Brandon Clements

Writing is not easy, and it’s often a lonely and discouraging endeavor. While I was working on writing Every Bush Is Burning on and off for almost six years, I spent thousands of hours alone at my keyboard plugging away. Getting excited. Getting discouraged. Throwing massive chunks of words away. Then: repeating the process. I knew very few serious writers then, so that made it even worse. For some reason, the task of writing an actual book is just flat out daunting.

But I don’t think it has to be that way. I’ve always been intrigued by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)–a construct where (literally) hundreds of thousands of people around the globe commit to writing a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. Granted, writing a novel in a month means it’s probably not a very good novel, not yet at least. But it’s fascinating knowing how many people are committed to finishing it because they are spurred on by the fact that fingers around the world are typing away with them. And that keeps them going, to finish what they may never have without that communal push.

In light of that, when my friend Ben Arment came up with the concept behind Dream Year Books, I thought it was brilliant:

People would pay one flat price to go through a coaching & communal writing process from April to December, and then their book would be professionally edited, designed, produced, and in their hands by April 1st of the next year. Thus, accomplishing their dream of writing a book–with the feedback and help of a group of people going through the exact same thing. Like NaNoWriMo extended, with real relationships and a professionally produced book.

Genius.

So I gladly jumped on board to help with the publishing side, and I’m pumped to see what comes of it.

I hope we have some fantastic new books in the world next April.