Chris Angotti
Chris Baty
Grant Faulkner
Heather Dudley
Lindsey Grant
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Mrs. Krebs’ eighth graders self-published their November novels! Man, they look awesome. Follow these guys’ complete NaNoWriMo journey in the class blog archives.
If you were a 2011 NaNo winner, you have until June 30 to receive your proof and order your five free copies from CreateSpace.
Already self-published your novel? How’d it go? Tell us (and shamelessly promote it) in the comments!
– Chris
I just finished reading Hannah Pittard’s 2011 novel, The Fates Will Find Their Way. It’s a naturally intriguing story: a 16-year-old girl goes missing without a trace, and her suburban classmates obsessively speculate—in both the short and long term—about what may have happened to her.
Pittard’s choice of perspective makes this narrative even more absorbing. The entire book is told in the first-person plural: the collective voice of the boys who dreamily wonder about the girl’s fate.
We interrogated each other for information, eager to be the one to discover the truth. As it turned out, we’d all seen Nora the day before, but seen her in different places doing different things—we’d seen her at the swing sets, at the riverbank, in the shopping mall. We’d seen her making phone calls in the telephone booth outside the liquor store, inside the train station, behind the dollar store.
The result is wonderfully opaque. A plural perspective can never be definitively pinned down, and so the narrative drifts and bobs—as elusive and unreliable as the certainty of Nora’s circumstances.
What books have you read that make use of unusual perspective or narration? Have you tried this technique in your own novels? How did it work for you?
– Chris
I’ve been pretty tired lately. Between Script Frenzy and some big personal projects, I’m working a lot, and thinking even more. Staying alert has necessitated a sizable influx of caffeine, and I’m stockpiling my supply like a fiend.
But today marked a decidedly low moment, as I actually reheated some coffee we brewed in the office last week. We’re talking at least four days old and cold as the rock at one of those weird ice cream mix-in places. Sad as it was, I needed the quick fix to get through my afternoon.
Help me, folks. I know that us Wrimos and Frenziers love our caffeine, but what other energizing wake-up methods did you make use of this past month? How do you non-chemically spur yourself on through a marathon writing session—or just a marathon work day?
We’re living in a wonderful age for television. Several current or recent shows deserve all-time-best consideration; audiences are knowledgeable and engaged; showrunners and writers are thinking in bigger arcs. I can barely manage my DVR.
But I’m troubled by a particular byproduct of all this wonderfulness: a phenomenon I call insta-aggrandizement. Strong shows with engaged viewers means that even before the credits end, folks are striking the first key in their rush to praise, analyze, and created animated GIFs. And with showrunners more available than ever before, they’re helpful collaborators in this process, posting their own episode breakdowns, reactions, and responses to fans.
The other day, I added the entire six-season run of The Larry Sanders Show to my Netflix Instant queue. I’ve been meaning to watch it for a while, and I plan to take it down in one big gulp—a few solid days of rigorous sitcomming during the winter months.
Obviously, I’m not alone in this style of marathon TV watching. DVD and video-on-demand have made the practice a common part of the cultural conversation. I can’t jump on to my Facebook or Twitter feeds without hearing about someone working through a season or more. (A friend’s run of Cheers was the most impressive.) Recent episodes of Portlandia and Up All Night have noted the intense commitment people feel to the shows they’re mainlining. And many media critics have spoken up both for and against the “binge.”
(Our office, meanwhile, houses some serious Downton Abbey marathonners: Sarah and Grant just knocked out the first season.)
Are you a fan of watching TV shows all at once? Why or why not? If you are, which ones have kept you couch-bound? Any notable marathons that you regretted or repeated?
– Chris A.
Photo by Flickr user jayneandd
Here in the Bay Area, we’re having a quite beautiful, quite temperate winter.
But in the OLL office, we cannot get out of an ongoing cold wave. Try as we might, even with the heater pumping, we’re just not feeling the warmth. I blame our high ceilings and big windows—nice the rest of the year, but they provide insufficient structure for maximum toastiness. At least one of us has even taken to wearing a Snuggie at the coldest points in the day. (It’s a leftover merchandise sample… Did we ever tell you that we thought about making NaNoWriMo Snuggies?)
