Air Date: 10/26/20

The Upgrade by Lifehacker

How to Write a Book in 30 Days, With Author Grant Faulkner
Alice ​Hello and welcome to the Upgrade, the podcast from the team at Lifehacker, where
we help you improve your life one week at a time. I'm Alice Bradley, editor in chief of
Lifehacker.

Jordan ​And I'm Jordan Calhoun, Lifehacker deputy editor.

Alice ​And today we are learning how to write a novel in one month.

Jordan ​Or a memoir or a biography or a screenplay, whatever kind of book you want to
write.

Alice ​A collection of haiku. And teaching us just how to do it is writer Grant Faulkner.

Grant Faulkner ​Don't wait until your life has perfect conditions to write a novel because it
likely won't ever be perfect for writing a novel. So you have to seize the moment and write
in imperfect conditions because those are the conditions we really live in.

Alice ​Grant is the executive director of National Novel Writing Month, also known as
NaNoWriMo, a program and organization dedicated to helping writers find their voices
through structure and community. Every year on November 1st, hundreds of thousands of
people around the world participate in the challenge of writing a 50,000-word novel in 30
days.

Jordan ​Grant is also the author of several books, including Pep Talks for Writers: 52
Insights and Prompts to Boost Your Creative Mojo, and his newest book, All the Comforts
Sin Provides, which is a collection of essays coming 2021.

Alice ​So, Jordan, you are insane enough to have participated in Nanowrimo.

Jordan ​Yes.

Alice ​Tell us about this experience, what it did for you, why you did it. I got to hear the
whole thing.

Jordan ​It was really great. I am very motivated by arbitrary goals. So I'm the type of
person who would want to try to write 50,000 words in a single month just to see if I can.
So it's really challenging. In the first week, because you're often not used to how much
writing you can get done in a single day or how long it takes for you to write seventeen
hundred words. It averages out to about seventeen hundred words a day. How long would
it take you to write that much, Alice?

Alice ​You know, I mean, at least two hours, two to three I would say.

Jordan ​Yeah, yeah. And most people don't really know how much they can write. So that
first, you know, that first week is you trying to figure out how much time it takes for you to
meet that goal of seventeen hundred words a day. And then it actually only gets harder
from there because you you end up in the early weeks with a lot of motivation and a lot of
ideas. By the third week you are tapped on both of those things and you're just like writing
gibberish for a while and you're just trying to count it. So it's a rollercoaster with

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experiences like the marathon for writing. It was a lot of fun, really challenging. Would you
ever do it, Alice?

Alice ​I mean, I've got a lot of conflicting thoughts about it. I feel like on the one hand,
you're putting a lot of effort into something that will probably end up being at least.

Jordan ​A trash fire.

Alice ​One 1/2 to one-quarter gibberish, right?

Jordan ​Yeah.

Alice ​And on the other hand, it does seem like a really valuable exercise in habit forming
in that you kind of get into the rhythm of writing every day. And that's once you once
you've started. Right. You're kind of rolling down that hill. You're going to keep going. And
that's valuable. At least people who want to write. But then there's part of me that feels like
I would just write nonsense and then be so relieved when it's over. I won't want to do it
ever again. You know, it's like after doing any kind of 30-day challenge, I tend to, like, fall
off the wagon so hard.

Jordan ​Yeah, I think all of those things are true in my experience. The one thing that it
does help with, though, when it comes to writing that amount of gibberish is getting you
used to just brain dumping that first draft without editing while you write. And that's a habit
that sort of takes a while for writers to develop, or at least it does for me where, you know,
you want to start making every sentence perfect. And that's not how you write a first draft.
You really just have to push your pain to just get these ideas out. So it's really good at
forcing you to do that because you don't have the luxury of being able to edit while you
write. If you try to edit while you write, that will be the earliest way, the easiest way of just
falling behind really, really early. You wrote a book, Alice, and I imagine you didn't it write it
in 30 days. What's the other type of experience like?

Alice ​Did not. I like to write it a little bit a day. I mean, I don't think I'm the best model of
productivity. I—.

Jordan ​How long did it take you?

Alice ​Oh, God.

Jordan ​I want all the details. I want the muck. Like, how long did it take?

Alice ​I have a couple of books. I co-authored a book that probably took us a year of solid
work after we had sort of sold it. So we'd been kind of on and off work for a month. Then
once we sold, it is probably a year of work. But I did write a novel that is, I set on fire
shortly after that. That probably took me. I want to say maybe a year of solid work. And it's
just and I mean, that was worth like daily work and getting into the rhythm, and getting OK
with sucking, which as you were saying, like it's such a big part of writing, like really being
okay with writing a shitty first draft as Anne Lamott would say. Even with that took me. It
took me a while.

