It’s day one of NaNoWriMo and I’m already well under way toward 5,000 words for the first day. We all know how often this kind of progress will last, so it’s nice to get a head start. I’m hoping to get in a solid 5-7k by the end of the day so that I can take it easy if I have a busy work day coming up. Should be fun.
It’s a bit early in the month, I know, but I am planning on taking a good bit of time off of writing beyond the bare necessities of work for the next couple of weeks, so I’m doing my mid-October update a little early.
I actually sat down for a few minutes the other day and did some basic outlining of my future novel. It turns out I had a few good ideas (cool huh?) and now I have the basic idea of a novel in hand for me to get started with when November gets underway. I never know for sure how much to outline though – I don’t ever want to get too far ahead of myself. When I do, I tend to fall behind a bit and then not get as excited as I could when it all gets started.
But, then there’s the other side of things – if I don’t do some outlining early, I tend to get really caught up when it’s time to write 1500-3000 words a day for an entire month. So, I opted for the former and have a nice little outline to get me started.
I also decided to aim for something slightly less messy than the last few years – I’m just writing something simple and fun in the fantasy genre. I’m also aiming for a really long book this year. The last few times I tried to keep it short and then got stuck in that in-between space where I couldn’t quite figure out where I was going to end the book and so even when I wrote 50,000 words, it ended up being about 40% of a novel. So, this year, I’m aiming for a finished length of 100K+. I know I probably won’t write that much in one month (unless work gets really slow), but it’s a good target and will actually end me up with a completed novel, which would be pretty fun too.
Anyways, I have an outline, I have an idea, and it’s a lot of fun. Anyone else out there wallowing through October before NaNo, make sure to spend some time outlining. It’s cathartic if nothing else, plus it keeps all your ideas fresh in your head as you roll into November and start writing.
It’s that time of the year again, which means I’m about to commit to NaNoWriMo, the national novel writing month event that kicks off in November. Usually around the end of September each year, I get very excited and start going on at length about what I’m going to write about, how it will be written, how you can keep up with the writing, etc.
This year, I’m going to minimize all that excitement, because I don’t want to jinx it. I’ve only completed a novel once – in 2007. In 2006, I got to 26,000 words and last year I only made it to 15,000. So, what exactly is it that slows me down in that awful 10,000-30,000 range?
My Novels and their Foibles
It depends really – last year I was just really busy. I write for a living, so spending another hour a day writing, while seemingly not that bad, was just too much. Plus it was November and things are always busy in November.
Second, I tend not to plan my novels ahead of time. I never paid this any mind before because I didn’t plan anything I wrote ahead of time. Now, I write all day and I tend to write a lot of eBooks for my clients, so I’ve come to realize just how much more effective I write when I have a very detailed plan to work from.
Finally, I occasionally start to dislike the novel I write. I don’t know why and it doesn’t always happen, but it’s happened at least once before. I think I’m overly ambitious and when I can’t do all the things I had in mind within 50,000 words and 4 weeks, I get frustrated.
The Solution
So, this year, I’m going at it in a different way. I’m going to start outlining the thing in a couple of days – probably when the forums go up on October 1st. Then, I’m going to not write about it here at all. I’ll just write the novel, not think about it at all and be 100% okay if the thing makes absolutely no sense when I hit 50,000 words. Finally, I’m going to actually have an ending in mind and attempt to get there. The 50,000 word count is extremely short, and even in ‘07 when I made it, the book wasn’t really done yet – so this time around, I’m going to stretch things out a bit and see what comes of it.
All I can do now is hope that I don’t get inundated with work like last year. Thankfully there’s no WoW expansion this fall.
Every year, I prep and get ready for National Novel Writing Month in November – I rarely, if ever have the time to work on it, but I get excited nonetheless and always have tons of ideas. Of course, that doesn’t mean I actaully remember to post any updates on the good old blog, but that’s just because I’m too busy writing in my novel.Â
So, without further ado – I’d like to remind anyone out there who has not yet heard of, or participated in NaNoWriMo in the last decade or so. It’s a pretty big deal for anyone whose even a casual writer and I’ve got huge plans for this year. I’m not going to give them away yet here, but if they work out, I’ll have all the details in a couple months (some kind of incentive, huh?).Â
For everyone else, stop by http://www.NaNoWriMo.org to signup and prepare for the new year.
Or at least I should be one third of the way done. It’s day 11 of NaNoWriMo and I’m at about 10K words or so. It’s a respectable amount, but still about 7,000 words behind. Luckily, I feel as though I can whip out that much in a good weekend, or more likely on Thanksgiving. So, all is well in the realm of NaNo. Unfortunately though, I am incredibly busy with just about everything else and the 2AM writing sessions have resulted in some mediocre at best style writing. Here’s hoping for a slightly better week writing and a kick in the rear for a weak as hell story.
