In October I'll be assembling all that I'll need to write productively during NaNoWriMo, and since I'm rather (okay, very) OCD about planning and organizing my story stuff that means putting together:
Session schedule
Novel notebook
Draft synopsis
Rough Outline (2-3 sentence chapter summaries)
Title Idea Sheet
Cover Art Idea Sheet
Character Name Sheet (an A-Z list I'll update as I write so I don't repeat letters or similar-sounding names)
Wordcount Widget
Personal NaNoWriMo Logo (in case this year's official badge is as lame as 2013)
It sounds like a lot, but it's really just the bare bones for me. Depending on the ideas I have for the novel, I'll probably do something other things like make character art, create story and character palettes, collect pics of body models, setting inspiration and other story-related visuals and keep them in a smash journal, etc. I can already sense some of your organic writers out there cringing in horror. I'm taking all the fun out of it, right? Not from my POV. For me this is the fun part. Some writers work best making their discoveries about the story as they write, while others like to use the planning stages for that. I'm the latter. In fact I think I'm the Queen of the latter. If any of the above appeals to you, feel free to try the same or similar. Honestly though, you really don't have to do anything for NaNoWriMo but show up and write 50,000 words during the month of November.
Meanwhile, to do my part for NaNoWriMo 2014 as in years past I'm making my how-to writing productivity e-book, Way of the Cheetah, available now for free via Google Docs for anyone to read online, download, print out or share until December 1st (and to go to the e-book, click here.) I'm also interested to know if any of you who are thinking about joining in this year will prepare in any way before November 1st. If you do and you want to share, let us know your plans in comments.
This time, with it being the 5th book in the "universe" I created, I will probably plan more and wing it less. Just a bit. Going to do my pre planning, and see what happens. I have some notes started already. ( and I got the cover art for book 4, and it's very pretty.)
ReplyDeleteI'm in. I have attempted for several years and actually made it last year, working on my memoir. But this year I have not one, but two ideas, and I need to start fleshing out and see which one I will concentrate on. I definitely plan to use a lot of your ideas and create a novel notebook and cover for my book as inspiration. Will keep everyone posted on how I am doing in November.
ReplyDeleteBut I think you will like this years logo! I've seen it as a ML and it's vintage/steampunky and pretty cool. At least I think so.
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