What I've learned from NaNoWriMo (so far)

It can’t be this easy, I keep thinking as I type word after word after word. I watch my daily word counts fly by. Even on days I don’t write—and they are rare—I’m still catching up and making my word count on a regular basis.

I think back to my first National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), 7—or was it 8—years ago. Feverish, marathon typing sessions. A bundle of nerves and sore wrists.

What changed? Maturity? Medication (I’ve always been ADD, but have only been on medication for the past 5 years)? Mahalo? The writing at the people-powered search engine was a trial by fire—multiple daily deadlines, and pressure to produce at a prodigious rate. Nine months of daily word counts that were, come to think of it, pretty close to the 1,667 words a day average that NaNo demands.

I’m sure that all of those things have helped. But there are a few other strategies I’ve identified that have helped make this year’s NaNo so smooth.

1. Be Prepared.
I went with a novel idea that I’d come up with many years ago. In fact, it’s basically a reboot of my original NaNo concept from my first time through. A few of the main characters, personality traits, and plots remained the same, but I never went back to my original notes, only thoughts I had had about the story between then and now.

Also, remembering my plot struggles from before, I made sure to take several days in October—mostly during bus rides and in the shower—to think about plot and characters, where they might go, and what they might do. This made it a lot easier for me to write during November. And I continued to use little blocks of time, that were not long enough to get much writing done, to think about plot and what might happen next. As a result, I wasn’t running out of plot nearly as much as last time.

2. Have Fun!
I made sure to use a novel idea that was interesting and engaging for me, and made sure that, whether my writing was good or bad, I was having fun while writing. If that meant that a character did something silly, or I had a random aside describing the character’s dinner, or I inserted a graphic sex scene (pun intended), then I’d do it. Sure, a lot of this won’t survive any edits or rewrites, but a lot will. In fact, me having fun caused a major character to spontaneously appear out of nowhere—a character that helped solve a major plot problem in my novel.

Fun also meant that I could not be anxious about things. I couldn’t worry about my stock clichés, spelling errors, or inconsistencies in the plot if I were focused on having fun. I can always fix problems if and when I edit it.

3.Find time to write, every day.
I made it a goal to write on a daily basis, and to change my lifestyle to make it easy to find opportunities to write. That included having a pen-and-paper in my purse at all times, writing on my lunch hour, and begging my husband to let me lug around his huge laptop on a recent vacation so I could write on the train and before bed. As a result, I found out which writing times worked best for me, and I only missed three, maybe four days of writing (so far).

4. When in doubt, summarize.
If there was a place in the novel where I got stuck, I simply summarized the basics of what I wanted to happen, then moved on. Like if I needed details on something I didn’t have, or I wasn’t sure how the heroes would get out of a tough scrape (though I knew they would). I know the basic points of what I want to happen, but the details are sketchy. For those scenes, I am doing either some basic narration, or I am just putting in a placeholder paragraph of summary. I may go back to clean those paragraphs up before the end of November, or, I may leave them until I revise.

5.Use shame and social networking.
I don’t use the NaNo forums much, but I do use the “Buddies” system there. I see how my nano friends are doing. Those who are ahead of me, or are close to my word count, it spurs my competitive edge. Those who are behind me, it makes me want to give them pep talks and help spur them on to greater things. And, to be honest, I get a bit of schadenfreude knowing that I’m doing better than them.

I also use sites like Facebook and Twitter (mostly Twitter) to keep friends who aren’t writers updated on my NaNo status. My tweeps will often reply back with short notes of encouragement, and just putting it out there makes me feel more productive.

Even with all these strategies, I’m not out of the woods yet. I’ve got 20,000 more words to go As an old English major (and an Old English major), I know that hubris is a dangerous thing. So I guess that strategy #6 and #7 are “stay humble,” and “keep writing.”

