In this post I check back in with the NaNoWriMo website to see what's changed over the years; and how much social web technology it's now using.

According to Wikipedia the NaNoWriMo project was started by Chris Baty in July 1999, with 21 participants in the San Francisco Bay area. The website was launched in 2000 and participants at that time communicated with each other via a Yahoo! group. In 2000, 140 participants attempted NaNoWriMo and 21 wrote 50,000 words. The site continued to grow and in 2007, a record 101,767 people registered - a bit over 15,000 of those managed to complete their 50k novel by the deadline. According to the NaNoWriMo twitter account, the current tally for 2008 is 118,583 authors, with 4,343 'winners' so far.

What's more, the site has raised $272,768 - NaNoWriMo is run by Office of Letters and Light, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity. It's very open on where the money goes.

As well as the much-used forums, there is NaNoWriMo activity happening in many places across the Web. You can read the NaNoWriMo blog, install a Firefox add-on to display your progress, upload a pic to the Flickr group, tweet your progress, skim the Mahalo page, listen to WrimoRadio (the official podcast), and much more. However, it's fair to say that most of the discussions are still happening in the official forums. As of today there are 19,354 threads and 307,760 posts in there. So things haven't changed too much.

From the NaNoWriMo "Write-In Event"; InfoCommons@West; November 19, 2008; pic by UF InfoCommons

Other Pic: Sashala

Let us know if any RWW readers participated in NaNoWriMo this year - perhaps you're busy frantically putting the finishing touches to your novel right now! I know how you feel :-)

Declan awoke suddenly. So Declan did.
"Oh hi Declan mate. Declan couldn't focus. Declan waited.
Declan sighed. Declan squirmed.
     "Declan! Declan recoiled. Declan said. "Oh, we're Declan. Said Declan. "Hello Declan Atomz. Declan checked himself. "Hello Declan. Declan grimaced. Declan gulped. Declan nodded. Florrie hugged Declan suddenly.
You're a star Declan!"

Declan's shoulder felt tense.
'Declan Atomz, New Zealand. Declan sighed. "Hi, I'm Declan. Declan gasped. How odd, thought Declan.
Declan's mouth fell open. Declan shook his head. "Declan,
Declan said thoughtfully.
Declan suddenly felt energized. Declan Atomz?" Love, Declan."
Declan's heart sank. Declan pleaded.
"Greetings Declan,
     "Declan?"

Over the holidays I will read Erik's Nanowrimo entry, plus any other ones I can find. If anyone reading this has posted their Nanowrimo entry online, let me know as I'd love to read it. As 2004 approaches, I'm thinking about how to further develop my writing...and, not unrelated, develop my career in web technology. It's my goal now to get something published in paper form, perhaps even earn some money from writing. That would be the ultimate goal for me, to earn my living and support my family from writing. But one step at a time, I have a lot of work to do.

Now back to the one thing at the end of my novel that needed fixing. I realised a day or two after I'd finished that I'd left Declan typing at his computer while his partner Florrie was getting ready for their date. It didn't seem quite right, but at the time I was too tired to fix it. However Andrew reminded me of it the other day, pointing out that Florrie was being treated unfairly again. This is a very valid point and one which I have fixed up tonight, simply by adding a few more sentences. I will re-post the PDF tomorrow, but here's the amended ending which places the final emphasis back on Declan and Flo's relationship - where it belongs:

Declan read the email from the alien a couple more times. He pondered it for a few minutes, his brow furrowed in serious thought. Then Declan's eyes relaxed and he smiled. He hit the "Reply" button and started writing.

"Declan?" Florrie was standing at the door. Declan turned around and smiled at her. "Flo, you look beautiful", he said and Florrie blushed. Her brown eyes glistened with a mix of tiredness and happiness.

Declan saved his email and then switched the computer off. He got up and took Florrie's hand.

"Shall we?" he said.

