Happy Author’s Day!
Happy Author’s Day!
This Week In Writing, we kick off NaNoWriMo by celebrating all the author’s out there, whether published or not.
Today is the launch of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and it also happens to be National Author’s Day! That means today I’m celebrating you, whether you’re a published author or not.
One thing I often hear from writers is that they don’t consider themselves a writer until they’ve published something. I’m here to say I consider you a writer the minute you start putting words on the page. In fact, it’s the first chapter of my book: you are a writer!
If you’re taking on the traditional NaNoWriMo challenge or creating one of your own, you are a writer, and today I’m celebrating you! If you’re looking for an accountability group of other writers to talk with, check out our free Discord server.
A Note From Justin
Welcome to the first issue of This Week In Writing sent through Substack!
I’ve moved the newsletter here since Twitter seems to have completely forgotten it owns Revue. Please mark this address as ‘not spam’ in your email provider or add writingcoop@substack.com to your contacts list. That will ensure you continue receiving This Week In Writing moving forward.
While This Week In Writing is now here on Substack, every weekly issue will remain free. I have enabled paid subscriptions if you wish to support my work. This is more of a way to try and consolidate platforms and move Patreon’s features here to Substack. I have no idea if that makes any sense, but it’s fewer platforms I have to manage. If you’re a current Patreon supporter and wish to move your membership here, please reply, and I’ll make it as easy as possible.
Subscriptions are $5/month (the same as the supporter level on Patreon). I’ve also turned on a Priority Submissions level ($175/year) that provides priority submissions to The Writing Cooperative publication on Medium (where it will remain). Again, these subscription levels are not required to continue receiving the weekly newsletter. That is and will always be free. Why? Because I like sending it out and supporting writers!
Anyway, thanks again for reading, and please tell a few writer friends about This Week In Writing!
This Week’s Featured Links
What NaNoWriMo Is and What It Isn’t by JazzFeathers
The first NaNoWriMo was a private event where 21 friends from the San Francisco Area agreed to devote the month of July 1999 to write a new novel of at least 50.000 words. Chris Baty, the mastermind of the event, found it such an educational experience that he decided to transfer it online and invite as many people as possible.
Why You Should Do NaNoWriMo This Year by Charlotte R Dixon
All you have to do to “win” is write a novel of 50,000 words and for your effort, you can get a badge to put on your website. (By the way, by my calculations, to write 50,000 words in November you need to average 1,666 words a day. Child’s play.)
How To Win NaNoWriMo: Be A Rebel by Justin Cox
Have you ever sat down at the keyboard attempting to write before an idea was fully baked? When I’ve attempted NaNoWriMo in the past, that was more or less the plan. Go full-on pants-er, typing whatever immediately popped into my brain without spending any time pausing to think.
Welcome to Substack, Justin – and happy author day to you sir!
Adding folks from Medium to Substack, which then starts firing notification emails at them, is a pretty serious breach of GDPR and various other privacy/data policies, Justin...