WNFIN isn’t a contest. No one judges you. No one looks over your shoulder or counts your words. That said, sometimes it’s nice to know who is participating…or to add your name to a list of participants so you feel you are being held accountable for starting and finishing your project in the allotted time–30 days.
If you would like to add your name to the list of WNFIN 2011 participants, you can do so by adding a comment here. You can also say what you are writing about, how many words you plan to write each day or week, how many words you plan to write in 30 days, etc. Then, come back at month’s end and let everyone know if you reached your goal.
Nina Amir will be reading all the comments; she’ll reply if she can. (She gets busy around October 30 and then doesn’t have as much time to comment as she gears up to edit and publish 30 days worth of blog posts. Please understand and don’t take it personally if you don’t get a reply when you sign in.)
Please do report in at the end with a status update. This is a great accountability mechanism that helps you complete your project. And Nina might, again, leave you a comment in return or mention you and your project in follow-up posts! (That means publicity for you, your book, your blog…
Good luck!
Last comment here, then I’m moving to the status updates page.
I’m also going to put the same post on the FaceBook page to get things rolling. This is going to be a great month. Come on folks! Let’s be there for one another. FB will be a great encouragement to us all if we do this.
Update re preparation – I’m almost ready to go. I’ve got my handwritten journal which consists of scrappy comments and dates, and my compiled notes all together. Now to start blogging them into a story on 1st.
I have just downloaded and printed out calendars of the 12 months I intend to cover in the memoir. Today and tomorrow I’m going to jot into the calendar spaces what happened that day in 1997/98, so I can see how many blog posts I’ll need to cover the book. I will then divide the number by 30 so that I know how many posts I need to cover per day.
Obviously I’ll only post one a day on my blog page which I’ve created for the story, and come December I’ll slow down the posting but the book will be finished. I repeat the book will be finished. Did I tell you? The book WILL be finished.
Good writing everyone!!! Keep in touch.
Shirley Corder recently posted..Slippery Sand
Hi!
Wow you tempt me with this challenge! I’m Marie-Eve, from Quebec also, and I have this dream to write a real book that you can smell and feel. In fact I really dreamt about it, that it was on shelves.
Here’s the story of my book I was projecting to finish after my blog was all set up with hundred articles to bring traffic first.
I wrote an ebook for my website of about 17 000 words on the topic Do What You Love Now in August. When I finished it, well, I wasn’t quite finished and I didn’t want to publish it until I felt it was awesome. I have so much to say about it, I want to do a thorough research on what has been written on it and add what isn’t really talked about like a proven method to do so.
So I need about 33 000 words to finish a 200 pages book. And I wanted to start it in January but it seems I’m always pushing it away because of the blog’s needs and other activities. I want to transform the book/ebook into a full ecourse too with added information like videos next year.
Ok… I wasn’t planning to write it this month but I’m really enthusiastic about it. I’ll do the challenge!
Here’s my plan :
1. I’ll finish my outline before starting on Nov. 1st. It’s already mapped out, I just have to rearrange it for the purpose of a bigger book from a novel angle than was has been already done. I’ll finish my reading this week, so far I’ve read I lot of books/ebooks on happiness and doing what you love. I will write in a calendar what topic I write on each day.
2. I will write at least 2 000 words on weekdays, so 10 000 a week, I would be finished in a little more than 3 weeks.
3. I will spend less time on social media and reading how-to newsletter and use this time to correct the book and making it right.
4. I will blog a part of the book at least once a week on my blog.
5. I will have it corrected and self-publish it in December on Amazon with Create Space and in Kindle format.
6. I’ll report back here once in a while and read how you are all doing.
Nina, I’m already subscribed to your sites. Thank you for all the great info and helping to do what we love!
If any of you have a suggestion on a great writing book to help me make it professional, self-publish it and how to have it corrected I’d be glad to hear about it!
Good success with your projects! It’s gonna be fun, at least we’ll try our best to make it work, feel alive having a great time and I’m sure in the end it will be very satisfying.
Marie-Eve
This is great idea,,I hope to get this book started,,with the idea of WNFIN ,,,,
I have started with writing at least 250 word a day,,,,my content,,,,is ready,,,
Note and journal,,,,will also try to come back and report,,,how am doing
Hopeful it will help me to keep going, yes I must finish this book by nov 30th .
