For me personally, I sold many books very quickly, my editor spoke of a second print run, I have no idea if that even happened—then things slowed down. I actively marketed my novel with social media, booking school visits, bookstore and library events, and while that helped boost sales a little, in the end it was a lot of work with intangible results.

I struggled with revisions on one book, an entire rewrite on another. I lost my agent and have yet to find a new one. Never Eighteen has not been nominated for any awards despite glowing reviews from Kirkus and VOYA. Probably the worst thing thus far—I have no second book deal. However, I continue working, continue striving, continue believing in myself and my talent and the fact that I will get there again.

Others in our group are doing quite well, and have second and third book deals. You’ll already find Robin Bridges’ second book, The Unfailing Light and Corrine Jackson’s second book, Touched, in stores. I think I can speak for all of us when I say it’s been a roller coaster ride, and having each other has been invaluable. We’ve been able to celebrate and commiserate together, to work as a team to accomplish our goals, and best of all, we became friends along the way. So no matter what struggles have faced along the way, being part of the Class of 2K12, and being a 2012 debut has been amazing. Now I want to share what some of my fellow classmates have said about their debut year.

“This year has been an absolute blessing and I’m so very grateful to everyone who has traveled this road with me. “ ~ Gina Rosati

“I think I’ve grown and changed more in 2012 than any other year in my life–I’ll never be the same again. This has been an amazing experience and I am so grateful to everyone who shared this journey with me. I’m looking forward to 2013 and being able to cheer on all the amazing new authors starting their life changing year.” ~ Kimberly Sabatini

“Simultaneously one of the most exhilarating but toughest years of my life. I learned so much about what really matters to me, though. And I think I made some fantastic lifelong friends.” ~ Sarvenaz Tash

“This year has stretched me in numerous ways. I am so grateful to have had this group to grow with and learn from as together we’ve started our writing careers.” ~ Caroline Starr Rose

“I had no idea what sorts of ups and downs awaited me in my debut year and I’m grateful for the friendship and support I got through my friends in the class of 2K12.” ~ Suzanne Lazear

“I’ve changed and grown in so many ways that I never would have anticipated this year. Not only can I now officially say I’m a published author, but I’m more outgoing, confident and can find and point out the bathroom in any bookstore. The relationships I’ve forged along the way have truly been the high point of the entire experience and I’m grateful for everyone along this crazy road.” ~ Joanne Levy

“Buckle your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” This year has been bumpy indeed, full of challenges, insights, thrills, and occasional tears. But aside from the lessons I’ve learned, the writers I’ve met and the relationships we’ve forged are the greatest boon of all.” ~ Eve Marie Mont

“Your debut year will put hair on your chest, turn the hair on your head gray, or cause you to lose hair. Either way, your hair will never be the same.”  ~ Corrine Jackson

“A debut year is supposed to be tumultuous and in that regard, this one has not disappointed.” ~ Danny Marks

“Without my 2k12 classmates I wouldn’t have made it through.  This is a fact.” ~ Kathryn Burak

“I thought achieving my publication dream meant the end of a long and sometimes insanely difficult journey. What I learned was it was just the beginning of another one. It doesn’t get harder or easier, it just gets different. Find joy in every step, no matter how painful.” ~ Jennifer Shaw Wolf

“How do you spell debut?

D…daring
E…exhilarating
B…befuddling
U…understanding (of family & friends)
T…tweeting” ~ Patrice Lyle

Our ride is almost over. It’s time to pass the torch to next year’s debuts. So without further adieu, I’d like to introduce the Class of 2K13 — Books Without Boundaries:

K.A. Barson
45 Pounds (More or Less)—Sixteen-year-old Ann believes that if she could lose 45 pounds before her aunt’s wedding, her life would be perfectly normal–but she soon finds out there’s nothing perfect about normal.

Caela Carter
Me, Him, Them, & It—A story about teen pregnancy, ticking clocks, the families you’re born with and the families you make.

Debra Driza
Mila 2.0—A Bourne Identity style adventure where a teenage girl discovers she’s an android with human emotions, stolen from the military by her scientist “mom”.

Liz Fichera
Hooked—Sparks fly when a Native American girl with a killer golf swing takes on a boy with a killer smile in the American Southwest.

