Phase II

Finally finished going through the parts I'd already written and on to phase II of the planning stage.  That would be answering the questions I asked myself about each part of the novel.  I make something like a worksheet for this.  I included a quick summary of the scene/chapter/section and pinpoint problems with it, things to avoid when writing it, and of course I ask myself questions.  Like "How does she feel about ______?" and "How does she react to _______?" and "Why doesn't he ask her about _______?"  This helps me to figure out what I need to accomplish in the scene.

The worksheet looks like this:

and is about thirty pages long.  (I don't half-ass anything when it comes to the novels.)


Before I attempt this, however, I've got a scene I probably need to get down before I forget it. I'm not even sure if I'll use it in the finished product, but that's why I need to write it.  If it looks like it'll work it'll go in.  If it looks like it'll suck or drag the story, it will be unceremoniously flushed.

It's a brutal business.

Nanowrimo

I attempted nanowrimo last year and failed miserably, clocking in barely 2000 words.  Somewhere around the second week, I decided that I'm not meant to write 50,000 words in a month because I'm deliberate (I refuse to concede that I'm slow).  But that excuse seems rather pale, so I figured I might as well give it another shot.

This year, instead of forcing myself to work on the novel I feel like I should work on, I'm working on the one I want to work on.  The one I keep getting ideas for even though it's kind of more of a silly/fun thing.  And I'll be more prepared this time.  I have one big Circa notebook dedicated to this.  I put notes, worksheets, and existing parts in the notebook along with plenty of clean paper.  At the moment, I'm reading over the parts I've written and making notes on them.  Next, I'll be supplying myself with a few visual aids to help out.  The main things will be floor plans for all of the important rooms and homes, etc.  For some reason with this one, I'm having a really hard time visualizing the settings.  Hopefully this will help.

Right now everything is looking like this:

and this:

In any case, kids, Happy Nano.

For once I'm going to attempt to document this process just because... well... I'm not sure why.  Just seems like the thing to do.