Monday, January 10, 2011

It's JANO Time

Last year, our mystery writers' group, Sleuths' Ink, came up with the concept for JANO. The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of January. National Novel Writing Month does this on a huge scale every November. Several of our writers participate in NaNo, but many of us are too busy with the holidays, Christmas shopping and hosting company so we decided the first of the year better suited our needs. January is a great time to kick off the new year with a novel in hand, plus it's too cold to venture outside in the blustery Midwest.

With JANO, we write like mad during the month--no editing. Writers of all genres may participate. I'm working on a new novel that is commercial fiction with elements of romance and possibly elements of suspense or mystery. I'm only at 6100 words and short of my goal. To achieve 50,000 words, we must write 12,500 words per week. That's a push and I'm hoping my muse kicks in very soon since I'm so far behind. (If it doesn't, I'm chucking this novel and going back to last year's!)

In February, we'll have a celebratory party and award prizes in thirteen categories including the first three writers to reach 50k, best first sentence, best first page, most unique setting, and so on. The camaraderie, motivation and support by fellow writers is the most fun for me.

I'll keep you posted on my progress. Good luck to all the JANO writers.

5 comments:

  1. It really is fun, Beth. And I get so much done. It just goes to show that we CAN write a novel.
    I can't wait for the party.

    Now back to JANO for me.

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  2. BTW, I love your six-word memoir for the week. So appropriate.

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  3. Both years, I've gotten a slow start on JANO but it's such a good process and much easier knowing fellow writers are doing the same thing. I'm looking forward to the party as well.

    Thanks about the six-word memoir. I like that one, too. Maybe I'll submit it to SMITH.

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  4. I'm going to post your "Hunker down and write. Repeat daily" 6-worder on my pc monitor. I need a good "kick start" after getting out of the groove with my writing.

    You're doing great with your JANO--can't believe you've done so much after such a late start--makes me ashamed of myself.

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  5. Aw, shucks. Thanks, Ginny. You've been a busy girl, yourself.

    Good luck with JANO, everyone. Of course we already have three 50k-word winners. I think they must have taken steroids to type that fast. Maybe we need to incorporate drug testing next year. :)

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