First sentences

These are always fun to share - here's mine:

"Susan Marshall's fear of flying was relatively mild, but this was still the first time that she felt as much apprehension about the prospect of arrival at her destination as about the prospect of crashing."

The word "still" will come out during rewrite, I've already determined. But for now, it's wordcount!

This is always the best part of the month

That is, the part that isn't actually the month, but rather before the month. Our combined word deficit is zero, which is the lowest it will ever be. Nobody's novels are yet suffering from gaping plot holes, and nobody's social lives are yet suffering from novels. For most of you, I'm sad to say, the exhilaration of standing here at the starting gate is as good as it will get. This is because most of you are cowards. For the few of you - the few of us, rather - who succeed, it only gets better from here, albeit in the kind of way that involved a lot of worse spots. Don't think that makes any sense? That means your critical faculties are still working. Turn them off for the next month. Join me.

Any way, here are this year's participants:

Kate Andrews
Josh Bazin
Elena Belyea
Justin Benko
Sarah Bidanjiri
Courtney Burr
David Climenhaga
Natalie Climenhaga
Shannon Collum
David Cournoyer
Adam Demaniuk (successful 2007 participant)
Andrea Enes
Ashley Geis
Madelaine Gierc
Katharine Hay
Amanda Henry (successful 2007 participant)
Daniel Kaszor (successful 2006 participant)
Elliot Kerr
Paul Knoechel
Julia Kozak
Cindy Leung
Scott Lilwall (successful 2007 participant, as well as a successful participant in other, non-U of A NaNoWriMos)
Jessica Lockhart
Janelle Morin
Ritika Nandkeolyar
Shawna Pandya
Darren Pleavin
Samantha Power
Erin Reddekopp
Eve Richardson
Ashraf Rushdy
Nadia Rushdy
Chris Samuel (combined word total from previous two attempts: ~550. But if he loses this year, it's going to cost him more than eight thousand bucks.)
Steph Shantz
Heather Smith (successful 2006 participant)
Steve Smith (successful 2006 participant)
Krystina Sulatycki
Nicholas Tam
Jay Ward

Previous successful participants Jake Troughton (2006) and Jenna Greig (2007) have decided not to join us this time.

These are words—a prime example of the sort of thing you're looking for

As the successful author of possibly the worst novel ever written, I've been invited to offer some advice on how to succeed in NaNoWriMo. Since this post is not itself a part of NaNoWriMo, I'll get right to it.

1) Steve, uncharacteristically, is right: attitude is everything. For my successful first attempt, I went in essentially decided that I would rather die than fail. For my unsuccessful second attempt, I went in thinking that it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't finish, because I'd already proven I could do it. Failure was thus assured.

2) Procrastinate. Okay, bear with me here. Procrastination gets a bad rap, and maybe that's fair, but the truth is that we all do it, because we need to do it. Unless you're some sort of scary writing machine, you're not going to be working on your novel during every waking moment. But when you're doing other things, make sure that you're procrastinating—consider any time that you aren't writing to be time that you should be writing. This will help build up enough guilt and tension to get your pens/keyboards rocking.

3) Be unemployed. This is bad advice for life, but good advice for crazy nonsense like NaNoWriMo. Any time you spend working is time you could be spending procrastinating. 

4) Have several/all of your characters swear profusely. It's a cheap way to easily pump up your word count, asshole, which is really the whole fucking point. If this sort of language isn't appropriate to your plot or setting, change your motherfucking plot and setting, you goddamn fucking piece of shit.

5) If possible, disable your delete key. Yes, it's difficult to avoid editing on the fly. I certainly can't manage it, but just try to remember: the whole point is to reach the finish line. Deleting words during NaNoWriMo is like going backwards in a marathon because you don't think you made that last turn gracefully enough.

6) When you're thinking about your story, write what you think. Trying to decide what your protagonist should do next? Have her call up her mom and talk about what she should do next. Your internal dialogue will make great (by which I mean "lengthy") actual dialogue.

7) When your plot is stuck, it's time for flashbacks! Aside from moving the word count in the right direction, exploring the backstory of a character (or world, or whatever) can help you learn something about said character(/world/whatever) that will help you as you move the story along. Plus, if there's some sort of thematic connection between the flashback and the character's current dilemma, it'll make you seem all deep and shit.

