Published NaNoWrimo Authors

truelyana · Oct 19, 2007

Hello,

I'd thought it was quite appropriate to post this message here, besides I'm excited about the whole NaNo thing. Well as I was looking through the Media Kit, browsing some very interesting information I spotted a Published NaNoWriMo Author with nearly the same first name and last name as me. That's actually quite fascinating I thought to myself, she's the second to last on the list.

Out of interest how would you get on this list? And would the produce of a 50,000 word Novel over night improve the situation? Did they take the next step to publishing their novel? Or is this list for writers, who have previous experience of publishing and selling? If anyone knows of anything, I would really like to know. This is all quite interesting

ajkjd01 · Oct 19, 2007

Almost all of the ones who have been published spent a significant amount of time editing and rewriting after NaNo. You might google Lani Diane Rich. She talks on her website and in her podcast, Will Write For Wine, about the process, and how she ended up signing up for NaNo.

NaNo is awesome, but it's a tool to get your first draft on paper. There's a ton of work that comes afterward. I've been editing my NaNo project from last year ever since then (almost 11 months of editing, rewriting, editing some more, going to conferences, editing, meeting with a critique group, rewriting, adding new scenes, and editing). I'm still not completely done with it, but it is so much better that I've put in the work! Use NaNo to get it down, and then shape it afterwards.

I'm not published yet. I want to be, so I'm putting in huge amounts of work to get there. And something else to keep in mind, even Chris Baty in No Plot, No Problem, talks about 50K being a very short book. Most publisher's guidelines want 70-100K on average. Mine exploded from just over 50K at the end of NaNo to almost 90K now because I realized I'd missed key scenes when I wrote the first draft. I also trimmed back a lot of wording in the 50K I had. It was worth it, and I've learned so much doing it that I plan to implement in this year's book.

The list on the NaNo website are people who have been published with their NaNo projects. There are other published authors as well who NaNo, and some of them are on this website as well.

Siddow · Oct 19, 2007

That list is, I believe, authors who had their NaNo novel published with a royalty-paying publisher. Not just any novel (or short story, or article, etc.), but the one they wrote for NaNo.

veinglory · Oct 19, 2007

Interesting, because my Nano comes out at the end of this month with Samhain. But I am not sure I would throw it in the media mix because revising that thing into a publishable state almost drove me insane and probably didn't do my editor any favours either.

truelyana · Oct 19, 2007

ajkjd01 said:
Almost all of the ones who have been published spent a significant amount of time editing and rewriting after NaNo. You might google Lani Diane Rich. She talks on her website and in her podcast, Will Write For Wine, about the process, and how she ended up signing up for NaNo.

NaNo is awesome, but it's a tool to get your first draft on paper. There's a ton of work that comes afterward. I've been editing my NaNo project from last year ever since then (almost 11 months of editing, rewriting, editing some more, going to conferences, editing, meeting with a critique group, rewriting, adding new scenes, and editing). I'm still not completely done with it, but it is so much better that I've put in the work! Use NaNo to get it down, and then shape it afterwards.

I'm not published yet. I want to be, so I'm putting in huge amounts of work to get there. And something else to keep in mind, even Chris Baty in No Plot, No Problem, talks about 50K being a very short book. Most publisher's guidelines want 70-100K on average. Mine exploded from just over 50K at the end of NaNo to almost 90K now because I realized I'd missed key scenes when I wrote the first draft. I also trimmed back a lot of wording in the 50K I had. It was worth it, and I've learned so much doing it that I plan to implement in this year's book.

The list on the NaNo website are people who have been published with their NaNo projects. There are other published authors as well who NaNo, and some of them are on this website as well.

So the ones that are on there, did a whole load of planning before they submitted and then published?

truelyana · Oct 19, 2007

Siddow said:
That list is, I believe, authors who had their NaNo novel published with a royalty-paying publisher. Not just any novel (or short story, or article, etc.), but the one they wrote for NaNo.

Ah I see, so it's all more serious based then anything. Thanks for the info

lkp · Oct 20, 2007

I haven't publshed my NaNo-novel, but I recently (like, yesterday) signed with an agent for the one that I wrote during NaNo.

I didn't follow the NaNo rules strictly though (eg. write a complete novel with beginning, middle, and end of 50,000 words in a month). I wrote one long chapter before it began, wrote 50,000 words in 2005, revised it and wrote some more stuff duing the year and then finished the novel in NaNo 2006. That worked for me (I also didn't enter to be a NaNo "winner" since I hadn't folowed their rules).

I have to say, although in editing I spent a lot of time cleaning up my prose, combining some smaller characters and combining conversations, I didn't have to do much really heavy-duty hard core editing. It is possible to write a fairly clean and coherent 50,000 words in a month.

Sage · Oct 20, 2007

I'm only in the process of querying, but I agree with lkp that 50K(+) in 30 days doesn't necessarily mean that the novel won't be in somewhat decent shape by the end of the first draft. My last NaNo novel was much cleaner than the novel I finished before it (which took a year and a half to write) and required far less editing than my earlier novels (&, looking ahead, probably less than my current WIP too).

ajkjd01 · Oct 22, 2007

truelyana said:
So the ones that are on there, did a whole load of planning before they submitted and then published?

I'm not sure about planning prior to NaNo, but certainly a lot of editing and revising prior to submission and querying.

Harper K · Oct 22, 2007

ajkjd01 said:
I'm not sure about planning prior to NaNo, but certainly a lot of editing and revising prior to submission and querying.

Agreed. I could have written your post above, aj, about having spent the last 11 months working like mad on your '06 NaNo novel. I've been doing the same thing, and I still have a few solid months of work ahead of me before the thing is ready for querying (or, heck, even ready for beta readers). I have heard of several people who were able to sell their NaNo novels after only a few months of editing and querying, but I think, in general, it takes a while to whip any first draft, NaNo drafts included, into something people might possibly pay to read.

I did a middling amount of planning before the last NaNo, and I'm doing about the same amount for this NaNo. Planning only serves to give me a blurry road map of where I'm going, though. It's the first draft that helps me really see how rough (or not) the project is going to be.

Published NaNoWrimo Authors

truelyana

Set yourself free

ajkjd01

I just have to be faster.

Siddow

I'm super! Thanks for asking

veinglory

volitare nequeo

truelyana

Set yourself free

truelyana

Set yourself free

lkp

Sage

Supreme Guessinator

ajkjd01

I just have to be faster.

Harper K

here's to the girl on the go