NaNoWriMo 2013!, It's that time of year again! Options

[Colonel Mustard]

The time is upon us! The challenge of writing 50,000 words in one month, of penning 1600 words every day, has come! Loin your girds, prepare your preferred writing implement, sacrifice a goat to the Mighty Grash'Haggurack, cry havoc and let slip the dogs of writing!



Drama aside, is anybody giving NaNo a try this year? Having now loined my girds, prepared my preferred writing implement and sacrificed a goat to the Might Grash'Haggurack, I will be taking part in a kind of tangential way; I'm using it to spur me into finishing a current novel project that I've been working on for a while.

Does anyone else have any NaNo plans/ambitions? Any works they're working on at all? If so, I'm making this the thread for exchanging ideas, giving encouragement and swapping goat sacrifice tips. Because we all know that if we don't then the Mighty Grash'Haggurack will be otherwise displeased and shall rise to consume the world in madness and hellfire.

[Grits]

That's great, haute! I have a section coming up that has no outline other than the end result of the main characters still being alive, and there are new characters to introduce. I'm pretty excited about it. It's been very productive to throw caution to the wind and just go for it.

My main issue with NaNo is that it's in November! Busiest month of my year with December a close second. This would be MUCH more fun in February! Ah well.

[haute ecole rider]

I have a section coming up that has no outline other than the end result of the main characters still being alive, and there are new characters to introduce. I'm pretty excited about it. It's been very productive to throw caution to the wind and just go for it.

Ain't that the truth? I've always been a pantster writer - I would start a story with a specific scene in mind and just write my way to that scene, then write the crap out of it.

It was difficult at first, years ago. But now I'm better at it. I start by evaluating the scene - what is going on here? Where is it taking place? What is the time/historical era? Then I move on to asking who are the characters here? How did they get here, and why are they here? What motivates them? Why? By asking these questions, and constantly asking questions (one leads to another, and so on), I develop the story in my head. But I generally get nowhere unless my characters are talking to me. And usually they start talking to me when I pepper them with questions. Sometimes I feel like Detective Frank Pembleton!