Day: July 2, 2013

Recently I was speaking to a group of readers when someone expressed interest in NaNoWriMo, which I have always maintained has been a huge inspiration for my writing. NaNoWriMo is an acronym for the National Novel Writing Month.

Taking part in NaNoWriMo is an exhilarating experience. I did it for the first time in 2009 and from this effort emerged my debut novel, “It Can’t Be You” a psychological thriller. This was in 2010. Since then I completed NaNoWriMo in 201o, 2011 and more recently in 2012.

“Lucky For Some, 13” was my second thriller, which was based on my “NaNo novel” as we call it from NaNoWriMo of 2010. This was published in December 2012.

I came across this presentation titled “WAC and NaNo: Lessons in Letters and Symbiosis” from students of Kaplan University. It has a wealth of detail about NaNoWriMo and I found it most interesting.

Here are some awesome figures:

• In the first year, 1999, there were all of 21 participants with 6 being  declared winners
• In 2006, there were 101,510 participants with 15,333 being declared winners
• In 2009, when I first took part, there were 167, 150 participants with 32, 178 being declared winners
• In 2011, there were 256,618 participants with 36, 843 being declared winners.

Of course, I must add that it felt great to read my name in the list of “Published Authors.”:)