Just for “fun,” I’m thinking about participating in this year’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) project. I first read about it a few years ago and always wanted to try it.
From November 1 through November 30, courageous participants will crank out a 175-page, 50,000-word novel in any genre. It won’t be perfect, and it probably won’t be publishable (although it can happen). But it sounds like a good way to sharpen your writing skills and develop discipline, two things I’m constantly trying improve.
Read the What, Who, Why, and When and FAQs for details.
After reading, No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, written by the guy who started NaNoWriMo, I was all pumped up. But “other stuff” came up.
This year, I want to do it. I have the genre and plot in mind already. A murder mystery:
A popular but controversial blogger is being cyber-stalked by a desperate loony. Then one by one, her friends turn up dead. What kind of stalker is this, killing the blogger’s friends? Will he come after her, too? Is the stalker even the killer? Just when she thought things couldn’t get worse, our high-profile blogger-heroine learns that the stalker has uncovered a secret that could ruin her carefully planned life. With her shady past catching up with her, the heroine turns the tables on the stalker. How far will she go to protect her life, her secrets, and avenge her murdered friends?
No, the blogger-heroine isn’t supposed to be me. 
Is the plot too corny? Suggestions?
Want to play? Sign-up begins October 1.
Update (9/13): Am I crazy? I don’t have time to do this. I hardly have time to blog! My blog consulting business is going better than I ever expected, but it leaves little time for other things I want to do. I need a good organizer, someone to help me learn how to use my time efficiently. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Gotta go…
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Just a brainstorm and I haven’t thought about it but you could sex it up by making the stalker a rapist/murderer.
Not an idiot real life rapist but one of these interesting TV warped, good-looking genius rapist stalking PhD who look like models.
Disclaimer: I make no claims to know what novels are publishable
No, the plot isn’t to corny. This is NaNoWriMo! I’m actually considering doing it this year. Granted, I’ve been working on-and-off on a novel since July of 2005. I care too much about that one to get it involved in NaNoWriMo, but I am willing to put it on hold for some fun!
Maybe participating will help me get more disciplined. My biggest problem with my writing is that I have a bad habit of not writing anything for weeks on end, then I add volumes in short, two-to-three day bursts. Can’t do that with this, though. Hope you do it, and have fun!
I know who “done it”! It’s that female professor who fled Arizona(?) to Oregon(?) isn’t it?
It could be a lesbian female professor rapist.
Now I am starting to sound like Joey Tribbiani.
I’ll just let myself out.
Maybe you could make the “secret” be that she was formerly a he. The looney stalker would not be the killer, he would just be the looney stalker. The killer could be someone who donated his gonads for the procedure and now wants them back. Kinda like, “Coma”, with a twist!
What about making the cyberstalker an unwitting pawn in a conspiracy that reaches the middle level bureuacracy of the government…the high profile blogger with a shady past unknowingly has the key to exposing a planned overthrow of a sitting President…Imagine, a government overthrown by its own bureaucracy, with tacit approval by the MSM and the intellectuals and academics. Say goodbye to the Constitution, say hello to living under someone like Castro…
Sell it electronically, and release the first few chapters for free. I bet you’d make enough to justify the time. You can’t be much worse than the garbage that’s passing for popular literature now.
Heck, I even know who’d publish it, if you’d want to go the self-publishing route on it. (I don’t want to turn this into an ad, so anyone who wants to know more can Email me privately.)
This may just tempt me to drag out my fiction idea again. Or I can actually write on the computer essay book a friend and I are supposed to do….
The blogger is being stalked by her own alternative personality. She is the murderer.
Good one!
Ralph wins!!!! That would be a great surprise ending. But, now we all know the ending!! I guess nobody liked the gonad theory!
The ending will be a surprise, even if it’s one discussed here. Readers won’t know if I followed one of their suggestions, stuck to my own plot, or went in a different direction altogether.
I love your blogstalked turned stalker heroine thing! I’d buy it just ’cause you wrote it. I am very tempted to do this myself
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Ummmm… let me clarify… I am tempted to join the writing project NOT the stalked turn stalker thing.
Whew! – Admin
I’ve done it successfully a few times–you have no time to think about plot. You just write and write and it’s all stream of consciousness. It’s great because there are no rules, just a goal of 50k. The goal is to be creative. It’s not really a productive endeavor. I remember doing it one year and coming up with a good solution to a plot problem I was dealing with–it took thousands of words to figure it out.
“Am I crazy? I don’t have time to do this. ”
I was going to keep my mouth shut and not say anything discouraging, but since you asked, it occured to me last night that most professional pundits write nonfiction books and not novels. Of course all books are high risk ventures. Even if you get it published, few become best sellers.
You also ought to try the International Three Day Novel Competition, though it’s over for 2006, as the contest is held during the Labor Day weekend. I entered for the second time this year, and managed to crank out 21,400 words in three days. Winner gets published.
I think you have a good story there! If you watched House last night they just did the alternative personality thing.
I do want to say thanks for posting this idea, I am going to enter NaNoWriMo.
I think you can find the time- all that organization stuff would be easily managed by an intern, or left to slag for a month. Nothing ventured…
Great idea!!!
And you need to include a sock-puppet as part of your story, somehow.
Don’t forget the secret buried BBS groups where plans get formed, and hidden messages buried in jpegs. And tojan horse viruses or executables for revenge.
Ah, a blogger who is in Witness protection and it’s coming unraveled.
I’m excited and I don’t write!
Hey, LaShawn, if you do it, I’ll do it!
I can’t write novels.
I’d have an easier time writing 30 short stories each day, than writing a single novel in 30 days.
!!!!!!
Not that they’d be good, but I do have a bunch of short stories I could tell.
I don’t think there’s a market for short stories, though, nowadays. Sniffle.
175 pages…..no way. Can’t do it.
I participated in JANOWRIMO (January Novel Writing Month). I never finished. I plan on doing the NANWRIMO this year.
Give it a try. The whole point is to get you to write even if you don’t meet the 50,000 word goal.
This is just the push I need to finish my book.
It’s a doozy, that’s all I can say.
A quick synopsis: think about the unspoken frustration and shame amongst anti-integrationist blacks in the South during the decade-long imbroglio that was the sixties.
Thanks La Shawn for the NaNoWriMo info! Need to stop dreaming and do!
Yes, I’m planning on doing it this year, too. His book is really good and remember, you don’t even need a plot! I don’t think your plot is corny — I’m envious that you even have one because I don’t yet.
Question: Has our heroine received any e-mail or other cyber contacts from the stalker? If so, this is a possible way to catch the sucker. Two years ago, I had a hacker hack out my debit card info and steal about $2000 from my checking account. When I discovered the theft (I bank online, so I found out about it almost immediately), I had the sucker’s name, address, and phone number within 5 hours. Hacker. FBI. Cuffs. It was a beautiful thing
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