Corey Ann Haydu
OCD Love Story—A girl with OCD bonds with a boy from her group therapy program only to push their budding relationship beyond it limits when her further descent into Obsessive Compulsive Disorder leads her to stalk the objects of her obsession, and she must choose: confront her past or forever be controlled by it.

Justina Ireland
Vengeance Bound—Amelie Ainsworth longs to graduate from high school and live a normal life, but as an abused child she became one of the Furies, driven to mete out justice on the Guilty, and lives on the run from the murders they commit.

Geoffrey Girard
Project Cain—Teen Jeff Jacobson must save both himself and thousands from a terrible death after learning he’s part of a top-secret military experiment… and the clone of infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Polly Holyoke
The Neptune Project—When the sea has become humankind’s last hope, a group of teens fights to survive beneath the waves.

Lydia Kang
Control—A 17 y/o girl aligns herself with a foster home full of genetic freaks to save a sister with a secret trait.

Stephanie Kuehn
Charm & Strange—A dark (and wolfish) coming-of-age story about a sixteen-year-old boy stuck at a remote Vermont boarding school who must face the secrets from his past that have transformed him, right down to his most elemental parts.

Demitria Lunetta
In the After—They hear the most silent of footsteps, They are faster than anything you’ve ever seen, and They won’t stop chasing you until you are dead.

Alex Lidell
The Cadet of Tildor—Sixteen-year-old Renee struggles to keep up with male cadets at a grueling military academy while confronting a friend’s forbidden magic and her mentor’s shadowy past.

Mindy McGinnis
Not a Drop to Drink—In a world without water, Lynn’s pond is life, her rifle its guardian.
Jennifer McGowan
Maid of Secrets—The tale of a wry, resourceful thief forced to join an elite group of spies in Queen Elizabeth’s court – where she must solve a murder, save the Crown, and resist the most tempting peril of all… falling in love.

Nicole McInnes
Brianna on the Brink—A popular “bad girl” cheerleader falls from grace but learns the meaning of family after making an impulsive, life-altering choice.

Kate Karyus Quinn
Another Little Piece—Trapped in a body that isn’t hers—with no memory of how she got there—Annaliese must unlock the secrets of her past in order to escape the horrors of her future.

Liesl Shurtliff
Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin—In a magical kingdom where your name is your destiny, 12-year-old Rump is the butt of everyone’s joke.

Tara Sullivan
Golden Boy—Marginalized due to his albinism, thirteen-year-old Habo discovers it’s more dangerous to be seen as priceless than worthless when his family moves to Mwanza, Tanzania, and he must flee for his life from people who think his body parts are magical.

Cristin Terrill
All Our Yesterdays—A girl must travel back in time to kill the boy she loves before he destroys the world.

Tamera Will Wessinger
Gone Fishing—An illustrated family fishing adventure in poems.

The Class of 2K12 would like to congratulate the Class of 2K13 on their upcoming releases and wish them as little frustration as possible and much success in their debut year. Buy their books!!!

Now to announce the winner of our giant 2K12-year end prize pack!

Just some of the books in the prize pack!

Congratulations to Briana Nickol!!!

Megan Bostic
Never Eighteen

It was a year of firsts. First novel. First launch party. First trade review. First blurb. First speaking gig as a real author. First workshop given as a professional.

And it was a year of recurring not-firsts. The debut year includes experiences that we writers have all had before. Rejection. Doubt. Crushing criticism. But also the things we live for: those grand writing days when everything falls into place and we love what we do. Characters who live on the page and in our minds. Hours spent in another world. And reading. Discovering the worlds of other writers and living in them.

The end of the year is a time of retrospection. Lists of news events and “best ofs” and favorites and changes and progressions and wonder at how quickly the year has gone. How this happened and how it changed me.

But by the same token, one can’t help but think about what happens next. The next book, the next sale, the next review, the next adventure. So the end of the year is also like a middle. And for me, the middle of the novel is the hardest to write. The adventure has begun. The end is not in sight. There is change and growth and the coming of hardship but also the hope for a happy ending. E.L. Doctorow said drafting a novel is like driving at night—all you can see is what’s in your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. What happens next is what’s in the headlights and we just have to muddle through as best we can.