Jordan ​Yeah. Yeah.

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Alice ​And I just I guess I wonder, like, what did you—Well, I'll ask you, what did you do
with the draft you wrote for NaNoWriMo? Was it, did it end up being something that you...

Jordan ​It hasn't been published yet. It still exists. I do feel good about it and there is some
interest in it. So we'll see what happens in the long term. But right now I'm focused on this
other book that's a memoir, and I've basically set all other projects aside. So my nano
book, the year that I was actually a winner of NaNoWriMol, I think it was 2015, that one is
basically sitting in a drawer. I mean, it's been touched here and then but it's relatively
untouched in the past five years. And we'll see if anything comes of it.

Alice ​But not total trash, which is good to know because I always feel like I'm just gonna
write something I'm going to want to dump.

Jordan ​Yeah. Not complete trash it...the first draft of it actually. So I think I lied earlier. I
said I hadn't touched it since 2015. I have the first draft of it was more or less trash, but it
was solid bones, it was solid bones that you could actually edit. And that's the good thing
about NaNoWriMo. At least was for me, is that it forces you to go, you know, bird by bird,
but do it in 30 days instead of getting in your head and trying to make it absolutely perfect.
And it's OK if it's not perfect and in the beginning. I wish you hadn't thrown away your
novel.

Alice ​I mean, the I didn't. I still have it, I didn't really set it. on fire. Not only do I have it, I
have like ten versions of it. I've put it into different—it's a whole thing.

Jordan ​Oh man. I can't wait. Years later, when this is published, you know, people are
going to dig up this interview and they're gonna be able to find you talk about this novel
that you just that was never going to see the light of day. And then we're now we're
watching the Hulu adaptation.

Alice ​Aha. Mmhmm.

Jordan ​This is what I'm looking for, Alice. This is what I want.

Alice ​We'll see what happens with it.

Jordan ​In the meantime.

Alice ​Yeah. Oh one thing I did want to bring up that you mentioned winning NaNoWriMo,
which just means you finished it, right? You did the...

Jordan ​Yes.

Alice ​50,000 thousand words, which I kind of love.

Jordan ​Really important thing about Nano, I think is, well two things. One is just how
community-based it is, and we'll talk about that with Grant. But the other thing is that it's all
self-imposed. There's not hard, rigid rules on, you know, on your word count or something,
tracking or logging your word count. It's all honor system based. So you submit how many
words you wrote that day. You can completely lie every year if you wanted to. There's no
police are going to kick down your door. So it's completely honor-based and winning,
quote unquote, NaNoWriMo just means that you did it. It just means that you actually
completed fifty thousand words to your satisfaction, whether they're good words or bad

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words or are you just copying and pasting over and over again. That's all for you decide.
As long as you are competent and comfortable and happy with having completed that
challenge, then you won.

Alice ​Well, I think it's an amazing achievement and maybe Grant will convince me to try it
as well.

Jordan ​Let's find out. Let's get into it.

Alice ​Grant, welcome to the Upgrade.

Grant Faulkner ​Thanks for having me. This is going to be fun also.

Alice ​So for people who don't know, who aren't familiar with NaNoWriMo, tell us a little bit
about what it is.

Grant Faulkner ​Yeah. NaNoWriMo is actually many things. I could probably give you an
hour-long answer, but the shorthand is, is that it's one part writing boot camp, one part
writing festival. And so the bootcamp part is the, you know, you have to discipline yourself
to show up every day in the month of November to write about 1,700 words a day. And all
of that tallies up to 50,000 words. And then the writing festival party part. That happens
because you're writing with a world of writers. So it's just a very galvanizing feeling and a
celebration of writing that happens on social media in particular and on our website. And
then we have about a thousand volunteers around the world called Municipal Liaisons.
And ordinarily, they organize these in-person events in their local communities so that you
can meet other writers and write in person together. This year, all of that will be virtual, of
course. And then we also work with twelve hundred libraries and our come right in
program. And those libraries do the same thing. They host writing events throughout the
month of November and October and you end really increasingly year-round. And then we
work with about 10,000 classrooms and one hundred thousand kids and teens who also
write novels. So, yeah. And so it's it's kind of a creative phenomenon. And we aim to help
people make creativity a priority in their lives.

Jordan ​I've done this before. I did Nano, I think, back in 2015. So I'm a proud nano
winner.

Grant Faulkner ​Yeah.

Jordan ​Why would someone I mean, I have my own personal answer, but why would
someone want to do this? Like, what's the what's the benefit to writing a fifty thousand
word novel in a single month?

