Thanks to K.M. Weiland's Outlining Your Novel, I've spent the past few days 'what iffing' ideas about my upcoming Nano story, Blue Steel. I'm currently on Chapter 5 and taking scads of notes. Much seems like common sense, but I'd never thought about doing the 'what if's' before. It has lead to some interesting scenarios and a plausible sub plot. Last night I sprang it on Father and he liked my ideas which made me feel good. He also came up with some interesting input which may make it into the story. We'll see - sometimes he goes over my head with electronic jargon and leaves me with my brain about to explode from trying to absorb it all.
I know there are only a couple weeks left before Nano but I'm going to try and plot as much as I can this time. Something I've discovered about myself is I can't read craft books while in the midst of writing a first draft. I start thinking more about the mechanics then the story and there goes all my creativity. I'm getting in the Nano mode so modifying my goals to concentrate totally on story planning. Less is more at this point, so everything else is sort of going out the window.
Wonderful Michelle set up a Row80 group over on the Nanowrimo forums in the writing groups: link
and I just discovered you can subscribe to threads now through rss. *grin* So cool!
Check in and see how everybody else is doing.
Again, great minds think alike...eh? Well, nevermind, that's what we're going with!
ReplyDeleteI am loving the 'what-if's' too! I've explored so many ideas, weeded through so many sub-plots, honed my original idea so much from this one little tool. I'm utilizing all her 'recommendations'. I figure I cannot praise or discount any of them until I've given them a try. I'm onto character sketches..you know, name, birth place, and such. How fun.
I think I'll be joining up this week. Are you going to join in Em and Lena's ROW/NaNo support group? I'll have a link up on Sunday. We'll have to 'keep one another going' through November!
Take care, and see you Sunday!
I wish I could write and pull something together like you're doing!
ReplyDeleteI keep hearing about this book, so I'm definitely going to have to read it.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a wonderful time with NaNo--I'll be waving pom-poms from the sidelines. :)
I hadn't even thought about pre-planning for Nano...when I did it last year.
ReplyDeleteI guess I thought about the story, though, as I seemed to hit the ground running.
I'm not doing it this year. I am still working on editing/tweaking my two WIPs...one of which was begun during Nano last year.
Thanks for visiting my blog.
I've decided to not outline for NaNo. I can't seem to keep my characters on track. They always want to run off in a different direction and most of the time, I love where they take me, so...I guess I'll fly by the seat of my pants and see what happens. Good luck to you and your novel!
ReplyDeleteI'm doing NaNo this year again too. This time I'm going into it with a rough outline, and I'll be reading "craft of fiction" books at the same time. I can't put those aside- they're piling up! lol
ReplyDeleteGood luck with NaNo and the rest of Round 4. :)