Hay look I made a icon. <.<;; It's cheesy and terrible but ah well, at least I actually have something which features my novel title for a change. (If anyone has better "slogan" ideas btw please lmk :P I am really not so fond of that pun.) The title's likely to change later anyway, so maybe it makes sense to have a crappy icon I'll be deathly sick of for a temporary holding spot.
Anywho, besides sketching iffy icons, I've got piles of notes on my story world... and piles and piles of notes for possible things to add, which have been slowly accumulating over the last couple of years. (I figure it'll be good if...or WHEN...I get stuck for things to write come this November. I'll just yoink random things from my note files, no problem, right? Right. >.> ) And character sketches and color guides, though not so many as I'd like... I was intending to get a lot more work done beforehand, honest, but I'm never quite far along enough before NaNo comes looming once more in my sights. Now the plan is that I'm going to write a descriptive world introduction very vaguely in the style of "Spindle's End" sometime this week and then call it good to go.
What is everyone else doing to prepare for November? This is the most background and character work I've tried to do yet for a NaNo, and I know you're not "supposed" to have too much since you'll then get too attached but this, I hope, may be the right tack to take for me personally. Still trying to find that "perfect" balance of preplanning and spontaneity. I really, really hope it won't end in my "needing" an outline for future years 'cause I haaaaate outlines...they're very not-intuitive, and I can never manage to get one that satisfies me when it comes to fiction, particularly *before* the book is written.
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"As G.K. Chesteron said of fairy tales, the important thing about stories like that is not that they tell us dragons are real, it's that they tell us dragons can be slain."
-- Ursula Vernon
60,966 / 50,000
Okt 25, 2009 - 19 22
I tried spontaneity the last couple of years. Squeaking out 50k isn't what I aim to do this year, so I'm planning and plotting until the novel is pretty much ready to be written down through November.
I do believe it is about finding that balance that works for you personally. Writing isn't an exact science (though sometimes I wish it was...) and we're all in the same boat, with this one.
----------3,741 / 50,000
Okt 26, 2009 - 19 41
Not aiming for 50k?! Sacrilege! ;) What exactly *are* you up to this NaNo, then?
I also forgot to mention that I went and counted chapters and words, calculated averages, and got ahold of a spreadsheet to stuff them in. I haven't tried a spreadsheet for NaNoWriMo before although I did snag one for last year's NaNoFiMo... they do seem to be a very good motivational tool, especially given those sparkly colorful graphs, haha. Guesstimating a 50k novel will be a little under 35 scenes/chapters long.
----------"As G.K. Chesteron said of fairy tales, the important thing about stories like that is not that they tell us dragons are real, it's that they tell us dragons can be slain."
-- Ursula Vernon
102,837 / 50,000
Okt 27, 2009 - 22 28
For one novel, I have 80 pages of scrapped rough draft.
For the second novel, I have an idea.
For the third novel, I have nothing.
Usually, I don't do much planning. I find it goes best if I have a couple of characters sketched out on a couple pieces of paper.
Last year, I restarted on the third or fourth day with nothing more than an idea sparked from something my creative writing professor said.
----------Thirteen Deaths At Knife Point: A mix of lovestruck, poetic prose and paranoia-induced, bloody visions.
Cluttered Noises: Experimental Modernism.
60,966 / 50,000
Okt 28, 2009 - 07 29
Somewhere between 100k and 200k depending on how my two novels behave. :)
----------3,741 / 50,000
Okt 30, 2009 - 15 11
You overachievers frighten me, especially since I'm too lame to have managed a mere 50k in a November, lol.
Actually, it's pretty cool to see people taking the "official" rules and making them into their own. Very in the NaNo spirit :)
I am going to get my prepwork done tonight. Really! <.<;;
----------Edit: And did :D Woot. ...Finally. >.>;;; Now to see if I can get another character doodle or name or two done... er...in-between packing for the trip. :X *thinks this is as good as it's gonna get*
"As G.K. Chesteron said of fairy tales, the important thing about stories like that is not that they tell us dragons are real, it's that they tell us dragons can be slain."
-- Ursula Vernon