Guest Post by Simon Haynes: Why (and How) I NaNo.

Dan here: I'm excited to bring you this guest post. It's relevant to all who are participating in NaNoWriMo (especially first-timers), and I'm a huge fan of Simon's yWriter. It's the only writing software I use.

For those of you who may have fallen behind on your word count, let me offer you this advice: 2006 was my first attempt (and success) in NaNo, and I didn't sign up until Day 6. Even if you haven't yet written a word, you're still in it.

Now, on to Simon Haynes. 

Every year, come November, thousands of writers the world over sit down to apply themselves to a very special event. Yes, it's the annual 'bash all those deluded NaNoWriMo participants' blogfest.

Well I'm here to tell you NaNoWriMo does matter, and it is important.

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.

This YouTube comment represents what I love about the internet.

From user "CokeCookies" on one of the "Moves Like Jagger" videos:

This song makes me wanna strip naked, burst out of my window, free fall 28 floors, faceplant in the snow, make a snow angel mixed with my own blood, shiver from the cold, get hypothermia, DIE, go the pearly gate, say wuzzup to Jesus, do our secret hand shake, look for Buddha, find him, have him reincarnate me into a frog, meet a princess, kiss her, turn into a prince, order my subjects to bring me a computer, listen to this song again, sleep, Wake up.. Repeat.

Bravo, sir.

From the old blog 4: The day I got completely worked by my three-year-old.

This afternoon, I went to pick my son up at daycare. When I got there, I found that he was trying to hug one of the girls in his class (to protect the identity of the unhuggable, I'll call her Betty) without her permission. No matter how many times I told him he had to ask her permission or the teacher showed him how easy it was to get Betty's permission, he flat-out refused. He kept trying to hug, we kept stopping him, rinse, repeat.

He got bored of this game and started to run around the room. He passed by Betty and put a shoulder into her...not enough to hurt her or knock her down, but enough to be rude.

So what does Dad...the boss, the smart one...do?

I tell Nate that he has to go apologize to Betty. And he does the standard apology: an "I'm sorry" accompanied by...

...a big hug, of course, met with open arms.

To recap: After several minutes of refusing to let my son hug a girl without her permission, he decides to Jedi mind trick me into ordering him to hug her. Which she welcomes.

1-zip, Nate.