Grant Faulkner ​Yeah. Well, I want to hear your reason, Jordan, after mine. Definitely,
because there are many reasons. So I don't even know them all. But I think I think one
reason is that so many people, as they get older, you know, ​[00:10:13]​there's this great
quote from Picasso that every child is born an artist. The challenge is how to be an artist.
Once you grow up and I think for so many people, creativity or writing falls lower and lower
on their to-do list until it's not even on their to-do list at all. It's kind of like adulthood and all
those practical responsibilities of adulthood take over. So I think one great reason is to
reclaim your creativity, to make it a priority for just one month, to put it number one on your
to-do list. And that is like, you know, I feel like our creativity feeds everything we do. So
that, you know, if you if you're creative and really embrace your creativity, it makes you a

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better husband or wife. It makes you a better employee, your manager. It makes you a
better teacher, student. You know, it just does so much for us. And so I don't think we
should let creativity fall down our to-do list, you know, or fall so low. ​[52.9s] ​And then
another reason is, is that, you know, so many people, you know, I don't know if this is
accurate, but I guess it is because ​[00:11:13]​The New York Times did this poll several
years ago and 81 percent of Americans said they wanted to write a book someday. And so
the crucial word there is someday, because usually when people say they want to do
something someday, they tend not to do it. And so national novel Writing Month helps
make someday today. ​[19.4s] ​You know, don't wait until that. Perfect. Don't wait until your
life has perfect conditions to write a novel because it likely won't ever be perfect for writing
a novel. So you have to seize the moment and write in imperfect conditions because those
are the conditions we really live in.

Alice ​Yeah, I think we're I know we're all writers here and I think we've all experienced that
moment where somebody says, oh, you're a writer. I have a great idea for you. And it's
like, that's not... Take—don't, no, you keep your ideas. I can't use your idea. You write your
ideas. Do you have thoughts about that? I think a lot of people, conversely, feel like they
don't have any ideas for writing. How do you generate ideas? How do you generate that
mindset of having kind of an overflow of ideas?

Grant Faulkner ​That is a great question, because I oftentimes hear that people don't want
to tell their novel idea or release it into the world. They're worried that if they put it on the
NaNoWriMo site, that somebody will steal it. I've yet to meet the writer who steals other
people's ideas because most writers have like too many ideas for themselves to write. I
think, though, that I do occasionally talk to, you know, the two reasons. I mean, I talk to
people and invite them to do NaNoWriMo. There are two reasons why they don't. And they
said one is that they say they're too busy to write a novel in a month. ​[00:12:50]​And then
the other one, which is actually more disturbing to me, is that they say they're not a
creative type or they're not a writer. And so I think we're all creative types, of course. I also
think we're all writers. We're all storytellers. Our brains are wired to make meaning of the
world through stories, through all kinds of stories. And so I think it's really important that
people embrace that creative side of themselves and that they see themselves as creative
types. ​[25.0s] ​You know, that's what I mean, again. It's like if you see yourself as a creative
type, as an agent of change, as somebody who can voice your story in the world, you
know, that's going to make you better in all facets of life, whether you publish your novel or
not. A lot of people think that NaNoWriMo is about helping people publish their novels and
reach their creative dreams in that respect. And we've had many, many people do that and
many people become bestsellers and renowned authors. ​[00:13:40]​But the purpose is
really about empowering people to realize their creative potential. ​[3.4s] ​You know,
publishing just happens to be sort of a side benefit of that for some.

Jordan ​My favorite thing by far about NaNoWriMo is the community of it. It really helps to
have mutual support with other people who are doing the same sort of asinine challenge
that you're doing. It's really hard to do and, you know, juggling life and writing and all the
things that you have going on. Can you talk about just how many people are doing
NaNoWriMo now in November from when it started to where it's grown to now and with the
community element is sort of like, what do you like about the community? What
opportunities are there for people to meet and to write with other people who are in the
weeds with them?

Grant Faulkner ​Yeah, a great question, because I do like to emphasize the community
aspects of NaNoWriMo. And I often talk to people and they say that's how they wrote

