16 January 2016 - 2:37 pm

Looking forward: 2016

Okay, so I’ve gone over how 2015 went. I’ve got a bunch of stuff on my plate and a whole new year spread out before me. While yearly boundaries are arbitrary, they do afford us an opportunity to reflect, to plan, to redirect, and to attack things with renewed commitment and energy.

That’s the hope anyway. Let’s lay out what I have in store this year and see where we get to. For something different, let’s attempt this in possible chronological order.

This is because I’m aiming to have more focus this year. With my health and energy levels in their current state, juggling multiple things at the same time (as I have tended to in the past) is not a great idea right now. So instead, I’m going to try lining them up and knocking them down.

My goal is for 2016 to be the year of Getting Things Finished.

Editing

I’ve got a pile of editing work on my plate, and my plan right now is to work through it before I turn my attention to anything else.

Why am I putting this ahead of my own writing, I hear you ask? Because other writers are waiting on me to do things, and that matters to me. Also, editing other people’s work is a shorter job than writing something new, so best to tackle it first.

First up is the editing for Carnifex under the Blade Editing banner. The first edit is almost complete and ready to be sent back to its author. The first edit is the heaviest; subsequent edit rounds will be much quicker to turn around.

Next is the editing for the Everyday Heroes anthology. This is a project that has languished over the holidays, and will be kicked back into action shortly. There’s still a way to go on this, but I’m hoping to get it released by the middle of the year. My first focus will be to get the ball rolling on the editing side again; after that, I’ll mix it in with other stuff.

Once that is off and running, I’ll be finishing off the new editions of The Apocalypse Blog ebooks. This isn’t a huge job: mostly requires some time and concentration (it’s hard to do piecemeal; or at least, hard to do well that way). Two books have been done (one of them the short prequel); two to go. Looking forward to launching the new covers, editions, and pricing!

I have a few other editing bits coming my way over the course of this year, and will fit them in accordingly. Looking forward to getting into the swing of this!

Writing: Small Fry

With Starwalker Book 5 stuck in what the movie industry refers to as ‘development hell’, I’m going to turn my attention to smaller projects to start with. Again: line ’em up, knock ’em down, and compulsively tick them off my list.

Once the bulk of the editing work is done (or at least significantly shoved in the right direction), I’ll be looking at some smaller projects first. I’m thinking particularly of Boomflowers and Vampire Victim Support Group. My goal is to finish the first one completely and get the entries scheduled up and posted, as it’s the shorter of the two, and to get phase 1 of VVSG completed (phase 1 is the first entry from each of the characters; I have 2-3 phases planned).

I’m also hoping to get more of the comedy erotica (The Adventures of the Detachable Penis) written and released. Part 1 is out, Part 2 is written and getting ready for release, and there are 6 parts planned in total. It’s a fun departure from my usual stuff, so makes a nice break. Plus, they’re short (5-7 thousand words each) and pretty quick to turn around.

Writing: Big Stuff

While all this is happening, Starwalker will be bubbling away in the background. I’d like to get some test-writing done for some of the new material, and pull together a coherent plan for the next book. It was outlined before NaNoWriMo 2015, but given the changes that I want to make, that’ll need to be updated.

I’m aiming to pull together the test-written stuff into an actual backlog of posts, so I can start with a buffer this time around. It should help in those times when I’m having a bad week and am struggling to put a post together, smoothing over the rough patches. (Of course, this is a nice theory; maintaining a buffer isn’t one of my best skills.)

At this stage, it’s hard to know timescales, but I’m hoping to restart Starwalker by the start of the second quarter of 2016. My intention is not to rush this, because I’d like to get it off to a good start.

It’s also entirely possible that the buffer I build up ends up being half or more of Book 5. With the desire to focus this year, writing in my usual serial fashion might not be a good idea, and this could be a chance to change how I approach my writing time. I will still post it serially, but how it’s constructed on the back end is going to be different. That might delay the start of the posting but I hope not!

However, I do have a list of Starwalker shorts that I intend to look over and attempt to revitalise. At least one of the yet-to-be-published ones has been drafted! So one/some of these might pop up in the meantime.

Writers’ Asylum

This tends to be an event that requires some attention from me in the early part of the year, because setting up a day of writing challenges for a bunch of writers can be a tricky beast. However, good news! The bulk of the work for this has already been done.

When setting up my calendar of events for the year, I sorted out a suitable weekend in April in which to host it (working around other events that tend to attract my writer peeps). And thanks to my skittering attention in NaNoWriMo 2015, the challenges for this year’s day of madness have already been drafted. The page has been updated and everything.

All that’s left is to polish the challenges, get them scheduled to go up on the blog so online people can join in, and then run it. Easy.

(I know, I know: famous last words. Shh.)

NaNoWriMo

Skipping towards the end of the year, it’s hard to predict what my project will be for NaNoWriMo this time around. It might be focussing on pushing Starwalker forward and building up that buffer. It might be returning to Vampire Electric to continue the second draft.

Right now, given that the theme of this year will be focus, I’d like to say that it would be Starwalker. I won’t make a decision now, though; I might need a break from the serial by then and take the opportunity to do something different.

As far as NaNo events and organisation goes, this year looks like it’s going to be a tricky one. My co-ML (Municipal Liaison, the fancy title they give those of us who organise the local events) is gaining a baby this year, so it’s possible that we’ll both be pretty time-poor when it comes to NaNo stuff. On the other hand, we might gain a third pair of hands to help out with the ML side of things, so you never know.

At this stage, I’m intending to keep NaNo stuff fairly simple and straightforward. No big Retreat or Overnight to organise takes a lot of the pressure off, as well as a lot of the time and stress in the lead-up to November. This year, changes and experiments are likely to be small in scope (which in itself will be a change!).

Other Stuff

As part of my push to streamline things, I’m also making some changes in my home life to ease various burdens, including financial and housekeeping effort. I’m planning to downsize my home situation, which means going through all the stuff I have in storage and ruthlessly cleaning it out, paring it back, and, ideally, shrinking the raft of stuff that I have to move to a new, smaller house.

I’m not planning to move soon. Given all those things that I’ve mentioned above, from health, to commitments, to all the things I really want to get to, plus the fact that I’m a pack-rat and keep everything, I knew that I’d need time to get something as ambitious as downsizing and packing done. So the plan is to spread it out, chip away at it regularly, and be done around the end of the year.

Honestly, just making this decision and forming a plan to make it happen has lifted a bunch of stress off me. This is mostly a preventative measure, so there’s no pressure to get it done soon, which means I can do it my way. So I shall.

