NaNoWriMo 2011: Be afraid (but only a little).

It's time, once again, for NaNoWriMo.

If that first sentence made you go, "Uh, what?" then it's also time for an explanation. If you're not a writer, aspiring or otherwise, you probably won't care. See you next post. :-)

NaNoWriMo is the crazy-catchy nickname for "National Novel Writing Month." I suppose that "Novelember" was taken. Anyway, a guy named Chris Baty started NaNoWriMo in 1999 with 21 participants. Last year, there were over 200,000 participants who collectively wrote over 2.8 billion words. I'd say it's growing nicely.

My Self-Publisher's Creed

I self-publish because of desire, not failure;
I will tell stories as only I can tell them;
I will stand or fall on my own merits.

Still, I will seek assistance from many others
So that my works may be the best they can be;
To do any less is a betrayal of my ideas.

I will do my best to deceive my readers
And tell fantastic tales of different worlds;
But to do so believably and with great care.

I will use all of the tools at my disposal;
There is a reason that I learned them;
A good writer should find a use for all.

I will not get too high after a good review,
Nor too low after one that seems personal;
All criticisms serve as guides in one way or another.

Sales be damned, I will persist in my craft,
Because it's the only thing I was really meant to do;
How I deliver my works will always be secondary to that.

The DIY Writer #3: The power of free.

This post is going to be a short one. It really doesn't need to be all that long, because it's simple.

From what I can tell, there are two kinds of self-pubbers:

1. The kind that only has one or two books in them and prices their book according to what they think their time and effort is "worth," even if it's vastly overpriced for the market.
2. The kind that succeeds.

Yeah, I said it.

Guest Story: "Death's a Circus" by Mike Whitacre

Dew perspired upon Grimm Preston’s face as he awoke to the early morning. The atmosphere of his tawdry trailer was as sultry as it was unbearably musky, which was almost as horrendous as the nasty swamp he tasted in his mouth. He let out a roar of yawn then a growl of a groan while a stinging headache pierced his skull, dug deep, and jerked all around his brain, the way a butcher’s knife jerks when trying to free itself from a slab of meat. When he sat up on the flimsy bed that came with the trailer, he saw that he was still wearing his overgrown overalls, shoes, and giant bowtie. Thank God he remembered to take off his make-up before he decided to hit the sauce, last night. Feeling another hot sting, he held his head and massaged it with his finger for a good, long moment.