love it.

On November 1st I was full of hope. 1,667 words a day? Sure, that’s a doable challenge. No, I haven’t ever written that much for more than two days in a row, but hey, a little discipline will be good for me.

I chugged along, the little engine that could, reaching the daily minimum and retiring to lose myself in another Suzanne Brockmann novel. Eventually it got easier as my brain muscles accustomed to writing every day. Some days I was visited by flashes of inspiration, when my fingers typed out of control and my story stormed out like a force of nature.

Then there were days when one thousand words might have been ten thousand, and it was all I could do to make my characters stand up, shake hands, and say “how do you do?”.

Fun and games made an appearance: designing a mock cover and writing a blurb. I traveled a bit. Read most of Suzanne’s Troubleshooter Series. Fell in love with Jules Cassidy and Sam Starrett.

I was excited to make it over the edge on November 15th, but it turned into a false victory, because days later I hit my breaking point: I dissolved into tears. I gave up. I deleted the NaNo word counter from the sidebar of my blog. I started looking for a real job.

All was lost.

So I bought seven new Brockmann novels and flew to Mexico, where a few days under the tropical sun with my favorite alpha hero restored my sanity.

Somehow, my characters hadn’t got the memo that they had been abandoned. They followed me to the beach. They followed me to the Mayan ruins. They followed me freshwater cave snorkeling. I began to feel antsy about getting those words on paper again.

I turned the laptop back on.

And I wrote.

And wrote.

And wrote.

(All through the night.)

In those last three days, twelve-thousand words tumbled out of my brain and made their way onto the screen. Yesterday, I discovered that I am not a quitter. If I really put my mind to it I can churn out six-thousand words in a single day AND read two novels. On an airplane no less.

Brick walls are there to let you know how badly you want something.

And I want it. I want it bad.

Congratulations to all the other NaNo winners and participants out there. We did it!

As of this posting I have written 17,841 words my National Novel Writing Month dark paranormal romance, The Gates of Hell. I am still in San Francisco, typing madly away… The sun is a welcome break from Seattle’s cold, rainy winter. I feel more creative when the world is not grey.

THE GATES OF HELL
Assassin and werewolf Hart has earned a reputation as a merciless, mad killer. He will let nothing stand in the way of earning his freedom from the cruel master he serves, but a final job may prove his undoing.

Scientific fact has always been nurse Kayla Friday’s best weapon in her quest to banish death and disease, but when her sister dies tragically, there’s nothing logical about it. The last thing she expects when conducting her own investigation is to uncover a terrifying world where nightmares are real, or to land in the arms of a dangerous and fiercely sexy mercenary who turns furry and rabid every full moon.

When he is ordered to deliver Kayla to her sister’s killers, Hart is forced to make an impossible choice: to seize his hard-fought freedom, or to risk his life for this woman who sparks his cold, long-buried heart.

Will he travel to hell and back, or will her love be enough to redeem his tortured soul?

Here is a fun writing opportunity from Sourcebooks and author Linda Wisdom. For more ideas on what to write about, check out Bitten by Books for an exclusive interview with the magic bunny slippers Fluff & Puff.

Give us your best HEX!

A Fan Fiction Contest with Linda Wisdom

Ever wondered why Jazz and Nick argue so much? Have you imagined a hilarious scenario with Irma? And I’m sure you’ve thought up a ton of escapades with Fluff and Puff! Why not write your very own Hex Fan Fiction piece?

Linda Wisdom and Sourcebooks Casablanca are pleased to present an exciting contest—Tell us your own short story starring the characters from 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover and October 1 release, Hex Appeal!

Rules (follow them or we might kick you out of the Witches Academy!)

1. Choose any character you like and give them an original story!

2. 1500 words maximum, sent in a Word Document or in the body of the email

Erotica is ok, but nothing too scary (no bestiality, necrophilia, pedophilia; no slander of public people; no black magic; no Wiccan or black magic spells, cursing in the regular sense is okay—we just want to have as much fun as possible!).

3. Send your story to Linda’s publicist, Danielle Jackson, at danielle.jackson [at] sourcebooks.com, no later than 5:00pm CST on October 25, 2008. (All stories submitted will become the property of Sourcebooks, Inc. to avoid copyright complications. Please email Danielle with any questions about this.)

4. The Winner, chosen by Linda, will be announced on her Myspace page the morning of Halloween!

So what do you get if you win? 2 runners up with received autographed copies of the first two books in the series, 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover and Hex Appeal.

The Grand Prize Winner will also receive the autographed copies, AND the winner’s name will be used as a character in the fourth book in Linda’s Hexy series, out in October 2009!

NaNoWriMo is in one month. (That’s National Novel Writing Month to the uninitiated.) Are you ready? Jump start your process by reading up on the craft of writing in October. Here are 13 recommended books by the editors, agents, and workshop presenters at the 2007 and 2008 Pacific Northwest Writers Conferences. Stay tuned for a list of 13 recommended books on editing, publishing, and the writing life at the end of NaNo.

