Done and yet to do
NaNoWriMo is coming up fast.
So far I have:
– Registered
– Donated
– Bought the t-shirt
– Posted in my regional forum and age group forum
– Decided to begin a tradition of leaving carrots out for the Plot Bunnies on NaNoEve. I will photograph and blog that one. My sister is going to actually set out a box-and-stick type bunny trap, because she wants to keep the plot bunnies all month.
– Put a down payment on what I alternately think of as ‘Epic Sofa’ and ‘Noveling Couch’
What I haven’t done:
– Anything related to actual writing preparation.
Right.
At least I know what I’m writing.
A loooong time ago I posted about a story that I started writing on my phone. Eventually that got a little unwieldy and I moved it over to the pc and put it in my Active folder, where I keep all of the stories I’m currently poking at. I spent a lot of Mind Time on it – the part of writing that is really just staring into space making things up- and made some notes. Eventually I decided the scope was too large to continue the way I was and I started working on a treatment, or an expanded outline. It turns out that it’s not a good short story, but it might be a pretty good novel.
It’s been a couple of months since I looked at that treatment, though, and it isn’t done. I could – and should – work on that over the next couple of weeks. My thinking there is that I am less likely to get stuck if I have a complete treatment to work off of. I’ve used the notecarding technique in years past, but I lost a lot of the details of the vision that way. This is essentially the same thing, except that it’s a more complete brain dump.
Then there are the non-writing portions of NaNoPrep, such as the Shopping List.
This year’s list includes:
– Strawberry Pocky (permitted 1 every 250 words)
– Jasmine tea (fuel)
– fire logs (for fire-side noveling)
– celebratory bottle of viognier (for crossing the finish line)
– a large dog (to be adopted first week of November if possible.)
My sweet Sugardog passed around this time last time year. She had been my noveling companion every year, from the first one when she and I sat in my little 6×12 office with my space heater. I wrote and she snored, waking up occasionally for pets and scritches.
Life is just better with a dog around.
In other news, both my oldest daughter and one of my little sisters will be participating this year. I fully expect my sister to kick my literary ass. She’s been busy doing research for a week now. Family noveling FTW!
So that’s what I’ve done and need to do. How are you getting ready for November?
4 thoughts on “Done and yet to do”
I didn’t realize there was so much prep to do before NaNoWriMo! My main goal has been just to ramp up my word count (with little success).
My 12 yr old daughter is also joining in the fun. Or rather, it would be more appropriate to say I’m joining her, since this is my first and her second year.
We’ll have to see if we can make do without the large dog, however. The cats would likely object.
There often isn’t any prep! A lot of people just sit down at the keys on November 1, start typing, and see what comes out. I hope you have fun with it. That’s the most important part.
Awesome that your daughter is participating too. Did she do it with her class last year?
I love my cat, but he tends to fight the computer for my lap.
Correction: this is the third year she’s done it. 5,000 words the first, and over 20K the second (though she says that a fair bit of it was typing up stuff she already had on paper). Also, it was all on her own initiative. /sigh. A parent has to strive to live up to their children’s expectations.
I also learned this morning that my son is also going to try this, through his high school writer’s club. Family noveling FTW, indeed!
Who says that writers are solitary creatures? :)
The very best of luck to you and yours!
Family noveling FTW! I didn’t know Danni was doing it, that’s awesome! I don’t know about kicking any literary ass, though… Especially when you have so many buckets of experience under your belt. All I know is that we’re going to rock NaNo, and it will be awesome.
And life is absolutely better with a dog around. I wish I had my big slobbery boy Drover to cuddle while I write, but he lives in back home and fears cars and stairs. Also, he has a tendency to lay his hundred-plus pound self on me if I stop petting him. And Beulah only spends three days a week down here, and she lacks the patience for that sort of thing. I have to make do with my stuffed dalmatian Baskerville… And maybe visiting the shelter just to chill with puppies…
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