Marie-Eve,
Great plan…especially the part about going back and re-evaluating to see what else is out there and making sure your book is unique. I have a workbook that helps you do that based on what I call the proposal process, should you be interested, called How to Evaluate Your Book for Success (on my website). I suggest you also take the time to have your book professionally edited. I was at a workshop all day yesterday with CEO of Smashwords.com Mark Coker who said spend less money ($0) on marketing and instead use that money to hire a good editor so you produce a book as good as a traditionally published book. I agree. Don’t skimp on editing and cover design. These are highly important to the process. Great books on self-publishing: Marilyn MOss and Sue Collier’s The Complete Guide to Self-Publshing and Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual. CreateSpace is a good choice; there quality won’t be as good nor their distrubution as wide as LightningSource. But it is quick and cheap!
Good luck!
Nina
Okay, WNFIN participants…I’m going to have to stop commenting on your sign-ins, although I love doing so. I have to turn my attention to the upcoming 30-days of blog posts. I’ll continue reading the comments here for the book-give-away contest and to see who is participating in the challenge.
I’ll be checking the status updates all month long, too. Please also use the Facebook page and tweet out your progress using #WNFIN. Share links to the blog posts you enjoy.
Good luck! Have fun! Write Nonfiction in November!
Nina
I have been writing a book on a blog since mid October, I have 20 posts of about 700 words each, so 14,000 words. The book is about my life. At this point it is not being told in any particular order, but I feel driven to get my ideas down. I plan to keep writing as I am and publishing my posts for another two weeks. Beginning November 13th. I’m going to sit back see what I have and structure the book better. I would appreciate anyone’s feedback on this idea. Thank you! Libby
Libby Baker Sweiger recently posted..Hem of His Garment
I started writing a book on a blog last year and didn’t get too far. Then I heard about writing a novel in November and decided to do a blog post a day in October when I found out about it. It was the mid-October. This is really much better because I’m writing non-fiction! I saw Nina’s howtoblogabook.com today and therefore found this site.
I don’t have a plan yet. I’ve written 20 posts since about 10/13 with 700 avg. words in each. I don’t know how much longer they need to be to become a chapter, but there are entire stories in each post.
I’m going to keep writing, pause when I start running out of inspiration for more stories and then start to organize the book. I’m still sharing it online and that keeps me writing. Readers are beginning to bug me for the posts if it’s late and one hasn’t surfaced yet that day!
Appreciate getting to know all of you!
Thanks for all you’ve done so far Nina. EVERYONE, let’s tweet our our progress. That’s fun.
Nina – one last question. Is there ONE place we should be updating our status so that we can follow one another?
I’m busy giving titles to all my chapters and blogs today, ready to go tomorrow.
I’ve made a slight change to my theme to one I’ve already had approved (under contract) to write an ebook on. That way I can publish it via ebook as soon as it’s edited, and then send out a proposal for mainline publishers as soon as the contract allows – next year sometime. I’m still writing about cancer, and I’m still doing it as a series of blogs. But I read your material on blogging a book Nina, and I’m now going to post one blog Monday – Friday for the month. The others will be written but not made public so that I have extra for the published book.
Good luck everyone!
Shirl Corder recently posted..Slippery Sand
The status update page here is the “official” place, but I think the Facebook page is great because you can keep in touch with each other there in real time. If you friend each other, you can chat as well as post updates on the wall. I would suggest you do both! Just copy and paste your updates! Or do official updates here and then go to FB to disuss your trials and tribulations…what you are struggling with…your topics…make friends! Whatever you like.
I’m not attached. Last year someone asked for the FB page. I created it….
I was thinking about participating in nanowrimo, which I completed in 2005 with a really, really bad (but fun to write) teen mystery novel. However, I decided to write non-fiction this year instead while still shooting for the 50,000-word count target. I have a great idea that suits my interests of the moment (spiritual growth), and I’m ready to begin! I’m glad this site exists, because it looks like a great resource. Thanks for your hard work!
I still need to write a formal working outline. I haven’t yet laid out my daily or weekly goals. And I need to start a new blog dedicated to this writing project. (I already have blogs dedicated to my Hebrew-teaching practice and my saga of medical problems.) I’ve never done a writing challenge before! I do have a catchy working title in mind already: “If Thoreau Had Learned Hebrew: Or, the Sukkah on Walden Pond.”
Here’s a brain-dump draft of my Introduction:
Henry David Thoreau, the well known American author most famous for his book “Walden: or Life in the Woods,” was a Harvard-educated 27-year-old scholar when he “went to the woods” for a two-year experiment in living simply. “Walden” reflects Thoreau’s scholarly and educated mindset with its many references to classical Greek and Latin works of literature and philosophy. He was Concord Transcendentalist after the manner of his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Like many of his fellow transcendentalists, Thoreau had a Christian Unitarian upbringing; “Walden” contains many Biblical references, displaying his easy knowledge of the book that continues to top the most-widely read book lists of the past several millenia. As an independent scholar, Thoreau also studied “Eastern philosophy.” This learning, too, is reflected in his lyrical ode to Walden Pond in the form of quotes and references to classical Indian and Hindu philosophy, notably the Bhagavad Ghita. While his intellectual curiosity was not stopped at any international border, Thoreau was also deeply interested in the spiritual practices of Native American Indians and plainly admired their connection with the natural world. Toward the end of his 44 years on earth, Thoreau became especially interested in botany and specifically the natural world in his immediate neighborhood of Concord, Massachusetts.
