John Woodington The official site for the author.

Get Writing, and Read some New CrichtonPosted by John Woodington on November 9th, 2009

Remember that this in National Novel Writing Month, and if you are participating, you should have about 15,000 words written by the end of the day to keep pace with reaching the goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month.

Don’t worry if you are behind.  You can catch up.  The most words I’ve ever written in one day is a little over 7,000, and by the end of that session (six hours, I think) I was pretty wiped.  But it can be done.  So instead of watching Monday Night Football or Antiques Roadshow or reruns of Friends, sit down at the computer (or notebook) and get writing!  Don’t worry if it’s good or bad now.  That doesn’t matter in the first draft.  Just get the words on the page.  You will have to rewrite anyway.  Everyone does rewrites.  Except, or so I’ve heard, for Terry Goodkind, though I wouldn’t consider him a good writer.  A rich writer, yes, but not a good one.

In other writing and reading news, there will be a new book out by one of my favorite pulp authors who passed away not too long ago, Michael Crichton.  It also looks like Spielberg wants to do the movie adaptation of the posthumous novel, which is always promising.

It’s good to see one final piece out of Michael Crichton.  Jurassic Park was one of the few novels that hooked me into reading and, subsequently, writing.

Get Writing Already!Posted by John Woodington on November 2nd, 2009

National Novel Writing Month started yesterday, which means you have until the end of November to get 50,000 words written down. Can you do it? Is it possible? Am I doing it?
Answers:
1) Yes, you can.
2) Yes, it is.
3) No, I am not.

I know it is possible to write this amount of words in this time frame, as I’ve done it inadvertently myself in the past. One of the novels that I’ve completed, entitled The Iris Project, took me 41 days to write the entire first draft, which was about 120,000 words (if I remember correctly).  Of course, I spent another year editing it, redrafting it, and changing the ending for my prospective agent at the time.

The reason I am not participating in NaNoWriMo this year is simple.  I already have a completed draft of a novel that I will be editing before I begin writing the next novel.  I drafted this current novel during the first half of this year, and I am planning to begin editing it in a couple months.

It is currently titled AlieNation.

NaNoWriMo ApproachesPosted by John Woodington on October 21st, 2009

November will be here soon, and it is marked annually (since 1999) by National Novel Writing Month, also know by one of the worst abbreviations (acronyms?) ever – NaNoWriMo.  If you go to the official site, you can see what the deal is, so I won’t spell it out here.

I’m not sure what I think of NaNoWriMo.  One half of me thinks that it is great, that it is a rewarding challenge that gets people to put their rears in their chairs and churn out a large chunk of writing.  Maybe it inspires them to write that book they’ve always wanted to write, but never have taken the time to do.  Maybe it helps dissipate the mist of writer’s block.  In general, if it makes people write, then wonderful.  I approve.

The other half of me, however, is completely fixated on the numbers.  Since its inception in 1999, a total of 72,120 novels have been written as a part of the challenge (according to the website).  Of those 72,120 completed novels, a total of 40 have actually made it to publication (also according to the website).

Forty, aka .05%, aka 1 out of every 1800.

How this compares with other figures for novels written to novels published, I’m not sure.  I’ve heard the odds of a novel being published are 1 in 200, which seems to say that the novels coming out of NaNoWriMo are 9 times less likely to be published.

Does that mean you (or I) should not participate in NaNoWriMo?  Not at all.  One of my thoughts for why novels coming from NaNoWriMo are publishing as easily is that it could be the fault of the writers themselves.  How could it not be?  My guess is that after someone finishes writing that novel in one month, they are pretty burned out on it, and don’t put in the time necessary to edit it into something readable.  Or maybe the writers aren’t writing these novels in a month in order to create a publishable work, but rather to write something that has been inside of them forever, and to put that something on paper, for themselves and not for anyone else.  It could be that these novels aren’t even being submitted for publication, which to me says that NaNoWriMo is getting people to write for the purest reason that one could write anything.  To create something that you enjoy and are proud of, regardless of whether or not anyone else reads it.

That makes me feel much better about NaNoWriMo.  Despite the horrible abbreviation/acronym.