And now, if you’ll excuse me…

Calvin and Hypatia boarded the train bound for Chicago. He was wearing his new hair and face…

Commercial Curmudgeon

Forgive me, but I’m a commercial curmudgeon. I see great commercials like this one for Skoda motors in England, and in my own country, it’s all fart jokes and shock value.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Superbowl.commercials. And if you're like me, and want to see the commercials, not the game, Mahalo is the best place for Superbowl commercials live coverage. You can find out what is airing when, and see the commercials online mere minutes after they have aired.

But when every company puts out a press release or a teaser to let you, the coveted viewer, know that you can see their product shilled on February 1, you expect more than what is generally given.

I'm fine with knowing what commercials will be aired before they air. It builds buzz, excitement and anticipation. But, frankly, the commercials for the past few years have not been up to par. This is the best that creative marketing minds can come up with? Admittedly, I like that Doritos uses audience participation in creating and choosing the ads, but the ads themselves are hit and miss.

Give me some real creativity, something innovative and exciting, and, oh, I don’t know, risky? Remember those Intel commercials from the 1990's with the dancing astronauts in the psychedelic lame spacesuits? Whether it's a good commercial is debatable, but it sure was memorable. And it was certainly something out of the ordinary.

The big fad this year is purported to be 3-D ads. Dreamworks and Sobe are both going to run ads in 3-D. Seems creative, but it seems more like ploy to get you out to check out the products and locales that offer the 3-D glasses. A bad commercial in 3-D is still a bad commercial.

Even so, If you are interested in getting those 3-D glasses, or making your own, check this out.


I’m watching the commercials at a friend’s house this year, a friend who has TiVo, so we can pause, replay and capture some of the better commercials this year. I just hope they’re worth it. But, I’m an optimist, and I an hopeful that we’ll get more than a few good commercials this year. Besides, any excuse to hang with friends, eat and drink is worth it.

If you'd like to skip Superbowl 43 and don't have Tivo, Mahalo is the place to go. They are super-exhaustive about this sort of thing. Here's a list of the commercials that will air on Superbowl Sunday.

Amy Borkowsky
Angels and Demons Super Bowl Ad
Budweiser Clydesdale Super Bowl Ad
Carreer Builder Super Bowl Ad
Cars.com Super Bowl Ad
Cheetos Super Bowl Ad
Chuck Super Bowl Ad
Denny's Super Bowl Ad
Doritos "Free Doritos" Super Bowl Ad
Doritos New Flavor Pitch Super Bowl Ad
Doritos Power of the Crunch Super Bowl Ad
Doritos Super Bowl Ad
Doritos The Chase Super Bowl Ad
Doritos Too Delicious Super Bowl Ad
Fast and the Furious Super Bowl Ad
Frosted Flakes Super Bowl Ad
GI Joe Super Bowl Ad
Go Daddy Danica Patrick Super Bowl Ad
Go Daddy Super Bowl Ad
H and R Block Super Bowl Ad
Heineken Super Bowl Ad
Heroes Super Bowl Ad
Hyundai Genesis Super Bowl Ad
Hyundai Super Bowl Ad
Jay Leno Super Bowl Ad
Kings Super Bowl Ad
LMAO NBC Super Bowl Ad
Land of the Lost Super Bowl Ad
Medium Super Bowl Ad
Miller One Second Super Bowl Ad
Monsters vs. Aliens Super Bowl Ad
NFL Network Super Bowl Ad
Pedigree Super Bowl Ad
Pepsi Super Bowl Ad
Sobe Lizard Lake Super Bowl Ad
Sobe Super Bowl Ad
Star Trek Super Bowl Ad
Super Bowl Ads 2009
Super Bowl Commercials 2009
Super Bowl Commercials Live Coverage
Teleflora Super Bowl Ad
Transformers Super Bowl Ad

What were the ten best films of 2008?

Jason over at Mahalo Answers has posted another $100 Question of the day. Today, it's:

What were the ten best films of 2008?

If you've not tried Mahalo Answers yet, this is an easy, entry-level question that anyone can participate in by answering. It's not like you have to have any specialized knowledge to give a good answer. You just have to think of your 10 favorite films this year, and give a short blurb on why you liked them. If you do that, you have a real chance to win $100 dollars! How cool is that?

