NaNo: So How Behind Are YOU? * or * The 5 Top Reasons You Don't Have TIme to NaNo

So, doing a modified #NaNoWriMo seemed like a pretty good idea.  Not actually doing NaNo, mind you.  But the idea of having 30,000 pristine (as in unedited, un-reread, and very likely dreadful) words in hand on Nov. 30 was pretty damned appealing.

This being Nov. 8th, that would make me 8,000 words behind.  Give or take.

And given my goal of being the last writer standing after wiping out everybody else with my spectacularly bad advice, here are the top 5 reasons you shouldn't be writing either.

1.) Social networking is vital to your survival as a writer.  Even years prior to publication, you need to be building a platform assiduously by tweeting, posting on Facebook, documenting the minutia of your every breathing moment via embarrassing selfies, pinning*, embracing Tumblr, and blogging at least every 2.5 minutes.  Conservatively.

2.) Social media has to be interactive.  How can you be expected to engage with others every 2.5 minutes if you aren't spending the other 2.499999 minutes perusing all of their tweets, Facebook posts, embarrassing selfies, pins and edifying blogs?

3.) All writers need fun facts.  How dirty your hair is and how peculiarly earthy you smell due to the fact that you are Nanoing obsessively does not count as a fun fact.  How the hell are you going to be amusing on panels with a life devoid of fun facts?  Obviously, you need to learn to do magic tricks and fly a single engine plane after making said plane out of papier mache and refurbished vacuum cleaner parts in your basement.

4.) Assuming you are writing YA -- if not, just ignore everything I say; I have no interest in destroying your career -- you need to have your plane-making fingers on the pulse of popular culture.  Even the most super-duper NaNo playlist is a woefully insufficient connection to life outside your NaNo chamber.  You must go to movies, clubs, 4-H club meetings and the mall.  Immediately.

5.) You need new shoes.

*Oh no, another footnote: Yes, I'm pinning.  You should immediately go spend several hours admiring my many really nice pins and follow all of my boards.  Repeatedly.  This would be highly interactive of you.

To NaNo or Not To Nano

Well here it is, the tail end of October, and here I am, staring down NaNoWriMo -- National Novel Writing Month to the uninitiated -- when thousands of would-be* novelists commit to turning out the first draft of an entire novel.

Yes, thousands.  More than 150,000 are signed up on the official website.  And a bunch of us participate under the radar, too.  And there's even a Young Writers program that encourages 16 year olds to eschew A.P. Bio homework in favor of The Greater Good.  The NaNo motto, after all, is "The world needs your novel."

I think that NaNo purists actually start their novels on Nov. 1, but I am staring down a partial novel, and my thought is, let's do this thing! (With a gung-ho all-American "yee-ha!" plus a nod to all the chocolate chip ice cream this is going to entail.  Note that NaNo is not a slimming experience.)  Or not.

Here's the thing: I already have a way that I write novels, and having been raised as a somewhat superstitious person (somewhat? my grandma tied red ribbons on me to ward off the Evil Eye) I'm terrified to screw with it.  I mean, I tried NaNo once and I ended up with a bunch of prose that I was hugely excited about.  Until I had time to read it.

On the other hand, my way of writing novels involves rereading pretty much everything I've written daily before I write new stuff.  It involves putting my hands over my ears and going "neeeny-neeny-neeny" whenever anyone utters the word "outline."  It involves coming up with new and improved ways to tell the story up until moments before the book is printed.

There has to be a better way.

So all right, I'm spending every weekend in November other than Thanksgiving on the road at book festivals.  All right, so I can't finish the thing until I've talked with a hacker, a private detective, and someone driven out of Homeland Security due to a propensity to spill state secrets to eager YA writers.  All right, so hope springs eternal, and that spring does not feed the water park at the corner of Realistic and Sensible.

But the idea of having an entire draft finished by the end of November is just so appealing.

To NaNo or not to NaNo, that is the question...

Does it work for you?

*1. (Yes, it's a footnote.  I'm an English major, sue me)  I'm two novels down (Afterparty will be here January 7th, huge squee!!!! moment) but when I have a blank piece of paper or screen or pristine Starbuck napkin in front of me, I am back to would-be and I stay would-be until I'm putting the final touches on a book.

How to Get A Million Blog Followers Without Really Trying (Yes, it's more really bad writing advice. Seriously?)

Dear Lunatics,

Face it.  There is something about marketing that turns the mildest mannered writer, previously obsessed with the cadence of each exquisitely wrought sentence, into a publicity-crazed doofus prepared to follow any old ridiculous promotional advice on the bouncy path to self-destruction.

And here I am, offering the most ridiculous advice ever!  Is this perfect, or what?

For those sceptics among you who cry, "Wait, Clueless One, you have 79 people following your blog.  Why in the name of all that is holy -- or (backup plan) reasonable -- should I listen to you on this critical topic?"

