Wrapping Up November, and Thank God It’s Over

As the last couple of days of the month go by, it comes time to think about the last events of our NaNoWriMo season here in Vancouver. Specifically, it’s time to RSVP for the TGIO parties!

This year, December 1 falls on Thursday. In order to maximize the number of people who can come to the wrap-up party for our writing marathon, we are having two separate events. We encourage you to try to make it out to one, if at all possible. It’s a great way to wrap up the month, and maybe snag one or two buddies to help you edit the monster you just finished writing over the rest of the year.

The first Thank God It’s Over party will be at Moose’s Down Under, the same location we had our Kickoff. We have several tables reserved from 6 to 9pm, so feel free to come by if you can make it down. Moose’s is within walking distance of Burrard, Granville and Vancouver City Centre SkyTrain Stations on the Expo, Millennium and Canada lines. RSVP for the Thursday, Dec. 1st event in this forum thread.

The second TGIO will be held at the Boston Pizza in New Westminster on Saturday, December 3rd. Our reservation is from 12 noon until 4 pm. If you can come, please RSVP in this thread.

Important: If you wish to attend both events, please RSVP in both threads. We hope to see as many people as possible come out! We always enjoy meeting new participants and seeing familiar faces.

We hope this year has been rewarding, even if you didn’t quite make it to 50,000 words.

Year-Round Writing

Yes, you just wrote an entire novel over this month (or more, if you’re a real overachiever), but now is the perfect time to tell you about our other writing groups, if you’re interested in developing more as a writer, and maybe getting published in the future.

Several of us (especially our New Westminster Wrimos) have a very active year-round writing group, coordinated from our “The Other 11 Months” Facebook group. Membership is open, and usually someone will approve your request to join within hours. There is a (somewhat less frequently updated) Google Group version of TOEM, if you hate the Book of Faces.

We are also very lucky to be the hosting region for a high-calibre professional writing conference: the Surrey International Writer’s Conference, which takes place late October each year. The cost of the conference is rather high, but the conference itself is well-worth the cost. They offer workshops run by New York Times Best Selling authors and literary agents, the opportunity to pitch your polished novel or book to one of the literary agents or publishing house editors present, the chance to have a published author read 3 pages of your work and critique it. . . not to mention all the networking with other aspiring writers you’ll be able to do. A few of our Wrimos have been to this event, and all of them regard it as an extremely valuable experience.

Lastly, our twitter account, come December, will go into a quasi-hibernation mode, now that NaNoWriMo is coming to its end. If anything writer-y in Vancouver and the rest of the Lower Mainland comes to our attention, you can be sure that we’ll retweet it for you.

Come Write-In at the Library!

If you’re near West Vancouver, you should know that your local library, the West Vancouver Memorial Library at 1950 Marine Drive is hosting write-ins through NaNoWriMo’s Come Write-In Program. For 2011, they are offering two dates for you to drop in: Saturday, November 12th and Sunday, November 27th, both from 10 am to 5 pm.

If you’re nearby and looking for a quiet spot to sit down and write for a day, this is your chance!

Official Write-Ins

The official Write-ins were added to the Google calendar last week, but it seems we’ve forgotten to give everyone an announcement. Oops! So let’s fix that up quick-like!

Our official Write-ins will take place on Tuesday Evenings, at the Waves Coffee on Robson and Cambie streets in Downtown Vancouver. (211 Robson Street – Link on Google Maps) We will start at 6pm, and run until 9. Of course, you are welcome to arrive before or stay later if you like.

There are power outlets available for use, and there may be purchase requirements on internet access. Since this is a coffee shop, there will be food and drink available for your purchase and consumption.

Regional Chat Room Launch!

Just in time for November, our friends from Saskatoon have set up the chat server for NaNoWriMo! Come join other Vancouver Wrimos in our chat room, featuring the ever-popular Timmy, Word War Robot extraordinaire!

Get Started Fast! Instructions

If you have not done so already, visit http://chatnano.servehttp.com/wrimo-registrar.php and fill in your information. This will help protect your nickname on the network, and ensure no one pretends to be you. In the Region field, you will select Vancouver. Be warned: this process may take more than a minute – DO NOT REFRESH THE PAGE.

Once it has completed successfully, you may now visit: http://chatnano.servehttp.com/wrimo-login.php and using the info you gave in the previous page, log in. The choice between the two IRC Widgets can be left to the default setting, unless it doesn’t work, in which case, go back to the link and select the Mibbit option.

IRC Whizkid! Instructions

Server: ipocalypse.net
Port: 6667
Channel: #vancouvernano (NOTE: This channel name differs from last year due to difficulty registering the old name.)

General Remarks

If you’re interested in seeing who else is out there in other regions doing NaNoWriMo, check out the full list of channels here: http://chatnano.servehttp.com/chats.php

Meet the Mini-Bosses for 2011

Vancouver is a big region.

No, really. It’s huge. With about 900 active and homed (meaning that vancouver is their primary region) participants in 2010, spread across something like 2.8 square megameters, Vancouver is among the largest NaNoWriMo regions. And we have two (2) Municipal Liasons to try and engage as many people across the region by holding in-person gatherings.

Of course, since the MLs have lives and work of their own and are limited to being in one place at any given moment, this becomes a nigh-impossible task! To help ease the burden and spread the NaNoWriMo love across the GVRD, we have recruited a crack team of Mini-Bosses! These Mini-Bosses are Read the rest of this entry

Pre-Nano Meet-and-Greet

This year’s Meet and Greet is being held in the Blenz Pacific Centre, just north of the entrance to the Bay on Granville St, between Georgia and Dunsmuir. We will be at the Blenz starting at 1, so bring any of your friends who ever thought about writing. We’ll convince them to join you in an insane novel-writing adventure in November!

Mysterious Ages and I did a panel discussion at VCON this year talking about NaNoWriMo.org.

We handed out the Top 10 Reasons to Participate in NaNoWriMo to the attendees and thought we’d share them with you too :)

Top 10 Reasons to Participate in NaNoWriMo

10 ) It’s 30 days. Whether you make it to 50,000 words or not you’ve tried something new.

9 ) You meet other aspiring (& published) writers, not only in Vancouver but from around the world thanks to the forums

8 ) November becomes a housework-free month (Darling, can you do the dishes tonight I’m at a key point in my novel)

7 ) It’s therapeutic, all those things you wish you could do… you can do vicariously through your characters

6 ) A fantastic excuse to stay up way past your bed-time and eat all that half price Halloween candy that conveniently goes on sale Nov 1st.

5 ) You benefit from the synergy that envelopes us as we all work toward that common 50,000 word goal

4 ) You can participate as much or as little as you want, we’re just a click or coffee shop away when you need a boost or have written yourself into a corner

3 ) NaNoisms – those little phrases that made perfect sense when you wrote them… “Good thing decapitation isn’t fatal” or “Can you hand me a glass, I can’t see you clearly.”(Quotes courtesy of the NaNoWriMo.org forum)

2 ) You can make lasting friendships (some of us write together all year long at ‘The Other 11 Months’ group on Facebook

And most important of all…

1 ) You can finally say those magic words, “I wrote a book