NaNoWriMo—A Two-Pronged Attack

What a great week we’ve had here at Routines for Writers. Our Guest Blogger Karen Wiesner has pumped up the excitement level for NaNoWriMo. We’ve had hundreds of readers visiting this week. I hope you all have great plans for your writing in November.

So, last year’s NaNo…I went into it with a title and two characters that I had made up the week before. That was it. Writing quickly, knowing so little about the story, was torture for me. I knew there had to be a better way!

This year, I’m going to be better prepared. I committed to NaNo earlier in the year so I could launch a two-pronged attack focusing on organization and inspiration.

1.  Organization. I kind of spilled the beans earlier this week on how I am getting organized for NaNo—using the book First Draft in 30 Days.

This means I’ve done things like spend a day on my characters and another day on my setting and research notes. I’m just following Karen’s schedule, using the worksheets as prompts, but mostly dreaming/doodling/mind-mapping. (I work best with a blank page, scribbly lines, and multicolor pens.) You can check out the daily schedule for yourself on her website here.

2. Inspiration. I’m lining up some great books to read. I get a little grumpy when I don’t have a good book on the go. I also know I’ll get tired just reading my own words in November. So, to stay on task, I’ve lined up books that relate to my NaNo WIP somehow.

I’m going to be writing a middle-grade novel that is set in 1948 New York and involves magical realism. So, I’ve dug up some novels that are either historical or contain magic elements.

One of those books is Once Upon Stilettos by Shanna Swendson. I’ve already read the first in the series, Enchanted, Inc. I only mention this because after I picked this book to add to my stack I checked out her blog and saw that she is trying to get a project finished so maybe she can do NaNo, too. (Here’s a link to her blog—scroll down to Oct 17^th for the NaNo reference.) So of course, I had to ask her to guest blog for us. She’ll be joining us on Thursday Nov 6, during the first week of NaNo.

And, lastly, I’ve got some writing books lined up. I started out with only one, but I made the mistake of reading it (sort of like buying Halloween candy too early and you end up eating it all and have to go out and buy more). They are: The Plot Thickens by Noah Lukeman, Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld, and No Plot? No Problem by Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo.

This is my untested plan for this year. I’m hoping it will help me get more words written this year; words that don’t get deleted in December. I’ll let you know how it goes.