Chris Angotti
Chris Baty
Grant Faulkner
Heather Dudley
Lindsey Grant
Sandra Salas
Sarah Mackey
Tavia Stewart-Streit
Tim Kim
OLL Guest Blogger
OLL Interns
Bloggy Awards
I had trouble coming up with blog post for this week, so I decided to leave my topic up to fate. Do you guys know that site “Wikipedia”? Well, in addition to lots of interesting facts about otters, it has a cool “Random Article” search function. A perfect resource for the idea-starved! (Take note for November, pantsers.) Here’s a quick story based on what it popped out for me today:
We love office visits from participants. (In fact, as I was writing those very words, a Wrimo walked through the door with a plate of brownie cupcakes!)
Some visits are planned, some not. And some carry with them a very special significance for us.
Last week, we had one one such visit from author Julia Crouch. She and her family were in town all the way from Brighton, and they stopped by to say hello. Julia brought us a copy of her book, Cuckoo, out in bookstores now from Headline UK… and drafted during NaNoWriMo!
A couple of weeks ago, we announced the first annual Young Writers Program July Writing Contest. It was just a little idea—a way for our students to get in some writing during the summer. Almost 150 entries later, we’re proud to say that the contest was much bigger and better than we’d ever hoped.
Our only prompt was “Compose a brief story (300-word limit) that starts on a bright, sunny day.” The directions these kids and teens went with that simple concept were inspiring. We had sci-fi, horror, war, comedy, romance, and more—all unique takes and ideas. We were so impressed with everybody who submitted, and choosing a winner was a very hard task. Eventually we narrowed it down to three stand-outs…
Grand Prize Winner:
Samantha Tatum (WordsToSay), Middle School
It was a bright, sunny day.
That was the problem.
My brother spent the morning curled up on the front porch, his thin, young legs poking out from his position as a replicated armadillo and his soft breath panted quietly, whispering warnings of what he saw to the wind.
I sat behind him, worrying his hair. He did not sleep under my touch, his tiny body trembling.
I watched as his friends rushed around on the streets, every once in a while staring up at the sky—but only fleeting glances. They did not absorb panic as quickly as my brother always did.
Mum was quarantined at work, though I wasn’t sure why. The government was rushing to explain and in their haste, put down strange regulations anywhere they would stick, trying to convince everyone that the situation was under control.
It wasn’t.
My skin prickled and I slathered more sunscreen over my skin, my fingers shaking lightly as I rubbed it in. I had to stay calm. Soon, I had to feed my brother dinner. We could go inside and escape from this madness for a few hours. It wasn’t like I was going to catch on fire or anything…
What if?
Suddenly confused tears rushed down my cheeks and my eyes stung as I struggled to see through the moisture to my brother.
I scooped his body up into my arms as he kicked and yelled, asking me what I was doing. I opened up the front door to my house and pulled both of us into the safe darkness.
I wondered why there were no government-issued guides to surviving this.
But then again, who anticipates waking up to two suns in the sky?
Honorable Mention Winners:
Ceana Leonard, Elementary School
Photo by Flickr user Thomas Hawk
Kaat Vrancken has been publishing books—both fiction and nonfiction—for the better part of two decades, but 30,000 Words by Charlie is her first book (and the first published one that we know of) to put its titular character through a NaNo-like challenge!
We sat down with Ms. Vrancken (virtually) for a few words about the new book, and her work as an author.
Can you talk a little about your experience with NaNoWriMo?
Since 2007, I’ve been teaching creative writing for adults at an art school in Belgium. One of my students told me about NaNoWriMo, and that she participated every year. I was curious and read all about it on the website. But—to be honest—I didn’t believe that one could write quality fiction in one month. The next year I asked myself, “Why don’t you try it with your students?” We did it. And beautiful stories came out. It was a miracle.
As many NaNoWriMo participants are midway through their first month of Camp, we thought it would be fun to give our young writers (17 and younger) a chance to get into the noveling spirit of the summer months (or, the winter months for our Southern Hemisphere folks). So, we hereby present to you…
What To Write
Compose a brief story (300-word limit) that starts on a bright, sunny day.
Where you go from there is completely up to you. We’ll be looking for intriguing description, characters, and plot. Be sure you’re able to pack a lot into a short word window!
The Prizes
We will award one Grand Prize Winner, and two Honorable Mention Winners. (One of these will come from each grade level—elementary, middle, and high school.)
The Grand Prize (This is pretty awesome. Be sure you’re ready.)
The Honorable Mention Prizes
How to Submit
Just post the text of your story in the comments section of this blog entry, along with an indication of your grade level (elementary, middle, or high school). If you want to post your story elsewhere, provide the complete URL link. The deadline is July 31, 2011.
Read the complete terms and conditions below, and please contact ywp@nanowrimo.org if you have any additional questions.