 

And that’s it! That’s my set of goals and ambitions for the year.

Laid out like that, it looks like a lot. But a year is a long time and a lot will probably change in that span. There are a few factors that might pop up and spoil this, but that’s okay: we adjust and move on.

Fingers crossed, 2016 will be a better year than the last. I’m already feeling more positive about things than I have in a while. Let’s get to it!

Onwards, my friends, into the breach, heads up and hearts strong.

13 January 2016 - 5:49 pm

Random Writing Tip #13: Vacuums Suck

A lot of writing is done as a solitary activity. We write, we rewrite, we wrestle to make it the story we want it to be. But we can’t do all of it alone, shut away from the world.

Writing in a vacuum isn’t good for the writer or the writing.

We should also look outwards and get input from external sources. It could be other people, or other works of fiction, or real-life stories. We should gain context and an understanding of how our work fits into the world.

We should also reach out and get feedback on our work from external parties. Take in the fresh perspectives of others on the story and on our writing. We mix up this information with everything we’ve come to know, add to it the context we understand, and aim it towards the goal we’re striving for with the story.

And we learn. We improve. We hone our skills as a writer and we polish our stories with this new information.

By stretching out, we expand our vision and experience, and we enrich our writing.

So don’t write in a vacuum. Surface once in a while, let other things fill your eyes and ears, and bring it back to improve your story. You’ll be better for it.

9 January 2016 - 3:17 pm

2015 in retrospect

2015 was, in all, a pretty low year for me. It involved a lot of struggling, fighting with my health, stress with the day job, and trying to get back to a project that wasn’t playing ball.

But is that all that is worth talking about?

Thinking back over what I had hoped to achieve this year, let’s see how the tally really goes.

Life Stuff

I had aimed to mostly stay in my job and keep my head above water. I wound up changing my job, but I’m in the lucky position of still having one, and continuing to be able to support me and my family. While it’s a struggle and a source of stress (though less now than it was in the middle of the year), I am immensely grateful for it.

I didn’t get to all of the house reorganisation that I wanted to, but I have some plans around that, which I’ll be talking about in an upcoming post.

My health continues to suck, much of which is related to the aforementioned work stress. I also wound up having to have a root canal this year (yay!), which sucked up much of my medical needs budget. More saving (and dental work) required. Joy.

Writing

So, with all that going on, how did the writing thing go?

First of all, and most importantly, Starwalker Book 4 is complete. This, of everything, was the biggest achievement of 2015, and I can’t be delighted enough with it.

Book 4 was a rocky ride, took a wrong turn or two, but I got it back on track and to the end I wanted it to have. It is the culmination of 5 years of work, which produced over 400,000 words that I shared with the world. I have a wonderful readership, for whom I am eternally grateful. Even now, months into a hiatus that I hadn’t intended to take this long, they offer me support. I am a lucky writer.

I’ve talked at length on this blog about my struggles and ponderings around Starwalker, so I won’t go over it again. Let’s just say that the hiatus lasted longer than expected and didn’t quite go to plan. That’s okay. Plans must change when they meet reality.

As for other projects, there has been limited movement:

• Vampire Electric was put on the back burner this year when I decided to dedicate this year’s NaNoWriMo to Starwalker instead.
• Work has started on the new editions of the Apocalypse Blog ebooks. I’m about a third of the way through.
• Vampire Victim Support Group got a short boost when I was investigating Inkspired, a serial-friendly publishing forum. It languished a bit in the latter part of the year.
• Boomflowers is a new project, also on Inkspired, which suffered the same languishing fate.
• Splinter Soul poked its head up during NaNoWriMo and is starting to take shape in the shadows.
• I experimented with writing and releasing a comedy erotica story. It isn’t selling great yet, but I’m working towards the next installment and hope to bulk up the numbers once I can call it a series. This was great fun to write and something of a departure for me. Always nice to try something different!
• Other projects fell by the wayside and remain on my list.

In less fictional realms, I’ve been better with updating this blog and keeping it going. I’ve been expanding the scope by adding author interviews and book reviews, and I hope to do more of the same going forward.

The other big thing I did in 2015 was to get an anthology project in motion (with some friends and colleagues; it wasn’t all me). We’re in the depths of editing at the moment, after stalling over the NaNoWriMo/holiday period.

Writing Events and Community

In 2015, I organised and ran the usual events. The Creative Writing Group is still going strong, and recently I have started to record our meetings (these will go up online as soon as I figure out how and where). Attendance continues to be healthy to all of the events, with the usual tides of newcomers joining and others drifting away.

I am ever grateful for the lack of drama in my writing community.

I spread my monthly events out in 2015, instead of having them on the same weekend, and that is working well. It spreads the cost and effort, which helps everyone out, I think.

The Writers’ Asylum went well and I tried a slightly different format that turned out to work well. Learnings will be carried forward to this year’s, which is mostly written already (I’m so organised! Hey, it happens sometimes.).

We tried some new stuff with the NaNoWriMo events this year, with some mixed results. They all went well on the whole, though, and I’m happy that we’re continuing to head in the right direction. I have awesome people around me, so it’s all worth it.

So, all in all, it wasn’t a terrible year. Things were achieved. Other things weren’t. It’s hard to see the positive when the fatigue is heavy (like it is right now), but laying it all out like this helps.

I have some ideas for 2016 and how to make it better than what has come before. More on that coming soon. In the meantime, hope your reflections and resolutions are going well.

Goodbye, 2015. I don’t think I’ll miss you!

6 January 2016 - 6:21 pm

My Samaritan

I had an interesting experience recently. As I was driving to the movies with my dad and a friend, the car was pulling towards the left slightly. It was subtle, enough that I put it down to being a bit tired and not quite paying attention. It was easily corrected.

There was a strange noise a few minutes later. It was quiet, almost drowned out by our talking, but enough that I shushed my passengers to check that it was, in fact, being made by the car. Then I pulled over.

Yup, flat tyre. Bollocks.

Now, I like to think I’m fairly capable. I can check a certain amount of basic engine things: oil, water, washer fluid. I can change out a distributor cap (a car I had a few years ago needed a new cap about once a year). And I’ve changed a tyre before. It’s a pain in the ass, but I can do it.

So while we had the light and space to do it, I didn’t bother to call my roadside assistance service (I have one, thank goodness).

My dad was quick to grab the jack and get down beside the car to start the process. We had fun attempting to get the hub cap off, but it turns out that it goes under the wheel nuts (never seen that before), so my friend and I stood back out of the way while the jack was set up.

