Saying Goodbye to NaNoWriMo

Saying Goodbye to NaNoWriMo

by benmweilertNo Comments
15 years ago, I didn't consider myself a writer. That all changed after I heard about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This annual challenge to write 50,000 words of a first draft of a novel in the 30 days of November showed me that the impossible was indeed within my capabilities. Fast forward to today and I've now published 11 books, written 9 more on top of that, won multiple writing awards, and built an amazing group of fellow writers I consider my friends. I've introduced others to the NaNoWriMo concept, and they also found that they are writers as well. I still have a huge backlog of ideas I plan to write for many years to come. Unfortunately, after this year, I will no longer be doing so using any of the NaNoWriMo events. It is sad the organization has crumbled to this point, but it was probably only a matter of time before something would take it down. As...
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Celebrating 2023

Celebrating 2023

by benmweilertNo Comments
I saw a lot of milestones in 2023. Not only did I publish my 10th book this year, but it also won a major award. This was my 10th year as a Municipal Liaison (ML) for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and my 14th year of participating. I also finished my first trilogy of 10th-anniversary editions, along with audiobook versions of these books. This was also the year I joined the Colorado Author's League which has helped me connect with other writers in my state. Not all the plans I made at the beginning of the year came to fruition, but the beauty of having multiple projects in various stages of planning is that I can pick what I want to work on next. So, while plans change, here is what I actually did this year... 2023 YEAR IN REVIEW The Third Degree (10th Anniversary and Audiobook versions) By now, putting together a new version with character sketches (by Robin Childs) and a...
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Almost Free in 2023

by benmweilertNo Comments
Four years ago, I started writing down the projects I planned to accomplish during the year. This accountability was great to keep me on track. There's something about declaring the different goals for the year, especially when you can finish at least a few of them. For 2023, I'm finally reaching the end of some bigger projects I started a few years ago. This means I'm almost free of the obligations I put myself under. With a new infant in the house, it'll be interesting to see how much I can get done this year. Here's what I currently have planned: Stop Screaming I've been getting some good feedback on the recipes from my ice cream cookbook, Stop Screaming. I've made some changes to a few of the recipes and how they're collected in the book, so there are only a few left that need testing prior to going live with it sometime this year. Since this is a somewhat smaller passion...
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Why NaNoWriMo Works for Me

by benmweilertNo Comments
Just over a decade ago, I had never thought about writing a novel. As someone who had only written short stories up to that point, something like a novel felt so big and insurmountable to me. Then, talking with my cousin at Thanksgiving, I learned about National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short). Since then, I have participated and won the challenge 12 times in a row and am now nine years into my role as a Municipal Liaison (ML) for my local region. I almost exclusively write the first drafts of my novels during this annual challenge, and I have published at least five manuscripts that started out as a flurry of late nights writing in November. Before we continue, let me set the stage by answering the first question many people have: what is NaNoWriMo? Founded in 1999, the NaNoWriMo challenge is to write 50,000 words of a first draft of a new novel in the 30 days...
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2022: More of the Same

2022: More of the Same

by benmweilertNo Comments
Accountability has always been key for me. I feel obligated to finish projects when other people know that I'm working on them. 2022 will be the fourth year that I have posted in January about my writing goals for the year. Many of them may appear similar to the ones in 2021, but that's just part of long-term planning and short-term setbacks. Buried Colony Yes, I realize this is the third year in a row I've had this book on my "to complete" list. I have planned out solutions to fix these issues with the critical beta-reader and advanced reader feedback I received last year. Fortunately, I can still keep what I want to accomplish with this book intact. After I fix it up, I'll be sending the manuscript to a sensitivity reader for a final run-through to ensure I'm not unintentionally offending anyone with my character depictions. Buried Colony will be my primary project for this year, so—if all goes as...
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2021 Has All the Fun

2021 Has All the Fun

by benmweilertNo Comments
Another year, another set of writing goals. 2021 will be a bit different in that I've already been hard at work getting things prepared for publication—or merely fixing up the project that I delayed from last year. Either way, I do plan to continue my goal of self-publishing at least one book each year. With most conventions postponed or canceled this year, I'll certainly have time to sit down and work on these projects. Buried Colony Despite the setback I had last year, I still plan on self-publishing Buried Colony as soon as possible (before it becomes a reality). I'll be re-working the parts that need attention in January and will get a few beta readers to check my work before proceeding with the advanced reader copies again. Fortunately, a lot of formatting and design has already been completed, so it's really just the content that needs some polishing before publication. I also hope to release this as one of the first...
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2018 Year in Review

by benmweilertNo Comments
It's incredible to think that 2018 is almost over. This year, completed quite a few projects and started many more. In case you've missed some of these announcements, this post is a handy recap of all the content that I released in 2018. So, without further ado, here's the . . . 2018 YEAR IN REVIEW Fourteener Father While 2017 saw the re-release of my first three books in the form of the 2nd Editions of The Fluxion Trilogy, this year I released my fourth book, Fourteener Father: a memoir of life above 14,000 ft. Here's an unboxing video for the paperback and hardcover versions: This book was a labor of love and the first non-fiction book I've written. Over the last 20+ years, my father and I climbed all of Colorado's 14,000-foot mountains, and I wanted to share that experience and journey with everyone. I released this book on Father's Day of this year and have been getting pretty good reviews on it on Amazon. It's...
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An Engineer’s Guide to NaNoWriMo (or how I grew from a newbie to a veteran)

by benmweilertNo Comments
This post was originally written for the NaNoWriMo blog. You can check it out here (it's been slightly modified, but the content's basically the same). I’m an engineer. While most of my colleagues use this as an excuse to keep themselves from writing anything, I argue it’s the reason they need to be the best writers. The concepts engineers can create in their minds still need to be communicated to the world. Concepts never imagined before. Similarly, how many writers are out there with an idea nobody has ever read, just waiting to get it onto the page? As an engineer, I have a particular set of skills—some would say “quirks”—that have helped me over the last eight years of NaNoWriMo grow from just barely finishing to writing rapidly and voluminously. Most engineers are known for their problem-solving skills, and NaNoWriMo presents an interesting problem: how do I write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days? Like most problems, I resort...
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So you want to be a writer . . .

by benmweilertNo Comments
Congratulations! Admitting that you want to be a writer is the first step in achieving that goal. “But . . .” I hear you hesitate, “what does being a ‘writer’ even mean?” Plenty of people have their definitions for the term, but in its simplest form, being a writer means that you write. Simple, no? Some of the complexity of the term “writer” comes when people make the transition to “author,” since being an author usually means you’ve published something (be it self-published or traditionally published). I consider myself an author because I have written books and published them. Others might disagree, since the process of being traditionally published is a lot more involved (and complicated). Either way, we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit. Let’s start on the ground floor: being a writer. Being a writer simply means that you write. If all it takes to be a writer is to write something, then you could be a writer just by writing...
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Which Hunter

by benmweilertNo Comments
Being concise is one of the standards of superior writing. Unfortunately, when you're writing the first draft of your novel in a month, your mind might insert a lot of "filler" words. I've had this problem for years, but recently have come across a simple solution to help my manuscripts "cut the fluff" during the editing phase. For some background, one of my beta readers for The Third Degree noticed the word "that" popping up more often than it should. My solution at the time was to replace most of the "that" with "which." I had always heard the advice "don't use that," so instead of eliminating the word from my writing, I merely shifted it to a different word. Now that I've received notes back on The Constellation Tournament it appears I've been found out. A completely different beta reader was distracted by the enormous amount of times I used "which." Recognizing the problem, I set about trying to find a...
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