The Office of Letters and Light Blog

NaNoWriMo at Maker Faire

A short time ago, in a galaxy most of us call home…

Excitement and joy filled the air as people from around the world gathered for Maker Faire. Putting aside all personal squabbles, engineers, Victorian-era spies, and bounty hunters joined together to celebrate and peddle their services.

It was into this bustle that two representatives from the office full of both ABCs and glorious light arrived. Carrying the banner of National Novel Writing Month, the burden and responsibility of standing in for Wrimos around the globe weighed heavy on their shoulders.

Could writers find a place amidst this bastion of fire-breathing metal, land sharks, and robot petting zoos? The question remained…

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We’re all moving to Fort Collins.

Last week, NaNoWriMo Program Director Lindsey and I flew to Colorado. It was the first time we’d ever business-tripped together, and we were flying out to throw a thank-you party for the Fort Collins NaNoWriMo region. The FoCo folks gathered over 10,000 books for the drive last fall, which earned them a huge spot in our hearts. And a very large pizza party.

The fiesta, held in the space kindly donated by the Fort Collins library, was so much fun. We met a ton of great people, ate fantastic food, and even got a chance to sample a couple of the locally brewed libations. Before leaving town, we also visited a couple of Fort Collins’ dreamy independent bookstores and cafes.

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You should come to the Night of Writing Dangerously.

There are a lot of things I really love about my job here at the Office of Letters and Light, but probably my favourite is everything to do with the Night of Writing Dangerously. This year will be my third as the Write-a-thon Cruise Director, and my fourth attending the event.

The trouble with our annual fundraising gala is it is very hard to describe in words or even pictures. While those who have attended can speak to the experience (and I hope they will here in the comments), the atmosphere of the event is hard to distill into a snappy blog post.

Still, nobody ever said I didn’t like a challenge, so I’ll give it a whirl. Why? Because I want every single one of you out there reading this blog post to stop for a moment and think, really think, about whether you could raise $250 for the Office of Letters and Light and get yourself to San Francisco on November 20.

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An Afternoon of YWP Scripts

This past Sunday, June 5, the Script Frenzy Young Writers Program staged its second annual Wrap Party and Performance. It was a perfect equation for an afternoon of entertainment: 15 local students with excerpts from their April scripts, plus six talented actors from the Bay Area Children’s Theatre, ready to do anything to bring those words and ideas to life onstage.

We had scripts about school bullies, space ships, teleportation, “Ghost Guards,” a super-dog with laser eyes, and a master criminal disguised as a teacher, among others. For each, the actors threw themselves into their roles—becoming horses, mummies, aliens, and that aforementioned super-dog. They worked the Ashby Stage, treating the kids’ scripts with enthusiasm and amusement.

I didn’t think I could possibly enjoy a YWP event as much as January’s NaNoWriMo reading, but then this one happened! What a great culmination of our students’ month of hard work—being able to sit back, relax, and enjoy their feats of imagination. We can’t wait to do it again next year.

Show us your best OLL photos!

We’re having a photo contest! We’d like to build up our archive of images from all the awesome stuff that our participants do. Did you snap some candid photos at a write-in or a TGIO party? Strike a pose with your final manuscripts? We’d love to see your very best shots.

Upload them to the NaNoWriMo or Script Frenzy Facebook pages. (Do this by hitting “Share: Photo” and then selecting “Upload a Photo.”) On April 30, we’ll pick our favorite three photos. The two first-place winners—one for each event—will each receive a $50 gift certificate to the OLL store. Second- and third-place winners (combined from both events) will receive an assortment of limited-edition goodies (stickers and buttons, oh my). Read on for full contest rules, and upload your photo today!

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More of Our Young Writers!

People loved our first photo post about the Young Writers Program reading so much that we had no choice but to give in to their demands for a sequel! Don’t worry, there are plenty more pictures of awesome kid novelists where these came from.

