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Breaking News
October 1, 2004, pt. 2
Did I say 5 pm? I meant 5:30 pm. So close we can taste it!
Chris October 1, 2004 Hey everyone! Russ and I are at his house in Oakland working like fiends, getting everything finalized on the site. Did I mention it's Russ' birthday today? Happy birthday Russ! At our current pace, the end of all our i-dotting and t-crossing has come squarely into view. But it's a somewhat distant view, like when you look through one of those swiveling telescopic view machines posted on cliffs overlooking big scenic holes in the ground and you know you're probably seeing a little further than you might with your naked eyeball, but you aren't entirely sure if it was worth the fifty cents you had to spend ten minutes cajoling from your mom. I think I've taken this metaphor too far. Anyway, what I'm saying is this: We're almost there! But I'm going to be honest with myself and say: There's no way the site will launch at 3pm today. We'll keep working tirelessly on it, but we're thinking 5pm is a much better bet. Looking through that viewfinder,
Chris September 30, 2004 Okay Team 2004: All systems seem go for a new site launch tomorrow at 3pm Pacific. Man. When the daily cups of coffee exceed the nightly hours of sleep, you know something special is happening. See you tomorrow!
Chris
September 27, 2004 Hola! Well, it's almost time. And true to our usual scheduling tactics, we're running around like crazed chickens here at NaNo headquarters, tackling all the last minute data-cobblings and feature-installations to get everything ready for our October 1 lift-off. Just four more days until launch! Woo hoo!
Chris
September 25, 2004 Bay Area book nerds, unite! Upcoming No Plot? No Problem! author events include Tuesday, Sept. 28 at Books Inc's Marina branch (2251 Chestnut St, SF) at 7:30 pm. And the following day, Wednesday Sept. 29, I'll have two events: One at 12:30 pm at Stacey's Books (581 Market St.). And another one later that night at Diesel Books (5433 College Ave) in Oakland at 7:30 pm. Please come by and watch me try not to vomit on myself out of sheer nervousness! It'll be great!
Chris
September 13, 2004 Shout-out to last year's NaNoWriMo participants! We're battening down the site's hatches to begin getting ready for the October 1 launch. As part of this ship-shapening, we'll be locking all the forums on September 20th. They'll stay locked until October 1, when they'll be reborn, wiped clean. Russ is going to archive a read-only version of the 2003 forums so all the great wit and wisdom therein will be retained for posterity. But if you're in the middle of a good conversation now, you should wrap it up, as the padlock's a'comin! Also, Russ is telling me that all accounts will have their Private Message boxes reset to empty before the site relaunches, so if you have any love letters or fiendishly clever plot suggestions in there, you should take a minute to paste them into a text document so you can hang onto them. More soon!
Chris
August 31, 2004 The new site! The new NaNoWriMo site, which Jeff and Russ have been toiling over these past three months, will be making its grand debut on October 1. If you don't already have a NaNoWriMo account, you'll be able to create one at that point. Our newer, sexier internet presence will make it much easier to find out about local NaNoWriMo get-togethers in your area, and will also give all of us much more novel-excerpt room for our November masterworks. And photos! There will be a place for a photo in everyone's profile as well. We'll also have a daily NaNo Q&A with NaNoWriMo veterans, five specially chosen "Wrimos of the Day," and a weekly set of tales that I'll be writing called the NaNoLand Chronicles. Each of these episodes will follow the wanderings of an eccentric old man and his helmet-clad sidekick as they set out to investigate some perplexing and exciting happenings in the kingdom around them. In my head these stories take place centuries ago, but so far they all seem to be about advertising copywriters and bicyclists who end up on the NASCAR circuit. So I may have to do some revising on that timeline. The helmet-clad sidekick, though, is definitely staying. The T-shirts! Heeding the righteous cries from people who wanted more options in the t-shirt department, we'll be debuting four (!) new NaNoWriMo shirts on October 1. There will be two different 2004 participant shirts, one undated all-purpose NaNoWriMo shirt, and, at long last, a shirt for the long-suffering significant others who have so generously put up with our distractible November lifestyles all these years. Our Cambodian libraries! A month or so ago, I mentioned Room to Read, the children's literacy nonprofit that has built over 1000 libraries in places like Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Nepal. After having a meeting with them, I came away thinking it would be wonderful if NaNoWriMo could build a library in Cambodia, Room to Read's area of greatest need. To pull this off, my first idea was to give Room to Read 20% of everything NaNoWriMo raised after our expenses. For just $2000, Room to Read works with a local village and transforms a room in an existing building into a full-fledged library for kids, complete with new books in the local language as well as English. And part of that $2000 also goes towards staff training and library maintenance for three years. All of which seemed brilliant, and I was already fantasizing about the ribbon-cutting ceremony when I started to think that maybe 20% of our net proceeds wasn't enough. That maybe 50% would be better. And that maybe, with the increase, we could bring that wondrous new-book smell to hundreds more Cambodian kids who might otherwise never experience it. It would be nice if they read the books as well as smelling them, of course. But that, I realized, could come in time. So 50% is what we're going to do. After we hit our break-even point (this year it's $46,800), we're going to be putting half of everything else into Room to Read's NaNoWriMo library fund. I'll keep everyone up-to-date on our fundraising progress, and will be sure to post photos of the libraries as, funds-willing, they come together. And speaking of funds! As always, we hope all participants will contribute something, no matter how small, towards this year's costs. To make the whole donation process zestier, we've put together a bunch of thank-you packages for people who chip in $25 or more. Please see our Donate page for a complete run-down of the goodies. And finally, No Plot? No Problem!, my how-to-write-a-novel-in-thirty-days book will be coming out in a week or so! It even got its first review in the September 1 issue of Library Journal, which hailed it as "an uproariously funny motivational manifesto." Another bit: "Aimed at the nonserious, with an emphasis on summoning creativity and having a life-changing experience, this original approach will appeal to anyone up for a challenge." Hot damn! Thank you Library Journal. The check is on the way. And so am I, come to think of it. I'll be visiting a bunch of cities to talk about the book and NaNoWriMo starting in late September. Confirmed stops include San Francisco (9/28, 9/29), Oakland (9/29), Minneapolis (10/16), Portland, OR (10/25), Seattle (10/26, 10/27), Bellingham (10/28), and Pasadena (11/5). Many more dates are still being figured out. I'll post a complete list, including bookstore locations and times, as the dates draw nearer. Whew! Okay, this has gone on far too long. I hope you're well, and that you're starting to feel the first twinges of the "November itch" settling into your typing extremities. More soon!
Chris ** **
August 26, 2004 Hello everyone! We have a new staff person! Hyland Baron will be stepping into Julia's stunningly capable shoes as NaNoWriMo managing director starting September 1. I'll tell you more about Hyland in a couple days, but suffice it to say she's fantastic, and has been helping out behind the scenes of NaNoland since 2001. She and Julia have already had the official torch-passing ceremony in which many tears were shed and a bright new tomorrow forged. Julia is moving on to a prestigious full-time job where they make her wear grown-up clothes and sit in on meetings. But she's otherwise doing great. We'll miss you, Julia! More news very soon! There's so much to report!
Chris |