Gaiman and Palmer

I am doing NaNoWriMo this year. We are 4 days in so far, so there is still chance to get in on the action if you have the metaphorical balls. If you don't know what it is then check out their website here. Or type www.nanowrimo.org into your address bar and hit return. Basically what it is is this. Write a novel in one month. 50,000 words in 30 days.

But instead of doing it on your own the site provides a forums for support, tips for completing and other helpful tidbits. They have Write-Ins where you can go and write with other WriMos. And my favorite: a little stats thing that tells you how much you have written, what your average word count is per day, when you will finish based on what you've written so far, etc. Wait, I take it back, my favorite is when they send pep talks from successful writers. Every once and a while you get a piece of writerly-nano-advice from somebody in your nano mailbox. Last one was from Kate DiCamillo. I wouldn't mind if they did this daily. #hinthint

Well, it is tough to do something as big as a novel without some encouragement. Some inspiration. Some laughs. And there are a couple of things I wanted to share since they provided me with all these things and more. I found them at different times although they go very well together... almost as if they were meant to. Or as if the two who created them were married or something. They are commencement speeches given by Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. Collectively they clock in at under 30 minutes and no matter who you are I think there is something in it for you. In fact I think they should each do a TED talk. Thank you Neil Gaiman. Thank you Amanda Palmer.

Anyway, here are the links to the speeches:


Amanda Fucking Palmer Commencement Speech
Neil Gaiman Commencement Speech


Oooo. Another thing I really want to mention is Mur Lafferty. I usually listen to Writing Excuses (which comes out today). If you are into writing, if that's your bag, check out www.murverse.com. Especially her podcast I Should Be Writing (ISBW). It is a great parallel to Writing Excuses. Where as they usually focus on technique, Mur has a more emotional approach to her podcast. She has nice meaty interviews with writers and does a feedback show where she answers your emails. She also has some good insight into depression and writers. Check out ISBW located in Podcast System of the Murverse. Also available on iTunes.



PS I have a little word ticker at the top of my page here to show my up to date word count for this National Novel Writing Month.