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Chris
Baty: NaNo and No-Nos Your
inner critic may run, but it can’t hide from Chris Baty. Baty is the founder
and main cheerleader of National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo,
the annual brain-splintering, caffeine-fueled challenge to start and finish a
50,000-word novel within 30 days each November. Claiming
that “aiming low is the best way to succeed,” Baty’s dedication to
free-range creativity takes the pressure off thousands of would-be novelists
each year as they rush to finish their manuscripts. “Everybody
has that critic, and I have it too,” said Baty. “It’s more a matter of
successfully managing that creature. In that first flush of writing, you need to
have that thing gone, off, completely locked up somewhere. Basically, you need
to accept that things will be bad. You will write awkward sentences, your
characters may seem flat or stolen entirely from family members or television;
that’s not going to stop you.” Fear
of bad writing certainly didn’t stop Baty when he came up with the idea of
NaNoWriMo in 1999, after he had just finished creating a newsletter, and wanted
a bigger challenge to tackle. “I
had a wealth of energy and naiveté that comes with completing a big project,
and the novel-a-month idea was born out of that,” he said. “I was really
lucky to have a group of friends that weren’t smart enough to say ‘hey,
that’s a really bad idea.’” The
first NaNoWriMo consisted of Baty and about 20 friends around the Bay Area. Each
year grew larger, and in 2003, approximately 25,000 writers from around the
world dove into the challenge, with more than 3,500 beating the deadline. The
success of this offbeat project overwhelmed its creator, who was stunned when
140 people signed up for the 2000 challenge. “It
is well beyond my wildest dreams. It’s a source of constant amazement to me
that the population of Nanoland has continued to grow and I wonder what the
ceiling will be,” he said. “ Now we plan for a lot of people, and it’s
just fascinating to see how many show up.” Each
year Baty has managed to finish the challenge by the deadline, and now has
“five very mediocre novels” to his credit. While his fiction is still in the
works, Baty’s non-fiction work, No Plot? No Problem!, was released in
October by Chronicle Books. The book combines the best tips, tricks and
strategies Baty and others have learned from Nano, and even includes a bit of
imaginary high-tech writing gear to help novelists corral those inner critics. “In
the book, people can push a button, and a team of inner editor harvesters come
out from the spine, grab that thing, and put it in the inner editor kennel for
the month,” he said. “At the end of the month, you can reclaim your editor,
because it’s much easier to edit something after it’s done.” Baty
also shared a few more no-nos for new Nano novelists: Don’t
keep your writing to yourself. One
of the most important things is to let someone know what you’re doing. Baty
suggests sending e-mails out letting friends and family know you’re writing a
novel, and there’s even a form on the Nano website where you can challenge
others. Finding a few writing partners will help you stay on target, and also
sparks that competitive spirit. “It really spurs you on and you focus on
getting your word counts so you can surpass these people around you and then
mock them for their dawdling ways,” joked Baty. Don’t
overplan your novel. For
the majority of novelists, planning your novel down to every scene may raise
your expectations and slow down your progress, according to Baty.
When the actual draft doesn’t match the complexity and interwoven
nature of the outline, disappointment and discouragement follow. Baty suggests
just a week of advanced planning, and to let the story and characters evolve
organically. “That’s
where a lot of the inspired passages and plot twists come in that frenzied forge
of November,” he said. “You’re letting these characters go where they
will, and they really do go places. If you stay at it long enough, these
characters will eventually do what they want.
They quit the jobs you so carefully arranged for them and they get out of
relationships you spent chapters getting them into. Leaving that kind of
breathing room in your novel is important, because it keeps things exciting for
you as the author.” Never underestimate the power of NaNoWriMo A
handful of participants have indeed sold their novels to publishers after
extensive editing and rewriting, so there are bigger rewards than
self-fulfillment, and other good deeds also come from the November rush. This
year, it’s about more than just thousands of coffee-mad writers typing their
way toward carpal tunnel syndrome. Baty and staff have set up an agreement with
Room to Read, a children’s literacy program that builds libraries in places
like Laos, Cambodia and Nepal. NaNoWriMo depends on donations to pay expenses
each year; in 2004, after those expenses are met, 50 percent of all money left
will go to the Room to Read program. It only takes $2,000 to start a library,
and Baty is hoping to have enough left over for two libraries, if not more. Ultimately,
Baty believes that the best results come from each person, and their ability to
tap into that vast underground lake of imagination. He sees potential in
everyone, and wants them to see it as well. “A
lot of people come into this as complete novices,” he said. “At the end they
have a novel that’s almost done and not entirely horrible, which is a shocking
thing to happen in a month. Realistically all I’m doing is giving people a
deadline and a structure to work towards that deadline. That’s the only
magical thing. I think that everybody has these novels and stories in them, and
the ability to tell them. I look around me at these people who say, ‘Aw, I
could never write a book,’ and I just say ‘Yes, you can!’” To
find out more about National Novel Writing Month, visit www.nanowrimo.org.
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