As I've mentioned before, I'm not in this for the money. Nevertheless, I'll be throwing my hat into the ring on this question to see what I can come up with. I do so hope you'll join me.

I <3 Mahalo Answers

According to Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis, the thing that you do where somebody asks you a question on a the web, and then you answer them, is called a "knowledge exchange." I always just called it "fun."

As an online friend once said about me, "If you happen to ask an open-ended question around her, you will find your question answered." I enjoy working with information, and there's nothing more satisfying than finding the answer to a tough question through research.

I've been the go-to person for questions at my office and in my circle of friends for years, especially for questions about language, science and cooking.

So it's no surprise that I am in love with Mahalo Answers.

Mahalo Answers is a lot like Yahoo Answers, which has been around a while. Essentially, peoople ask and answer questions in a Web-based format. The askers look at all the responses, and choose the best answer. But there are a few key differences.

First, there is a real emphasis on quality of the answers. Citations, and refutations are encouraged. I dabbled in Yahoo Answers for a while, but found there were a lot of stupid questions and snarky answers. It really turned me off.

Second, there is a monetary system that can allow you to earn money when using Mahalo Answers. You buy Mahalo Dollars, and then can offer them as tips as part of the questions you ask. The person you select with the best answer gets the tip. Then you can eventually cash out your tips and actually make money. Not only is the making money angle cool, in theory, this also helps to increase the quality of an answer, or at least the number of responses.

Third, the Mahalo Answers is incorporated into Mahalo's Search Engine Results pages. So people who surf over to Mahalo's page on, say, Bob Dylan, can see the questions that people have asked about him. If they have a question that is not answered on the Search results page or in those Mahalo Answers questions, they can hop over to Mahalo Answers and ask it themselves.

Fourth, there's already a community of people built up around Mahalo that is working with Mahalo Answers. This includes guides who work for Mahalo, like me, and others who simply enjoy the site.

And the types of questions that are asked and answered are quite varied. I've seen very few questions so far that didn't have at least two answers, even the very technical or obscure ones.

So, to sum it up in Reading Rainbow style:

"Do you like helpingn people find answers to their questions? Or do you have some questions you haven't been able to answer but want to? Then heck out Mahalo Answers. You'll be glad you did...but you don't have to take my word for it."

Power trip

I've seen others use social networking to get jobs. I've also gotten a job that way. But, not until this week have I actually influenced other people using the new media.

First, some context. If you ask an open-ended question in front of me, about something you want to know and don't, I'll probably try to find out for you. Usually this is just a quick google search. But, still, there's something very deep in my personality that wants to please AND wants to research that makes this happen. More than 80 percent of the time.

But lately, I've been more agressive about promoting cool things that I've found rather than helping others find things.

Nothing earth-shattering, mind you. I only turned someone on to a CD which she later bought, and helped someone expand his job search whish may or may not help him get a much-needed job.

But I am getting a bit of a power trip from this.

I was doing a quick survey on twitter, and about 30% of my tweets have links to stuff: either stuff I found that's cool, or re-tweets.

Now that I know that I have this power, I must use it wisely.

New gig

I've been working for the search engine Mahalo for the better party of three months. It's been keeping me very busy.

Mahalo is a people-powered search engine that is half Google and half Wikipedia. Paid guides write pages on news, sports, celebrities and general interest topics.

I love the job, because I get to write factual blurbs about tons of different topics. I've written notes about the FDIC, presidential polls and Lindsay Lohan's ex-girlfriend's new girlfriend.

It's grunt work, not glamorous, but it's the type of work I like to do. And the people at Mahalo are pretty amazing. It's a fast-paced environment with high standards, but it's also very friendly and open.

And it pays. Now if I can just balance Mahalo with the day job with keeping my household running smoothly with spending time with friends, I'll be all set.

Look for a time management post coming sometime soon.