For me—and for all of us—what I see in the headlights is this:

1. Great books. The Class of 2k13 has a stellar variety of historical, futuristic, contemporary, adventure, mystery, romance and everything in between. We certainly will not be lacking for anything to read.
2. Good days. Days when the writing goes like wildfire. When everything falls into place. When the sun shines and the birds sing and words just fall into place. When you find that one special book that will change your life—or at least your week—and you never want it to end.
3. Bad days. Sorry, but those are in the headlights, too. The days when the writing is like trying to push a cow backwards through a colander, as J. Anderson Coats says. And the cow just won’t go. Days when you think the world has beaten you. But there is always hope that just beyond the headlights lies something different.
4. Dreams. Nothing can take them away. They are always there, in the headlights and beyond.
5. Work. In your day job. On your novel. Cooking and cleaning and surviving.
6. Love. Family and friends and good books and sometimes writing and sometimes the work itself. The headlights are full of it.

Those headlights hold a lot. Sometimes, you can see for miles ahead—all the way to that road sign flashing in the distance. More often, it seems, the road is a curvy one, and you can’t see beyond a few yards. And that can be frightening. What’s coming up might be a landslide or a steep cliff or a bear in the road. It might be your destination—or at least a place to rest for a while. But you’ll never know if you don’t keep moving.

And looking forward.

What are you looking forward to? What can you see in your headlights?

(Special thanks must be extended to Caroline Starr Rose for reminding me of E.L. Doctorow’s quote.)

I love lists.

1. There was no way to plan for this. There just wasn’t.
a. Financially—stayed fairly on point, but I saved about 2k for all book expenses and ended up closer to 6k. Mostly    because I didn’t budget in the cost of trips, and I never expected POSTAGE to amount to NEARLY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS. For serious. I get a little mail-happy, but still.
b. I built up vacation time, but knowing when to use it was just totally beyond my skill set. Exhaustion and stress hit me when I least expected it, and I just totally shut down. Asking for things I need is also not a forte of mine, so that may have played into it.
c. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, so I didn’t think there would be an issue between this “writer/AC life” and this “Annie life”—but there is. Like feeling like a rock star one day at a conference and LITERALLY going back to work the next day to get sworn at by a drunken idiot. Or trying to explain to people at work why you make that face when you say “reviews”. Or trying to rationalize that this is probably the luckiest thing that ever happened to you, but you have a new set of problems that you—let alone your support network—barely understand.

2. PAIN! TORTURE! HERE LIE THE SKELETONS OF DEBUT WRITERS PAST! CONTINUE IF YOU DAAAARRRRRREEEE!!!

3. I never said this list was going to be particularly coherent. Because debut year leaves your mind in JELLY.

4. Being in a world where the power and love and thrill of literature is a daily occurrence is a gift. People get excited about books, and I get to be a part of that. It makes me not feel like such a lonely nerd, and that’s totally wonderful!

5. Patience. Oh, patience. See, you’re being patient waiting for me to have some kind of a point, but if there’s one thing publishing will wrench from you it is patience. There’s waiting for contracts, for edits, for the mail, waiting for news and announcements and such. There’s waiting that breath before responding to something that seems hurtful (bad reviews, book pirating, drama) and waiting to see if it really is something you can change, something you can fight, or something that needs to be addressed.

6. Can I just talk about my complicated relationship with the mail? Shout out to Monica, my amazing postal worker who answers all of my ridiculous and crazy questions and never minds when I hold up the line to mail thirty (not exaggerating, see point 1a.) packages at a time. Anti shout out to my new apartment’s local post office, where a PO Box has been a drama unto itself. Super shout out to my fellow authors, who use the mail to deliver little packages of love, like bookmarks and ARCs and the funnest parts of being an author—swag.

7. This book does not belong to me—how weird is that? It’s so strange that SCARLET has a life on it’s own, people interacting with it and caring about it without having anything to do with me. And that’s bizarre, but it’s also AWESOME.

8. But there was JOY. There was such joy. The picture is of me as a rather be-bowed 6(ish? Maybe?) year old girl, and I wanted to be a writer since I was THAT OLD. And this year, I’ve been looking at photographs of her and realizing that she knew I’d be an author, and I spent twenty years letting doubt creep in. But this year, I’m honoring her. I’m defending her heart and I’m not giving up on the things she cared about (except the bows. Bows are dead to me). I didn’t give up on her.

There’s also an absurd amount of thankfulness.

