While it is true that finishing the first draft of a novel is just one small step on the staircase towards publication, it also a tremendous accomplishment. It takes dedication, and even more so when the goal is to finish a 50,000-word novel draft in just one month, as many do by participating in National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo happens every November and has participants from all over the world. However, NaNoWriMo is more than just a cool writing event; it’s also a nonprofit organization. Their mission statement says, “National Novel Writing Month believes in the transformational power of creativity. We provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page.” On the NaNoWriMo website, writers can create a free account and use it to announce their NaNoWriMo novel, update their word count, and earn personal achievement badges. Furthermore, the website provides things like writing inspiration and encouragement from staff and published authors, a place to connect with the writing community through online forums, and a way to find in-person writing events in your own local community. They also have an active Twitter account, on which they post things to inspire, coach, and help writers along in their novel-writing journey. Even here in the Fox Cities and greater Green Bay area, we have plenty of NaNoWriMo resources and active participant groups. In Green Bay, the Brown County Library hosts regular write-ins at their central location every Saturday…
Happy Holidays from Swenson Book Development LLC. It’s been a wonderful year in new releases! Our next newsletter and blog will go out on New Year’s Day! Sign-up for our monthly newsletter of insider info and our bi-weekly blog about the business of being an author and the writing life. Here’s to more great books in 2019. Merry reading and happy writing. … [Read More]
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Every writer hopes to captivate an audience. But who are you writing to? When you write a letter, you address your reader directly. When you write a speech, you anticipate a particular group of listeners. If you write a news article, you have a strong sense of who the readers will be, and your writing reflects your grasp of how best to address their subscribers…. [Read More]
Filed Under: audience identification, bookstore, children's literature, fiction, GoodReads, library, Nonfiction, YA
Carolyn Porter is a “graphic designer, typography geek, and founder of the graphic design company Porterfolio,” but you may know her as the author of Marcel’s Letters: A Font and the Search for One Man’s Fate. This memoir recounts Carolyn Porter’s journey through designing a font and her quest for answers about Marcel Heuzé, the World War II forced laborer whose handwriting inspired the font…. [Read More]
While it is true that finishing the first draft of a novel is just one small step on the staircase towards publication, it also a tremendous accomplishment. It takes dedication, and even more so when the goal is to finish a 50,000-word novel draft in just one month, as many do by participating in National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo happens every November and has participants… [Read More]
As we go through our everyday lives, science is at work all around us, though many of us take little notice. Teacher, author, and presenter Larry Scheckel has made it his mission “to show that science is valuable, a worthy human pursuit, and just plain fun.” And that’s exactly what he does in his latest book I Wondered About That, Too: 111 Questions and Answers… [Read More]