Plot, plot, plot, plot, plot ...

I know that the book is called No Plot, No Problem, but really what you need to get through is lots and lots of plot. Too much really. Want to do a character driven story? Well good luck with that, but I think that a good chunk of the character work needs to be sketched out ahead of time (which is kinda-sorta, but not really cheating) or done during the competition, in which case you're hemorrhaging time that could have been spent writing.

The reason I finished the first year was because I had lots of plot (I ended on a cliffhanger). The reason I failed the second year was that I didn't really have a plot. I just had a loose conflagration of concepts (also I had just moved across Canada).

Also, action scenes. No better way to waste 3000 words than having two dudes swing swords at each other.

Advice from those who have been there

In 2006, I took on the challenge and was successful. It was awesome, and I learned a number of valuable lessons. In 2007, I took on the challenge and failed. It sucked, and I learned even more valuable lessons. I'd like to share some of these lessons with you now, from the critical components to the helpful but non-essential hints:

1. If you decide to do this, go in knowing that absolutely nothing will dissuade you. I hate to sound like a motivational speaker, but this is the single most important thing. Every year, I see people going in with the attitude "Well, I'll give this a shot, and if I succeed that's awesome and if I fail no harm done." That's a good attitude in life, but it's piss-poor attitude for NaNoWriMo. The reason is simple: This is such a ridiculous endeavor that, sometime during the month, it's going to seem like quite a bit more trouble than it's worth. If one of your first principles going in is that quitting wouldn't be the end of the world, you will definitely quit. So make your first principle that nothing short of the incapacity of an immediate family member will make you quit, and asterisk that first principle with the fact that it really depends how close you are to the immediate family member in question. This won't guarantee success, unless you have a great deal of willpower and some luck. But not doing this will guarantee failure.

2. Have some idea of your plot arc before you start. This is probably the most important difference between my successful effort and my unsuccessful one. It's hard enough coming up with something to write when you know where you're story's going. It's damned near impossible when you don't.

2a. Avoid your plot arc whenever possible. This is important too. The plot arc is your safety net, providing you something to write when you fall off the tightrope of improvisation (wielding all the while the long pole of awkward metaphor). It's nice to have it there, but you want to use it as seldom as possible. Wander off on whatever pointless digressions your mind will let you, and advance the plot only when you're out of other ideas. Word count is much easier to come by that way.

3. Do periodical character inventories. You'll probably wind up creating quite a few characters, and there's a good chance that you'll wind up losing track of some of them. When you're out of ideas, go through your list of characters and see which ones you haven't dealt with in a while. Then spend as many words as possible explaining what they've been up to since we last heard from them. In my successful novel, I had a character who had met my protagonist while the latter was doorknocking, and who had then installed himself as official agent. He disappeared without explanation partway through the election. Once I noticed (it took me a while) I developed a sub-plot out of it in which this character didn't actually live in the house where my protagonist had met him, but had started squatting in it while the owners were away on vacation. When they returned, he had to disappear. Obviously. Got some good word count out of that one.

4. If at all possible, write about something on which you have strong views. When you're having trouble writing anything else, just have one of your like-minded characters espouse your beliefs at great length. I'm doing my first rewrite of my successful novel, and it's a little disheartening to see how much of it is made up of prolonged explanations of my own political views. Still, those screeds made success come much more easily.

5. Read the archives of this blog. Seriously, they're not very long, and they will both tell you how to name your characters (Jake was on the verge of naming the Prime Minister of Canada "Luigi Mario") and assure you that everybody goes through what you are.

Hello? Is this thing on?

Well, it's spring, the time that a young person's fancy turns to frenzied novel writing? Am I wrong? Don't answer that question.

Anyway, I confess that I haven't yet decided whether I'm going to attempt the deed this year, but I'm still happy to do the minimum of work involved in "facilitating" the thing, and I'd like to see participation continue to grow. So let me assure you that, while I may not participate this year, the first time that I did participate (and was successful) was the most fun I've had while wearing pants. Actually, a lot of the novel was written while I wasn't wearing pants, too, but that part somehow seemed less fun.

Onward! Or something!