St. Ours, 28, has attempted the novel-writing challenge six times and achieved the goal twice. This month, he plans to try both the novel-writing and the podcasting. He figures he'll have to carve out about two hours a day to write 1,600 words and produce a five-minute podcast to reach the summit of his creative Everest.
Some years, he plans out what he wants to write. In others, the characters just sort of take over, "sleeping with each other, killing each other" and other things he hadn't imagined, possibly due to "sleep depravation or being over-caffeinated."
"One of the greatest gifts you can give to someone doing National Novel Writing Month is a Starbucks gift card," he said. With the help of networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, the effort has grown into a social phenomenon, with groups meeting for novel-crafting sessions at coffee shops and cafes.
"I was trying to explain it to a friend who is a writer and who didn't understand why a sane person would do this," he said. But through groups online, he's found kindred souls. Some of the local Twitter users met at a "tweet up" at Holy Frijoles in Hampden a few weeks ago, and he just returned from "podcamp," a podcasters' workshop in Montreal.
"You're in a room full of people who just get what this thing is," said St. Ours, who studied broadcast journalism and English at Salisbury University. "All the technology sort of brings people out of their homes, these people who have these common interests who otherwise might be sequestered at home.
"Really busy people actually seem to have a lot of luck in the novel-writing month, they're better at scheduling their time. I know people who haven't had jobs who haven't been able to finish. Being too busy isn't any excuse. People start going back and forth online, 'You think you're busy, I'm raising three kids and have a job ...' "
Apparently not lacking for energy himself, St. Ours already produces Charm City Podcast (charmcitypodcast.com). It's entertaining, free form and a bit goofy, reminiscent of the "Wayne's World" skit Dana Carvey and Mike Myers made so popular.
For NaPoPoMo - National Podcast Post Month - he plans to do two others: One, putitinyourears.com, will be done with a New York friend, Rob Blatt, and will document a month's worth of manic creative output ("Bite-sized stupid," he calls it); the other is the.gavinshow.com, in which he'll describe his novel-writing experience - a case of podcast imitating life imitating art.
