Hackpacker

National Novel Writing Month is the brain child of Chris Baty, a San Franciscan who took November off to write a book and found a few friends to join him. It 's become a global phenomenon with more than 150,000 participants. Chris chatted about the future of writing, the Office of Light and Letters , book piracy and the bright future for the story in the age of laptops and Kindle. Hackpacker: What made you start NaNoWriMo? Was it a tool to beat your own procrastination? Chris Baty: The "why" of it all is such a good question. It wasn't because I had a novel in me that I was dying to write. I'd always loved novels and worshipped novelists but had never really thought I would write a book of my own. Until I started planning the first NaNoWriMo, I believed that novelists were a (superior) alien race that had been beamed down to Earth to delight and intimidate the rest of the planet. Then, in 1999, I quit my full-time job and try to make a living as a freelance wri