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50,000 words was by the galvanizing presence of the community. Whether that's going to
one of their local write-ins and having other people ask them how they're novels going and
encouraging them to get through obstacles or simply going on Twitter or hashtag,
NaNoWriMo tends to be trending throughout the month of November. ​[00:14:50]​And you
really do feel like you're writing with the world. You know, you feel the gusts of wind of
other people writing, even people. But what I find fascinating is, is that you're motivated by
people you don't even know, you know. And just because you're taking part in the same
challenge, you know, I guess it's like running a marathon or you're just catching the tail
end and the momentum of other people. They are keeping you going. And I think that
happens with NaNoWriMo as well and the community. It just has all different facets.
[27.6s] ​So I think if anybody can become involved in the community, whether it's on Twitter
with the hashtag NaNoWriMo, whether it's in our forums, we have like a million posts in the
month of November in our forums on every topic imaginable about writing. And then I
mentioned, you know, the local gatherings, both in libraries and in local communities and
this year virtually. So I think, you know, we think the end of ​[00:15:41]​summer, so many
writers build up this mythology of writing as a solitary thing. And of course, it is largely
solitary. But that doesn't mean I mean, I always say it takes a village to write a novel. So I
think you're writing community is really important, both creatively and then if you want to
get published. It's super important then as well. ​[19.4s] ​So, like, if you go to where I
write-ins in local communities, you'll hear people just kind of randomly shout out a
question, you know, be some question about some character they're writing about and
everybody will kind of chip in with funny thoughts or inventive thoughts. And it's really
wonderful to watch it happen. And, oh, I'm going to mention one more thing, because this
is like instrumental to NaNoWriMo is this notion of writer's block. And so ​[00:16:25]​I
personally don't really believe in writer's block. And one reason I don't believe in it is that at
these local gatherings, the municipal, as we call them, they will lead what we call word
sprints. And it's a super it's just a simple challenge to write for five or 10 minutes center
right as much as you can, and they'll give you a prompt. And I've led hundreds and
hundreds of these, and I've never seen one person not be able to write during a word
sprint. And so this is my scientific proof that writer's block doesn't really exist. There are or
there are ways to get over it ​[31.0s] ​if you feel it.

Alice ​Amazing debunked. You've heard it here first.

Grant Faulkner ​Yeah. Yeah. Don't. Don't let anyone tell you it doesn't send them to me.

Alice ​So I know there are people who might feel like they want to write, but they're not
necessarily novelists. So my question to you is, is NaNoWriMo the kind of thing you can
explore different genres in? Is that grammatically correct? I'm gonna run with it. Or, like,
can you do a screenplay or short story or is there a value to doing a novel, even if you feel
like you're not a novelist? Should that be your focus for that month as a challenge?

Grant Faulkner ​Yeah, technically in our rules and rules with quotation marks around
them, we say that if you call it a novel, we call it a novel. And so the main thing is for
people to write. So, I consider a memoir a novel. You know, a memoir just happens to be
nonfiction. That's it is shelved in the nonfiction section, but it could be shelved in the novel
section. And so, you know, people can write short stories. We've had people write
dissertations during NaNoWriMo. I think the basic principle is goal and deadline. And a
goal, the deadline is a creative midwife, and I think that that's a tool that can help any form
of writing. And it's a tool that, you know, it's magical and brilliant and yet so simple. And it's
interesting to me, like when writers don't use it, because once you get into that
goal-deadline framework, it's amazing what you can produce.

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Ad ​Hey, Brian, did you know the world sucks right now? You know, I had kind of noticed
that because, yeah, every day I wake up, I'm like, is this really real life? I would say, yes, it
sucks. Yeah. There's a lot of sucky things in the world right now, and we're started a new
podcast that's going to fix it. So I guess we should prob ably introduce ourselves. My name
is Brian Kahn. I'm the managing editor at Earther. And I'm Alex Cranz, the senior
consumer tech editor at Gizmodo. And we're here to tell you about a new podcast we're
doing at Gizmodo focused on everything, fixing it, making it better, making the world suck
a little less. It's called System Reboot. And we're covering a lot of important stuff that we
think is really worth hearing and learning about. I mean, we've seen a lot of systemic
failures across the country and around the world. You know, a pandemic has really
highlighted them, but they've been there all along and we thought there has to be a better
way to do things. So there has to be from the disastrous food supply chain, as you
witnessed really early on in the pandemic, to the absolutely shoddy Internet that we also
saw early on and are seeing a lot more of right now as somebody returns to school. We're
going to be diving into the systems that are failing us across the board and more protein
than examining the things that are feeling. We're actually going to talk about what we can
do to fix them. That's the whole system reboot idea. Yeah. Positivity, man. Yeah. It's kind
of what we're going to try this out and see how it goes. But, you know, what we're gonna
be doing is talking to experts who've spent a lot of time researching these issues and
coming up with solutions. So if you don't want to believe that the world is going to end in
2020 and you want to hold onto just a little bit of hope, please check us out and join us in
our quest to fix what's broken.

Jordan ​How much weight do you put into preparation for Nano? So, you know, should you
participate in a national novel outlining month in October before you dove into Nano in
November? Or is, it are people just as likely to be successful if they were to just start on
November 1st and dove right in and go by the seat of their pants? Like, how much
preparation do you think is recommended or necessary for someone to be able to have a
good Nano?

