Here it is, a sneak peak at this year’s NaNoWriMo anthology cover.  Last year’s students, do you remember that sense of awed wonder as you first held Novel Central in your hands?  I well remember the hushed silence when I held it up, as if you were all holding your breath.  The rest of the year, the excited pride you had in that fat volume of stories thrilled me.

This year, my students worked just as hard and had the same look of anticipation on their faces.  I crave that look!  It makes it all worthwhile: the preparation, the writing, the technical nightmares, the pushing slow writers, and more than anything the hours and hours and hours of editing.

Novel Central, Volume 2 is a little bigger overall and maybe a touch thinner.  It holds 29 wonderful novels.  My current students are in the process of proofing to make sure everything is perfect before we publish it to Amazon, so stay tuned for that bulletin!  This year’s price is $21.95, so save your nickels and dimes.

Six of this year’s students represented the class at a Thank Goodness it’s Over! celebration at Booksmith bookstore in San Francisco in January.  Three of them read a piece of their story to the crowd, and the stories were very well received.  I don’t know who was prouder, their parents or me.  All six got to take a picture with Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo, and they talked to Chris Angotti, the director of NaNo’s Young Writers’ Program, who visited our classroom in November to encourage everyone to keep writing.  Currently, I am planning an autograph party at Barnes & Noble Bookstore for early June.  Want to meet the young authors and hear them talk about their accomplishment, and maybe thrill them by buying an autographed book?  Watch this space for a date and time.

Looking back over two years of participating in National Novel Writing Month, I am so pleased that I would never consider doing anything else in November.  So if you find yourself in my class next year, be prepared.  November is for novels.

What do you think, current and past students?  Would you do NaNo again?  And future students?  If you find yourself in my class, will you be scared? nervous? excited? eager?

♥

On my Kindle: Pegasus by Robin McKinley