For the people that love SCARLET, even when she’s mean.
For the people that love me, even when I’m a psychopath.
For the people that cared enough about books to talk about them, write about them, buy them, blog about them.
For librarians and small bookstores that LITERALLY keep authors writing.
For this chance—this chance to be the person I always wanted to be. This chance to do the thing I love. To let my passion be my business. This is everything.

And especially for the other Classmates, the Apocs, the people who didn’t let me go through this alone.

If you haven’t read my blog this past week (www.acgaughen.com), it may have been a crazy year, but hopefully I’ll be doing this for a few more years to come. Thanks for giving me the chance, and I hope I don’t let you down.

But SO MANY amazing things went on this weekend that I never would have experienced if I’d let my introverted side win out and keep me at home. And believe me, my introverted side really likes to stay home, especially when going out means crowds and lots of constant noise (read: Las Vegas is insane and so not tailored to introverts).

The first session I sat in on in at the conference was about building reading communities (featuring Nerdy Book Club friends) and it really kicked off my theme for the weekend, which is that books bring us together and create and cement relationships. Nowhere was that more evident than in the exhibit hall, where people met authors and had their cherished books signed. And that counts just as much for those who stood in line to see R.J. Palacio or Libba Bray or those who walked up to me and told me they enjoyed my book and would love to have my signature (which still blows me away). I saw people squee about a desperately wanted ARC (I’m also guilty of this) and watched as friends greeted each other with hugs and the excited passing of books. Booktalks were overheard at every booth and my heart grew a little every time I captured the enthusiasm of teachers, authors and publishers as they discussed their favorites and new finds.

Lovers of books really are a community. And I’m proud to be a part of not only the whole, but the little subset of communities that exist within it.

The Class of 2k12 is one such community. I was able to meet my 2k12 sister, Corrine Jackson, which was great, since the group is spread out over North America (and I’m the lone Canadian in the bunch), so connecting with even one person who has shared this journey was a highlight.*

KidLit Cares is another, new community that came together very quickly after Superstorm Sandy swept up the east coast, bringing devastation to communities in New York and New Jersey last month. Kate Messner quickly reacted by putting charity auctions together to raise money for the Red Cross and I am honored to have taken over the cause for Round 2 (auctions are still open through November 28 and contain many amazing items/services donated by authors, agents, editors and other publishing industry friends. Please spread the word!).  I had the opportunity to meet Kate for the first time at NCTE and it was a big highlight of my weekend to sit beside her at dinner and just chat. About the auctions, books, publishing and the minutiae of everyday life—the kind of stuff friends talk about. And all this started because of books.

Writing is often a very solitary endeavor, but what comes of the work creates connections and communities and I couldn’t be happier to be a part of that. This past weekend truly was more than a sum of its parts and as my brain begins to really process all that I did and talked about and the people I met, I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. And this is just one of the things I’d never anticipated when I started writing many years ago, but is without question the absolute best part about it.

Joanne Levy

*I was supposed to meet up with Katherine Longshore, also, but the airline/scheduling gods were not working in our favor and we missed each other. This and the giant blister on my left heel were the only sad parts of my weekend. The blister will heal, but I’m super-bummed that I didn’t get to meet Katy.

1. Share everything: Find a group of authors like the Class of 2k12 who understand what you’re going through and then share your successes and failures, your joy and your frustration. EVERYTHING. Chances are someone in the group is going through the same thing and they thought they were the only person who ever felt that way. When your dream becomes a reality and sometimes a nightmare, you’ll need the support. A word of caution though…Do not share everything on-line. Sometimes you need to vent. Sometimes you need to scream. Do so in a safe environment. The internet is not a safe environment, no matter how many friends you have there. (Or maybe because of how many friends you have there.)

2. Play fair and 3. Don’t hurt people and 4. Say your sorry when you hurt somebody. The publishing world is a small and very interconnected playground. If you don’t play nicely in the sandbox, it will come back to bite you. No matter what stage of this business you’re in, BE NICE!

3. Clean up your own mess. Whatever you write will eventually need to be edited (no one is perfect) and you’re the one that will have to clean up whatever mess you put into your first draft. (Your editor is not your mother). Maybe your historical-dystopian-fantasy-vampire-mystery novel should have five main characters and be written from six points of view, maybe you should spend page after page with a poetic description of your heroes abs, or maybe you need to curtail your out of control creativity and just write a good story. (Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.)

4. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Writing a book takes hours and hours and hours of the author’s life. Yes, we want people to read our books, but pirating is stealing, pure and simple. Now that I know what feels like to have pirated copies of the book I spent two years creating floating around cyberspace for anyone to steal I’m much more careful about how I acquire music, books, photos, and other forms of art.

5. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. They are vital actually. (Especially for an author like me who doesn’t drink). So is chocolate and cupcakes. The virtual ones sent by friends when you’re in a crisis are thoughtful and calorie free, but sometimes you need the real thing.

6. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Writing and promoting a book can and will take up all your time. There will always be another story to write/revise/edit/submit/revise again. There will always be more promotion/social networking/advertising you can do. There will always be another conference/book signing/library visit that you think will push your book sales over the top. But if you’re spending all your time on your and with your book, your world will shrink, your friends and family won’t want to be with you anymore, and you’ll start to hate writing. Besides anything you try to write in the future will be boring. (No one wants to read about a middle-aged woman who lives in her pajamas and spends her days hunched over a laptop with her imaginary friends.)

7. Take a nap every afternoon. This is especially important if you write at night because you work during the day or if the only time you have a quiet house is after everyone goes to bed. Naps are REQUIRED after you’ve stayed up all night finishing a deadline. Creativity thrives in a well-rested mind.

8. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Back to the author’s group thing, the road to publication is scary and confusing road to travel alone. Find friends and mentors who have been there before you, people who can hold your hand and walk you through it.

9. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

10. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Don’t just write what you know. Write what you want to know, write what you’re excited about it. Don’t be afraid of research either, no time you spend learning something is wasted.

11. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice an even the little seed in Goldfish and hampsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup – they all die…So do we. Someday I will be gone, but everything I write will live on. (Apparently even what I post on facebook when I’m in a really bad mood.) Make sure the legacy you leave behind is a good one. Some of this goes back to number 2 and the BE NICE thing.

12. And then remember the story book about Dick and Jane and the first important word you learned, the biggest word of all:  LOOK! Story ideas are everywhere. Keep your eyes open. Always see life from a writer’s perspective, every moment could be the beginning of a great story. Never stop enjoying that part of the writing process.
13. And it is still the truth, no matter who you are or how old you are, when you go out there into this world, it is best to hold hands and stick together. Thank you to my fellow members of the Class of 2k12, the Apocalypsies, my family, friends and other writing groups who have helped me learn from, enjoy, and survive this crazy year.

The workshop had fifteen participants from across the United States and one from Japan. I was inspired by the sheer amount of talent in the group and enjoyed hearing others read their work. The three instructors were Sonya Sones (Stop Pretending, What My Mother Doesn’t Know) Virgina Euwer Wolff (Make Lemonade trilogy) and Linda Oatman High (Sister Slam and the Poetic Motormouth Roadtrip, Planet Pregnancy).

We each stayed our own private cabin with all the amenities. Mine had a lovely selection of children’s books.

Workshops, meals, and evening activities took place in the Barn.

A tour of the Highlights Magazine offices included chatting with the editors and time to ask questions. We also had a chance to hear from one of the editors at Boyds Mills Press.

Walks in the woods were a great way to recharge my writing.

My suitcase was loaded with books on my way home, because when the Highlights Foundation does a book signing the titles are complimentary.

The poetry rock garden was a treasure trove. If you brushed away the autumn leaves, you’d uncover a poem or find words to add to your own creation.

For more information and a sneak peek at 2013 Workshops, visit www.highlightsfoundation.org.

Twenty authors. Twenty-one books. All for one lucky winner.

(Open to the U.S. and Canada only)

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There, I said it.

This is a little known fact about authors and publishing and hell, life in general. And I think this has been one of the hardest lessons for me to learn over the past 8 months of being a published author. I still have the right to suck at it.

I think a lot about the almost-moments. I first submitted to publishers when I was fourteen, thinking that I’d be one of those wunderkind children and have all this praised lavished upon me—at the time, this included the cute boy I had a crush on and that of my high school peers. Without me having to say or do anything, I’d come into school one day and they’d just know. They’d see it written all over my face. I was awesome, and they should have known it all along.

Then there are the moments later, the almost-yes of this agent or that, the amazing one on one critique that almost-almost-almost–and didn’t. These very frustrating moments that got me just a little closer to the dream, the goal, the shining idea of being published.

