Chris Baty Popular Books

Chris Baty Biography & Facts

National Novel Writing Month, often shortened to NaNoWriMo ( NAN-oh-RY-moh), is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that promotes creative writing around the world. Its flagship program is an annual, international creative writing event in which participants attempt to write a 50,000-word manuscript during the month of November. Well-known authors write "pep-talks" in order to motivate participants during the month. The website provides participants, called "Wrimos", with tips for writer's block, information on where local participants are meeting, and an online community of support. Focusing on the length of a work rather than the quality, writers are encouraged to finish their first draft quickly so it can be edited later at their discretion. The project started in July 1999 with 21 participants. In 2022, 413,295 people participated in the organization's programs. Writers wishing to participate first register on the project's website, where they can post profiles and information about their novels, including synopses and excerpts. Regional volunteers called "Municipal Liaisons" help connect local writers, hold in-person and virtual writing events, and provide encouragement. History Freelance writer Chris Baty started the project in July 1999 with 21 participants in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2000, it was moved to November "to more fully take advantage of the miserable weather." and launched an official website, designed by a friend of Baty's. That year 140 participants signed up for the event, including several from other countries. Baty launched a Yahoo! group to facilitate socialization between participants and, after the posters began asking about guidelines, he set most of the event's basic ground rules: the novel must be new, cannot be co-authored, and must be submitted in time to be verified. Of the 140 participants, 29 completed the challenge as manually verified by Baty himself. The following year, Baty expected similar numbers, but 5,000 participants registered, which he credits to news of the event being spread by bloggers and later being reported on by various news organizations including the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. Though Baty was happy with the large turnout and popularity of the event, it almost did not happen, as the website had a number of problems leading to participants being asked to post themselves as winners on an honor system; in the end, 700 people would do so. 2002 saw technical improvements and increased automation to the site, and media attention from National Public Radio and CBS Evening News drew increased attention and a participant count of 14,000. The next year, the NaNoWriMo team began the Municipal Liaison program where volunteers could act as moderators in the forums as well as send out the first set of pep talk emails. Municipal Liaisons also acted as leaders for a specific region under their jurisdiction - organizing fundraisers and calling meetings for NaNoWriMo participants residing in their region. Baty also began work on his debut novel "No Plot? No Problem!" during the 2003 NaNoWriMo, writing the NaNoWriMo guide concurrent with his own novel. In 2005, NaNoWriMo was registered as a nonprofit organization due to the event growing strongly every year, which became the Office of Letters and Light. In 2011, the NaNoWriMo website was given a new layout and forums. Baty announced that he would be stepping down as executive director in January 2012 to pursue a full-time writing career. Grant Faulkner took his position as executive director. The redesigned website moved from being based on Drupal to Ruby-on-Rails. During the first month after launch, the new website supported over 1,000,000 visitors and more than 39,000,000 pageviews. By 2015, 431,626 people participated (633 different regions) in NaNoWriMo. Of those participants, more than 40,000 won. In 2017, NaNoWriMo launched fundraising efforts to redesign the website again ultimately raising $57,320. The new website was delayed and finally launched in 2019. 2024 saw several staffing changes and the appointment of former board president Kim "Kilby" Blades as interim director. Rules Since NaNoWriMo is used to get people writing, the rules are kept broad and straightforward: Writing starts at 12:00: a.m. on November 1 and ends 11:59:59 p.m. on November 30, local time. No one is allowed to start early and the challenge finishes exactly 30 days from that start point. Novels must reach a minimum of 50,000 words before the end of November in order to win. These words can either be a complete novel of 50,000 words or the first 50,000 words of a novel to be completed later. Planning and extensive notes are permitted, but no material written before the November 1 start date can go into the body of the novel. Participants' novels can be on any theme, genre of fiction, and language. Everything from fanfiction, which uses trademarked characters, to novels in poem format, and metafiction is allowed; according to the website's FAQ, "If you believe you're writing a novel, we believe you're writing a novel too." "Rebelling" (the act of writing something besides a novel such as non-fiction, video games, scripts, or academic writing) is allowed, as NaNoWriMo is considered a "self-challenge"; rebels are allowed to validate and thus receive any prizes from sponsors. Winning and prizes To win NaNoWriMo, participants must write an average of approximately 1,667 words per day (69 per hour, 1.2 per minute) in November to reach the goal of 50,000 words written toward a novel. Organizers of the event say that the aim is to get people to start writing, using the deadline as an incentive to get the story going and to put words to paper. There is no fee to participate in NaNoWriMo; registration is only required for novel verification. No official prizes are awarded for length, quality, or speed, though self-awarded badges are available on the site. Anyone who reaches the 50,000-word mark is declared a winner. Beginning November 20, participants can submit their novel to be automatically verified for length and receive a printable certificate, an icon they can display on the web, and inclusion on the list of winners. No precautions are taken to prevent cheating; since the reward for winning is the finished novel itself and the satisfaction of having written it, there is little incentive to cheat. Novels are verified for word count by software, and may be scrambled or otherwise encrypted before being submitted for verification, although the software does not keep any other record of text input. It is possible to win without anyone other than the author ever seeing or reading the novel. Verification ended with the website redesign in 2019. Winning is now achieved by simply entering a word count of more than 50,000 words. In October 2007, the self-publishing company CreateSpace teamed up with NaNoWriMo to begin offering winners a single free, paperback proof copy of their manuscripts.... Discover the Chris Baty popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Chris Baty books.