As a reminder: One of the things I’m doing to get ready for NaNoWriMo is re-reading my novel to this point. That’s 66,000 words of pure, uncutedited garbage.
And woof. I put a bunch of foreshadowing in the front of this book that I had (in)conveniently forgotten about. I’m excited to get into the part of the book now that I’m in, because there’s a lot of stuff in the beginning that is leading up to this. And now I know how to end the scene I am currently writing. And probably have enough info to figure out how to write the next scene, instead of just pants-ing! Huzzah!
One of my writing friends asked in a Discord server what people usually do to prepare for NaNoWriMo. And I started thinking about it — because the last couple times I’ve done this whole novel-writing-month thing, I haven’t really done a lot of preparation. Just told myself “Oh, yeah, I’m fine, 2k words a day is cake. Whatever, I won’t sweat it.” Which, as we all know, is complete and hubristic trash.
I’m hoping that this year, I have a little more motivation to get through it — not just because I’ve been talking about it here on this blog for a month, but also because I have more material to work with. This is the book I’ve been trying to write my entire life. I need to finish it.
Lately, I’ve been scheduling creative time. I sit down to my computer three evenings a week (well, I get up from working my day job, crack a beer, and sit back down in the same seat) (it’s . . . the same desk I use for work, just a different computer; I promise, it works) and make myself do it, no matter how it feels. I think it’s key to solidify that routine and make sure my brain knows that THIS TIME IS CREATIVE TIME — for me anyway.
So in terms of what kinds of preparation I’m doing — carving out this routine is at the top of the list. Then the re-reading and the outlining — you’ll hear more about that later this week.
I’m actually itching to get started, but I don’t want to burn myself out too quickly.
Excited to fill this white board with NaNo-related checkmarks.
Liz Makes Stuff 