#grant faulkner

[sailtomarina]

“One of the most oft-repeated mantras of writing workshops is: ‘Show, don't tell.’ But in many poems and in flash fiction, showing and telling take a different form. You gesture, you suggest. Absence—not showing—is as powerful as showing. Absence is a key part of the flower arrangement.”

The Art of Brevity by Grant Faulkner

[nanowrimo]

NaNoWriMo and the Meaning of Sunshine

Did you know that National Novel Writing Month is a 501(c)3 nonprofit? Today, NaNoWriMo Executive Director Grant Faulkner explores the guiding metaphor for how he thinks of NaNoWriMo—and how we’ve been approaching fundraising. (For more, see Community Fundraising Means Showing Up for Each Other.)

NaNoWriMo is an ecosystem.

No, NaNoWriMo is part of an ecosystem—it’s a community within an ecosystem, like a grove of apple trees in a wider ecosystem that also includes butterflies and bees (let’s say they are the writers, pollinating the world with stories), forest sprites (because ecosystems hold magical possibilities), flora and fauna, and a running brook.

The organisms that live in our ecosystem go beyond writers and forest sprites, though, and include schools, readers, teachers, libraries, book stores, and other writing organizations—all interconnected because we develop our stories, our voices, our discipline, our joy, our purpose, and our imagination with others, not just alone.

A single tree, no matter how large and mighty, can not sustain itself without the tiniest microbes of life teeming in the soil around its roots.

The ecosystem flourishes when all of its elements are working together—when organizations like NaNoWriMo can nourish writers and teachers and schools, and everyone grows creatively, lifting each other up, cheering each other on.

But to flourish, the ecosystem needs something else: it needs sun and water, and the sun and the water take the form of donations. This is why we ask for donations. Without the sun and water of others’ support, the ecosystem becomes stressed—as if there has been a drought or deforestation (or a “destorystation,” God forbid). 

The Symbiosis of Stories

Some people view ecosystems and the species within them through the lens of competition—i.e., only the strongest survive. But the definition of a healthy ecosystem is one that’s symbiotic—where relationships are formed and resources are exchanged and growth happens in harmony. 

We are all called upon to contribute to this ecosystem, whether it’s by donating or volunteering or simply spreading the word. A healthy and diverse ecosystem is one that provides abundance to those who live in it—food, shelter, recreation, and natural beauty.

"Nature is not a place to visit, it is home,” said the poet Gary Snyder.

Just like our stories are our home. Our stories provide shelter. Our stories give sustenance. Our stories help us breathe. Our stories connect us to others. And our stories help us see the forest sprites that would otherwise be invisible.

Our contributions to this story-powered ecosystem are meaningfully rooted in the support of our donor community. Year to year, we’ve had anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 of our writers join us with a small dollar donation. Thanks to this support, we’re proud to be a largely community-funded organization with more than 35% annual revenue coming from individual donors. 

We’re deeply grateful that so many shine your light on NaNoWriMo each year. As we head into our busiest season, we hope you think of how you can contribute to the NaNoWriMo community and the ecosystem it’s part of. We want to provide the apples on our trees to everyone so they can taste the sweetness of their creativity.

Grant Faulkner believes in NaNoWriMo because stories tell us who we are and shape the world we live in. He has been a writer since his earliest memory, and he’s proud to be the author of Pep Talks for Writers and Brave the Page. He struggles with rough drafts (hence his love—no, his need—for NaNoWriMo), but luxuriates in revision. His dog Buster serves as his lap dog/lap desk and has traveled with him for thousands and thousands of words.

Top photo by Dan Freeman on Unsplash  

[poetsandwriters]

“‘The strongest fish is the one that swims upstream.’ Rejection’s gift is that it gives us something to push against, a necessary pressure that can help a writer sharpen focus, define vision, and accept (and perhaps even relish) the discomforts required to make work better.”

—Grant Faulkner, in “Rejection’s Gift: Divine Dissatisfaction” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine (2020)

[bookgeekconfessions]

Writing advice from NaNoWriMo’s facebook page!

[whatsinsideawritersmind]

Don’t write what you know, write what you want to know.

Grant Faulkner

[campaignagainstcliche]

I think editing and revising takes a lot of practice. I think a lot of people — I’ll see writers revise for the first time and they’ll really kind of only revise on the sentence level. You know, they’ll brush up their grammar and stuff, and revision is such a deeper process. One of my favorite quotes about revision comes from the author, Karen Russell, who said that 90% of her rough draft doesn’t make it into her final draft. I mean, I think you have to open to totally, dramatically changing what you wrote in that first draft, you know, and I always advise people not to attach themselves too much to the plotline or whatever it is in that rough draft because it’s just going to change so much. "And I think Karen Russell is not an anomaly. Most writers I talk to or most novelists, so they say the same thing. The rough draft sometimes as a story just changes so dramatically. It’s barely recognizable. In fact, I just talked with a NaNoWriMo writer who, she did NaNoWriMo I think like 9 or 10 years ago and that 50,000 words that she wrote, she just published her book, but most of those words she said it was kind of a seed of the idea. "So, the rough draft, you’re really exploring. You’re really trying to take different pathways and not be too attached to them. You’re really just trying to open up and find your story. And if I can impart one more quote, I just heard of this as well, Barbara Kingsolver says she starts on negative page 100. So, she’s writing 100 pages just to get to the beginning, just to figure out what she’s really saying. I think the rough draft can even be like a kind of like planning stage. You know, it doesn’t get talked about like that, but, you know, call it zero draft. You can write a rough draft and then outline it afterwards and then, you know, almost write a whole new story.

Grant Faulkner via John August

[estherthewordartist]

Don’t write what you know, write what you want to know.

Grant Faulkner

[nitrateglow]

Don’t write what you know, write what you want to know. Begin with a detail, a mood. Keep expanding. Keep trying different angles. Find a sentence that surprises you. Switch points of view just for the sake of it. Just to experiment. Remember, your mind is acrobatic. Your imagination can take you anywhere.

Grant Faulkner