Next thing we knew, there was a car pulling up behind mine and a guy hopped out. He was a big, burly fella with a shaven head, of Maori descent, and with Maori-style tribal tattoos down both arms. The sort of guy who wouldn’t look out of place in a bikie gang, a dimly-lit bar, or a BBQ on the beach. The sort of guy that people warn you about. The sort of guy that people would make a lot of assumptions about, most of them not terribly complementary or reassuring.

It’s worth pointing out that the road we were on is a main road between two suburbs. There was a steady flow of traffic going in both directions. He came over to us with an offer of help with whatever was wrong, and I smiled and thanked him, because people don’t often do that.

It took me a moment to realise that this fella had seen two girls on the side of the road, standing by a car with its hazard lights on, and he had immediately turned around and come to help out. He hadn’t seen my dad because the car was in the way. He had assumed we were stuck and reacted without hesitation.

This kind Samaritan – whose name I never got, he was so quick to head off when it was all done – was pleasant and happy to help out, even though we probably didn’t need it. He wasn’t creepy or unsettling in any way; he was just a nice guy who took time out of his day to help out complete strangers that he thought needed it. Even after realising we had someone working on it already and probably weren’t quite what he had assumed, he insisted on jumping in to help and crouched down next to the wheel.

No-one else driving along that road stopped. (To be fair, they may have seen his car there and assumed we had enough help.)

I’m grateful for his appearance, even though we would have been okay on our own. It got me thinking about assumptions and how we react in these cases. I thought about whether I would stop if I saw the same thing (I’d like to think so, but it hasn’t come up yet). Mostly, I thought about how people might react to someone of his appearance approaching them in a time of need.

I was simply grateful to him, then and now. I was so touched by the fact that he stopped to help us that I didn’t have time to be anything but thankful and a bit embarrassed towards him.

But there was a part of my brain that wondered if he always got that reaction. I can imagine that people would judge him unfairly because of the way he looks: some might be guarded with him, or outright refuse his aid, or assume he had stopped for some other, less sympathetic purpose. I can imagine that stereotypes would get in the way, whether related to race or class or ink.

I came away from that stop by the side of the road with a good memory of something that was otherwise a pain in my ass (and was worse when I got the bill for fixing the tyre). I felt a little bit better about myself, because I try to take people as I find them and give them a fair go, despite all the scare-mongering that goes on in the public consciousness these days. I want to be the person that smiles and is pleasant, regardless, and I’m glad that I lived up to it that day. And I had some of my faith in humanity justified by this person who stopped to lend us a hand.

So, thank you, mystery man. Thank you for taking time out of your day to help us out. Thank you for being unexpected and awesome. I’m sorry that I didn’t get your name.

In a world that is suffering under the weight of people judging each other harshly, when the media is full of the bullshit caused by people turning stereotypes into reasons for hate, thank you for reminding me that we can be free of that if we choose. We can just be people going about our business, reaching out and interacting with each other without that crap in the way, and we can brighten each other’s day in the process.

I hope you have some idea of the difference you made to us, beyond changing a tyre and helping us make our movie.

Thank you.

3 January 2016 - 3:30 pm

The problem of representation

As an artist, representation is a problematic minefield.

Not all artists care about diversity and representation. I’m going to say up front that that’s fine: it’s completely up to the artist what elements they put into their work and what issues they want to tackle.

However, ignoring issues like representation and diversity opens an artist up to criticism. But trying to tackle them has the same effect.

To be clear: I think that representation and diversity is a problem in mainstream media. Western media is heavily biased towards straight white males. Women are not proportionally represented, people of differing races are not well represented, the presentation of religions is skewed, people of differing abilities aren’t well represented, and the LGBT+ groups struggle to be seen as well. You don’t even have to be a minority to be poorly represented in fictional media.

(For the purposes of this post, I’ll be talking about media in terms of fiction – TV shows, movies, books, etc – rather than journalism and news reporting, which is also very problematic but less about art.)

There is increasing pressure from all kinds of different groups to improve diversity in our media. There are calls for more lead characters that are female, or POCs, or not-straight, or not-cis, or non-binary, or not-Christian. And rightly so! Some mainstream media outlets are listening and responding. Some indie outlets have always been doing it.

At the same time, there’s a lot of criticism and resistance to who is writing and representing these characters (lead or otherwise).

‘Appropriation’ is the word that I keep seeing crop up in these arguments (and such sentiments usually devolve into arguments, though I personally try to stay out of it). A particular group is represented but not quite right or not by someone ‘authorised’ to do it, and so it’s vilified by the group that is being represented.

Cultural appropriation is something that I’ve seen crop up a lot in articles and posts over the last couple of years. (It has most likely been around a lot longer; that’s just when I started to notice the volume of it.) Those outside of the cultural group in question are not allowed to play with their toys, not welcome to join in. Just recently, a free yoga class was banned from an American university because someone complained about it being cultural appropriation. (Honestly, I can see what these objectors are saying, but I think it’s all gone a little far.)

Then, when it comes to fiction, there are those minorities who don’t believe that anyone outside of their group can properly write their situation. I’ve been personally told that I couldn’t possibly understand a particular person’s situation or journey because I haven’t walked it myself (this particular instance was in relation to trans issues, but it’s not the only time I’ve heard that sentiment and not the only group I’ve heard voice it).

This is particularly rankling for me. In one instance, we’ve got a group of people crying out for more understanding, acknowledgement, and inclusion, and in the next breath, they’re pushing people away because we couldn’t possibly understand and are not part of their group. You can’t ask for inclusion with one hand and demand exclusivity with the other. You can’t ask for understanding and then tell people it’s impossible for them to gain it. And stating that your personal experience is so special that no-one outside it could possibly understand is the height of arrogance, to me.

Most human being are empathic creatures. A lot of us make an effort to understand other people, and are even interested in the things that make us different. Artists, in particular, are very involved in this. Writers make their stories out of getting into other people’s heads, in understanding what makes a particular type of person tick, in understanding how their past has built them up to the point in their lives that we are writing about. These people are not all us. If we could only write the journeys we have personally walked, then I would not be able to write male characters, or gay characters, or black characters, or those of different creeds to me. I’ve done all of these things, and writers all over the world do it all the time.

Doing it well requires research and a whole heap of understanding. But it seems that even if people do their research and try to include diverse characters, they are criticised by various groups because they’re not ‘authorised’ to do it.

