NaNoWriMo Wrap-up: Interview with Natalie Field

This is the fourth of four interviews we conducted with 2011 NaNoWriMo winners:

Hi Natalie, what's your idea of great literary fiction?

A good example of what I think is good literary fiction is S.E. Hinton's book The Outsiders. I don't know how many people would classify The Outsiders as LitFic, but I do. In my opinion, in order for something to be literary fiction, it must be a novel that points something out about humans. It has to have a message. Often that's why you'll hear writers who are attempting literary fiction say that their antagonist is society. The Outsider's plot is purely character driven, and the book says something about people, as all LitFic should. It is probably my favourite book I've read in a long time.

NaNoWriMo Wrap-up: Interview with Jason Black

This is the third of four interviews we conducted with 2011 NaNoWriMo winners:

Hey Jason, if you would, tell us a little bit about yourself:

I'm an ex-techie guy who has fled the software industry for a life of fiction, which happened when I discovered that writing novels was a heck of a lot more fun than writing software documentation. These days, I spend most of my time as a "book doctor," a freelance editor who does literary analysis for a living. Basically, I do for independent and aspiring authors what a good agent or publishing house editor does for authors under contract: help them bring the core of their story into its truest possible form.

NaNoWriMo Wrap-up: Interview with Mike Kroll

This is the second of four interviews we conducted with 2011 NaNoWriMo winners.

Hi Mike. Why don't you start off by telling us what your idea of great literary fiction is:

Great literary fiction, in my opinion, is a work that tells both a story, as well as draws the reader into a way of thinking that enlightens their own lives. Some fantastic examples of this would be Scarlett Thomas' The End of Mr. Y. It incorporates both quantum physics, classic literature, and the power of the mind into an original and engaging plot.

NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up: Interview with Fiona Webster

This is the first of four interviews we conducted with 2011 NaNoWriMo winners.

Hi Fiona, tell us a just little bit about yourself:

I'm a 56-year-old retired physician—originally from Houston but now living In Greenbelt, Maryland, just outside of DC. I've been married to the same guy, a ponytailed botanist, for 33 years. We have no kids, by choice; our current feline companion is a black oriental shorthair named Annabel Lee. I've been on the Internet for 22 years, always with the same two letters (fi) before my @ sign. My longtime ruling passions are the music/art/writing of Patti Smith, horror literature, splatter cinema, fish (especially sharks), sailing, and science. I spend my time, when not writing, doing mail art: mostly collage postcards, but also decorated envelopes containing long letters written with a fountain pen or typed on a World War II correspondent's portable, all mailed with vintage postage.

NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up

While those of us here at ShelfActualization.com spent the month of November getting this wonderful site off the ground, thousands of other intrepid, book-minded souls were busy throwing their blood, sweat and tears into a different kind of literary endeavor: National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, for short.

Their goal? To write a 50,000 word novel in the thirty days between October and December.

"What?" You ask. "An entire novel in 30 days or less? It can’t be done."

Oh, but it has. Lots of times.

Even some great works of literature have been mid-wifed into existence in less time than NaNoWriMo gives its eager participants. Jack Kerouac famously hammered out On the Road on a 120-foot scroll of teletype paper in just three weeks’ time. Dostoevsky’s The Gambler was completed in just 26 days, and though its’ a short work, it happens to have been tackled as a side project while the author was busy writing Crime and Punishment. Not too shabby.

And Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was scratched off in just 6 days! Yeah, you’ll tell me, but the thing’s only about 100 pages long. That’s true, but at Stevenson’s pace, an entire month's work would have yielded a 500 page book of roughly 125,000 words. So, it is definitely doable.

Last year, 30,000 NaNoWriMo participants crossed the 50K word mark. This year’s writers banged out over 3 Billion words in their mad dash to the finish line. And it’s not all crap, either. Some notable recent winners, such as Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants) and Erin Morgestern (The Night Circus) have gone on to successful publication.

So, as the month drew to a close I wandered over to the literary fiction section of the NaNoWriMo forums to see if anyone would be interested in telling us about their experiences. I’m happy to report that volunteers were not lacking. So for the rest of the day, I’ll be posting our quick interviews with four of them. Stay tuned…