I had written a long post describing my motivations for writing my novel, but on reflection I won't publish it because it belongs more to my personal journal than on a public website. That is to say, it's probably only relevant to me. But to sum up in a sentence: my main reasons for writing a novel were 1) to prove myself as a writer; and 2) simply because I enjoy reading and writing. Hmm, OK the long version is more interesting ;-)

Another motivating factor, which I will blog about, was that I had something to say and I wanted to say it in a novel. So I'll explore a bit here how writing in a weblog compares to writing a novel.

I said at the beginning of November that I needed a bigger canvas than a weblog. As I mentioned in my previous post, a week before I discovered Nanowrimo I participated in the "broadcasting vs conversational modes of blogging" discussion that was started by Clay Shirky. The pieces I wrote in my weblog on that topic left me cold. The one bright point was that I got a mention on David Weinberger's weblog. Mr Weinberger is the author of a hugely influential web technology book called Small Pieces Loosely Joined, so it was a thrill to be linked to by him. It was right up there with being linked to by Marc Canter, Dave Winer and Clay Shirky (other A-Listers who have linked to me before). So what's my problem, my message got some mass coverage so I should've been happy right? Well I was in that regard, but in terms of the actual content that I wrote - I wasn't satisfied.

To me, that whole conversation boiled down to one subject, which has as many threads as the Web itself: two-way communication. On this subject, I didn't think I'd gotten my points across to other people and I hadn't even convinced myself. I couldn't seem to compress what I wanted to say about two-way communication into a single weblog post. Some of the problem was that my conscious mind didn't know how to express itself on the subject. I felt I needed a bigger canvas, something that would allow my subconscious mind to do some of the talking. A novel seemed like a good solution for me. In a novel I could pour out my thoughts, consciously and subconsciously. My thoughts and ideas would be wrapped up in a plot, sub-plots, characters, descriptive passages, the works.

And that's pretty much how it worked out. One of the themes of my novel was two-way communication and I had a lot of fun pushing the boundaries of this in my book. So yes, the novel form was the "bigger canvas" that I needed. Bigger in terms of exploring themes in a deeper manner than the weblog format allows, but also bigger in terms of the number of topics I could cover. btw Lilia Efimova picked up on the "bigger canvas" topic and wrote on it too - with a slightly different take to mine.

The other thing that concerned me about my blogging prior to Nanowrimo was a feeling that my weblog writing was, subtly and in some small ways, motivated by getting attention. On the Web, Attention = Inward Links. I'm not saying I wrote blog posts that were motivated purely by wanting to get linked to. My motivation for writing is never that shallow. I as a human being am not that shallow. But perhaps my blogging, in some subtle way, had become a little too focused on improving my Google Page Rank. For example, I think I was a wee bit shrill in my protestations that I am a broadcaster blogger not a conversationalist blogger. I raised my voice a bit too much. I waved my (metaphorical) blogging hands in the air: look at me, my posts were saying. Hey, Clay, give me some link-love baby! ...well, perhaps I am exaggerating. But my point is, when I spent all of November absorbed in writing a novel a funny thing happened. I found I was concentrating on writing about topics and themes and characters and plot-points etc. I focused on the story. The story was all-important.

To translate this realization to the blogging arena, the story in a novel equates to ideas and topics within a blog. Ideas and topics are what hold the real value in blogging, just as the story holds together a novel. Sometimes one needs to go back to the classic forms of writing to realize the simple truths.

It's still nice when A-List bloggers link to you though. The importance of this aspect of the Two-Way Web should never be underestimated. When A-List bloggers link to the rest of us, it gives us a chance to be read by the large audience that A-List bloggers (by definition) have. It turns the "on the Web everyone will be famous to 15 people" maxim on its head. The ideas take centre stage, where they belong. Further, it's good for the blogosphere if A-Listers link to the masses. Similar to the genetic variation theory of Darwinism, the more people that can contribute ideas to the blogosphere and have those ideas read by other people...the more chance of successful innovation within the blogosphere. There is an oft-quoted saying among bloggers: the best ideas come from left field.