Or they’re criticised because they’ve included group X, but not group Y, and haven’t been inclusive enough. Sure, it’s nice that the lead character is a female, but is she a blind black transgender lesbian? Then you probably haven’t been representative enough and at least one group will complain. (This is reflective of some of the discussions I’ve seen about popular fiction (mostly movies and TV) on equalist websites.)

I get that there’s always going to be someone who is not going to be represented, and that’s not fair. It sucks to be left out. On the other hand, it’s not always possible to represent everyone; particularly, it’s hard to do that without gymnastics worthy of the olympics, and usually winds up with such a caricature that it fails to represent anyone.

Also, fiction shouldn’t be a checklist of ‘have I included every permutation of human experience’. That’s seldom good for the story. There are times it can work and times it doesn’t. But there are people who seem to think that every story should, and those that don’t, have failed in some fundamental way.

Again, I feel the need to point out: I don’t think that those who feel excluded should ‘shut up’, or ‘be happy with what they get’, or pat creators on the head for ticking some of the representation boxes. I don’t think this is an easy problem to solve. But demanding (or whining, as so often happens) that your particular group should be included and whatever doesn’t manage it is shit? That’s unfair, too.

So is the fact that whatever an artist does, it’s wrong. Ignore representation, and you’re vilified. Try to include it, and you’re criticised, because you’re not inclusive enough or because you don’t have the right to write that particular group. Do it badly, and wow, watch out, because how dare you. It’s hard to know what the right thing to do is!

I strive to do my characters justice and present them fairly, whatever aspects may make up their history and personality. I try to mix up the elements of those characters, because I believe that a diverse cast is fairer and more interesting. I try to break down the barriers and include as many different kinds of people as I reasonably can. I’ve studied psychology and I do research when I delve into an area I’m less personally familiar with.

At the same time, I don’t write about the issues of any particular group. I’m not writing about a trans journey, or gay rights, or racial issues, or religious controversy. These might be elements that influence a story (because they might be part of a character’s journey), but that’s not what my work is about on the macro level.

Instead, one of the things I try to do is normalise diversity. To have gay and bi and racially different characters alongside each other and for it not to be the focus of events or discussions. To have them working together or butting heads for reasons other than those aspects of who they are. This is more reflective of how I would like the world to end up, not how it is right now. I’m more interested in exploring people with these as facets of who they are, not as the major thing they are.

In many ways, writing scifi frees me from some of the real-world restrictions and gives me the scope to normalise some of the diversity. Starwalker, in particular, gives me a lot of room for this. I still try to do the various elements justice, and it has allowed me to venture into some new areas. (For example, I find writing cultures I’m less familiar with challenging, because I don’t want to be accidentally insensitive, but I’m actively trying to stretch into some of these areas in Starwalker.)

In The Apocalypse Blog, I had a great opportunity to throw lots of different people together and took advantage of that. At the same time, I was writing a story set in a contemporary Western city, so I wasn’t as free to be as broad as I am in Starwalker. I was able to mix in gay and bi characters (some as main characters), though, and that made for a better story without taking it over, I think.

So I guess you’re probably wondering: what’s the point of all this? I think my point is mostly: if you want the stories in the media to be more diverse, support will get you much further than vilification and hatred. I’m not alone in trying to present diverse worlds, and while I’ve never been personally attacked about it, I’ve seen it happen to so many that it makes me sad.

For many creators, there’s no way to get it ‘right’ for everyone. We need to find a way for people to accept that a work of fiction doesn’t have to be perfect, or represent every group, or acknowledge every type of struggle in human experience, because that’s impossible.

Don’t ask the impossible. Find a way to make the possible great.

29 December 2015 - 6:30 pm

Interview: Green & McRae

Suffrage is the debut novel from Julian Green and Finn McRae. Here’s the lowdown on the story:

There is something hidden on Earth that could change the fate of two worlds. A secret so immense it’s worth killing and dying for. A small group of freedom fighters must change the fate of their own world, by coming to ours… but at what cost?

Our choices change us, as much as they change the world around us.  Sometimes it’s subtle.  Sometimes it’s a dimension-spanning wave that causes ripples through many worlds.

What would you choose for the greater good?

Suffrage: (noun) The right or chance to express an opinion or participate in a decision.

At this moment, the first draft of the novel is complete and undergoing the usual overhaul and edit required to turn it into a publishable novel. Green & McRae are hoping to publish through a new (to me) venue called Inkshares, if they can get enough support to make it happen. You can help with that!

The two authors were kind enough to answer some questions for me, so let’s learn some more about them and the novel they have created.

****

Melanie Edmonds: Suffrage is your first novel. What spurred you to start writing, and how long has it taken to complete the first draft?

Finn McRae: I blame Julian.  Almost entirely.

That said, are you talking about writing in general or writing this particular piece?  Because if it’s this piece, then it’s totally Julian’s fault.  I think we started about three months ago, give or take.  Julian had already done a very large amount of legwork on this.

Writing in general for me started something like 30 years ago.  I actually don’t remember.  I think I was trying to do comics and wound up with short stories based around Indiana Jones but using a different name.  Don’t judge me.  I was like 8 or something.

Julian Green: Finn blames me. Apparently my muse is highly contagious. Seriously though, I’ve always been a writer of stories. I tried and failed to write a novel when I was in high school. When that didn’t work I got into writing online in Role Playing Games, MUD’s and Play by Post forums. Just writing for myself and having fun, and fifteen years ago I started getting bored with other people’s worlds and visions and started writing my own. Suffrage was a game where the ideas behind that world and the characters just wouldn’t go away and so there was this dull ache to write about it if I could ever find the time.

It all came to a head when I was on a camping trip with a few mates, no TV, no internet, no fish, and after a few beers I started talking about the story, giving them the background and the response was very encouraging (and it wasn’t the beer talking). So from that first spark… eight months, but I’ve been thinking about the story for well over two years.

ME: What’s the central theme of Suffrage?

JG: I think every generation has some iconic event where people always remember. For me that was the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The 10 year anniversary events were happening when I started thinking about the game which has ultimately led us here. I was seeing a lot about freedom and what it means and the world events where freedoms were sacrificed for “security”.  What is a civilized society prepared to give up to feel “safe” from the barbarians at the gate?  What choices do we make as people and as a society to find that balance between security and freedom? That’s a central theme of the whole series, not just this book, because of where our main characters come from, and the principles that govern their society.