Thoreau’s intelligent, intellectual, poetic range of reading and study spanned much of the globe’s biggest classical works. So why didn’t he study Hebrew? If Thoreau *had* learned Hebrew …
I’m doing this on NaNoWriMo as a rebel of many colors–I’m tickled to find others who are working on nonfiction projects.
Nice to see everyone in here.
I’m in! Memoir in Progress! Now Go!
I am writing a book about creativity and domesticity.
Sonja recently posted..‘Cause I’m Like That
Nina, what a great idea!
I’d heard of the November Novel challenge but when I saw your nonfiction challenge, I knew I had to join in. I’ll have my first post tonight (11/1/11).
Ann @ CreativeBoomer recently posted..Life is Like a Painting
Hi,
I’m being very ambitious here, but I’m going to write for 30 days, creating content for roughly 25 days and then polishing it all up by the end of the 30-day challenge. I hope to formulate more goals as I go, but I’m just doing this in the way one takes the plunge into icy waters and then warms up with each lap she swims. Good luck to everyone who attempts this, and thank you to Nina Amir for starting the ball rolling.
Hi,
I’ve never done anything like this before, but I’ve been itching to write. I don’t even know for sure what I’m gonna write about. But I’m gonna do it. We’ll see where I end up. Thanks for the inspiration! Here I go…
I’m writing a book titled The Well-Loved Man: Re-thinking the Modern Relationship. I’ve got a chapter written and I’m also putting it up on IndieGoGo so that I can hopefully receive crowd-funding to help me publish it.
Good luck to everyone on their projects. I’m looking forward to reading up on how you all are doing.
Hi,
I will be attempting to write a 50,000 word book in the 30 days we are alloted. It will be the problems that show their ugly face when two people marry for the second time. This 30-day challenge will be work, but fun. My last book took eight months to write, while my first husband was in the hospital with End-stage Renal Failure. I am looking forward to writing all about my second marriage and its problems with the family. This is quite a challenge, I must say, but one that will be great to beat. I hope to have the first draft of a good book, when the 30 day are over.
Thanks Nina Amir, you are an inspiration to us all. Good luck to everyone who decides to dive into this challenge.
Wow, I was just getting disappointed in myself for not doing the NaNoWriMo again this year, but alas! I can do this one! I’ve been kicking around a non-fiction book idea for about a year now. I designed a blog and a rough outline for the project in October. I’ve needed a challenge such as this one to kick me in the butt and get me moving. I’m in the middle of three WIPs, so this will help focus me for the next 30 days.
)
Here are my goals for the next 30 days:
1.) Only check Twitter, FB and email for important messages, no more scrolling through and Tweeting with everyone and their brother. Spend more time daily working on project. Goal: 2 hours per day or 1,000 words.
2.) Blog daily about progress @ http://www.texasroserustler.blogspot.com.
3.) Complete 30,000 – 40,000 words by November 30th.
4.) Edit myself and then locate professional (reasonable) editor to proof manuscript.
5.) By January 1, 2012 begin self-publishing process.
My non-fiction project is aimed at a small, niche group of gardeners. It is about rose rustling, a mission of search & rescue of old garden roses. I already have a published author and Horticulturist who’s agreed to write a foreword for the book! The book will be sold during and after my Adventures of a Rose Rustler presentation, which I market here in the southern part of Texas.
Thanks to She Writes.com for notifying members of this great opportunity. Thank you to everyone who is assisting with this challenge, and from what I’ve read, a huge thank you goes out to Nina!
Looking forward to getting to know everyone and hearing about their progress.
Hi all,
My name is Claudius and I’m hoping to finish the novel challenge by the end of this month. I want to achieve a goal of 50,000 words. I can only hope that life or my pending trip to China does not interfere with this. I’m thinking non-fiction abstracts. Please visit and tell me what you all think. Feel free to post or add me on Facebook and I’ll be sure to do the same!
Thanks,
Claudius
Claudius recently posted..Moving in… and on With My Life
Diving in a day late, and a few words short but I will catch up! Very excited about this as I have heard wonderful things about the nanowrimo.
-a
I am in the middle of a life review, looking back on my life and wondering “What was all that about?”