Grant Faulkner ​Good question. We have people who prepare all over the spectrum. So
some people write really meticulously detailed outlines of 20 or 50 pages. Other people
literally do not even know what they're going to write about on the the night of October
thirty first. And once the clock strikes 12, they just start going. So they're extreme pantsers.
I am what we call a planter, which is somewhere right in between. I try to find that sweet
spot. I feel like I personally need to have a good sense of the direction of the novel and a
little bit of a sketch, some notes. But I write for the mystery of the story. So I also need it to
be open ended. And I think everybody should write for the mystery of the story. Whether
you're your planner or a pantser. So I don't know in terms of success rate. So we'd never
like tracked that in our database of whether pantsers are more successful than planners. I
think NaNoWriMo, I always viewed as a creative experiment and it's a way for people to
explore their creative process. So I think what's interesting about it is how people change
when they do it year over year, because I think your creative process should evolve. It
should never be rigid or static. And so I actually advise people to try one thing new every
year. That's what I try to do, is just figure out one thing that I can do differently. And there's
just to see if it works. So I'm gonna give you a political non answer to that question. I say
whatever works for you is good.

Alice ​I mean, the two parties write the two philosophies or so it's like so diametrically
opposed. The people who outline think the other people are insane and the people who

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have that whole what's the quote about? Like, you can only see the story as far as like the
headlights in your car. It's like you're driving...There's a quote.

Jordan ​Driving in the fog.

Alice ​Driving in a fog, yeah. There's headlights, there's a fog...

Jordan ​You can make the entire journey by.

Alice ​Only seeing right in front of you. Thank you.

Jordan ​The distance that you could see in headlights, something like that.

Alice ​So I'm curious, have you done NaNoWriMo every year?

Grant Faulkner ​I have. I feel like one. I want to. It's super fun just to experiment and
whatever I've done in a number of different ways over the years and with a number of
different, you know, kind of feelings about my novel, sometimes I've done it just for fun,
just to test out an idea. And sometimes I've done it very seriously with a novel that I
definitely want to try to publish. I feel like, you know, it's amazing to me how often people
assume that I don't do it like that. They assume I'm too busy. And my premise is, I mean, I
might feel too busy. Like many people feel too busy, but that's kind of, you know, I can't
give myself an out. I mean, ​[00:23:47]​part of the premise of National Novel Writing Month
is that you're always going to feel too busy. You know, it's very easy to feel too busy. The
premise is, to overcome that and to find a way to, again, make make make creativity a
priority. ​[12.1s] ​And so I think you have to look at what you're doing every day to feel so
busy. So, you know, you have to I mean, I feel like when, per your question, Jordan, about
preparation, I think actually what's more important than outlining a novel is preparing for
the time you're going to write your novel in November. And so you have to open up
enough time to write seventeen hundred words a day, which is about two hours a day of
writing for me. So I have to look at like how. How much time am I spending on social
media or how much time I spending watching Netflix or back in the days when we could go
out into the world more. How many, you know, how many movies did I see each week or
how many dinner parties did I go to? Because I'm probably going to have to sacrifice
something to write that 1,700 words a day, or I'm gonna have to find other nooks and
crannies in the day to write, like I might have to write during my lunch break. Or a lot of
people just write, they just power right over the weekend. They might write five or ten
thousand words, you know, over a weekend in order to do it. So I think you just have to
find what works for you and and and really scrutinize how you use your time.

Jordan ​Is that the biggest pitfall you think? People not carving out or appreciating the
amount of time that it takes to get seventeen hundred words done in a day? Or are there
other common pitfalls that people fall into where they end up falling behind too early or not
building a community? Like what are the impediments to people actually feeling like they
had a successful Nano?

Grant Faulkner ​I think you named them. The one is just not planning for the amount of
time that they need to put into it. And. Having the commitment to do that and then the
other one is that people fall behind, you know, people will fall behind on the third day or the
fifth day or the tenth day, and oftentimes they don't continue writing. And this is one thing
we'd love if we could do one thing. I would love to really encourage people to write the rest
of the month, even if you're not gonna hit fifty thousand words. Just keep writing because

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the principle of the whole thing is to try to write for the month. And what's amazing is that if
you keep writing, sometimes you'll find a second or a third wind, you'll be uplifted and you'll
write more than you think you're capable of. And so we've heard amazing stories of people
writing 30 or 40 thousand words in the last week just because they got this new
enthusiasm for their novel and they've hit fifty thousand words against all odds. So, you
know, you can either recalibrate your goal or you can go for it. But the main thing is just
keep writing.

Alice ​I'm curious why you chose November. Is it because it's the darkest month? Our
hopes are reaching a nadir. I mean, it coincides with the election, right? Obviously not
every year, but certainly this year. Holidays coming up. What what was behind the choice
of November?