I am so thankful that I didn’t get published at 14. I spent ten years being totally selfish with my writing. I didn’t care when I could see all the ways in which it blatantly sucked—the ways I was subtly or not so subtly ripping off other writers, the ways I had taken scenes from movies I loved and just kind of changed some names. I didn’t care if it sucked.

I let my own opinion develop. It took a really long time to develop those instincts, and choose for myself what was terrible and what was something that was actually speaking to me, to the story, to something more visceral and true. And that was something I learned to treasure.

A friend recently pointed me to an example of someone saying it with much more eloquence, as only Ira Glass can do:

“What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story.

It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

But then how do you reconcile this suckitude with being a professional, with having deadlines, and worse, expectations placed upon you? You simply don’t have time to suck. It’s gone. That selfish period of self-discovery has ended, and you’ve got to figure out how to cling to it—you’ve got to figure out how to suck again, how to remember that you are allowed to be a bad writer more times than you have to be a brilliant writer.

I’m trying to make time to be an awful writer. I’m trying to make time to not care about anyone else’s expectations but my own, to hear nothing but the voice inside. Because let’s be honest—when I stop listening to that voice, my writing is terrible anyway, but it’s terrible in a scary, paralyzing, I’ve-totally-lost-it kind of way.

I want to be terrible in the selfish way. In the high-volume, only 10% of this is good but I KNOW which 10% it is kind of way. ITS SO HARD. WHY DID SOMEONE MAKE THIS SO HARD?! But that’s the game. That’s the problem, the goal, the everything in one.

If you haven’t hit your goals yet, publication or otherwise, don’t bog yourself down in self-criticism. This time is your gift to listen to your voice. To fight for those ambitions with your heart to guide you, because believe me, it has such a true compass. Trust yourself, and you’ll get there. You don’t have be perfect; you can suck. You just have to be yourself, and keep going.

And if you’re in the middle, if you’ve hit some of your goals but not all of them—don’t forget that you have a right to suck. You can write as much trash and garbage as you want to. The reason that you want to write it, that gap between product and ambition, will become clear. It will make you a better writer, if you allow it to. Trust that gut instinct that you spent so long developing.

Right. After this bizarre pep talk, I’m going to try to be a really terrible writer today. Anyone with me? Bueller? Bueller?

I had ambitious plans for this month. I wanted to be finished with revisions on the one book, so I could start November with a complete rewrite of a previous NaNo project. I’m keeping the main characters and the backstory, but creating an entirely new plot for them. And I realized I have no idea what that plot should be, so I’d be writing by the seat of my pants. A first for me, because I’m usually a “no-pants” writer. I need my story map to tell me where the story needs to go, even when I’m fast-drafting. Going plot-less would be an exercise in thinking outside of the box for me. But for right now, the revisions on the almost-ready-for-agent-to-see book are a priority. And I don’t want to rush this one. Besides, I’m really in love with these characters and don’t want to let them go just yet.

There are pros and cons for writing a first draft in thirty days, and you can find writers weighing in on both sides all over the internet. It pushes you to finish, which is empowering in itself. It offers a community (actually, several communities within a community) of writers and it’s wonderful when everyone is writing and cheering each other on and discussing plot and setting and how to sneak in a few extra words while cooking the Thanksgiving turkey. There are NaNo forums for YA writers, for mystery writers, for fan-fiction writers, even for NaNo writers who also play RPG’s. I was tickled to see how many NaNo writers are playing The Old Republic on my server. My fourteen year old hangs out online with people who write fan fiction based on video games. (And she wrote 11K words the first weekend alone. Obviously, she does not need Word Wars with me for motivation.)

NaNoWriMo not for everyone. After reading Maggie Stiefvater’s Dear John letter to NaNo, I feel much better about my decision to continue plodding along with my current revisions and save the current twinkling of an idea for later. Or that sparkly new character that just showed up yesterday in my imagination? Maybe next November.

Several of my 2K12 Classmates are NaNo alumni (Megan Bostic’s NEVER EIGHTEEN, began as a NaNo novel) and many of them are participating again this year, so please help me cheer them on. And to anyone else who’s taking the plunge, best of luck to you. Elana Johnson has tips for getting through the month, and I like Susan May Warren’s NaNo preparations too. They can be applied to any novel, not matter how fast (or how slow) you write.