FM: Good question.  Big topic actually.  Julian and I had a long sit-down about this prior to actually starting and a lot of that was my own trepidation about projects, theme, audience, etc.  Really, it’s about freedom.  And that sounds like a no-brainer, as if everyone who’s anyone should want to read it.  Because after all, freedom is a born right, correct?  It’s a good thing, isn’t it?  But what freedom really means is the freedom to choose.  It’s the freedom to act.  It’s those actions and the circumstances around those choices that give the freedom context.  If someone is free to choose to do “good”, they are also free to choose to do “evil”.  Choices aren’t always easy.  And what if the alternative was to give up freedom for security, safety, and the greater good?  Is the freedom to be destructive still a good thing given that possibility?  Those are questions we wanted to look at in the book.

ME: Suffrage is a collaboration, which can be a challenging way to write. How did the partnership come about, and how did you make it work for you?

FM: We met via some other people in a writing group on another website for Play by Post gaming.  [Julian] said he had a sweet idea for a book, and I seem to remember gelling pretty well.  The overall feel of some collaborative pieces felt pretty organic.  Sooo…yeah. Novel.  It seemed like a logical step for two people who’ve never met in person and know nothing about one another to go do on a lark.

JG: Writing a novel is a strange and lonely activity. You’re trying to communicate this terrible delirium/hallucination that you think is really cool and that maybe other people will enjoy reading, but you have no idea. My problem was for over twenty years I’d been writing collaboratively, and then I was trying to write alone. I struggled a lot in the first stages of the book, and actually completely abandoned my first fifteen thousand words and started again. I was about twenty or thirty thousand words in when I stalled and realized that I needed the energy of another writer in the process if this was going to work.

Finn was someone I’d met through an online Play by Post website and I liked his style of writing and reached out to him. Turns out we are very similar people and once we had established a unified vision for what the novel was going to look like, it worked extremely well. There were some teething issues at first where we tried to pass chapters back and forth, but it wasn’t until we tried writing together, at the same time, that the process started to flow extremely well. One of us would take the lead and the other would follow along behind adding details, and making suggestions, then we’d swap. It was actually a lot of fun, but without Finn and I being very similar people, I can see why other writers struggle with collaborations.

ME: What was the most important thing you learned about working as a partnership on a novel?

JG: I think the reason it worked so well with Finn and myself is mutual respect and that we are very similar people. At the start we had a pretty frank discussion, not about the book, but about ourselves and our goals and it turns out we were both ENTJ personality types. Finn’s also a great guy, really easy to talk to and fun. From that base it was all about communication, any kind of partnership works because of the quality of the communication and we got pretty comfortable early on.

FM: Oi…Partnerships in general are difficult.  Not because people don’t get along, but because they’re individuals.  Nobody sees any one thing exactly the same way as another person.  That said, Julian is stellar.  Novels are a massive undertaking.  So having another person who is at least on the same page the vast majority of the time is not only encouraging, but a bit humbling.  It means we’re not alone, even as individuals.  Considering he and I have never met in person, and I have no idea how his body language even looks, the fact that we share so much in concept and execution is pretty amazing.

ME: Would either of you do another collaboration? Would it be with each other?

FM: I almost certainly will.  And likely with Julian, though there are a few other personas I’ve met that I would consider writing with for this kind of project.  I’ve talked with one already.  Maybe things will work out.  Maybe not.  Life is funny like that.

JG: Suffrage is the first book in a series, so pretty safe to say yes to both those questions. I think I’d be careful after hearing a few horror stories from other authors about who I collaborate with, but writing on my own for the first few months and achieving little and then writing with Finn and achieving a huge amount in a very short period of time has told me I’m a collaborative writer. Whether I write with anyone else will entirely depend on what happens with the series.

ME: What drives you to write?

FM: Life.  Things I see.  Things I experience.  Those lovely thoughts I have when I touch the sky at the top of the world in the mountains.  Those terrible things I dream when I’m still awake.  Those wonderful muses among the stars.  They come out.  All of it.  It’s not good.  It’s not bad.  It just is.

JG: I joked above about my muse being contagious, but it was only half in jest. After having this unshakable need to tell the story, I actually struggled with medium for a few weeks. I did some research into how I wanted to communicate the story and I originally imagined it as graphic novel or possibly even a screen play. It quickly became apparent that if it was a novel, it could easily become those other mediums.  So I started a steep learning curve with a local creative writing group, which has helped enormously. Now I can’t think of any other way to communicate the story, but I still think it would make a great movie or graphic novel.

As for motivation, I think stories are important, they help us to make sense of things that are happening in the world and in our own lives and I’ve always found writing to be very cathartic experience.

ME: What’s your favourite word?

JG: Yes.

FM: Haha!  Julian nailed it.

(ME: I think we can see why they’re such an effective partnership!)

ME: What sound or noise do you hate most?

JG: Sound actually plays a big part of the novel so this is an interesting question. I’m one of those people that when I’m concentrating hard, you have to punch me on the shoulder to get my attention and noise is just background. Today my highly musical daughter snapped one of her guitar strings when she was playing and the guitar made this odd sad little sound. Then my daughter made this odd sad little sound. I didn’t like that sound very much.

FM: I’m trying really hard to keep a positive spin on life.  So for a negative question, I have to give you a positive answer.  The sound of politicians opening their mouths is an anathema.  The sound of people in wonder at some event or some spectacular view… is quite amazing if we take the time to listen.

ME: What’s the single worst piece of writing advice you’ve ever seen or received?

JG: Someone told me that writers have a wall at twenty thousand words. Here I was blissfully ignorant of the wall, writing up a storm and then I checked my word count…and I stalled as I wasn’t sure which direction to take the story in. It was like a part of my superstitious hindbrain was looking for an excuse to fail and that cheerful “watch out for the wall” was the excuse it was needing. Deciding to get Finn involved was the kick I needed to get out of that funk. Now there was someone else involved and counting on me to write.

FM: So going for positive once more: “Try my proven system for writing a novel!”  That’s the best poor piece of information anyone could give a writer.  There are a ton of books on how-to.  And this isn’t to say that any of them are bad.  But what it really takes is a writer willing to spend the time with an idea that they fell in love with, and then communicating that idea into a form that someone else can partake of.

Writing, really any sort of writing, not just a novel, is personal.  It’s the writer’s bias, their hopes, and their dreams all collected into a dram of perfection spilled out on a page.  There’s no formula for it I don’t think.  I’d love to romanticize it or simplify it, but in the end it’s a lot of work in front of a keyboard.  Sometimes our personal muse gets ahold of us and that work is easier.  Sometimes the muse won’t come visit, and it’s twice as hard.  In the end, it comes down to the writer.  Do we or don’t we?  If we don’t, nothing happens.  If we do…

ME: What drew you to try Inkshares, and what are your hopes for it?