Grant Faulkner ​Well, I wasn't there when this decision was made. I think I should come
up with a whole bunch of lists that are just a list that's entirely farcicle. Like your darkness
theory, which I actually like. I like writing in the dark. You know, I, I think it was kind of
random. You know, if you can write a novel in November, you can write it any month. You
know, we get a lot of people. It's amazing how controversial the month is. People are. You
know, we have a number of people who ask for it to be in January, which makes a certain
degree of sense the first month of the year. You know, an extra day. But really, it's the idea
that, you know, you should think about making creativity a priority every month. So it
doesn't really matter what month it is.

Jordan ​Something that was motivating for me when I was doing NaNo was seeing a lot of
the success stories that had come out. And by success, I don't mean just completing
NaNoWriMo and feeling like you had a good experience. But I mean, actually books that
were written during that, I know that went on to be published. And I could be wrong. I
remember on top my head, Water for Elephants, was that one? It could have been.

Grant Faulkner ​Yeah.

Jordan ​I would love to hear what some of the success stories that you've seen. And by
success, again, just meaning like things that people might have heard of that was written
in 30 days, at least the first draft of it could have been written in those 30 days of
NaNoWriMo. And then it actually followed through the rest of the publication process and
became something that people have read or seen.

Grant Faulkner ​Yeah. Erin Morgenstern has a great story about Night Circus, which I
think she wrote over two or three different NaNoWrimos back in the early 2000s. And she's
a very much a pantser. And so she's written these essays, I think, for NPR. She was
interviewed for NPR. And they're really funny because they're all about how she would hit
these kind of dead ends with their plot. And then just because she had to focus on keep on
keeping her story moving, she's had to go for the most fanciful ideas that occurred to her,
which were often wacky ideas. And sometimes they led to wonderful, imaginative places.
And sometimes they were just, you know, silly ideas that led nowhere. But if you hear her
talk about it, you really see how NaNoWriMo was intrinsic to her imaginative process and
how it led to that novel being written. And then I'll mention, Hugh Howey's Wool as well. It's
a great story because he—Wool, he published it as a 12,000-word story. He'd
self-published it. And this was back and I think 2010 or 2011. But anyway, in 2011, in
October, he had never planned a novel and he meticulously outlined the novel that he was
going to write that year. And he'd never finished NaNoWriMo either. He'd never written fifty
thousand words, I think. But anyway, during October, he noticed Wool, it kept selling a few

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more copies each day, you know, like it might sell 10 one day and then 20 the next day
and then 25 the next day. And he's like, there's something here. You know, people seem
to like this long, short story. And so he decided to write that as his November novel instead
of the one he planned. And then he, so he wrote it a longer version of it and turned it into a
novel. And it's sold millions of copies since then. You know, he's become a sensation. And
so that was a fascinating story. And Hugh, he says that NaNoWriMo is the activity that
made him into a writer, you know, gave him the discipline and also gave him the creative
process. He's a big believer that that little bit of pressure every day to keep you moving
forward with your plot, just like it did with Erin. It really works for him imaginatively, too, to
write with those kinds of that kind of breathless prose.

Alice ​That's so cool. I just I know there's so many people out there who want to write who
just feel like, yeah, I'm just not a writer. I wonder if there's anything that we haven't
mentioned that you'd want them, those people to know.

Grant Faulkner ​I think one of the most underrated—two things are the most underrated
things about writing. I think people talk so much about plotting and outlining and a variety
of craft things, but ​[00:30:53]​I think so much of it is about believing in yourself and
believing in yourself to the degree that you can be vulnerable on the page. I think being
vulnerable on the page and opening your heart is so much more important than any craft
technique. And that's what we read for and that's what we connect with. ​[14.8s] ​I mean,
reading connects us with other people. And so I think, you know, NaNoWriMo well, that's
really what we strive to do, is to help people believe in themselves creatively. And, you
know, so much is going to come through the practice of writing. You know, that's how you
become a good writer. ​[00:31:22]​You're not necessarily born with the talent to be a writer, I
guess. Very few rare people are. But really, it's about practicing in an arena also teaches
that you show up every day on good days and bad days. You don't wait for inspiration to
strike. You create your inspiration by sitting down to write and you'll become a good writer
just through putting in the hours. And so, you know. And also, the more you do it, the more
you believe in yourself. ​[23.7s] ​Although I have to say that writing is it is an activity that
also it's full of doubt. You know, I've been doing it my entire life and I can doubt myself as
much as anybody else, which is where the community comes in strong. To know that, you
know, everybody doubts their writing, even the best writers, I guess Stephen King maybe
even does sometimes.

Jordan ​Yeah. I read your book, 52 Pep Talks for Writers. And that was really, really great.
It sort of became a nice little pep talk devotional for me whenever I was, you know, feeling
less motivated or not interested to write that day. It was one of those things that sort of
carried over outside of the month of November. And that was a cool way to keep that
motivation from November going throughout longer than that month. If someone wanted to
start Nano for the first time in November, where should they go? What should they do to
register?