By submitting to the Young Writers Program July Writing Contest, you agree to the following Terms and Conditions:
With Camp NaNoWriMo right around the corner, we are in full-on story mode. In just a few short days, people around the world are going to be writing novels. In July! Astonishing.
But there are those of you who won’t be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo because you’re already working on a project. A revision project. Of a past NaNo-novel, perhaps?
In full support of those who are working toward getting your writing out there, we’re offering a giveaway: one slot in Lani Diane Rich’s StoryWonk Revision Workshop.
The class is six weeks long, beginning on July 17 and running through August 21.
To get your name in the raffle drawing, just post a comment below with a summary of your revision project! We’ll randomly select one winner on July 8.
Good for you, you go-getting, plot-polishing, hole-filling, dialogue-honing, novel-revising lords and ladies of awesome! We salute you.
– Lindsey
A couple of weeks ago, I received a special delivery from a fifth-grade classroom in San Jose, CA. In November, I had a great time visiting Linda Ulleseit and her students—even though they made fun of me for my then-paltry word count. I was especially excited to see the classroom copy of Novel Central, a collection of Linda’s kids’ NaNo-novels from the previous year. The delivery I got was the new, wonderful sequel, Novel Central: Volume 2. I’ve been flipping through it whenever I have a chance, and I am continually blown away by the creativity of these young writers. From the back cover:
These NaNoWriMo novels include something for everyone: dragons, super computers, TacoGuys, robots, unicorns, spy camp, zombies, teenagers, friendships, and even a sewage monster.
I’ve seen a few collections like this (as well as a lot of books individually published by students), and I believe that they are ideal culminations of the noveling process. The kids and teens who write during NaNoWriMo are shown that their work is real and valuable, and printed copies of their novels can be permanent proof. (Not to mention, educators, that the publication process is an opportunity to teach a whole bunch of real-world editing skills.) As Linda Ulleseit says in her introduction to Novel Central: Volume 2,
This past November, Chris Baty and I visited the fourth- and fifth-grade students of Black Pine Circle School as they neared the end of their novel-writing adventure. Black Pine Circle is the only NaNo school in our home city of Berkeley, and we loved getting updates from them throughout the month. It was also such an inspiration to know that so many excited young novelists were hard at work only a few miles from our office.
Lindsey and I decided to make a return trip in March, this time to talk more with some of the fourth graders who completed their novels (and a couple who have already started new ones). The result is this compelling, funny podcast, which we recorded at the school’s small audio studio. Marina helped by announcing us, and then Alma, Daniel, George, and Haley asked us some good questions about our work at OLL. And we got to ask them about their experiences during November.
We’re excited to spend more time at Black Pine Circle this November, and maybe to challenge these guys in some word wars at our local write-ins. (Listen to the podcast for the story of how they won the triumphant viking helmet!)
Blobby just had his portrait taken for the Camp NaNoWriMo staff page. So the easy part’s done (what a photogenic gent he is!) and now it’s time to write the bio for this important member of our team. Here’s what we’ve come up with so far:
Blobby has been with OLL since he arrived on our doorstep in a cardboard box at the end of 2010. Since then, he has embodied all of the characteristics that we as a staff strive for. He is always great for a pep talk, a hug, or sharing a snack. When he’s not boosting the morale of everyone in the office, you’ll probably find him taking a sunset walk on the beach, sipping a cup of tea (he loves Irish Breakfast), or perfecting his latest break-dance moves.
We’ve asked Blobby for input, but he’s so humble that he just shifts from foot to foot and roars “Gumpo!”
What key information about Blobby is still missing? And what kind of activities might a short, round, green dinosaur enjoy at camp? We’ll incorporate your suggestions into the final staff page. We want to make this the best bio yet! (After all, it’s not everyday that we get to add such an esteemed dinosaur to our roster.)
This week I was snooping around Dan’s desk looking for something delicious to eat when I came across a document entitled “Ditching Drupal and Moving to Rails,” stamped “Urgent” and “Highly Sensitive!”
Unable to resist the lure of anything that has been stamped (keep me away from post offices and consulates, people!) I got reading, and realized that this was a document of grave importance.
After all, the guts half of this NaNoWriMo Camp and Guts Drive deals directly with this issue: new innards for NaNoWriMo.org in the form of Ruby on Rails!
Despite my anxiety over getting caught, I read on and came upon this:
Almost everything in Drupal is database bound. It uses the database for storing more than just the state of our application, it also stores its structure and logic. Upon every page request, this structure must be retrieved and reassembled before the request can be served. This is the crux of the matter as it leads to a level of database load that grows at a geometric rate with every major enhancement. Queries don’t just grow in numbers, which would be manageable through horizontal scaling, they grow in complexity, which leads to contention within a single database server that is not scalable.
Recent comments