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A typewriter sits behind a box of index cards. In front, a binder with blank paper and a pair of eyeglasses rest beside a remote control and a stapler on a table.

A Behaviorial Look at National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

The setup for NaNoWriMo at home, if I need to ...
photo by clickthing.blogspot.com/2008/10/tennish-anyone.html

So right now a lot of writing friends and I are stocking up on coffee, candy, and Prozac, building our bunkers for National Novel Writing Month (fondly known as NaNoWriMo). Only I don’t like coffee, so I make up for it with chocolate. To each her own.

NaNoWriMo is a blitz to write at least 50,000 words in 30 days. (Of course, no, one isn’t writing a publishable book in 30 days, nor is 50,000 words a complete novel in nearly any genre. But that’s not exactly the point, either, so work with us here.)

Considering that at my sugar-and-caffeine-induced perfect zone, I peak at about 1000 words per hour, and that’s not really sustainable — I know a lot of professionals who are quite pleased with 250 words per hour — and considering that normal life doesn’t actually suspend for most of us, you can see the challenge here. So motivation and discipline are big concepts for the NaNo community.

There are lots of ways NaNo writers motivate themselves, but it boils down to several commonly-used terms — small incentives, big incentives, anti-incentives, and rituals.

Let’s look at them from a professional behavior perspective.

A young girl in a pink hoodie holds a frying pan up to a person dressed as a zombie, who is wearing a dark hoodie with face paint and fake blood. They are standing near playground equipment outdoors.

Zombies on the Playground

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I don’t do Wordless Wednesday much, but sometimes you’ve just got something to share.

Zombies on the Playground

My friend the talented Amanda Irwin of Elemental Photography wanted to recreate this fun image of children fighting off zombies on playground equipment. She issued an open call for predators and prey, and this happened.

Kitsune-Mochi

Contest Winners

And now, our trivia winners! (From the ARC contest.)

First off, the correct answers:

A hexagonal granite pedestal with a five-pointed star engraved on the top surface and a circular metal piece at the center, surrounded by rocks and greenery.

Adventures in Translation: “Purple fine Doo number”

Seimei Shrine ๆ™ดๆ˜Ž็ฅž็คพ devoted to Abe no Seimei. K...
Seimei Shrine ๆ™ดๆ˜Ž็ฅž็คพ devoted to Abe no Seimei. Kyoto, Japan. Seimei Well (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I did a fair amount of research for Kitsune-Tsuki and Kitsune-Mochi, and some was much easier than others.

There’s a lot of research involved in any historical piece. I heard Susan Spann, author of Claws of the Cat, say that she had spent over two hours looking up historic ikebana seasonal arrangements, just to put the correct flowers (hydrangeas) in a scene. I myself spent considerable time researching the histories of such commonplace things as daikon and goldfish. But sometimes the source material is hard to come by, especially in English.

Burne-Jones-le-Vampire

I (Heart) Vampires

Illustration in Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le F...
Illustration in Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampire story. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I (blood-red heart) vampires. Not any particular incarnation of them (though there are some incarnations I do particularly dislike), but the mythos of them. Creeping, skulking, life-stealing, blood-drinking, vein-piercing, sexual-metaphor-but-not-sexy-themselves vampires.

How do I love vampires? Let me count the ways.

A painted portrait of a man with a receding hairline, mustache, beard, and wearing a black coat with a white collar, set against a dark background.

What if Book Reviews and Author Interviews Ran Like Football Commentary?

This was long thought to be the only portrait ...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So I was watching some football highlights and player interviews — okay, I wasn’t watching, exactly, I happened to be in the area when a television was playing. See, I don’t exactly follow football, as I tend to be of the opinion that if these guys are getting paid millions of dollars, they can each afford their own ball and they shouldn’t have to fight over one.

A group of foxes walk under a leafless tree on a dark, starry night, with distant houses and a forest in the background. The scene has a traditional Japanese woodblock print style.

Announcement: KITSUNE-MOCHI!

Kitsune glowing with fox-fire gather near Edo....
Kitsune glowing with fox-fire gather near Edo. Print by Hiroshige. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is with great hand-clapping joy I tell you that Kitsune-Mochi has a release date.

No, seriously, this is fun for me. I’ve been working on this a long while, and I’m really looking forward to getting to share it. Kitsune-Tsuki was a short mystery, and Kitsune-Mochi is a novel-length adventure in which Tsurugu must protect Kaede and the daimyou‘s household from a rival onmyouji without revealing their own secrets. A misstep will be disastrous.

Oh, and there are tengu, and oni, and kappa, and abduction, and rescue, and foxfire, and deception, and revenge, and bad poetry.

A circular graphic with a pirate illustration on the left and the words "Talk Like a Pirate Day" in red and yellow text on the right. The date "September 19" appears at the bottom.

Pirates! and a free sample

International Talk Like a Pirate DayAarrrgh! It’s offic’ly Talk Like a Pirate Day! And in honor, we’re goin’ t’ look at a burnin’ question: Why d’ our pirates talk like this?

Of course, thar aren’t a lot o’ recorded pirate speeches. Even court records o’ tried and convicted pirates don’t capture t’ dialect o’ t’ accused. What we think o’ as “pirate speak” developed rel’tively recently in modern media.