Grant Faulkner ​Well, first, thanks for reading the book and thanks for those nice words,
because that's exactly what the book was meant to do, is to help people write beyond
November. And the way that people can, you know, do NaNoWriMo is just to go to
NaNoWriMo dot org and sign up and you'll be guided through all the different stages of
things you need to do in terms of like entering your novel or joining your local community
or entering your word count every day. And I should say that you can...The NaNoWriMo
site allows you to set a goal and a deadline for any project or of any length throughout the
year. So, ah, we're not just about the month. We're about a year long writing program. I
always say we're like FitBit for novelists, although we existed before. FitBit so fit. It's really

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like NaNoWriMo for walkers, huh. But yeah. So it's all free. And the reason, the reason it's
all free. We're a nonprofit but it's all free because we want everyone to have access. You
know, our goal is to make everybody a creator and a writer. And so it will always be free.
So you got nothing to lose and a novel to gain.

Alice ​Jordan, are you doing it this year?

Jordan ​I have been on the fence, but I guess since I'm talking to Grant now and we're
having this conversation, I can't say no. So I guess you heard it here first. I'm in for
NaNoWriMo, 2020. So, you know, I'll find some friends on there. Everybody can find me
on Twitter. I'll probably use the hashtag and see if we can get through this. Last time I did
it was 2015, so I guess I should knock the dust off and get back into it.

Alice ​No time like a pandemic.

Grant Faulkner ​Yeah. It's time. Good to hear that, Jordan. Yeah. And I assume you're
doing it as well, Alice.

Alice ​Well, apparently I am. I don't know. Maybe.

Jordan ​One of us. One of us.

Alice ​All right. All right. All right. You're fired. I'll think about it. Well Grant, thank you so
much. This was really great.

Grant Faulkner ​It was super great. I really enjoyed talking with you. And I hope you both
do NaNoWriMo. Let me know how it goes if you do.

Alice ​I am actually thinking about it.

Jordan ​Nice. Awesome.

Alice ​Despite myself.

Jordan ​Such a pleasure talking with you.

Ad ​Hi, I'm Danielle Belton, editor in chief of The Root. And I'm Maiysha Kai managing
editor of The Glow Up. And this September, we're excited to bring you The Root Presents:
It's Lit. It's Lit is a podcast where we talk about all things literature, literally. More
specifically Black literature. And we have some incredible guests lined up, including Nikole
Hannah-Jones. The last thing I want is us to produce anything like the Green Book. Ijeoma
Oluo. Why this book? Why are we why we aren't picking up the how to burn down the
system. You know, like, why can't we do that right now? The venerable Claudia Rankine. I
can't really separate the subject out from the structure. And the two things for me are
actually what makes writing exciting. And so many more brilliant Black authors, writers and
thought leaders. We're speaking with some of the most distinguished voices in Black
literature about their work, the books that influence them, and a lot more. So please join us
every Friday for some thought-provoking conversations. You can find us on Apple
Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And keep it lit.

Jordan ​Now, sign upgraded the week. That time when we talk about that one tiny thing
that's making a big difference in our lives. Grant, what's your upgrade this week?

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Grant Faulkner ​Yeah, I. I got the Calm app for free from my medical health provider. I got
a year subscription to it and I just started using it. And I'm, I, I'm feeling that enthusiastic
addiction about it. And part of that is well one, I like the quality of the meditations. You
know, I do it just for ten minutes every morning before I work. And it makes it
revolutionizes the day in part because if I do a ten-minute meditation, it reminds me or my
brain kind of stays attuned to that. So I'll do sort of mini-meditations throughout the day.
But the thing I like about it is actually something that's very akin to Nana Raimo. It tracks
my streak's and I'm so focused on keeping my daily streak going and building on that. It
also tracks my total time, which is which is fun to look at. So NaNoWriMo week game of fi
writing by giving out badges and tracking streaks and total word count. And so it's
interesting to me how that works with meditation as well. So I guess I'm just wired that
way.

Alice ​I was just talking last week about another app called 10 Percent Happier that does a
similar thing. And it really is surprisingly motivating. Makes me feel a little bit like I'm, you
know, sort of a mouse in a cage, like pressing a button for a pellet. Like, I love that reward.
I love it.

Grant Faulkner ​Yeah.

Jordan ​That's awesome.

Grant Faulkner ​Exactly.

Jordan ​Alice, what's your upgrade this week?

