Succor: Pete Twohig Signs His 2009 NaNoWriMo Novel To HarperCollins

Pete Twohig participated in the 2009 nanowrimo. He wrote 78,000 words. His novel, THE CARTOGRAPHER, has recently been picked up by HarperCollins. You can read all about it on the nanowrimo site, HERE.

Twohig mentioned several tools he uses that I thought writers might be interested in knowing. First, he said, "I do all my writing using Scrivener, the most useful program for writers ever invented, and I export finals into Nisus Writer Pro for polishing. I use DEVONthink Pro and DEVONagent to collect and organise info." I'm anxious to study those programs!

Next, Twohig described his method of character development when he said, "I test new characters not by doing some kind of technical delineation (age, sex, preferred car, etc.), but by writing a few pages of dialogue, to see what he or she sounds like. Then I have a new voice to play with. Once I have the voice, the face takes shape, the clothes, the name, and so on. I do a lot of dialoguing." I don't know about other writers, but I'm definitely encouraged to try his method!

Last, Twohig impressed me because the idea of this novel came to him while he was in the midst of writing another novel. He says, "The concept came to me suddenly while I was out on my motorbike in April of last year. I wrote a one-page synopsis, then put it aside because I was working on another novel (which I finished on October 31)."

Then he added, "2009 my first participation in NaNoWriMo. I found out about NaNoWriMo through the Scrivener website. I decided to participate because I had a novel ending on October 31, and I wanted to begin another the following day, as you do. So I thought about The Cartographer, and realised that with the right mix of commitment, insanity, and processed food, I could probably knock out a chapter a day. And in case anyone out there thinks that is pushing things a bit, let me tell you that I was also working 30 hours a week, and I took off one day each week to be with my girlfriend. But the key ingredient was simply wanting to have fun."

Twohig took the time to jot down his ideas and then seriously put them to use when the time was right. I think it behooves all of us to take notes of our ideas, or to create a permanent writing journal. Just yesterday, I found the notes for a novel I had brainstormed about five years ago. Relief overtook me because the story concept had been floating around my brain recently.

I'm really excited about nanowrimo as 2010 will be my first experience. I hope you're excited, too! Now, back to plotting all those climaxes, planning ways to make my main character suffer, and practicing writing voice as Twohig suggested.

Best of luck to you all! Let's have fun!

Kathleen