It's Been a Little Crazy But...

Hey everyone who's still checking the forum, pining, like me, for NaNo (and thanks for the countdown to NaNo 09!!)

I am looking for volunteers to be on the Carousel Magazine fiction selection committee. Carousel is a literary journal, publishing short fiction and poetry that is submitted by writers across Canada and sometimes from other exotic places (this semester we have one from Ireland, one form the UAE and a translation from Poland!!). This is where the committee comes in. I am looking for interested parties to read through these mountains of submissions with me and select five or six out of the sixty or so that we read each semester to pass on to our Editor-in-Chief so that he can make the final decision on which ones to publish. We meet once a week from 5:30pm to 7:00pm on Tuesdays, this semester.

Carousel comes out once a semester, so semi-annually, and is quite a polished magazine. For submission guidelines (if you're interested in submitting) you can look at the Carousel website: http://www.carouselmagazine.ca/

We used to meet in the Carousel office on campus in the University Centre, room number 274 (we share the room with T@GSA, and their markings on the door are more prominant) but this semester our meetings clashed so we, the fiction committee, will be meeting in Mackinnon room 232 instead. Feel free to drop by during the meetings, no warning is necessary, and I'd love to see some people out there.

I hope to see some beloved WriMo's out there next semester!

Elizabeth (eshearly@uoguelph.ca -- feel free to drop me a line!)

Thank Goodness It's Over Party

It's time to wrap things up for NaNoWriMo 2008 with our "Thank Goodness It's Over" party:

Sunday, December 7th
2:00 p.m.
Rainbow Dragon's Lair
(i.e.: my house)
Come and join us as we celebrate challenges taken & victories won and make plans for next year's conquest.

Drinks and munchies will be served.

R.S.V.P. via NaNo mail so I know how many people to expect.
(And so I can send you directions!)

Hope to see you on Sunday!

Laura

The Results Are In

Congratulations to avermeer, EternalDaisy, Leanne-Rose and shantii who all crossed the finish line in the final hours of NaNoWriMo to bring the total number of finishers in Guelph to 14. That puts us at a 41.2% win rate folks - over twice the world-wide win rate for 2008 of 18.2%! Guelph Wrimos rock!

Congratulations to everyone who took part this year! We had a phenomenally strong showing here in Guelph, not only amongst the "official winners" but throughout the whole team, many of whom were first-time Wrimos and logged more words this past month than they have ever before done on a single project. Way to go!

All Guelph Wrimos are invited to our "Thank Goodness It's Over" party to celebrate our accomplishments this past month and December's return to "normalcy" (whatever that is!). See the Party Planning thread below and leave your thoughts.

Final Countdown

Congratulations to bevantor who crossed the finish line yesterday!

To those of you writing down to the wire tonight, please check to make sure that the NaNo site has you registered under the correct time zone. Their system will NOT have updated you automatically to account for our fall back to standard time, and it will not allow you to update your word count once it thinks you've passed midnight.

Also: the NaNo site will likely be busy tonight. Hopefully not server-crashingly busy, but busy enough to noticeably slow server response times. Don't wait until 11:59 to try to validate.

Good luck everyone!

More Royal Colour for the Royal City

Congratulations to bundtcake, JCScott, Lee44 and lynnreist who all topped 50K on Friday!

Party Planning

As the clock slowly but inevitably counts down to the final days of November, and Wrimo status bars the world over start to turn purple, it's time to start thinking about what we want to do for a TGIO party here in Guelph.

Some questions to consider:

1. When do we want to have the party?

Saturday afternoons have been working well for our write-ins, but not everyone is able to come out at that time. Plus, the first Saturday in December is the 6th this year, which is perhaps a day on which many of us are not in a partying mood. Week nights are out for me next week except for Wednesday (December 3rd). How about Sunday, December 7th? Afternoon or evening?

2. Where do we want to have the party?

Back at our old standby, Williams, or someplace that serves alcohol and/or a full menu? Or do we want to party in a private venue? (That would give us a little more space and perhaps be more conducive to mingling.) I am happy to host, assuming the party is at a time when I'm available to do so.

3. Do we want to have a theme for the party?

(Other than generally being thankful that November is over, that is.)
Do we want to read excerpts from our stories? Play group-writing games? Do something totally non-writing related? Dress like Vikings? Wear purple? Anything else?

Weigh in here with your thoughts.

Guelph's Going Purple

Congratulations to DeeSarrachi, litchick89, Ruth Cooke and Terry (tdm) who all crossed the finish line yesterday!

We're getting close to the wire, with a good number of Guelph Wrimos getting close enough to taste that sweet victory. Write on folks!