Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

Every November, thousands of writers bang out 50,000 words in a single month during "National Novel Writing Month" (NaNoWriMo), an international writing marathon staged on the Internet. I participated last year, working alongside this crazy Brooklyn crew that included two bookstore clerks, a video game sales rep, two PR people, and a struggling journalist. 

Last year’s participants included 7,500 fantasy novelists, 3,300 science fiction scribes, and 1,500 chick-lit writers.  Almost 60,000 people signed up for this mind-boggling contest last year, and only 9,769 actually completed the goal.  Still, we all logged on to these amazingly busy forums, discussing genres, writing struggles, and writing resources the whole time.  The experience is part social-networking service and part punk rock writing workshop.  

The marathon offered a chance to find other lonely novelists, and many of them still use the forums.  I recommend you jump on the forums section and start finding similar-minded writers from around the globe.  There you can connect with fellow travelers like the forum moderator guru, Cybele.  That’s what The Publishing Spot is all about—the crazy hope that our next screenplay, novel, blog post, or newspaper story will redeem us.