It probably seems a little silly that I'm getting all psyched and stuff for November and NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for the uninitiated) when we're not even a third of the way through October. I have a few good reasons to be doing so.
Last year I started off pretty strong, and only made it to about 20 K out of the 50 K goal. Granted I was in school and working and life was pretty mad. Heck, I'm having a hard time really even remembering if that was indeed last year. Life is a blur, my friends. I never picked that manuscript up and finished it, though. And I find that most unacceptable.
I am trying to follow the advice listed in the Writing Excuses podcast of 'Just Write', and the example of Brandon Sanderson who wrote around a dozen books before he was actually published. I'm really hoping it doesn't take me writing another 10 stories before one finally gets picked up, but if it does, so be it. I'll be better off for it because I'll have written that much.
So this years NaNo, I'm really wanting to get another story of at least 50K words by the end of the month. I'm not actually gearing to have my story necessarily only be 50K words long, I'm probably going to shoot for the finished Manuscript to be 80K. But I don't think that can be done in one month without me failing my classes and losing my mind.
NaNoWriMo does not really match my preferred writing style. I'm a Discovery Writer who likes to pretend to write the occasional outline, whilst jumping from project to project as I get an idea. I'm trying to allow my natural writing process to evolve with that, but if I want to meet my NaNo goal I need to do something different. Which is why I'm going to do a Structure Outline.
Most of the books I've read about Outlining a story delve mostly into the story, building characters and settings, and working out when and where things need to happen. I don't really like doing that, as I find it dull. So I want to try something different, by working out what the structure and plot of the story is going to be in the form of Acts and Scenes, and work out approximately how many words for each of these I need to write. While this is a lot more outlining than I normally do, I'm hoping it will still give me the freedom I like in Discovery Writing where I can get a feel for the characters as they progress through the story.
If you've gotten to this point in the blog post, you're almost definitely wondering why in the world I'm telling you this, and why in the world you should care. I'm actually just trying to sort out my ideas, and the best way for me to do that is to write.
I'll maybe post more about my NaNo preparations as the month progresses, in which case you'll now know better, and wont feel the need to read it.