Many of you live in colder parts of the world, and we thought you might be able to help. How do you stay warm while working—whether on your writing or at your day job? Better yet, give us your most ridiculous idea to stave off the cold, and we’ll take a picture of a staff member wearing or doing it.
Thanks in advasbnm,ce (Whoops, mitten-related typo.)
– Chris A.
Photo by Flickr user Syniq
Some time during our office’s holiday nap, this blog quietly reached 10,000 Tumblr followers. A pretty sweet milestone.
Today I reread the staff “Blog Manifesto” that started it all, and this phrase jumped out:
We want to show people who we are and what we care about.
I think we’re accomplishing that—through posts both silly and serious, on topics from the height of NaNoWriMo to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and everywhere in between. And even more importantly, we’re learning a lot about our readers through the great discussions that happen in the comments section.
But, we can always do a little bit better. We’d love to hear from you: What’s your favorite part of reading the OLL blog? What features do you want more of? Any new ideas or questions?
Thanks for your readership, and thanks in advance for your thoughts. We appreciate you making OLL a part of your day.
– Chris A.
Photo by Flickr user mollybob
Lately, I’ve been lurking in the Big, Fun, Scary Things forum. I like it there. So many of you are so positive, and have such exciting goals for the new year. As I read these lists, something else impresses me: they’re so definitive.
Definitiveness, or the lack thereof, has been my creative bête noir for the better part of 2011. I have a drive to make stuff, but so much of the time, I’m not certain where I should direct my efforts. Instead of starting work, I choose from any number of avoidance methods: new lists, notebooks, Google Docs, etc. As a result, the 12-month graph of my productivity is more of a sad scatter plot than a proudly rising slope.
The office is especially full of winter cheer today. We’re counting down the hours to our annual staff holiday party, where we’ll don our coziest sweaters and our finest nog-drinking mittens. Oh, and this year, we’ll also be playing bocce.
The high point of the night is always the white elephant gift exchange. Man, it gets intense. Last year, the in-demand items included a Star Wars USB drive, a brass-knuckles coffee mug, and zombie card game. Who knows what strange and wondrous goods await this evening?
What are your office holiday parties like? Any good stories? (We promise we won’t tell HR.) What’s the best, worst, or weirdest thing you’ve ever gotten in a gift swap?
– Chris A.
Photo by Flickr user H. Michael Karshis
As you read this, 19 teenagers and four staff members are in a cabin in Durango, CO working on their novels. They’re part of Unschool Adventures’ November writing retreat, and they’re basically living, breathing, and eating NaNoWriMo for 30 days. We had to know more. Luckily, the participants were able to set aside their notebooks and laptops long enough to answer our questions in video form.
How about you? Have you ever attended a writing retreat—either for a few days or a whole month? Would you like to? Why or why not?
– Chris A.
Each year, NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers Program offers underserved classrooms the opportunity to borrow NEO word processors—simple, rugged little laptops—for their November writing. We asked a few of those teachers to give us updates on how their young novelists are doing this month!
Melanie Kish Kirkman – Shuksan Middle School, Bellingham, WA
NaNoWriMo is highly motivating for my students. They love that they get to set their own goals and work on a story of their choice. The materials online are extremely helpful for students and fit well with our curriculum and the Common Core. My students ask over and over throughout the day about when we will start writing time. They work on stories at home, over lunch, and come to school early just to write! My favorite story is about a student I have with autistic spectrum disorder. He has a hard time writing by hand, but has excelled with his NaNoWriMo story. He has eight chapters written in a thoughtful, carefully plotted story about mysterious weather changes. It is his one moment throughout the day where he can be focused and show the world all of his thinking.
When NaNoWriMo.org triumphantly launched on Monday, the precocious Young Writers Program had already been up and running for a week. After all, there’s only so long you can wait when excited young authors are ready to get going. The YWP didn’t get fancy new innards this year (soon, we hope), but we are still pretty hyped about the 2011 site we put together.
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