To which I reply, for Pete's sake, dog, since when is the dispensing of really bad writing advice limited to people who actually write?  Extrapolate.

Anyway, these are not original ideas!  No indeed, they are ripped off from actual gurus of book promotion, some of whom have even formulated their own ingenious pyramid schemes.  Top that.

1.) You should trade follows (or membership, or friendship, or whatever) with vast numbers of random strangers who blog.  You can find them everywhere: Conferences, Linkedin, accosting old ladies on street corners.  Soon you will be following 600 blogs in which your interest level is somewhere between zilch and nada, and 600 similarly indifferent followers will swell your ranks.  (BTW, this single piece of advice is worth at least bazillion dollars , but I will expand on it for free if you'll purchase my handy dandy book promotion boot camp kit.  Yee-ha!)

Helpful hint: Anyone who searched for a link to the aforementioned handy dandy kit should immediately turn off the computer and get a friend to tie you to a tree for your own good.

2.) Express your desperation on every platform known to man.  Tell everyone on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumbler et al that they must join up immediately.  Hyperventilate as best you can in writing.  It helps if you express a lot of bitterness, as obviously you would have thousands upon thousands of follows already if only a.) people weren't prejudiced against indies; b.) your publisher gave you a modicum of support; c.) people weren't so busy reading trash about vampires that they don't appreciate the beauty of zombies (reverse if you write about zombies).

3.) Offer a large bribe.  Promise that the second you reach some totally reasonable six figure number of followers, you will do a giveaway of a classic Bentley/ your first-born child/ the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge.  People love a large bribe.  Oh yeah, definitely put your publicity budget into that.

4.) Post comments on other people's blogs that don't actually have much of anything to do with whatever the hell they're nattering on about, which you are to praise in a fulsome yet generic manner, given that you didn't actually read said nattering.  Be sure to mention how they and all their followers should head on over to your blog and join up.  Be sure to post a bunch of links and explain how your blog was once called the most moving and insightful thing he'd ever read while driving by J.K. Rowling's cousin's podiatrist when he was visiting Chattanooga.

Be sure to return often and post repeatedly with teensy weensy variations.  There is no telling how many people will join just to get you to shut up.

But then, the more people hope and pray you'll shut up and go away, the better job you're doing!

Happy trails, and be sure to join my blog early and often if you want to win your very own exotic Middle Eastern country!

My work here is done.

Love,
Clueless

Really Bad Writing Advice: Promotion Made Easy *or* The 3 Top Rules for Not Being Made Fun of on the Internet

Dear Aficionados of Really Bad Writing Advice,

Let's say that (not unlike me) you have finished the book!  Let's say that (not unlike me) you are now obsessed with promoting the book.  Here is the simple rule of thumb for doing that promoting: 

If it makes people clutch their throats and moan "Oh my God!" (not in a good way), you shouldn't do it.

I have scoured the internet for examples of really good promotional advice, and here are the three top, inexplicably popular things you can't do, lest you leave potential readers moaning and uttering sacrilege.

1.) Do not post anything, anywhere, ever that tells your fans, followers, or friends something on the order of "This is the cutest thing in the whole, entire universe/ the most shocking revelation in the history of man/ a book that would no doubt be attributed to the Messiah were He walking the earth with lace-up sandals and a laptop" followed by a link that leads to a video of you reading your book.

Or a trailer for your book.

Or any page that raises even the faintest possibility of buying your book.

You are welcome to say and do any of the above for someone else's book. You will sound like an over-enthusiastic slob with no judgment, discernment, or sense of proportion, but at least you'll look magnanimous.

2.) Do not post a blurb or snippet of a review of your book that is even slightly ungrammatical.  Or that uses any word, be it ever so short, so breathtakingly incorrectly that your more, uh, language-oriented potential reader is too busy gnashing her teeth to click through.

"I have never in my longitudinous previous past undergone an exhileration of such enormity as wading through prosedy of hitherto untold notoriousness," for example, would be a poor choice of comment to share with a cyber world of picky, picky tooth-gnashers.

3.) Even though super-helpful book promotion bloggers have convinced you that unless people see something fourteen times in a single day, they won't buy it, do not tell your followers about your book fourteen times in a single day.  Even if you are hosting an awesome giveaway.  Even if your book will change their lives.  Even if your book will bring about world peace, prosperity, and a sense of perfect equilibrium to one an all through its fun yet miraculous selenium-rich snack food recipes.  Even if anything.

Don't.

Dear readers, even if you have taken my really bad writing advice to heart and therefore penned an entirely hideous book, there's no reason you should have to endure the slings and arrows you'll attract if you engage in outrageous marketing.

For once, not joking.

Love,

Clueless

P.S.  Should you have the urge to share any other terrible promotional ideas, do tell.