JG: I’m a planner who likes to research. I like to have all my planning done well in advance before I start a project. I looked at traditional publishing methods and read the horrible slush pile stories and the multiple rejections and considered the likelihood that it would take years via a traditional publishing method, before Suffrage might be published. I then looked at self publishing and realized that also came with challenges around publication, editing, etc. Self-publishing has all these things we’d need to do which are just putting barriers up between the new authors and their potential audience.

So I needed something else, something new. Inkshares was what I found and I think it’s a really interesting take on publishing. Connecting readers and authors together to take some of the risk out of the traditional publishing model, and allow fledgling authors an opportunity to get a traditional publishing process if successful.

FM: Again, I totally blame Julian here.  He had started with Inkshares before he even asked me.  I had no idea that self-publishing via the interwebs, and putting a book on-the-line even existed until this year.  Shame on me for not knowing.

ME: What’s the next exciting project on your horizon?

FM: Well, I suppose first off, there’s a sequel to Suffrage coming out.  The book was never meant as a standalone. In addition to that,  I’m looking in some different directions at some other genres as well.  But that will likely be a long time in coming.

JG: Finn’s absolutely correct. Suffrage was never meant as a standalone, the book ends with a number of unanswered questions and Finn and I have already spoken about events we’d like to see in the books remaining in the series. So book two already has a few major plot twists sorted out and we can see the shape of it.

ME: And now for some shameless promotion: how can we support Suffrage and help it be released for us to enjoy?

JG: I really want to give Inkshares a red hot go which means going to the Suffrage project on Inkshares. You can read the first few chapters of the novel in there and decide if you want to pre-order the book.

Just by registering on Inkshares and participating in the community, by commenting, recommending books, etc, you get free Inkshares credits which allows you to pre-order and back projects. Free books: who doesn’t like that?

Every pre-order gets us closer to our goals for the publishing options at Inkshares. Currently, Inkshares is doing an imprint with the Sword and Laser podcasters, for which there is a competition.

So we’re doing a competition as well. Finn’s brother is very arty, as in he makes a living from it and is doing a unique piece of art that we will be giving to one of our backers. We’re also going to draw the name of one of our backers to include as a character in the next book in the series.

FM: We would be thrilled if people bought it.  And really, signing onto Inkshares and pre-ordering a copy is probably the best way.  Show it off, hand out some links on Facebook or Google or in blogs.  Heck, give us some reviews.

However, “No publicity is bad publicity”, the saying goes.  We set up the Google+ page to encourage some discussion.  We think we touch on some thoughts in the book that are worthy of being assessed not only in the realm of science fiction and quantum physics, but also about people, governments, and society in general.  We’d love to hear some thoughts on that.  And you never know, we might be incorporating that into future books.  Just saying.

****

Thanks for taking part in the interview, Finn and Julian!

When asked for a bio, they said to me:

We’re two handsome men who enjoy long walks on the beach, hefty drinks with little umbrellas, sunsets that would make a poet go mute, and the ability to entertain on a plethora of subjects.  Oh, and we write novels.

Other cool stuff:

• Craig Munro on Suffrage: “I’m hooked. Julian Green and Finn Mcrae’s particular brand of scifi is not only believable, but it’s damn cool! You seriously have to check it out!”
• One of the main characters in the novel has been given a smartphone and can now be found tweeting.

Don’t forget to go over to the Inkshares project and pre-order the novel. If they get enough pre-orders, they’ll get published! Spread the word, everyone!

27 December 2015 - 1:10 pm

The future of Starwalker

After the struggle and ultimate disappointment of writing Starwalker for this year’s NaNoWriMo project, I’ve been giving some serious thought to how I get back on the web serial  horse.

I don’t give up on things easily. I have stories left to tell in Starwalker: there is one, probably two books in her yet. I miss the weekly posting and checking up for comments to see what people think and how they’re reacting. I’m frustrated that I’m not making the progress that I should be on a project – any project, but particularly my central one – right now.

So I’ve been giving some serious thought to why it’s proving so difficult this time around. If I’m going to fix it, I need to understand it.

Part of it is that I’m struggling to do anything terribly creative right now. I’m not only having trouble getting down to write Starwalker; I’m having trouble focussing my attention on any project at the moment, certainly for long enough to make real inroads into it.

The creative drain is something I put largely down to the mental and emotional exhaustion that I’m suffering lately. It has been a stressful year and that has impact my chronic fatigue in ways that I’m still coming to understand. It’s more than physical. I’ve got ideas and still love my stories, but just don’t have the creative energy to sit down and turn them into words. Not with any longevity, anyway.

Starwalker, in particular, seems difficult to get back to. In comparison, I wrote sections of newer projects much more easily (beginnings of things have always come pretty easily to me). I’ve been mulling over why this is, and it has taken a while for me to admit to myself that I’m finding Starwalker a bit boring.

I still love the story. I still adore the characters and their voices. I am still keen to see what happens with Starry and her crew, and the challenges they have ahead of them.

But after four books, it is all a bit rote now. When we return to the story, the ship is travelling (limping a bit) on its way to somewhere else. Because of the damage, this takes a while, which is usually an opportunity for some musing on the parts of the characters to soak up the downtime.

It’s not really anything new, though the characters are in slightly different places now. And if I’m feeling a bit bored with the routine of it all, surely my readers are feeling it, too? Or are they looking forward to more of the same? (I haven’t asked, or maybe this is me asking: is the pattern of Starwalker getting stale?)

I think what I want to do is shake things up. Shift focus, try a new approach. I’ve been pondering different points of view, different ways of telling the story, though I’m reluctant to diverge from the ‘ship’s log’ approach. That, in particular, is part of what makes Starwalker stand out from the crowd, and I don’t want to break the format. Shake it up, yes, but not shatter it entirely.

What does that mean? I’m not sure yet. I’m pondering options and different ways to tell the story, including more points of view, skipping the long, dull tracts of space travel, and maybe including some log entries from outside of the ship and her crew. I’m trying to think of other new things I can try out, just to see what happens.

It all requires more thought and planning, which will take a bit of time. I don’t want Book 5 to be simply ‘more of the same’, for my own sake as a writer as well as for my audience, I want the start of this next phase in Starry’s journey to be fresh and different to what has come before. I want to break free of the bogged-down feeling that the end of Book 4 had (for me, anyway) and start something both familiar and new. I want to get truly excited about this story again, so it can be the fun, dangerous ride that the first books were.