But we, the weblog masses, must be careful not to let our need for attention affect our writing. Remember kids, it's the ideas that are central. If your ideas are good and you express them well, the attention will necessarily come. If the attention doesn't come to you, then there really is a problem with celebrity culture in the blogosphere. But I'd like to think the Two-Way Web does have one up on novel-writing in that regard. Thanks to the magic of hyperlinks, anyone can be read and therefore new ideas are constantly being picked up and distributed to the masses.

You see, like many people, it's always been an ambition of mine to write a novel. I'd tried a couple of times before, but I couldn't seem to get off the ground. Nanowrimo sounded like it could provide the structure and motivation I needed. I was impressed by the Nanowrimo approach:

"Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly."

That made me realise - the thing that had held me back the previous times I'd attempted to write fiction was an obsessive need to write Quality (with a capital 'Q'). I wanted to be Hemingway or Joyce. But here was Nanowrimo encouraging the exact opposite. In Nanowrimo, the measure of your progress would be 'words per day'. 1,700 words per day to be exact. This seemed like a liberating notion to me.

It was the evening of 28 October 2003 and I nervously tapped my pen at the keyboard. I wondered if I should enter. Before I could rationally weigh up the pros and cons, I made a rash decision. I went back to Erik's website and entered a comment. Mine was the first comment and it read:

"I think I'm in
I just discovered NaNoWriMo tonight, but I'm twisting my own arm to do this. I hope I don't chicken out."

As I clicked the "Save" button to publish my comment on Erik's well-read website, I knew I'd committed myself to Nanowrimo. I couldn't back out now, I had done the weblog equivalent of spitting in my hand and shaking on it (with Erik's weblog). I think it was then that I realised that I only had 3 days to prepare and come up with a plot and characters!!

There was another reason why I decided to write a novel. In the week leading up to this, I'd been stirring the pot in the blogosphere. I'd picked a fight with Clay Shirky on the Many-to-Many website about "broadcasting vs conversational" modes of blogging. My postings got some attention, although Clay decided not to get in the ring with me. Probably because I am a flyweight and, as the reigning heavyweight champion of the world in social software, he would've knocked me senseless. As I say, I was just picking a fight in the blogging sense. And you know what - it left me cold. I didn't feel satisfied because a) I hadn't gotten my point across to some of the Many-to-Many crowd, b) I wondered - was I just writing for the attention? and c) I didn't feel I'd adequately covered the topics that were knocking around in my head. So I thought maybe writing a novel will help.

To be continued...

Dirtside to Spaceside (PDF - 344KB)

Shortly I will begin to write some thoughts on the processes I went through when writing this novel and the things I learned. Probably in December and January I will undertake my first review of the novel, when my mind has been refreshed from it. In the meantime, if anyone reads my novel I'll be very interested to hear your feedback - feel free to email me or post a comment on this site.

Update, Monday 1 Dec: A PDF version of my novel is now available:

Dirtside to Spaceside (PDF - 344KB)

Looks like I'm the second Nanowrimo winner from Wellington, New Zealand. Am feeling calm and happy. Exhausted, but satisfied. Over the next few weeks I will write more about what I've learned and the process of writing a novel in a month. Thanks to everyone who wrote encouraging comments. The Two-Way Web is a beautiful thing. Peace.

One day to go, one day to go, hee hee.

While walking in the local park today, feeding the ducks on a lovely sunny breezy Sunday with my wife and two-year old daughter, I had some ideas for the ending of my novel. It's amazing what fresh air will do. btw my wife said the other day that I have aliens on the brain. Heh.

I'm looking forward to completing my novel by end of this week. It'll be a load off my mind, but also something real and tangible that I'll have accomplished.

I'd be interested to know if anyone is reading this and if so, what are your thoughts. I don't have much time to respond to your comments, but I do appreciate them.

I've got about 16,000 words to go, which I hope to finish with a couple of days to spare. I can see the finish line now, so my morale is quite good. I'm learning a lot doing this novel, which I'll share with you in December when I have some spare time :-)