Interview: Liane Gentry Skye on NaNoWriMo

Liane Gentry Skye is the kind of overachiever who makes you think twice about the amount of time you spend playing World of Warcraft or downloading porn. She's the author of Turn Around, Bright Eyes: Snapshots from a Voyage Out of Autism's Silence. She's a mother of four, runs a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the families of people with autism, and yet still found time to thrash the hell out of her keyboard this month.

She has, however, completely misunderstood the concept of NaNo. After writing 64,000 words of a 50,000 word novel, she started another novel and kept counting. Her total now stands at over 74,000 words, which is just silly.


How many times have you participated in NaNoWriMo?

This is my first nano attempt. I used to have a (real) life. Honest. I swear.

What value do you place on completing NaNoWriMo?

Making my first attempt to "Nano" has helped me finally focus on story and plot instead of obsessing over pretty prose. My fiction suffers from sagging middle syndrome. I could not plot my way out of a paper bag left to my typical writing preferences. Nano forced me to just break out of the gate and think action, reaction, tools, wordcount, got to keep going.

How did you reach the 50,000 words target in 19 days?

A thousand dollar bet from this really hot guy I married didn't hurt. :) He swears I'm going to help him retire someday with my writing. OK, so he says after two beers and a blow job, but hey.

Also, I made a promise to my daughter to Nano a book for her. I intended to keep that promise. I want her to see that finishing huge projects, even when it blows to do so, can lead to bigger and better things. So I trained for this all summer. By October, I was writing 20 pages a day with a reasonable degree of comfort.

Also, I did a lot of pre-planning on my book. I knew exactly where I was going and how I intended to get there. I highly recommend the Snowflake Method. Google it. It works.

Do you plan to (eventually) submit the result for publication? If so, how much additional work do you expect to do?

Yes, that was always my intent. However, on Dec. 1, 18000 words will automatically go into the recycle bin. But with that said, those 18000 words revealed so much of my characters that just having created those facts breathed a depth into the character's actions that forced me to sit down and revise plot at 35000 words.

Did you participate in the NaNoWriMo community? How do you think the community aspect affects the experience?

I do. I've always been a strong "online" contributor. It falls back to the fact that I really don't have a "real" life right now. I'm raising two boys with autism and I have one very busy 13 year old girl.

What do you get from participating in NaNoWriMo that you couldn't get from setting your own writing targets?

An entire class of participants for a class action carpal tunnel syndrome lawsuit against Nano in December? :) I mean , really, shouldn't there have been a disclaimer issued?

Would you recommend the experience to other writers, published and unpublished?

I would "If". If you are willing to truly break from the gate and write without looking backwards, even once, Nano can provide a very freeing forum in which it becomes fun to do so.

If you were in charge of NaNoWriMo, what rules/parameters would you set?

I've been very happy with Nano as it is currently run. I would like to see Nano open their website to charities of choice. Next year, I want to Nano Words for the Wordless (people with severe autism), but right now the site does not offer that choice.

Also, the honor system method does concern me--I have worked my butt off--but then again, I haven't verified my own word count, and I won't until Nov. 30. My book isn't done yet. I still have thirty thousand words ahead of me. I won't allow myself to verify until I have typed "the end".

Training for NaNo. This has to stop. Next there'll be a pre-game show on ESPN, right after the Spelling Bee.