National Novel Writing Month—or NaNoWriMo, as the pros call it—is the one time every year you can be totally obsessed with your novel, live knee-deep inside your own stories, and no one can say anything about it! It is, in short, a creative writer's dream (or nightmare, depending on how well you write under pressure).
Here's the gist: this creative writing project challenges novelists from newbies to seasoned professionals to write a 50,000-word novel between November 1 and November 30. If that sounds crazy to you, you’re not alone. I’ve personally been working on a novel in earnest for the past two years, and it’s been living in my mind for a lot longer than that. But hey—that's the whole point. Stories live inside all of us, and they matter. From fantastical epics to realistic shorts to flash-fiction, we each have our own wonderful story to tell. And it’s about time we let them all out.
YES moment: “In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it 'got boring,' the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”
Stein on Writing provides immediately useful advice for writers of fiction and nonfiction, whether newcomers or accomplished professionals. As Sol Stein, renowned editor, author, and instructor, explains, "This is not a book of theory. It is a book of usable solutions, how to fix writing that is flawed, how to improve writing that is good, how to create interesting writing in the first place." With examples from his best sellers as well as aspiring students' writing, Stein offers detailed sections on characterization, dialogue, pacing, flashbacks, liposuctioning flab, the "triage" method of revision, using the techniques of fiction to enliven nonfiction, and more.
The Elements of Style is a classic guide to communicating clearly and effectively and has been used for decades because it values directness and clarity above all. In this listen, coauthors William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White advise all writers to omit needless words and always use active voice as well as use concrete examples whenever it is possible. Narrated by Frank McCourt (the beloved author of Angela's Ashes), this is a must-listen audiobook to help you write better emails, memos, or whatever else you might find yourself typing up.