It's almost October and you know what that means: National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner. Are you up for writing a complete novel with a minimum 50k words in the month of November? Of course you are!
I first signed up for Nanowrimo in 2005. As I mentioned in my previous post, I "won" that first year but barely. 50,018 was my final word count, if I remember correctly, and the story is all but unreadable. Imagine lots of flashbacks, inner monologues while the MC is driving (in the rain, natch) and endless conversations on couches and in bars. Yeah, I was all about the info dump. And the avoiding of coming up with a workable story line. One of these days I'll fix it...
In the meantime, I am gearing up for this year's challenge. I've not finished a novel since my first try and I'm ready to end my losing streak. This time I am not going to wait until the last minute to come up with my plot. No, this time I am going to try that little thing called "planning" and maybe even some of that crazy "outlining" stuff too. No more waiting until 11/1 to jump into a story; I want to have a plot with a beginning, middle and end roughly sketched out. This outline and this one are the frontrunners; I'll let you know which one I end up using and maybe I'll share some of it here.
November is coming: are you ready?
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We're a group of "pre-published" authors, here to talk about the art and craft of writing, the trials and tribulations of getting published, how we deal with writer's block, and anything else we feel like spouting off about. We cover a wide range of genres, everything from mystery to romance to science fiction, to name just a few. You'll find us spread across the United States, from coast to coast and a couple of places in between -- which is why we hang out together here!
Make yourself at home, and feel free to join in the discussion!
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4 comments:
Those links are really great - thanks for sharing!
Yeah I need to think about Nano as well - can't believe that time is already here!
I prefer the second outlining technique personally.
Can't wait to hear what you're doing for Nano.
Looking forward to Nanowrimo this year! Can't wait to see what you're going to do.
I'll be there! Don't know what I'm writing yet ... think that'll be something I'll discuss tomorrow.
Mostly, I don't outline. The first time I did NaNoWriMo, I found out about it two days before it started, so I didn't have a lot of time for planning. I just jumped in, feet first, and went with it.
Last November, though, I sort of outlined. It was more along the lines of "Phoebe does this, then T'yaki does this, and then this happens, and then they go here and do this...blah, blah, blah, the end." So I at least had a vague idea of where I was going, but it wasn't as detailed as, "In Chapter 1, Phoebe wakes up, eats breakfast, and contemplates life. In Chapter 2, she gets dressed and goes shopping..."
Thanks for the links to the outlining tool -- I may take a look at my prospective projects using one or the other of those to see if that helps make up my mind...
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