National Novel Writing Month, or How I Learned to Stop Editing and Love the Pressure

Some people like to run in races, from the short and sweet 5K to the more arduous 10k. There are even people who can knock out the 21K Half-Marathons or their twice as grueling sibling the 42K Full-Marathon. I'm not here to teach you about long-distance running, although I'm sure I'd find a way to make it fun, but rather to talk about that truly terrifying goal that rears it's head every November.

50K

Luckily for me, my joints, and my cardiovascular system, that number isn't a representation of physical distance. Instead it's shorthand for 50,000. As in 50,000 words. As in the 50,000 words that make up the novel you could be writing this month. 

NaNoWriMo is always a fun time of the year. Crazy, tiresome, a little reckless even, but certainly a fun time and an unforgettable experience. It provides you the goal, the deadline, and the community necessary to get your butt in gear and crank out a novel. This can be rather scary for people, especially someone like myself who is married to the backspace key, and might be having an affair with the delete key (that's just a rumor though). 50,000 words, one month, how can you do it? Luckily there plenty of people out there who have plenty of tips on how to survive NaNoWriMo, some of the most common being 

1. Just dive in.

2. Worry about all that editing later.

3. Kiss your social life goodbye for the next 30 nights.

As long as you follow rule #1, the rest is golden. Treat this like I treated every track and field day in elementary school and go for gold because you'll at least get a consolation medal. Worst-case scenario the month ends and you're left with more words than you started with, words you can continue to work with and around for as long as you want. Edit them, delete them, ignore them, at the end of the day it's all in your hands, or as I guess is more apt in this era, at your fingertips.

And now for some fun NaNoWriMo stats:

• In 2012 there were 341,375 participants
• 3,288,976,325 words were written.
• Minneapolis was the 10th most active U.S. city, and the 16th overall
• I managed to crank out 31,284 words, nearly double my product from 2011
• You could be writing right now
• So go do that

Enjoy NaNoWriMo Everyone!

The Importance of (Consistently) Being Earnest and Other Thoughts on Characters in Children's Books

Recently, I was asked to respond to some interview questions for the publication Children's Writer. 

Characterization is something that we are constantly concerned with here at the editorial desk. Who is this character? What would they do in this situation? Are they likable? Do I care what his/her/their experience is? Why did they react that way?  There is no real end to the questions we could ask about the characters we meet in our submissions and acquired titles.  

So, for today, I thought I would share my responses to said questions with the world-wide-web. Maybe you have some ideas to share as well? We'd love to hear you sound off below or on Facebook. Maybe you have a quick question? Ask away on Twitter! However you choose to respond, we're excited to hear your feedback.

-Josh

What Makes a Great Picture Book? 10 Key Elements

It's almost the end of November, and man has it flown by. Not only did November mark the beginning of our reading period, but it was Picture Book Month. And between all of the talk online about picture books and the huge amount of proposals we've gotten for new children's titles, we've been thinking a lot this month about what makes a great picture book.
After a little digging around online for popular opinions, and examining our own tastes, we've narrowed it down to a list of 10 key elements:

1. The story must understand what it's like to be a child going through something for the first time. "Picture books communicate self-acceptance, and they model coping strategies for children who are just learning to deal with powerful emotions." (Young Children and Picture Books)
2. A picture book should be simple but thoughtful. There is a small amount of space to find the perfect combination where all the elements work perfectly together.
3. The language should fit the audience. It should be playful, be fun, be attention grabbing, but be rich. Never forced. Every word needs to count for something.
4. Picture books are for the adults reading them as well, and so the story should resonate with and be enjoyable for the child AND the adult reading it. There's nothing better than reading a picture book as an adult and having it still mean something to you.

Author Guest Blog: Robyn Parnell

Robyn Parnell is the author of The Mighty Quinn, a middle grade novel being published by Scarletta Junior Readers next May. But long before she started writing The Mighty Quinn she was volunteering in a creative writing group at her son's school in Hillsboro, Oregon. It was during that time that she not only met the children who would later become role models for characters in The Mighty Quinn but where she met a boy who would challenge her to find an interesting story in a town where supposedly nothing special ever happened.


*****
Darers Go First

By Robyn Parnell Can Zorgon the Magnificent speak truths without betraying secrets? Is it clever or cowardly for a Herculon Sentry to passively resist persecution? Should the Galactic Council's actions be dependent upon mitigating circumstances or unwavering doctrines? Must the Zirconium Raider Queen fight for every noble cause, or carefully choose her battles? Can Solarian Seekers cultivate new allies without discarding the Old Ways?
Max* was the most precocious of the students in the creative writing group I'd been asked to lead at my son's school. He incorporated universal themes into his character's dilemmas, but refused to cast those characters in our universe. His stories were situated on faraway planets in distant galaxies. While I saw nothing particularly wrong with specialization, for Max, space was the final, and only, frontier.
He was the first student to read his stories aloud, and the last to recognize that his critiques of the others' recurrent topics ("Dude, your villains always die in fiery crashes!" "Alyssa, another stray Rottweiler looking for a home?!") also applied to his own works.
Although the students had been chosen for the group due to their creative writing aptitude, they initially, rigidly, followed what I privately called the preteen's "anyone but us/anywhere but here" directives of storytelling:

1.) Protagonists must be extra-normal; ideally, super beings with super powers (Rottweilers included)

2.) Stories must take place "somewhere else" – another time, country, dimension, galaxy – in order to be interesting.

As the weeks passed and we discussed SCAC vitals (setting, characters, action, conflict), the students alternately supported and challenged each other through character matrixes and plot exercises. Few events in my writing life have been as rewarding as hearing a ten-year-old author's epiphany: "There's no suspense when mega-brave, mega-smart, mega-powerful characters get mega-fast solutions to their mega-big problems." (Yessssssssssss! They said it, so I don't have to!)

Minneapolis Rocked NaNoWriMo!

Everyone knows that NaNoWriMo ended last week, but have you seen the stats about this year's participants? It's amazing! Stats for NaNoWriMo are split into two categories: Main and the Young Writers Program. For NaNoWriMo Main, there were 256,618 participants in 2011! Up from 2010's 200,530 participants. And 36,744 of those writers completed their goal of 50,000 words! Everyone wrote a total of 3,074,068,466 words!!!

Moving on to the NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program, there were 81,040 participants in 2011, up from 2010's 68,710! There were 16,334 writers who completed their goals and everyone wrote a total of 368,143,078 words!
These numbers are absolutely astounding and we couldn't be more thrilled for the writing community. We're looking forward to reading some of these masterpieces in the years to come!
But to be honest, the stats that I love most are for the Top 50 NaNoWriMo Cities (according to Google Analytics, based on number of November visits from these fine places). And the reason? Out of ALL the cities in the WORLD, Minneapolis made the list at #12. We couldn't be more proud.

Ian on tpt's Almanac

Last week, Ian had the pleasure of appearing as a guest on Twin Cities Public Television's Almanac show with Cathy Wurzer. Check out the video below to see what he has to say about the state of publishing today, upcoming Scarletta Press titles, and the best writing advice he's ever received.