Alice ​So I am going to recommend this week the simple legal pad by your desk. It is
especially useful right now with all of the video calls we get on, because normally I would
type one in a meeting. And it's just now that I'm on video, it's like you're gonna hear the
clickety clicking and it's really distracting. So I just jot down notes on the legal pad all day,
especially during calls. It's very fun to do when you're on early stressful call because you
can look like you're busy, you know, like you're not. Don't have to make eye contact. You
can look and writing notes and also you can write down ridiculous things. People say, I'm
not going to say who might have said those things, but maybe you can have some fun with
it and quoted to other people later. I highly recommend a legal pad for passive-aggressive
purposes as well as productivity.

Jordan ​Nice. Nice.

Alice ​Jordan. Jordan. Tell me from one friend to another. What's your upgrade?

I'm going to focus on something I was thinking of. That has made me happy for the past
several weeks. And if you would ask me a year, two years, three years ago, if I would
recommend this, I would have thought that this was pretty stupid and juvenile. But every
Sunday at noon, I have an appointment viewing session with watching one of my friends,
Natasha, play video games online on Twitch. I watch her stream her playing an adventure
game called Uncharted or whatever she's playing at the time. And it's so relaxing. It sort of.
And it sounds weird, but the earliest they did to me, the idea of watching someone else
play video games is the source of entertainment. Like a lot of kids do it now, but I'm not a
kid and I thought it was stupid. But it's actually really entertaining and sort of a way of
bonding at a time that I don't see my friend Natasha that often. I don't see my friends in

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person, but they're in my living room when I'm watching them play video games. And it's
almost like watching a movie together. It's it's almost like, you know, like live streaming on
Netflix show together, except it's interactive. And I give her advice on what she's doing and
how she's playing or she'll ask questions because it's a game that I've already played and
it's a real sort of bonding experience, being able to watch someone. And it's really
entertaining if they're like a good personality and if they're funny. So watching someone on
Twitch, like find a favorite twitch streamer or if your friends play video games, like even if
you're not into gaming yourself, it can be really fun to just watch someone else play and
interact with them while they're playing.

Alice ​It really speaks to the complexity and the immersive-ness of these games. Right.
Because you couldn't yet have with Space Invaders.

Jordan ​And you couldn't do that with Pacman. Yeah, you couldn't do that with PacMan.
You couldn't do that with Super Mario Brothers or Frogger. But now games are so
interactive and they're so in-depth. They're basically mini-movie—not even mini-movies,
they're long as shit movies.

Alice ​Yes.

Jordan ​So watching a story, plot and character development take place, you can talk
through it the same way that you would add commentary to a movie or your favorite TV
series. And you get to do that with someone in your living room without them actually
being in your living room. Does it matter where they are? You can just stream online on
Twitch. And it's really entertaining and it's really fun and it's a great connection to have
when it's hard to have connections with people right now. So find a Twitch streamer.

Alice ​All right. And if you want someone to interact with you, you know, how can they find
you on Twitch, Jordan?

Jordan ​Yeah. You can find someone on switch my username on Twitch is Paris, Tokyo,
Ghoul. It's a word play on Paris, Tokyo, which is a great Lupe Fiasco song. And Tokyo
Ghoul, which is a great anime. Just merge those together. Paris, Tokyo Ghoul. Or you can
find me on Twitter at Jordan M Calhoun. And that's where I'm going to be talking about
lately these days. Ghosts of Sashima. Very great game. If you want to see me talk about
Ghosts of Sashima for the rest of my life, then you can follow me on Twitter and we can
talk about that.

Alice ​Nice. Thank you, guys. This was really great.

Grant Faulkner ​Super fun. Thank you.

Jordan ​Great having you, Grant.

Grant Faulkner ​Yeah. This was a great interview, you guys. Loved it. Thank you so much.

Alice ​And that's our show, The Upgrade is produced by Micaela Heck and mixed by Brad
Fisher.

Jordan ​Please rate us on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or
wherever you listen. We don't discriminate is whichever you like. You know, Stitcher,
Spotify. What's another one? I'm really losing the trail here. And you don't know how.

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Simply click on The Upgrade, scroll down to the bottom of the player until you see the
stars and you'll want to select all five. You can also reach us by calling it three, four, seven,
six eight seven eight one zero nine and leaving a voicemail. Or you can write to us at
upgrade at Lifehacker dot com.

Alice ​This week call us if you've finished NaNoWriMo in the past and tell us about your
experience.

Jordan ​I would love to hear about people's experience with that.

Alice ​Yeah. You can also find us on Twitter, at Lifehacker, on Instagram and Lifehacker
dot com. All one word. And on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash and Lifehacker. Sign
up for Lifehacker's daily newsletter full of tips and tricks and also hacks at Lifehacker, a dot
com slash newsletter. And you can find show notes for this and every episode of the
upgrade at Lifehacker dot com slash the show.

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