Jacqui Jacoby on NaNoWriMo

We invited author Jacqui Jacoby to talk to us about NaNoWriMo. What is it? Let's hear from Jacqui...

          The NaNoWriMo—National November Writing Month—is as it is called by someone like me, a fifteen year veteran of the enterprise, The NaNo.  And yes, come this November, this will be my fifteenth year participating in this international event.

          This writing incidence started with a few people in San Francisco in 1999 and has spread each year, reaching all over the world to upwards of 350,000 people.

          It’s a big thing, a real commitment, a force to be reckoned with. It’s a type of commitment your family both fears as it gets closer…as they cheer you to the end.  Laundry doesn’t get done. No TV.  Conversations gone. Forget eating out and just grab that take in.

          Simply put, the NaNo is a challenge to yourself to start at page one of a new novel on November 1^st and write, by November 30^th, 50,000 words of story you created. The concept behind the project is the theory of a deadline.  If you have a deadline, you can do anything.  Even sit in a chair caulking up words to hit your 50,000 mark.

          Why would a published writer go back to this program even as deadlines loom and pressure builds … simple. Because it’s fun.

          www.NaNoWriMo.org … check it out and look up jjw5794 … the history of my participation is in that file. Some of the books, such as my new release Magic Man, can be located toward the bottom. Dead Men Seal the Deal, the second installment of the Dead Men Series, that was my 2013 NaNo book with a finished word count of 100,008 words in those thirty days. For me, the NaNo has created books that will be in other people’s hands.

          I plan my year at the end of January for my writing projects. The NaNo is one of the first things entered into my schedule, penciled in on the calendar where I can see it all year. I participate with a variety of people, both those in town and those in cyberspace. Some of us have been doing it for years with that last day effort of you too tired to keep going: “No, I can’t … I’m too tired …” and their e-mails arriving “Just a thousand more words. You’ve come this far. Don’t give up now.”

          Says 2015 NaNo participant  Rachel Kolodziej “I always talked about writing a novel but I never put words to paper until NanoWriMo 2014. Now I write almost every day, have a novel I am editing and won a writing contest.”

          For me, this year, with the NaNo, only days away, I have time to take from my usual writing schedule of vampires, paranormal and the occasional stalker to delve into a realm I have never gone before: the apocalypse.  Do I have to comment for a life time of destruction? No, but for thirty days I get to play in a sand box I don’t usually go near.

         

          My 2015 NaNoWriMo book is called 'Aaden's Hope', and it is post-apocalyptic (sci fi, new for me) without zombies. It deals more with the complex relationships of the survivors as they struggle day to day and the outsider trying to murder them all. There is a murder mystery present and some hot kisses between the hero and heroine.

          I have been promoting the NaNoWriMo since the day I first started on that first book.  Fifteen years and eight wins, because to be honest, some years, life does win.

          Books to Read:

·        No Plot No Problem by Chris Baty

·        The No Plot No Problem Novel Writing Kit

·        Ready Set Novel by Chris Baty et el, 

This is My Favorite

          If you want to do something like you have never done before, to experience a piece of yourself that maybe you thought of trying. If you have written twenty-seven books and just want to play for thirty little days … come on over and join us. There are groups to follow on Facebook, Twitter, and the site itself.

          It’s a whole lot of fun. Trust me.

 Award-winning author, Jacqui Jacoby lives and writes in the beauty of Northern Arizona. Currently adjusting to being an empty nester with her first grandchild to draw her pictures, Jacqui is a self-defense hobbyist. Having studied martial arts for numerous years she retired in 2006 from the sport, yet still brings strength she learned from the discipline to her heroines. She is a working writer, whose career includes writing books, teaching online and live workshops and penning short nonfiction.

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