If you’ve found this page in my blog then you’ve likely already made the decision to join NaNoWriMo and write a novel in November. (Thank God! I don’t want to be alone in this!)
Seriously though, I really believe that everybody has a story to tell. I’ve met so many people who tell wonderful stories but most have never bothered to put them down in writing, like my father, and it’s really hard to write someone else’s stories down for them.
How you tell that story is up to you. I also very firmly believe in NaNo Rebels – write poetry, a memoir, short stories, a script, whatever you fancy, just write those words down.
For some of us, writing is what we we felt we were always meant to do for the rest of our lives, but that isn’t necessary to NaNoWriMo. It’s okay if you’re doing this because you want to get your memoir down or just want to give it a try. There’s no right or wrong way to do this, or a right or wrong reason for doing it.
It doesn’t matter whether the manuscript ever sees the light of day, just joining us on this endeavor is going to put you in touch with your creativity in a way you’ve never experienced before.
There have been quite a few official NaNoWriMo “Pep Talks” over the last six years. Sadly they are not all created equal. Some ramble, some need editing, and some have really good advice. The advice can be useful but when I want a pep talk, I want a PEP talk! I’ve been making a list of my personal favorites.
(2009 was a short list but the two I chose are some of the funniest I’ve read.)
Obviously, the best inspiration comes from reading material that directly relates to your novel in November. For me, I’ll be looking at articles and books, pro and con on GMOs, that inform my fiction. I’ll also be watching movies that are in the same genre I am writing.
(Where will you glean inspiration from? Please take a minute to comment and share!)
Whether you’re getting ready for Nano and want to procrastinate a bit, are looking for some much needed encouragement or want to bookmark this page to pop back in when you’re two weeks under way and feel like you’re foundering, here they are – my favorite pep talks in all of Nano land.
2007
Author – Neil Gaiman
Favorite line – “You don’t know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you’re pretty sure that even if you finish it it won’t have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you began—a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you ever read—it falls so painfully short that you’re pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.” Sounds SO cheerful, doesn’t it?
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/neil-gaiman
Author – Sue Grafton
Favorite line – “Perhaps you’re suddenly uncertain your immediate family will appreciate your rendition of their annual drunken Christmas antics that result in all those accusations, renunciations, and slamming of doors. “
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/sue-grafton
Author – Sara Gruen
Favorite line – “But today, I am going to jump around and write only the fun bits! I’m going to write about food fights, and disastrous sex, and escaping in-laws, and apes with unlimited credit! “
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/sara-gruen
2008
Author – Chris Baty
Favorite Line – “November 16: The second half of NaNoWriMo dawns. Writerly confidence builds. Your book comes to life, and characters start doing interesting, unexpected things. Nice. Weird.”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/chris-baty-2008
Author – Meg Cabot
Favorite Line – “But how long until some other story idea comes along and twitches its enticing little characters at you, and you decide to abandon this new one for it? How many words will you have then?”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/meg-cabot
Author – Janet Fitch
Favorite Line – “When in doubt, make trouble for your character. Don’t let her stand on the edge of the pool, dipping her toe. Come up behind her and give her a good hard shove. “
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/janet-fitch
Author – Jonathan Stroud
Favorite Line – “This wasn’t the moment for genteel self-editing. This was the time when the novel had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into existence, and that meant piling up the pages.”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/jonathan-stroud
2009
Author – Maureen Johnson
Favorite Line – “What’s nice about NaNoWriMo is that you are traveling with a posse of thousands, all of you making your way over the mountains, through the valleys, across the creeks. You are fighting off the beasties.”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/maureen-johnson
Author – Gail Carson Levine
Favorite Line – “My techy friend spent hours tinkering with my computer. She’s assured me that it will combust if I try to reestablish connections to the internet and email. The single thing I’m keeping is my cell phone in case I start to go into cardiac arrest, but the keys are smeared with battery acid, except the 9, the 1, and send. “
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/gail-carson-levine
2010
Author – Chris Baty
Favorite Line – “Incite change. If your story is losing momentum, juice it up by inflicting some major changes on your characters. Crash the spaceship. End the marriage. Buy the monkey. Change is scary because we have to figure out what comes next. But feeling afraid is ten times better than feeling bored, and your book will benefit from your risk-taking.”
Link – http://http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/chris-baty-2010
Author – Lindsey Grant
Favorite Line – “All together, let’s laugh in exultation at our total domination!/ MuahaHAHA!/Now let’s go do some writing.”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/lindsey-grant-2010
Author – Holly Black
Favorite Line – “There aren’t good books and bad books. There are finished books and books that still need more work. Please don’t let wondering if there’s a market for your book or wondering if the book you’re writing is genius or evidence that you should be heavily medicated get in the way of the writing. “
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/holly-black
Author – Lemony Snicket
Favorite Line – “Think of all the things you could do with your time instead of participating in a noble and storied art form. There are things in your cupboards that likely need to be moved around.”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/lemony-snicket
2011
Author – Chris Baty
Favorite Line – “Sadly, the older we get, the harder it is to find time to visit these wild places within. Between school, work, and family, the days just get away from us. There might be an hour of writing here or a few minutes of dreaming there, but it’s usually sandwiched between tasks and errands. The roar of that creative ocean becomes a distant sound that occasionally drifts in through our windows at night, reminding us of a place we once loved, and keep meaning to get back to./ But you know what?/ This November, we’re going to the ocean.”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/chris-baty-2011
Author – Rachael Herron
Favorite Line – “Every day I white-knuckled it, and on November 30th, I wrote my 50,006th word. The words The and End were two of those. After a few months of lying in dark rooms recovering, I picked it back up and gave it a real ending. “
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/rachael-herron
Author – Erin Morgenstern
Favorite Line – “I want to mix you each the beverages of your choice, cocktails or sodas or tea or foam-topped espresso drinks that all magically maintain perfect drinking temperature. Bring you truffles or tira misu or chocolate-covered popcorn and give you wrist massages while whispering these encouraging, fortune-cookie bits of wisdom-esque whatnot garnered in my years of NaNo-ing”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/erin-morgenstern
Author – Lani Diane Rich
Favorite Line – “You’re not signing up for this challenge because you want to type a lot in November./ You’re doing it because you have a story to tell, and that’s a big deal.”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/lani-diane-rich
2012
Author – Chris Baty
Favorite Line – “…we’ve realized the whole “fair fight” thing was a dumb idea, and partly because we blew all of our harassment budget on yesterday’s spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to crash every word processor in Manitoba.”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/chris-baty-2012
Author – Grant Faulkner
Favorite Line – “It resembles a canvas that a gaggle of preschoolers are fingerpainting on together. Then, while the teacher isn’t looking, the ornery little devils find a box of feathers, glitter, Cheerios, pasta shells, and they toss it all into the mix.”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/grant-faulkner
Author – Marissa Meyer
Favorite Line – “The trick to landing an excellently unexpected insertion is to not go with the first idea that pops into your head—too often, that is the domain of clichés and the all-too-expected. Rather, try making a list of at least twenty things you would enjoy writing about right now. It doesn’t matter if it has anything to do with what you’ve written so far (you can always drop in some nice foreshadowing during revisions), and the whole point is that you’re about to insert something fun, unique, and exciting into this draft.”
Link – http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/scott-westerfeld
Author – Scott Westerfeld
Favorite Line – “Make a list of all the varieties of aliens you can come up with. (And if it’s less than 3,000, then THE PEARS ARE LAUGHING AT YOU, MY FRIEND.)”
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