I’ve turned some of it into fiction, and I also want to do a more accurate piece of writing about my childhood in Britain during WW2 – an uneventful one from the point of view of the war, but eventful in a personal way, with parents divorcing and that kind of thing.
So that’s my challenge for this month.
Hi, everyone – I just found out about this yesterday after work, so I haven’t had time to begin till now. But I’m in. I started a blog about teaching first year university students (something I am passionate about) – my plan is to turn it into an article about teaching first year – I’m committing to write a blog post of 500 words every day in November (and an extra long one today to catch up!)
Katherine
I am working on memoir. My goal is to write at least two hours every day. I am currently slightly over 5,000 words.
It’s two thirty in the morning and I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d add some thoughts to the blog. Later this morning, I wake and get back to the 4 thousand words I’ve managed so far. I’m letting go and letting the words find their places. A nonfiction nature writer friend once told me that when she started a book, after countless hours of research, she gave her book a basic structure by first placing 3” x 5” cards out on the floor, labeling them much like an outline. After lining them up in her first choice of order, she worked through the cards, shuffling and reshuffling them as she poured her words onto paper. She always told me, “It may seem like a jumble of words at first, with hardly any semblance of real order, but that’s what first drafts are for. Keep shuffling the cards and you’ll have a second draft and maybe a third, but really don’t count on a final product, until your fourth draft.” I think my eyes glazed over when Ann told me this, but now as I write my words and pour my heart onto “paper”, I realize that she’s probably right. It’s like any fine piece of art – it starts like a revelation, surging up from your heart, out of your head, until it graces your finger tips and you let it go. But you never let it go until you have brought it, like you would your child, to maturity.
So, I count this challenge as a way to procure my first draft and move on and upward. It’s given me a sense of freedom I’ve not felt before and while the 50 thousand word challenge is intimidating; it has unleashed a flow of words and lit a fire within me I’ve needed for a long, long while. Thank you!
Hi Everyone,
I’m jumping on board a few days late but feel inspired by reading your comments. I’m writing a memoir cookbook and set a first draft deadline of February 15. (my birthday) Participating with all of you will keep me going and hopefully I’ll meet my deadline by the end of the month.
Best wishes and good luck to all of you. – M
Come on over to the Status Updates … it’s lonely out there. We got cookies
Hey! With so many people who actually signed in, I’m amazed more of you are not over on the status update page checking in. As Marion said…they have cookies…probably left over Halloween candy, too. It’s way more fun if you join in the conversation. No one is on the FB page either…and that’s fine. If no one uses it again this year, I’ll just delete it. But go on over to the status update page and have some fun while you write!
It’s been a week…hope you are making smooth progress. New posts flowing to the blog…I’m hoping to add at least two more teleseminars!
Best wishes for your success,
Nina
I am working on my book about helping moms get healthy food for their families without going broke or spending hours in the kitchen. I think this challenge will help me get it done in a more orchestrated manner.
Good Morning,
This is a great idea. I started my second non-fiction book last week in response to this challenge. Research should be completed by the end of this week, which leaves me the rest of the month to write it.
Thanks for the motivation.
Sharon
Super! See Rochelle Melander’s post on how to write a book in 30 days. It will help you. Move over to the status updates page and keep us posted on how things go. Good luck!
I hope you find that true, Davette! Keep us posted on your progress by commenting on the status updates page!
Where is the Facebook page? I can’t seem to find it
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Write-Nonfiction-in-November/157481860957111
Thanks Nina. I must have been there before because I see I “Liked” the page … but for the life of me I just couldn’t find it this morning.
What a cool idea! My daughter is on her third year of the Young Writers’ version of Nanowrimo, and it’s really helped her focus. I’m glad to try a nonfiction version, especially since you don’t have the artificial rules about starting from scratch.
I’m up to about 23K words in my book about creative ways that homeschoolers can teach math. My goal is to add 10-15K more words and polish off a nearly-final draft by the end of the month. I hope to be ready to self-publish early next year.
So I’m off to read a few more of your blog posts and check out the FB page, and then lose myself in Scrivener for the rest of the day…
Denise recently posted..Carnival Time: Send In Your Post
So many of you signed in here as participants but never made a peep on the status update page. We have three days to go until WNFIN ends. I’m wondering how you are all doing with your projects. Why not pop into the status update page and let all of us know? Of course, there’s the Facebook page, too…but it’s less read. I suggest you just go to the status update page right her on this blog and leave a comment!
Nina, I reached my goal and wrote 50401 words of a story about marriage called:
The Second Time Around. It turned out to be a fun project, and now I will go back and edit until it becomes a book.
Thank you for inspiring me.
Betty Kuhn