The Script Frenzy YWP website launched yesterday, too, so stay tuned for future news from our young scriptwriters!

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A Celebration of Young Writers

On January 23, the Young Writers Program hosted our fourth annual NaNoWriMo “Thank Goodness It’s Over” Reading and Celebration. More than 30 students—kindergarten through sixth grade—from around the Bay Area read from their November novels. It was a packed house, and an amazing gathering of the young NaNo community. Since most of you couldn’t be there in person, we wanted to share a few photos from the event. Enjoy!

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The Book Drive comes to an end!

As those of you still recovering from the epic box-packing are well aware, 2010 was the first ever Great NaNoWriMo Book Drive. This partnership with Better World Books saw dozens of regions in the U.S., U.K., and Canada collecting used books to raise money for OLL and move us further along the road to world domination.

Our bookdrivers-in-chief proved to be total rock stars, adding the responsibilities of the book drive to their already full plates. We had Municipal Liaisons organizing pick-ups on top of herding Wrimos; college students juggling midterms and book drive flyers; and folks with full-time jobs hauling home boxes full of books after a long day at the office (not to mention that pesky novel-writing business on top of it all). We heard epic tales of book-driving adventures, saw photos of truly staggering stacks of boxes, and collected our own used books as well, giving the OLL office a pleasant scent of eau-de-books for most of autumn.

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The Night of Writing Dangerously

It is hard to explain the magic of the Night of Writing Dangerously. I shall give it my best effort, however, because I want all of you to come to the Night of Writing Dangerously next year, and also because my brain has not quite recovered from NaNoWriMo yet and I have a lot of pictures to use as a crutch for this post.

People who attend events in their regions are often startled to discover how powerful an experience it can be to find themselves in a room with a dozen or so other writers. Imagine, then, the feeling of walking into a room full of 200 other writers.

Then, imagine that the room looks like this:

Only then will you start to understand the atmosphere at the Night of Writing Dangerously.

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The YWP Goes to Orlando!

The Young Writers Program will be on a field trip for the next few days! I’m headed to sunny Orlando, FL to represent NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy at the National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention. NCTE is the place where educators go to get inspired and share new ideas for the classroom. This is the first year the YWP will have a presence there. I’m so excited to meet fellow English teachers, and to spread the word about our programs. Oh, and to work on my novel while sitting by the pool at the picturesque Disney All-Star Sports Resort.

Are you attending the NCTE conference? If so, you can find me in the main exhibit hall at Booth #1200. You can also follow the YWP’s adventures in Orlando at the @NaNoWriMoYWP Twitter. I’ll be updating throughout the weekend.

Also, a very important question: What Floridian souvenir should I bring back to the office with me?

Live dangerously. Write dangerously.

Almost exactly one month from now, on November 21, 200 novelists from all over the world will be descending on San Francisco for the fourth annual Night of Writing Dangerously.

You could be one of those writers.

The Night of Writing Dangerously—also known as the Write-a-thon, the NOWD, the WAT, and that awesome party that always gives me a candy hangover—is a noir-themed writing extravaganza, featuring a delicious dinner, a bar stocked with such delights as the Cosmonovelton and the Noveltini, Cybele’s famous Candy Buffet, fabulous door prizes, and spectacular grand prizes for the top fundraisers. All the details for how you can attend can be found here. I want to tell you about why you should attend.

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Three-Minute Picture Show

On Saturday night, we took a little trip across the Bay into San Francisco to help our friends at the Three-Minute Picture Show—an event very much in the spirit of NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy. Filmmakers who enter the event have one month to make a three-minute film.

Chris and Tavia worked at the bar as a fundraiser for Script Frenzy. While they sold beer and wine, Jennifer Arzt, Script Frenzy Program Director, ambushed unsuspecting bar patrons with postcards, stickers, and information—after all, once you’ve made a film in a month, a script in a month is the logical next step.

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