Pencil, Paper, Plot...Go!

"Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: do not use semicolons."
                                                                                       -- Kurt Vonnegut


Sharpen your pencils. Settle into your chair. Organize your thoughts. Take a deep breath. Write.

It's almost time for National Novel Writing Month, or as it is affectionately known, NaNoWriMo . Every November, the good folks at http://nanowrimo.org/ encourage us to get busy with a goal of writing every day. By the end of the month, a 50,000 word novel is born. 

In 2015, more than 430,000 people heeded NaNoWriMo's invitation to write.The annual challenge has paid off for novelists. Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, and Eric Morgenstern's The Night Circus are NaNoWriMo creations.

For those of us not interested in writing a novel, daily work on a memoir, poem, essay or children's picture book is also good exercise. Think of it as pilates with a pencil or keyboard.

Let those nouns and verbs flow from brain to paper or screen. Don't edit as you write - get the first draft written. All of it. As William Wordsworth said, "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart." 

Most of all, have fun writing in November. Imagine yourself as a writer in a threadbare sweater drinking gallons of hot tea and searching for the perfect verb while writing the next Great American Novel. You won't be alone because according to Cornelia Funke, "all writers are lunatics."

Indeed.

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If you need a gentle shove in the right direction, get to a bookstore or library and check out these helpful guides.

Writing and Illustrating the Graphic Novel - Dan Cooney

The Writer's Digest Handbook of Novel Writing - Tom Clark

Zen in the Art of Writing - Rad Bradbury

Lawrence Block's Writing the Novel

On Writing - Stephen King

Element of Style - William Strunk Jr.

Escaping Into the Open - Elizabeth Berg

Writing Fiction - Gotham Writers' Workshop

Writing Fiction - Janet Burroway & Elizabeth Stuckey-French

                                      
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