Countdown To NaNoWriMo 2006
You have exactly one month to prepare an outline for this year’s National Novel Writing Month. November will be here too soon!
Since last year’s manuscript was almost a total loss, I vowed to be better prepared this year, and thus I’m doing everything within my power to insure that. I’ve already got a good number of scenes plotted out for my next novel. This time, my 50,000 words in 30 days won’t be wasted.
Because they are set in the same universe and feature overlapping events, I’m hoping that the development of this new novel will perhaps strengthen some of the ideas in the first one. One can only hope.
Will you be ready November 1st?
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October 2nd, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Sadly, this year I don’t think I have the time to take part. So I’ll be cheering from the side lines for all concerned. So good luck.
October 2nd, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Yeah, it seems difficult for people to make the committment. For me it’s making up for my lack of committment during the rest of the year. Developing into a nifty ritual where I outline the month before, crank out my 50K words in November, and then spend the next year rewriting and reworking.
The first year was a bit bumpy, but this one should go smoother. And I can’t argue with a novel-per-year. My only hope is I can get them into a publishable state.
October 2nd, 2006 at 4:38 pm
I am trying to finish a novel, and if I do so I want to try NaNoWriMo.
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:52 am
Good Luck – I could never do it. Though I will be writing :) Gotta try and get a few chapters written before my semester starts. That way I can finish my novel next semester and then take the second year and revise and then! I’m going back to the first novel and rewriting the beginning (not looking forward to that, but it must be done :))
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:16 pm
I think I’ll be able to participate this year. I am finished my novel and just getting started on the next, so the timing is good. I have no idea how well it will work, but I’m willing to give it a shot. :)
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Bren,
The better your outline/plot, the easier it will be. Everything would have worked perfectly for me last year had I more thoroughly completed a scene arrangement. The only reason I didn’t get results is because I had to wing it too much, and a lot of that first draft was unfocused, lots of wandering to make word counts, etc. I suspect with a better targeted focus to scenes, and what not, it’ll be fine.
October 4th, 2006 at 2:48 am
*sits down and cries*
*sobs*
*blathers*
It’s already time? I’m just finishing one novel this very week! Again?
You know I’m there.
October 4th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
I’m trying to get some folks from the game industry to participate. We could have a nice little group this year.
October 6th, 2006 at 2:01 am
Oh, I most certainly hope so. I don’t know if I’ll start something new or just try to add 50,000 to my current WIP.
Awesome that you’re getting ready. Your familiarity with your world should definitely make things easier, I think.
October 6th, 2006 at 6:21 am
About 20 scenes plotted… only 40 more to go! I think I need more characters.
October 6th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
How much to you generally jot down about each scene?
October 6th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
As much as I can. The more the better, but it varies depending on how concrete my idea is. At the very least, I define setting, characters, and primary conflict for a scene as the basic “what happens” event. Any additional information I feel I will need to convey when it comes time to actually write it, I make notes to be encapsulated within that scene.
Sometimes, I only have a skeletal idea… like “Character A & Character B have a showdown in location C” And as to the HOW that happens, if I have ideas I will note those so I don’t forget. If I can’t think of anything (ouch) then I save it for the drafting process.
But I prefer in the extreme, not to do that. It makes me really uncomfortable, because I leave myself too much room for meandering nonsense.
So my general rule for scene construction is to “Be as specific as I can.”
October 6th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Oh, I thought I’d add that there is a limit to this. You can go too far if you start jotting notes for a scene and you suddenly discover that you’re writing entire paragraphs of dialogue. Pull back. I do little things like… I’ll allow myself one or two witty lines of dialogue if I think of them, but any more than that and I’m trying to hard to get into Drafting Mode.
I think it’s important to keep the phases separate. Trying to work on the arrangement and ideas WHILE you’re actually writing is a disaster. For me it is, anyway… I can’t manage all that at once, and need to break it down into discrete processes.