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Welcome to my blog! I'm planning to use it for logging: bits and pieces of stories: writing exercises that turned out well, story ideas, ... links to other items I recommend reading on writing.com, and why I like them short articles, notes, and information about specific topics results of polls and surveys I created my goals for the year more about who I am, my values, my interests links to authors I like and why I like them anecdotes anything else that I think may interest other authors, my family, and my friends Feel free to give me your comments! I want this blog to be interactive as much as possible. Come visit often! |
I'm entering NaNoWriMo for the first time next month. The idea of writing a whole 50,000-word novel in 30 days seemed daunting at first, but as I'm preparing for the challenge, I actually think it's feasible! I spent the last few months outlining my novel (which is something I normally don't do - I just write and see where it leads me), learning a lot about plot, character arc, and Scrivener, and testing the waters by writing something - anything - just to get back into writing. Today, I tested how many words I could write in one hour. Even with a few interruptions, I wrote some ramblings related to my novel, anything that came to mind, and I came up with 1,845 words. If I write at the same speed, one hour a day for 30 days, I can actually accomplish the challenge. It was also my first time using Scrivener (aside from outlining), and I'm really starting to love the software. I did the tutorial earlier this month, which I'm glad I did before the challenge. I didn't want to get distracted with technicalities while writing my novel. For outlining, I recently discovered the Save the Cat! Beat Sheet. I came across that outlining method when I took the NaNoWriMo 101 free class. I'm also learning about the Hero's Journey method, with many popular movies cited as examples for each part. Both methods are somewhat similar, and I realize that many popular movies and novels actually follow a clear formula. Now I'm watching movies I'm familiar with and noticing each part described, from the Call to Adventure, when there is a time of hesitation before setting on the adventure, to the Midpoint, when the protagonist has an a-ha moment that will help resolve the problem and come up with a plan, to the Climax and Resolution, with many other stages in between. It amazes me that all the movies I like the most are following this same formula. It gives me hope that I can learn it too, and write a novel worth reading. For those of you who participated in NaNo before, do you have any tips or something you wish someone had told you before you started the challenge? |