NaNoWriMo time

With a goal of writing regularly instead of word counts I decided to try national novel writing month (NaNoWriMo) this year. I even made a little habit tracker in my new bullet journal. 

Some days have had more words than others. But I've written every day so far. Some writing has been over lunch breaks. Some has been in the evenings after younger kiddo has fallen asleep. 

Writing Wednesday: Nanowrimo idea

I do still want to post about writing and I'm currently in the process of figuring out the balance of what to post when. Writing sounds good on this day of the week because alliteration is fun. Not that every topic has to match, it just created a starting point.

With baby on the way I'm planning on getting in what writing time I can now and seeing how things go once she's here. To that end I've decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo / NaNo) this November. I had a glimmer of an idea a few months back which merged with an old short story idea from a few years ago.

My idea is still rough hopefully I can get it to a workable state soon. Ideally I'd like to have an outline ready to go. I'm writing science fiction this year. The basic idea of the story is a less advanced society living in the shadows/ruins of a previous society that was more technological. Right now I'm trying to figure out why the first society left and making sure the reason still leaves room for the current society.

And yes I know it's Thursday. I started this post yesterday over lunch and decided to still run with the title.

Blogfest wrap-up: I had fun at the Labor Day blogfest and am still planning on visiting everyone who stopped by here. These past two weeks have gotten away from me.

Post Nano and Into December

I won Nano (National Novel Writing Month), crossing the 50k finish line on the 29th of the month (yay!). I  had been behind most of the month using my Thanksgiving break to catch up. I wrote over 20k for said break. Well having Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off from work helped.

That being said I decided at the start of this month to finish the draft by year end. As of yet I have not touched the actual draft. My plan was to finish a note card outline then jump into the writing. Last week I wrapped up most of the rest of the story on my note cards so I think I am just going to start writing tomorrow.

So how did Nano go for those who participated ? Or writing in general?

Nanowrimo in progress

Well it is now day 10 for Nano and I just crossed the 10k mark. I've been behind the whole month so far, but not to bad. I wrote 5k on Sunday which helped. While I try to get in a few words here and there I generally like to have large chunks of time to just write. Sunday was wonderful, even with the push to make up some of the ground.

I had been dragging for awhile with the writing and once I figured things out I've had an easier (and more fun) time of it. I spent some time Saturday and Sunday morning thinking about my novel. I came to the realization that I needed to think about my characters' motives better. My novel started with more of a plot idea than a character and until I moved more towards the characters it was a struggle to write. I switched out some characters that were there for the sake of plot and added some characters with some things they want. Some of the new characters are plot related, but more so in the way that what they want conflicts with other character's wants/goals.

I also spent some time Sunday morning creating a flow chart of my major characters. Each character has their own square, then I connected them with arrows. The arrows I color coded to show if one character liked, disliked, or was more neutral about the other character. Some arrows I made double ended to show that both characters felt the same about each other. Others have single arrows, one in each direction with different colors. It really made me think about the various characters as I took each character in turn and though about how they felt about the other characters. Plus to the pairs where the characters feel differently about each other can make for some good conflict points in the novel. Aside from just the mutual dislike.

So, to those also participating in Nano how are you doing? Catching up, right on goal, worked in a nice cushion?
And for those not doing Nano, how's the current work in progress going?