1. NO PLOT? NO PROBLEM!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty (the official NaNoWriMo writing book)
2. GOALS, MOTIVATION AND CONFLICT by Debra Dixon
   
3. WRITING THE BREAK OUT NOVEL by Donald Maass
4. SAVE THE CAT by Blake Snyder
5. THE WRITER’S JOURNEY: MYTHIC STRUCTURE FOR WRITERS by Christopher Vogle
6. THE WEEKEND NOVELIST by Robert J. Ray
7. COMPLETE WRITER’S GUIDE TO HEROES AND HEROINES: SIXTEEN MASTER ARCHETYPES by Tami D. Cowden, Sue Viders, and Carolyn Lafever
8. CHARACTERS AND VIEWPOINT by Orsen Scott Card
9. SCENE AND STRUCTURE by Jack Bickham
10. HOW TO WRITE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY by Orsen Scott Card
11. ON WRITING WELL by Will Zinsser
12. ON WRITING by Stephen King
13. ZEN AND THE ART OF WRITING: RELEASING THE CREATIVE GENIUS WITHIN YOU by Ray Bradbury

What books have you found useful in learning the craft? Good luck!

You read yesterday’s post on how to psych yourself to write, right? Here’s the second best tip: share your pain and pleasure with thousands of other aspiring writers around the world. I heart NaNoWriMo (AKA National Novel Writing Month). The cheering squad is fabulous. Where else can you get bi-weekly emails from famous authors encouraging you to write, write, write? Last year included Naomi Novik, Sue Grafton, Sara Gruen, Neil Gaiman, Julianna Baggot, Deanna Raybourn, and Garth Nix. Where else can you find writing meet-ups and intant writing therapy?

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Last NaNoWriMo (my first), I wrote 17,000 words while traveling through London, Zurich, Denver and Seattle. Far below the goal (50,000 words), but more fiction than I had ever written in my life. After the month was over I continued to work on the story, The Traveler’s Guide to Falling in Love, and ended up finalling in the 2008 PNWA Literary Contest. Thank you NaNo, for the kick in the pants. I can’t wait to start book 2 this year!

Who: Me and 100,000 other people. You? I hope so!
What: National Novel Writing Month
When: November 2008
Where: All over the world
Why: To give yourself permission to banish your internal editor and WRITE

If you are participating (which I hope you do) please let me know. Blogging during the month of November will be nonexistent.

Tip #1: STOP BLOGGING. *grin*

Ten Ways of Thinking that Lead to Writing Procrastination and Rebuttals to Those Thoughts
by Gina Hiatt, PhD

1. THOUGHT: I need to warm up first by writing some email.
   REBUTTAL: You can warm up by starting the work slowly, making a list of what you will do, reading over your notes or writing from yesterday.
2. THOUGHT: I’m not in a good mood and I don’t write well when I’m not in a good mood – I’ll do it later when I feel better.
   REBUTTAL: Nothing will make you feel as good as getting something done. The main reason for your bad mood is that you don’t really want to do this task, so getting it out of the way will feel great.
3. THOUGHT: Life is so hard – I can’t believe I have to do this unpleasant task. I’ll even it out by doing something more fun first.
   REBUTTAL: Yes, life is hard, and it’s terrible that you have to do this task. That’s why you will reward yourself after you do the task. Otherwise you’re applying backwards conditioning, which doesn’t work. And don’t forget to plan enough fun and relaxation time into your schedule.
4. THOUGHT: I’ll definitely do it, in a minute or so
   REBUTTAL: Set a timer, or that minute could last 2 hours. When the timer goes off, do the task. Even better, do it now!
5. THOUGHT: After this bad thing is over in my life (midterms, meeting, in-law visit, etc.) my life will seem easier and I’ll be able to do my task on a daily basis. So I’ll wait until then.
   REBUTTAL: Life is always like this. You can afford to do 15 minutes of work today, can’t you? This is the one small act you can do to make your life a little better.
6. THOUGHT: I just don’t feel like it
   REBUTTAL: So what? Do it anyway! If you wait until you feel like it, the task will get done in 10 years if you’re lucky. They only way to make yourself feel like it is to get started and get into the flow of the work.
7. THOUGHT: Why do just a little today – I’ll do double tomorrow – I work better when I feel pressure anyway.
   REBUTTAL: It’s a fallacy that you work better under pressure. It’s not true, because anxiety reduces creativity and clear thinking. And doing double the next day will backfire. You will feel less like doing it tomorrow because you’ve decided you must do double the work, and it will seem more overwhelming and less appealing, so you’re even more likely to put it off until the next day.
8. THOUGHT: I can only work in one place (the library, a café, my office) and that place isn’t available or I can’t get there – so there’s no point in working at all.
   REBUTTAL: You’d be surprised how much work you can get done no matter where you are. Even if you don’t have your laptop with you, you can pull out a scrap of paper and write down a few notes on what you’d like to accomplish in the section you’ve been working on. Try it!
9. THOUGHT: I’m not sure how to do this – I don’t know how sitting down and writing will enable me to do it — it’s just hopeless so why even start?
   REBUTTAL: If you’re not clear enough on what to do, writing may be the only way to get you out of this state. If you truly need help from someone else on this problem, you need to write down the questions clearly. The process of writing them down may clarify the issue for you.
10. THOUGHT: I didn’t write well yesterday, so today will be terrible.
    REBUTTAL: Often bad writing days are followed by better ones. The reason to write daily is that your brain is still plugging away on it while you’re doing other things or sleeping. So you may surprise yourself today!

The posting above is by Gina Hiatt, PhD and is from the Academic Ladder – Get help with the climb, which can be found at: [http://academicladder.com] © 2008 Dissertation Coach, reprinted completely without permission.