Sunday November 1, 2015 NaNoWriMo at Your Library

Almost everyone dreams of being an author. Whether it’s because you think it will lead to fame and fortune, from a desire to share your inner thoughts with the world or even to make your mark on posterity, we all have a reason.  Unfortunately, many budding writers are scared away for a variety of reasons.  Questions about how to begin, the need for encouragement and feedback or the motivation to make time to write, as well as, the grind of daily life seem to get in the way.

Faced with the same problems, a group of young writers in San Francisco in 1996 challenged themselves to each write a novel within a month, thus was born National Novel Writing Month which has become a movement involving hundreds of thousands of writers across the globe.  The rules are simple, just register on the NaNoWriMo site, http://nanowrimo.org/  and track your words written.  Along the way , the site awards badges and provides encouragement and resources to keep you writing.  Each year famous writers from around the globe provide pep talks to the participants, giving examples of tips and tricks they have used to improve their own writing.

The goal is to write a novel of any style or genre of 50,000 words or more.  You can write alone or with someone else.  In order to provide further support, there are NaNoWriMo groups across the world.  The local Thunder Bay chapter will be meeting Thursday evenings in the Baggage Building Arts Centre at the Marina.

Being a skeptic, I wondered if the method was successful and was surprised to find that many bestselling authors and novels began during the binge novel period that is NaNoWriMo.  Jason M Hough, recently scored a New York Times Bestseller with his book, “The Darwin Elevator”, Lydia Netzer’s book “Shine, Shine, Shine”, which was an Amazon Book of the Month, and Marissa Meyer’s “Cinder” which is the first in the bestselling young adult series, the Lunar Chronicles trilogy are some of the novels brought to life during National Novel Writing Month.  Sara Gruen is one of the most famous participants and has used the time to draft three novels, including her most famous, “Water for Elephants”.

This year the Thunder Bay Public Library is becoming involved by hosting a Halfway Party on November 14 at the Brodie Resource Library.  Besides refreshments, we will be answering questions, hosting opportunities for sharing and illustrating the resources that the library has for writers of all kinds.  Whether, you are interested in writing exercises, style and grammar manuals, research resources to bring your creations believability and accuracy or even publishing guides to sell your masterpiece; the library is a great resource.  In order to fully share in the pleasures and pains of NaNoWriMo, I along with our Youth Services Librarian Laura Prinselaar will be participating in writing our own works of fiction.

Through our social media, we will be providing tips, quotes, websites and resources to keep your writing on track and to provide a forum to share comments, thoughts, triumphs and missteps that you encounter during your writing journey.

It’s never too late to start writing, whether you are 15, 51 or 105. So put pen to paper, dust off your typewriter or power up the laptop and hopefully someday, I will help a patron check out one of your books at the library. Until then, happy writing.

Lori Kauzlarick