I’m back at the drawing board for Starwalker. It’s going to take a little time to get it straight and good to go. I beg for patience and perseverance, I’m determined to do this right, and I’m hoping to get myself in a better emotional and energetic state so that Book 5 sings along merrily.

In the meantime, I’ll be shifting the Starwalker site to a new host to cut down on my costs. Wish me luck! More coming on this soon.

23 December 2015 - 5:55 pm

Why NNWM: Proof positive

Part of the why NaNoWriMo is good for writers series.

NaNoWriMo is an annual challenge that is run on an honour system. That means that it isn’t policed, and sure, there are a huge amount of ways to cheat if that’s what you want to do.

Ultimately, I don’t think that NaNoWriMo is about proving anything to anyone but yourself. That’s why its honour system works, and why that honour system is enough to make NaNo meaningful: at the end of the day, if you cheat, you’re only cheating yourself. Anyone can mock up a winner’s certificate easily enough; it only means something if you’ve actually earned it. And if you have? Great job!

A lot of people say that they want to write a novel one day. NaNo is the chance to make ‘one day’ be today, and it’s a chance to realise that yes, you can actually do it.

When you get to the end of the month, if you’ve hit the target and completed the challenge, you’ve written a novel. Sure, it’s the first draft of a novel and needs work, but you’ve done it. Even if you haven’t reached the end of the story, that’s okay, because you’ve just proven that you’re capable of writing 50,000 words in only a month. If you can do that, you can get to the end of the story, however many more words that means. Then you’ve got the first draft of a whole novel, and that’s pretty damned awesome.

You’ve proven to yourself that this writing thing isn’t so far out of reach. It isn’t some unicorn you say you want to tame like it’s a fantastical dream that lives on the other side of the rainbow. No, you’re Dorothy fucking Gale, riding the whirlwind over the rainbow, and you’re squashing that unicorn like its a stripey-stockinged witch. You went forth and made your way through every twist and turn of your own personal yellow brick road. You collected characters along the way and saw them changed by the end. You looked behind the curtain. And you came home in one piece, but different. Broader, more accomplished, like you just saved a whole multi-coloured world.

You know now that you can do something amazing. You managed to put your self-doubt aside, sat on your inner editor and all those other voices that tell you you can’t do it, and proved them wrong. You are capable of doing more than you thought you could.

And if you didn’t reach the 50,000 words? Either way, you’ve learned something. Maybe it’s how to fit writing into your life, or the best way to plan a novel. Maybe it’s the opposite: you’ve learned what doesn’t work for you. That’s all good: it’s all a step forward. And, chances are, you’ve now got 35,000 or 20,000 words of a novel under your belt.

Let me tell you: that’s still damn amazing. It’s still something. That’s still 35,000 or 20,000 more words than you had at the beginning of November. It’s still an adventure and an experience.

For many writers, NaNoWriMo is a way to realise that writing a novel is possible, and plausible, and achievable. Particularly for those who don’t have their own personal cheering squad, or whose self confidence can be unkind and unhelpful, this can be the kind of lift that they need. It can give them the impetus and confidence to continue forward, to keep writing and maybe finish that novel. Or maybe just that warm, fuzzy feeling of a goal achieved, a win they can call their own.

We all need that bit of validation every now and then. Some, more than others. Never underestimate the value of a sticker, or a cheer, or a PDF certificate to say hey, you did this awesome thing, you wonderful writer you.

Good for you.

18 December 2015 - 6:23 pm

Retrospective: Overnight write-in 2015

Every year, I try to do something a little different for our NaNoWriMo events. It has led to fun like:

• The roving write-in, riding the trains around Brisbane with our laptops. (Sadly killed when they removed the daily train passes and it became horribly expensive to achieve.)
• The Writer’s Retreat, a weekend away on a tropical island at the beach.
• The evening Kick-off Party with the midnight writing start at 00:00 1^st November. (Only feasible when Halloween and 1^st Nov are on a weekend.)

Some of the changes have been small. Others have been larger, like those above. Some we’ve kept; some have come and gone for various reasons. This year, the Retreat wasn’t going to work (the cost was proving to be prohibitive), so I thought I’d try something a bit different: an overnight write-in.

The idea was that it would be similar to the Retreat, in that people would go away for a night, and have an extended ‘write-in’ to focus on writing. I’m lucky enough to have a generous-sized house right now, with room that could accommodate a good number of people, so I volunteered my house as the venue.

The idea was also to keep the cost down as much as possible. It being held at my house meant that there were no accommodation costs to worry about; it’s summer, so people could bring a pillow and crash out on couches or cushions easily enough.

The main challenge was the consumables. Knowing that there would be a lot of people, and knowing that we have one fridge in the house, I had to approach it as simply as possible: we would provide all the food and drink, and then we wouldn’t have to contend with people trying to squeeze food and drinks into my fridge. It meant there was a cover charge for the event ($60 AUD), but I figured that was pretty reasonable, all things considered.

It’s not cheap to feed and water a bunch of people. It being summer here, I had to make sure there was plenty of liquid refreshment available. That was fine, though I think I over-estimated how much we would need: there’s a load of soft drink left over. That’s okay, though; at least we didn’t run out.

For snacks, we got in loads and again have some left over. Not a problem; they’ll cover some of our other events as well. These are all good things to know, though.

The overnight was one night (Saturday), which meant one dinner to be catered. That was easy: pizza. That went well, and there were enough leftovers to provide breakfast the next morning, too. Definitely a win!

The Sunday lunch was a challenge, though. Again, I didn’t want to prepare/cook myself (the effort would have been too much, and there’s a certain level of liability that I’m not quite prepared to shoulder). So, I looked at caterers and getting a finger-food buffet lunch delivered.

This was, perhaps, the most contentious part for me. It required organisation well in advance, confirmation a week in advance, and payment several days in advance. It meant that I had to order for how many I thought would come, and predict the dietary requirements, or constrain the bookings to those who made it by our deadline. It was also a little more expensive than I had hoped it would be.

As it happened, the bookings were sluggish coming in, and I wound up getting a bunch of requests on the day it started from people who wanted to come along. I didn’t mind, but it did complicate things. So, with the caterers, I wound up making a judgement call and booking for how many people I thought would come, and hoped it worked out.

