The NANOWRIMO three-step


NANO is less than 24 hours away.

I’m stoked.

I took my best shot at outlining (not  a natural process for me), and have been exercising my creative muscle by writing every day since Oct 1 (resulting in drafts of one picture book story, one short story, one piece of personal narrative, and one ‘pome’ + other dross), so I am back in the routine.

I’ve also tested a three-step process that seems to work.

ONE. Begin each day by making a few notes in my daybook about the writing I expect to do that day (or about what I struggled with the day before). During  NANO it will be at that point – in bed with my morning cup of tea – that I will figure which of the 33 scenes I’ve listed so far to work on. I won’t write it there and then. But write about writing it.

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That’s me, can’t you tell? In shape and ready to go!

TWO. Then I will write that scene, and maybe more – in one or two 60- to 90-minute sessions during the day with my eye on the daily goal of 1,667 words. 

THREE. Each evening, I will print the pages I’ve worked on that day, and mark them up. Not in the same place where I have been writing – at my desk. But in another chair somewhere far from the siren call of my laptop. And not for the purposes of revising and editing right away, but before I file the hard copy pages, which I will put away until NANO is over. 

That’s it. As easy as One-two-three… that’s how elementary, it’s gonna be.

Well, we’ll see!

NanoWriMo -7: Waiting for the spooky stuff


Seven days to go. And I am SO done with outlining.

It is not my natural way of working, but I thought I would try it this time, as I am working from scratch on a new project, and many other writers suggest this is a good way of working.

So far, I have:

  • Identified the Six Big Scenes in the story – Inciting Incident, First Plot Point, Mid Point, Second Plot Point, Climax and Resolution.
  • Listed 26 other scenes that I will cobble together – possibly combining or extending some into full chapters – once I have reached the end, wherever and whenever that is.
  • Drafted notes of background and motivation for each of the three main characters and four secondary ones.
  • Some days used my First 500 Words daily sprint sessions to brainstrom thoughts about setting and plot details, and the entire story overall.
  • Collected a gallery of images to represent my main characters and three main settings.
  • Started a section of Random Notes to add anything and everything as it occurs to me – so far three pages of handwritten notes.

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And I am done.

And ready for the next – and my favourite part – of any fiction project.

This is when the actual act of writing tends to throw up all kinds of ‘spooky writing stuff’ on the page. Leaving me to respond – internally or out loud  – “Ah, so that’s what happens.” “Who are you, and why are you here?” “Oh, I didn’t know that.” “Yes. That could work.” “No. Not a chance.” 

 One advantage of using my writing muscle regularly is that I am usually able to write ‘quick and dirty’. Which for the most part helps silence that monkey-mind editor that sits on my shoulder as I unconsciously delve into all the stuff that’s below the surface, or hiding in the deeper recesses of my overloaded brain.  

Usually I can just keep going to see where the writing takes me without too much judgement and a lot of curiosity. 

I will be interested to see what happens this time.

 

NANOWRIMO – 16 days to go

 

Outlining seemed like a good idea at the time. Even if I had always been a ‘pantser’ in the past, I had lots of tools, links, books and articles to show me the way. But as often happens,  too much research led me to dig myself into a hole I am having difficult getting out of.

Sure, I have somewhat of an outline for a midgrade novel WHEREVER YOU ARE. Basic character sketches. Five Big Scenes identified, including the first Plot Point, Second Plot Point, Mid Point, Third Plot Point and Climax. And about 20 smaller scenes listed.

I am juggling a mess of index cards, worksheets, and notes. All of which I hope will be useful when I actually start writing this thing on November 1. Which is what I am most looking forward to – putting words on the page in narrative form that bring the story to life. But I have twisted myself into such an unwieldy knot, I am now trying to extricate myself from it.

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At the beginning of October I starting leading a group of beginning writers in writing one-page stories, profiles and personal narrative. One page or 500 words. To support them, I committed to writing 500 words a day, every day, in an effort I called First 500 Words. As in – First, five hundred words – that is, before doing much else in the day – or as in, before writing anything else, first get those 500 words down on paper.

It’s that that has saved me. I have written 500 words a day since then, on top of anything and everything else I had going in terms of outlining, revising other stuff, drafting teaching handouts, etc. Most days I don’t even write about the story. I have written about eating pomegranates, the loneliness of solo long distance flights, my father’s hands, windstorms, Harvest Festival church services, beachcoming… In fact, I have a list of 37 things I could use for my daily 500-word sprints. 

NGThe few times I have tackled this new book idea, I have found that by using stream of consciousness writing (or using Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Practise Rules from her book WRITING DOWN THE BONES) I have not only unearthed story elements that had not occured to me, but have also come up with character details, setting descriptions, lists of questions that need answering before or during wiriting the story, and notes on what I already know about at least two topics I need to do research for the book. 

Writing 500 words a day, I told my students – without expecting they would want to do it as a daily practise – could yield 180,000 words in a year.

Even if this latest book idea turns out to be a bomb, if nothing else – if I can keep up my First 500 Words project as I have since the beginning of October – I will have come up with a lot of words.

Including these – which coincidentally when I just checked, turned out to be another 498!

 

NANOWRIMO – 24 days to go

 

I tried NANOWRIMO once before, making it to 39,000+ words on a YA historical novel THE ROUGH DRESS by the end of the month of November. But without an outline, or a clear plan of where I was going and how to get there, I ended up with a lot of words but not much structure.

Four years later, that book is still a Work in Progress (WIP)!

I’ll be trying again this year with a midgrade contemporary realistic novel WHEREVER YOU ARE. This time, I’m outlining it in a rather hybrid way, drawing on some of the following tools, but not sticking faithfully to one or another.

I am still in the process of grabbing other bits of outlining advice as it shows up on various writers’ and writely website and blogs. I hope that by time November 1 rolls around – the first official day of National Novel Writing Month – I will have condensed all my notes, tables and index cards into one coherent outline. And be ready to write 50,000 words in 30 days. (That’s an average of 1,666 words a day. But who’s counting!)

Meanwhile, this is what I am working with:

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I’ll check back in a week to let you know how far I have got.

L