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We interviewed the founder of JuNoWriMo, Becca J. Campbell and learned how the challenge started, the effort that goes into running an event of this scale, about her own writing and a lot of other interesting things along the way.
JuNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s 1667 words a day! It’s also a community of writers and aspiring writers to get together and offer support, motivation and friendship. It’s almost like NaNoWriMo except it’s in June instead.
About our Guest
An avid lover of stories that tiptoe the line between fantasy and reality, Becca J. Campbell looks for new angles on bridging the gap between the two. She holds a special place in her heart for any story that involves superpowers or time travel. Her passion is defying the limits of her own creativity.
Becca’s journey into writing began as many of her other creative endeavors do – by daring herself to try something new. The question “what if I wrote a novel?” and some hastily scribbled notes on a church handout were the inspirations that jump-started her first book. Since then she has written half a dozen additional novels and several shorter works.
Questions and topics discussed:
- What is JuNoWriMo?
- Why June?
- How has it grown over the years?
- What are the benefits of JuNoWriMo?
- Every November it seems somebody comes out with a piece about how NaNoWriMo isn’t for serious writers etc. What’s your response to the War on Fun?
- Shoutouts to the JuNoWriMo team
- How much work goes into organising the event?
- What’s your word count so far and what are you writing?
- Writing novellas in a series
- What’s your biggest wordcount for Junowrimo
- How long have you been using Active Campaigns
- You’ve recently switched from Mailchimp to Active Campaigns. Why did you make the transition?
- Tell us about your universe
- How she got started writing
- Why superhero thrillers
- Did you read comics as a kid? No.
- Loved X-Men movies
- What makes Active campaigns better?
- Please break the ice and tell us about you. (where are you from, what do you write and why?)
- Why that genre?
- Your book Empath seems to have the most reviews so far? Why do you think that is? Is it just a function of time (i.e. it’s oldest or did you do something especially right with marketing that one?) [Donald Trump voice: We’re going to shut down this podcast until we figure out what the hell is going on!]
- Looks like you’ve collaborated with other authors. What’s that process look like?
- What do you do when there’s a disagreement? Cage match or flip a coin?
- You’ve eschewed watching movies in favor of writing. How many hours a day can you write before your head blows up?
- How do you balance your writing life with your family life?
Links and mentions:
- Triberr
- Active Campaign <– Mailchimp on steroids
- Author Strong Podcast <– Part 1 of 6: Becca’s move to Active Campaign
- Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty <– as mentioned by Chrishaun
- http://ishouldbewriting.com
- UpCycledChicByBecca <– Becca’s Etsy store
If you have a second, an iTunes review would be VERY appreciated!
Join us next Thursday 7pm PST / 10pm EST
when we chat with Demelza Carlton
Hello beautiful people.
Hiya chazz
Becca favors writing books instead of watching movies. (She only saw Galaxy Quest recently.) So here’s my idea: let’s save her some time. What are the five movies she absolutely must see?
My suggestions are: Lawrence of Arabia, The Matrix (first one only), The Usual Suspects, The Princess Bride and…Fight Club.
What are your suggestions?
We start the show in five.
ts paul Hey man!
hiya ts paul *waves*
RChazzChute ohai!
chronicles of riddick, the razors edge (old one not bill murray), 5th element, smokey and the bandit, Kung fu panda 1
RChazzChute Star Wars trilogy, NO prequels.
Sorry for the delay I don’t know all the buttons…
hello, all
We’re ready to start!
Anyone participating in JuNoWriMo this year?
BatmanErica me
RChazzChute how many words so far?
BatmanErica RChazzChute Around 20,000. Did a lot of writing today and haven’t checked the total yet,
RChazzChute nice 🙂
haven’t seen you much lately CateMorgan. What have you been up to?
I just realised that I don’t have anything to do on the show right now… suggestions? Pull funny faces?
wear bunny ears and eat carrots?
ts paul no rabbit ears. Will kitty do?
awesome erica
I’m putting this out there cuz everybody loves homework: Please leave a happy review of SPRT on YouTube when you have a chance. A couple of us are pretty damn bitter right now and we’re feeling needy, A few pats on the back would soothe the slaps in the face.
Thank you,
ts paul I’ll just sit here and look pretty as a kitty =^.^=
my wife and I like you. so does the cat
but he likes everyone with food
Hello everyone!!!!
Hi David Anson, what’s new?
ts paul Thanks for the book. I haven’t had time to read it yet, but hopefully will next week.
whoo hoo compitition in short reads!
David there is another chance at a free book on my blog/fb page
ts paul I typically write between 14k – 40k books 🙂
what is sleep?
ts paul that thing I used to do before my husband started snoring all night o.O
Active Campaign is like Mailchimp on steroids!
Does anyone have any questions for Becca? JuNo, Active Campaign, writing related?
ts paul I’ll check it out, but I would rather buy the next ones.
Free is nice, but you can’t eat from free and I want you to be able to eat so you can keep writing!
my wife just bought empath to read
I don’t know why RChazzChute said I’d look serious on the podcast. I’m wearing digital cat ears ffs 😛
BatmanErica RChazzChute You’re a very serious cat.
RChazzChute I shall endeavour to be a serious digital cat =^.^=
what is her etsy name or page name- heather wants to know
ts paul https://www.etsy.com/shop/UpCycledChicByBecca
ts paul I found your interview about writing short very inspiring. I hate the downtime between publishing so it’s an elegant solution and opens a funnel. Thanks so much!
sure my wife wants to join in too
David Anson ts paul Thank you david. the new athena is in about 2 weeks, the current book is a wilson anthology that is pretty funny
RChazzChute ts paul glad I’m helping
Night all