As it happened, the numbers weren’t that far off (we had about 15, rather than the 20 I was aiming for), and we had a gluten-free platter when no gluten-free people were coming. But it was all very tasty and went down well, and it all pretty much disappeared. So I’m glad for that!

The other surprise was when people started showing up. I had planned for a 10am start on Saturday, but it was 3pm before most people started to turn up. The last attendee arrived about ten minutes before the pizza arrived. I suspect it’s why we had over-estimated the drinks and snacks required; people simply weren’t around as long as we were expecting. Perhaps the emphasis on it being an overnight write-in caused it? Is making something cover the whole weekend too much? I’m not sure – more investigation required here.

Overall, I’d say it went well. People came, they spread out around the house and deck, and they wrote words. We met new faces. We took breaks and played some games. We ate and talked and hung out a bit, then wrote some more. I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

I will say that the numbers weren’t what I was hoping for. There were many who said they were interested but didn’t come (for varying reasons). There were others who, I’m sure, didn’t come because it wouldn’t be their kind of thing (sleeping on couches, for example).

It’s also worth pointing out that this required a lot of preparation. All the public areas of the house had to be tidied and cleaned, and that was a lot of work (not that it’s normally disgusting, but it’s different when a heap of people are coming over, many of whom had never been to my house before). Getting everything ready wound up being a lot of work.

On the flip side, the aftermath was actually not too bad: we used plastic cups and plates, which meant the cleanup was actually fairly minimal. That was a relief.

All the same, it took me two days to recover afterwards. I think I underestimated how much work and stress was involved. Thank goodness I had taken time off work around this! I was pretty useless for a couple of days. And this was even with help! (I didn’t do it all on my own.)

This all means that future expectations should be adjusted. If we were to do the same thing again, I think I’d approach it differently.

It’s far too early to think about planning next year’s NaNo (this year’s has barely finished), but I wanted to capture this while it’s fresh. Also, I’ve been thinking about doing a winter overnight write-in, because the notion of doing it when it’s cold out is very appealing.

So what would I do differently? Let’s see. For the winter one:

• Pyjamas. For the whole weekend. Blankies are encouraged.
• Have activities for people to do. This won’t be during NaNo, so a load of free writing time would get boring. So, something like holding writing games, or a character creation workshop, might be fun.
• Focus on having a smaller group for it. With it being colder, it might be less fun to sit outside for hours at a time. The house is only so big. Smaller and cozier would be good.
• Call it a weekend pyjama writing extravaganza (or similar). Staying the night entirely optional. Some beds and couches and beanbags available for those who wish to stay.
• Think differently about the catering. Try to find a better/cheaper/more flexible option for the lunch.

For next NaNoWriMo, I might try:

• Call it a Weekend Write-in. Hold it for the whole weekend, but less emphasis on the overnight portion.
• Loosen up the catering and costing. Have people pay on the days, so they can come for only one day if they wish.
• Look for alternatives for the Sunday lunch. The catering was great but ultimately too awkward and expensive.

So, a few things to work on. I’ll do a poll and get some feedback, and see what others thought of the weekend, too; there may be more to add to this list.

I enjoy these experiments. I like to try things out! I’d really love to try a floating write-in on the river, but I don’t think the ferries are conducive to writing here.

Always on the lookout for something new to try. What will next year’s big try be? Watch this space, I suppose. Suggestions are, as always, welcome.

16 December 2015 - 6:47 pm

Why NNWM: You’re not alone

Part of the why NaNoWriMo is good for writers series.

One of the best things about NaNoWriMo is the community.

Writing is so often seen as a solitary activity: writers tuck themselves away in garrets and corners and libraries, probably with headphones on, bent over their laptop or notebook or kitschy old typewriter. On their own. They spend their time happily toiling away on this thing they’re doing, without talking to anyone, without needing or wanting company.

Well, that’s bullshit. (I’ve written about this before.) The thing about writers is that it’s hard to shut them up once they start talking, because they want to talk. We want to share: that’s why we write, because we want to share the stories we have inside us. We also tend to enjoy sharing our love of stories and writing.

It’s not like we get together and just talk about what we’re writing, either. As lovers of fiction, we tend to be fans of all kinds of stories and related things, and we like talking about those things, too.

It’s more than being able to talk to people about fiction, though. It’s about finding people who share this strange, solitary, contact-hungry thing we do. It’s about finding people who understand without needing to be told, who get why we do it, and what drives us, and how it itches at us sometimes. It’s about sitting with others and writing, of doing something on our own with company, and it being perfectly fine when we’re not talking, too.

It’s about finding your tribe. A place where you fit with similar-minded people, without needing to prove yourself.

I pride my NaNo region on being open, accessible, and welcoming. As an ML, I encourage people to come along to the events, and I try to make them as easy for people to get to (no matter how they travel), and run them for long hours to try to cater to as many schedules as we can. When new people arrive, we try to welcome them and ease them into the group.

Most of us are introverts. A lot of us are very bad at this social thing, through introvert tendencies, or social anxieties, or shyness, or lack of practice, or any other reason. The good thing about the NaNo community is that we’re all familiar with that kind of thing, either through personal experience or by dealing with others in that position. We get it. We don’t mind and we’ll do our best to make you feel comfortable, because we really do get it.

As social groups go, we’re one of the easiest for a writer to slide into and feel at home.

And because we’re all working towards the same thing, you get supported. You don’t need to explain what you’re doing to anyone (though you’re encouraged to tell people about your story, because that’s awesome); you can just come on in and join in. It doesn’t matter what your word count is: everyone encourages and supports everyone else. We give out stickers as rewards (pro tip: writers love stickers, particularly is they are cute or have dinosaurs on; if they have cute dinosaurs on them, prepare for a stampede), and one of the things we reward is write-in attendance. Because it’s something to be proud of and pleased about.

Even if you can’t get to the events in person, there are the online regional NaNoWriMo forums. We regularly have writers in parts of the region too distant to make our central events who set up threads to talk with each other, and organise their own meet-ups. (I wish I could help out with those more, but I can’t be everywhere, sadly!) For those in remote areas, they can get their contact and support through the forums. There are Twitter accounts set up for those who want to do the writing sprints in a group. IRC channels for those who like to use them. The list goes on!

So many options to join in and feel part of a group, regardless of where you are and whether you can make it to the in-person events. Just going onto the NaNo website and updating your word count is a reminder that you’re doing this amazing challenge with a whole heap of other people around the world. You’re amazing, and you’re not alone.

One of the best thing about NaNoWriMo is the community. Everyone is welcome here. I love it more than I can truly express.

Coming soon: proving you can do it