Lemon Ashwinder in the News
A Duluth, Minnesota, NaNoWriMo group is famous now, including our own
lemon_ashwinder.who is their regional liason. Way to go ladies!
Lemon has her book A Shunned Man on Amazon, and the sequal is coming soon, which will be great!
Article Here if you are registered for that newspaper, but if not I've put it below:
Published November 16 2009
Writers try to finish novel in month
Amanda Sundin’s head is filled with humanoids, auto carts, digi mags and pygmies - and so is her two-subject Mead notebook. By the end of November, she hopes to have finished her first novel.
By: Christa Lawler, Duluth News Tribune
Amanda Sundin’s head is filled with humanoids, auto carts, digi mags and pygmies - and so is her two-subject Mead notebook. By the end of November, she hopes to have finished her first novel.
Finally.
It’s Sundin’s fourth go-round with National Novel Writing Month, code name NaNoWriMo to those in the know. The worldwide, Internet-based initiative challenges would-be novelists to crank out a piece of fiction at least 50,000 words long - about 175 pages of type. The free, no-pressure contest is in its 10th year.
In 2008, 120,000 writers from 90 countries attempted the feat, according to nanowrimo.org. There are about 150 writers in the site’s Duluth network - which includes surrounding areas. Not all of the listed participants will finish. Some don’t even start.
“I’ve always wanted to be a writer,” said Sundin, 27, a physical therapist’s assistant. “I’ve always set that goal - ‘By the time I’m this age, I’ll be a published author.’ I still have that feeling that I’m going to write a story. This lets you do that.”
Entrants have until midnight Nov. 30 to upload their content to the contest’s Web site, which will verify the word count. The prize is simply a finisher’s certificate, and a badge that can be added to personal Web sites.
“It’s kind of this huge challenge,” said Leslie Williamson White, who is writing about a woman on the verge of menopause. “Most people think ‘I could never write a novel.’ The idea is that novelists aren’t elite people. Anyone can do it. That’s the point of the ridiculous deadline.”
For Cindy Goustin, who is knee-deep in the third romance novel of a series, NaNoWriMo eliminated some of the pressure to create the great American novel.
“I used to have this idea that I wasn’t going to write anything unless it was going to be brilliant and was going to stun the world with my genius,” Goustin said. “I got over that and decided to just have a good time.”
Goustin is the local NaNoWriMo liaison. She organizes group writing sessions for participants interested in getting together for two-hour word-count boosting sessions. The local group has been meeting once a week at Bohemia Arts.
“Right now I pretty much told my family, ‘I’ll see you when I see you. Otherwise, I’ll be at the computer. Keep the cat boxes clean, and I’ll see you at meals,’ ” Goustin said.
Last November, Goustin wrote “A Shunned Man,” a romantic suspense story about a man raised in an isolated religious farming community who is shunned and must go into the modern world and figure out what to do next. She sent the story to a self-publishing Web site, and now her novel is available on Amazon under the pen name Thea J. Nilsson.
Goustin finished part two over the summer, and is working on the finale.
Not all pieces are for public consumption.
Elizabeth Reichert, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, is on her third novel. The other two - a piece of Star Trek fan fiction, and a young adult comedy - were printed out, put into binders, and stuck on a shelf.
“No one has read my stuff,” Reichert said.
This year, she has added a higher difficulty level: Reichert wants to finish 100,000 words.
“Just because I found the 50,000 words, in the past, was pretty easy,” she said.
Four-time entrant Sundin also added an additional layer of challenge: She uses notebooks because she’s writing her sci/fi novel out in longhand.
“I can pull it out anywhere and work,” Sundin said. “Waiting in the car, in the bathroom, just places where you wouldn’t have your laptop with you.”
She’ll still have to type out the final draft to enter, however.
“I’m not really looking forward to it,” she said.
lemon_ashwinder.who is their regional liason. Way to go ladies!
Lemon has her book A Shunned Man on Amazon, and the sequal is coming soon, which will be great!
Article Here if you are registered for that newspaper, but if not I've put it below:
Published November 16 2009
Writers try to finish novel in month
Amanda Sundin’s head is filled with humanoids, auto carts, digi mags and pygmies - and so is her two-subject Mead notebook. By the end of November, she hopes to have finished her first novel.
By: Christa Lawler, Duluth News Tribune
Amanda Sundin’s head is filled with humanoids, auto carts, digi mags and pygmies - and so is her two-subject Mead notebook. By the end of November, she hopes to have finished her first novel.
Finally.
It’s Sundin’s fourth go-round with National Novel Writing Month, code name NaNoWriMo to those in the know. The worldwide, Internet-based initiative challenges would-be novelists to crank out a piece of fiction at least 50,000 words long - about 175 pages of type. The free, no-pressure contest is in its 10th year.
In 2008, 120,000 writers from 90 countries attempted the feat, according to nanowrimo.org. There are about 150 writers in the site’s Duluth network - which includes surrounding areas. Not all of the listed participants will finish. Some don’t even start.
“I’ve always wanted to be a writer,” said Sundin, 27, a physical therapist’s assistant. “I’ve always set that goal - ‘By the time I’m this age, I’ll be a published author.’ I still have that feeling that I’m going to write a story. This lets you do that.”
Entrants have until midnight Nov. 30 to upload their content to the contest’s Web site, which will verify the word count. The prize is simply a finisher’s certificate, and a badge that can be added to personal Web sites.
“It’s kind of this huge challenge,” said Leslie Williamson White, who is writing about a woman on the verge of menopause. “Most people think ‘I could never write a novel.’ The idea is that novelists aren’t elite people. Anyone can do it. That’s the point of the ridiculous deadline.”
For Cindy Goustin, who is knee-deep in the third romance novel of a series, NaNoWriMo eliminated some of the pressure to create the great American novel.
“I used to have this idea that I wasn’t going to write anything unless it was going to be brilliant and was going to stun the world with my genius,” Goustin said. “I got over that and decided to just have a good time.”
Goustin is the local NaNoWriMo liaison. She organizes group writing sessions for participants interested in getting together for two-hour word-count boosting sessions. The local group has been meeting once a week at Bohemia Arts.
“Right now I pretty much told my family, ‘I’ll see you when I see you. Otherwise, I’ll be at the computer. Keep the cat boxes clean, and I’ll see you at meals,’ ” Goustin said.
Last November, Goustin wrote “A Shunned Man,” a romantic suspense story about a man raised in an isolated religious farming community who is shunned and must go into the modern world and figure out what to do next. She sent the story to a self-publishing Web site, and now her novel is available on Amazon under the pen name Thea J. Nilsson.
Goustin finished part two over the summer, and is working on the finale.
Not all pieces are for public consumption.
Elizabeth Reichert, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, is on her third novel. The other two - a piece of Star Trek fan fiction, and a young adult comedy - were printed out, put into binders, and stuck on a shelf.
“No one has read my stuff,” Reichert said.
This year, she has added a higher difficulty level: Reichert wants to finish 100,000 words.
“Just because I found the 50,000 words, in the past, was pretty easy,” she said.
Four-time entrant Sundin also added an additional layer of challenge: She uses notebooks because she’s writing her sci/fi novel out in longhand.
“I can pull it out anywhere and work,” Sundin said. “Waiting in the car, in the bathroom, just places where you wouldn’t have your laptop with you.”
She’ll still have to type out the final draft to enter, however.
“I’m not really looking forward to it,” she said.