"You know you are really famous the day you discover you have become a comic character." -- Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa, on the release of his comic book biography (quoted by Publishers Weekly )
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WALK THE LINE, NOT THE DVD AISLE
The folks at TVShowsOnDVD report that the DVD release of "The Johnny Cash Show" has been taken off the release schedule. Originally, a special DVD was set to release just days before the new Joaquin Phoenix/Reese Witherspoon big-screen bio of Cash's life is due to hit theaters.
"Well, the new Walk the Line film is still on track for 11/18, it seems, but the DVD for 'The Johnny Cash Show' is not. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has removed it from their DVD release schedule, and have not offered a new release date in its place nor provided any reason for the change. If we are able to find out what the situation is with this title, we'll let you know."
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A NOVEL IN A MONTH
We are now well into this year's National Novel Writing Month 2005. Known to friends and family as "NaNoWriMo," the deal is write a 50,000-word novel between Nov. 1 and midnight, Nov. 30.
In 2004, NaNoWriMo had more than 42,000 participants. Nearly 6000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline. "They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists."
For the past two days, we have been getting advice from those who went through this last year. On Monday, we heard from J. Mark Bertrand (who blogs at www.jmarkbertrand.com), and yesterday Chris Mikesell (who blogs at mikesell.blogspot.com).
Closing out the series today, we get some advice and counsel from Kevin Hendricks (who has several blogs at www.MonkeyOuttaNowhere.com/ ).
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KEVIN D. HENDRICKS 1) What was the result of your participation in NaNoWriMo 2004?
KDH: I wrote my first ever novel, Downtown Dandelions, a work just over 50,000 words long in a mere 20 days. I went so far as to self-publish it for kicks, and you can buy a copy or download the PDF www.monkeyouttanowhere.com/dandelions/purchase.html). It's just a glorified first draft and needs a lot of editing work -- which they say is the hard part, though I wouldn't know because I haven't gotten there yet -- but it is a novel.
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2) Did you meet your expectations?
I blew away my expectations. I've wanted to write a novel my entire life and I've never seriously sat down to do it. NaNoWriMo gave me the chance to do it and the conditions to make it possible. I had the time of my life writing the novel and as crazy as it sounds, it actually went really well. I even managed to finish early.
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3) Are you going to take the challenge again this year?
Sadly, no. Last year I wasn't as busy in November and I could afford to concentrate on a side project like this. This year I'm too busy with paying projects and a baby on the way. Though as I write this I'm reminded how much fun I had last year and I'm tempted to give it a shot again this year. Ooh, that's scary.
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4) Based on your experience last year, what one piece of advice would you say every writer MUST do to succeed this year?
One piece of advice? Sheesh, that's hard, but I guess I'd say you must have the proper mindset. Writing a novel in a month is a pretty crazy proposition, and you need to understand what you're getting into. Writing 1,600 words per day means you can't look back. You just have to keep on writing, whether it's crap or Shakespearean drama.
You also have to understand that it's a marathon. You're going to have to make sacrifices: No TV, minimal social time, no sleeping in. It takes a lot of commitment, and you have to have that mindset nailed down. It means getting friends and family to support you and buckling down to do the work. It's all about having the right mindset.
I'd highly recommend the book No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty. It's about writing a novel in a month and helps you get into the mindset, plus it gives a lot of good ideas and suggestions to help you make it.
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5) What one thing did you learned from experience that every writer must NOT do this year?
My experience went pretty well, so I didn't have many "don't do this" experiences. Part of that may be because I didn't do anything else. You need focus to do this, so don't do anything else while you're trying to do NaNoWriMo.
Obviously you have a job and you need to work and pay bills, but anything that's non-essential can wait until November. The dishes can pile up, the laundry can pile up, your friends can wait, you can tape TV shows or catch the reruns, you can sleep in December, you don't really need to rake the leaves, you can talk to your parents when you're done -- you get the idea. You have to carve out time to make it happen, so don't expect to do a lot of other stuff. Those things may be great rewards if you meet your daily word count goal, but do the writing first.
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Chris Well is the author of the suspense thriller Forgiving Solomon Long (Harvest House). Find him online at StudioWell.
