Apple-Obsessed Author Fella

Forging Weapons For The Penmonkey’s Pilgrimage

Some of you might be doing NaNoWriMo next month. Others of you are just writing novels because that’s what you do. It’s in your blood. Like flatworms and syphilis.

I’d like to offer myself to be your penmonkey sherpa. Let me guide you and your word-mules up the mountainous ascent, into the whorling flakes and keening winds, where we shall plant our manuscripts into the snow with a delightful crunch, probably only moments before we freeze to death and our frosted corpses are sexually violated by lonely Wampa creatures. At least our dead colonic flesh-stockings will serve as a place to incubate the Wampa’s squealing pups, and we may take some solace that the novels that grew out of this treacherous journey may one day go on to be bestsellers or, at least, help fix a crooked table.

All this month shall be geared toward the act of writing a novel in preparation for you crazy kids who are going to step into the breach and tango with the NaNoWriMo bear.

As such, the purpose of this post is tri-fold.

One: New Penmonkey Promotion

If you during the month of October you buy either CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY or its follow-up, REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY, then I will toss you a free PDF copy of 250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING. All three books contain a squirming burlap sack of advice for those of you writing novels. The books cover everything from plot to characters to theme to query letters to drinking to self-despair to did I mention drinking? They will light firecrackers of inspiration and shove them elbow-deep into your your nether-hole. You will come out smelling like printer ink and bathtub bourbon.

If you buy the PDF of COAFPM or ROTPM, then you don’t need to do anything. You will receive your free PDF of 250 THINGS without you batting an additional eyelash.

If you buy COAFPM or ROTPM over Amazon or B&N, then you will need to contact me at terribleminds at gmail dot com and include proof-of-purchase. From there I’ll get you set up right.

Be advised also that there exists a secondary ongoing promotion for COAFPM — the “Penmonkey Incitement Program.” The more copies I sell, the more stuff I give away.

For every 50 copies, I send out a postcard with a unique piece of writing advice on it.

For every 100 copies, I give someone a PENMONKEY t-shirt.

For every 200 copies, I offer up a critique of the chosen’s writing.

For every 500 copies, I will buy someone a brand new Kindle.

We are at 385 copies sold out of the 1000.

Which means it’s time to give away a postcard, doesn’t it?

The random generator at Random.org has chosen:

Kerry Freeman!

Kerry, I’ll be contacting you.

Two: Recommended Posts

I’ll be posting a new NaNoWriMo post tomorrow (“25 Things You Should Know About NaNoWriMo”) but in the meantime, here’s ten posts at this site I think NaNoWriMo’ers could use:

25 Things You Should Know About Writing A Novel

25 Ways To Fuck With Your Characters

25 Ways To Defeat Writer’s Block

25 Ways To Make Exposition Your Bitch

Jumpstarting A Stalled Novel

Storytelling And The Art Of Sadness

Storytelling: The Foremost Fundamentals And Elemental Essentials

What Novelists Can Learn From Screenwriters

Why You Won’t Finish That Novel

And, of course — The Writer’s Prayer.

If you like ’em, feel free to spread them around to others.

Like flatforms and/or syphilis.

Three: What Do You Wanna Talk About?

So, those of you writing novels in or out of NaNoWrimo —

What do you want to talk about? Hit me up.

Let me know what troubles you’re having, what questions plague you in the darkest nadir of the night, what topics you think deserves attention from a mouthy fuck such as yours truly.