Happy Halloween!
Today's forecast showing snow later in the week!
Today is October 31. Over the past few weeks we have done a bunch of work out in the backyard, getting things ready for winter. The patio furniture is all tucked away, either in the shed or stashed under the gazebo where it should be protected for the winter. The greenhouse is stuffed full of plants and the heaters are chugging away keeping everything warm. The pool is winterized and dozing beneath its heavy blue cover. The forecast calls for possible snow, even here in the valley, by the end of the week.
This also means that the start of NaNoWriMo is just one day away!
Yikes!
Did I really say I was going to do NaNoWriMo this year?
Am I ready?
I’ve made a few notes and done a little brainstorming.
Here is an example of a mind map I created a while ago while brainstorming:
Brainstorming
I started out with a few key ideas for the story and just jotted down everything I thought of from that…looking over it now, I’m not sure how useful these ideas will be for the actual plot.
I still haven’t settled on a name for my main character, although I do have a few ideas in mind. I’ll need to just pick one and plan on doing a big find/replace later.
I’ve also set up a project in Scrivener, which is the software I’m using to plan and write my novel. I’ve been using Scrivener to plan and write some of my longer blog posts and it is great for organizing thoughts. You can chunk up the writing into small topics and rearrange them using a corkboard view.
It also has a spot for storing research and ideas, so over the last month I’ve been adding my ideas in as they come up, so they’re all in one place when it is time to write.
I like sometimes writing by hand (even though I have awful handwriting), so I also scan my handwritten notes into the computer and drag them into the Scrivener project as well.
Project Targets
It also has a nifty “targets” feature, which I’ve already set up with a target of 50,000 words by the end of November. This automatically calculates the number of words I need to write per day to make the goal.
That’s about it on my current progress. Tomorrow I actually need to sit down and start writing and see what happens!
