Let's Get Writing Again.
Welcome to October! Welcome to autumn! Ring in the new season! Ding ding, bitches!
My new computer!
Revision Month went off without a hitch so let’s give a big round of applause for ME, who went so hard I pinched a nerve in my back and was completely out of commission for the first 3 days of October. Literally, I finished that revision on Sept 30th and my body said, “I’m out,” and left me a broken shell of a person. I’m on the mend now.
My gifts to myself for finishing my Revision Month:
a deep tissue massage at my favorite spa
a new computer rig with gamer keyboard and mouse and camera
a fall refresher for my wardrobe
So besides my back going the way of the dinosaur, I’m pretty content. As we leave the revised manuscript and wait for my agent to read it, what do we do in the meantime? Well, get ready for Nano, of course… for those of you who don’t know, Nano is short for Nanowrimo which is short for National Novel Writing Month which is an event in November where you write 50k words of a novel in 30 days. It’s fun, it’s stressful, I’ve completed it 3 times! This upcoming one will be my 4th.
To prepare for such an undertaking, I usually take all of October to plan something out.
What do I need to plan? Lots of things. Let’s list them:
a fresh notebook
music relative to my upcoming project
specialty coffee
a comfortable writing environment (hence me setting up my new space)
I have all these things! The key to planning a whole new novel in a month is just to really relax into it. I don’t write while I’m planning; in fact, I give my poor abused fingers a break. I don’t put much pressure on myself to actively have an idea. Instead I put myself in situations where I’m not thinking about anything too hard. The ideas come racing out of the ether and smack you right in the head.
For example, last night I was just sitting around like a bump on a pickle with my fresh notebook nearby and jotted down nearly a whole page of plot happenings along with some things about my main character. In this stage, what comes comes. I don’t talk much about the plot or the summary of it at this point, to anyone. It’s like bad luck almost, like telling someone you’re pregnant before the first trimester has ended. I keep it to myself and don’t feel any pressure to stick to one idea just because I’ve said it aloud.
As we get closer to November, I’ll post more tips and tricks on planning! Keep in mind that I am a planner, and there exist people in the world who like to go into November with no plan whatsoever and just write whatever comes to mind.
I don’t advise this for a myriad of reasons: accelerating into a wall, incoherency, it’s particularly stressful, etc…
But hey, do whatever the fuck you wanna do. :D
