Tag Archives: nanowrimo

A Few of My Favourite Things

Posted in Bookish, Geeky by

It’s December! I can’t believe it but it’s true. It seems that times speeds up, relative to the responsibilities on your plate. So here we are, the first day of December and I had a wacky thought – what if, for every day this month, I write a post about one thing that I love? I don’t know if I can REALLY do 31 posts, but I can try, so here goes!

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Winner-2014-Web-Banner

Coming off of November the one thing on my mind is NaNoWriMo! I won again this year and I’m SO HAPPY about that! I wasn’t planning on doing it and I didn’t really have an idea, but October came around and I felt like I wanted to try it again, so I took a story that was sort of flowing in my head for a while now, and decided to write it down.

Last year I wrote a little about my process (or lack thereof). A few things remained the same from last year, but this year I realized that I can plot – given the right tools.

In October I bought an app called Index Card. It’s a really great app that lets you brainstorm and plot your ideas on a cork board. It’s very flexible and doesn’t force you to work in a certain template so I was able to create my own flow and stacks without feeling boxed in. The best part was, since it was on my iPad I could carry it around with me and work with it on my commute without carrying around a big bag.

For the actual writing I used Scrivener. I first hear of the app from Justine Larbalestier, who posted about using it to write Liar (a really great book if you love unreliable narrators). Around that time I downloaded a trial version of the program and tried it out, it was a nice app, but I wasn’t writing anything at that moment so I forgot about it. That is, until last year when a friend of mine mentioned Scrivener to me for NaNoWriMo and I decided to give it another go. I bought the full version, imported my Word document and never looked back.

I absolutely LOVE Scrivener. I know that there are other apps out there that work similarly, but I appreciate that Scrivener has a lot of heavy-duty tools but still allows you the simplicity of just writing and ignoring the bells and whistles until you are ready.

I used the Index card as a guideline and then translated those cards to Scrivener where I fleshed out the story. If writing is something you love doing, I strongly suggest checking them out to see if they work for you!

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On repeat: Sleigh Bells by Fun.

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Five Things (13)

Posted in Bookish by

This is a different sort of five things … these five things are all about NaNoWriMo!

2013-Winner-Facebook-Cover

I don’t remember when I heard about NaNoWriMo, but according to my page I’ve been a member for about 5 years, so I imagine it was 5 NaNoWriMos ago.

Last year I decided that I was going to be a participant for the first time. I started off really well, my idea made me excited which was great, but then around day 13, with almost six thousand words written, I lost steam. This year, when I decided that I would do NaNoWriMo again I wanted to try to learn from my mistake from last time and do better. Now that I have completed my 50,000 words goal, I can say that I’ve learned a lot about what I thought my writing style was and what my style actually is, and I have to say that I’m a little surprised!

So, here are five things that I learnt while doing NaNoWriMo:

  1. I’m not a plotter. I have ideas, and most of them are half baked. I know how I want something to start, and I have a general idea about how I want something to end, but I don’t necessarily have a clue as to what happens in the middle of these things and I realized that it’s OK. Last year I tried to map the story out beforehand, this year I decided to write whatever came to mind and I found more inspiration when I allowed myself to have more freedom.
  2. Last year I tried to make my characters do what I wanted them to do and a lot of times that meant that I didn’t know what they wanted. I know it sounds strange, but this year I let them do whatever they wanted to do and sometimes they surprised me. Now before you check me into a mental institute, I think the idea here is the same as above, letting the story flow as opposed to controlling the story actually works better for me.
  3. The rule of absolutely NO editing was important in helping me move forward. There are people who can go back through their NaNoWriMo manuscript in November and move things around and add and remove things and still finish on time. I am not one of those people. When I do that the perfectionist in me takes over and I want to make the piece I’m editing perfect and that slows me down.
    There were times in this manuscript when I was cringing at my dialogue because I thought it was too cheesy or awkward and I had to stop myself from going back and re-writing large amounts of texts because, in the end, NaNoWriMo is about writing and meeting a goal, I would have 11 months to edit, to update dialogue and fix inconsistencies.
  4. I needed to talk to people about my story and what I’m doing. It was easy for me to keep last year’s project quiet. I don’t usually talk to people about my creative endeavors. I did tell a couple of writers what I was trying to do and they were encouraging but this year I went big. I told almost everyone I could whenever it came up in conversation. “So what have you been up to?” “Well, I’m attempting to write a novel in 30 days.” I found that this actually helped me. The more people I told the more real the task became until I knew that I would disappoint myself if I didn’t complete it.
  5. This year I wanted to finish it because I wanted to finish. I know that sounds strange but I’ve attempted to write down stories many times, but I never finished them. This year I decided that I wanted to finish something so that I can show myself that I can write a first draft – even if it never sees the light of day.

I think the most important thing I learnt throughout this exercise was that writing makes me happy. It was stressful, I spent a lot of time doing it but never once did I regret it, writing always brought me joy.  

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Random Things When I Should Be Writing

Posted in Bookish by

I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo, this is my second attempt. The first time I tried to do it was last year. I thought I had a pretty good idea, but I didn’t make it past 5,844 words and I stopped writing on day 13, mostly because I wasn’t motivated, nor did I have any sort of accountability.

This year I’ve told a lot of my friends what I’ve been doing – though I haven’t divulged the plot, just a basic overview – and I think that was pretty helpful motivation for me. I feel like someone might ask and I’d feel disappointed in myself if I can’t tell them that I tried my best. Right now I’m 10 days in and have written 13,635 words. I’m pretty proud of myself, and to be honest, if I quit right now I’ll still be proud of myself – but that’s not my goal, my goal is to write until I can’t anymore.

bitme

One thing that has been fun for me has been a daily Bitstrip that talks about my feelings towards my novel and shares my word count. I think Bitstrip is cool – wish they had more writerly strips, but I make do! Doing this daily helps me to be creative in a different way.

I find that taking my mind off novel writing and doing something fun and creative is helpful. I also find that I do my best bit of writing before bed and as soon as I wake up in the morning. Usually that’s all I need to bump up my word count for the day. Sometimes I do write on my commute, but mostly I play The Sims, where I make up a completely different story. (heh).

This weekend someone asked me about my progress and I was explaining how I’m a bit anxious with the way the story was going, but that writing it brings me a lot of joy, and I was surprised at how absolutely correct that phrase was. As soon as it came out of my mouth I realized that there was more truth in it than I originally meant. It’s not just NaNoWriMo that has brought me joy, but journaling and blogging as well. Writing things down, reading them, pondering them, I really love and enjoy it. This realization really energizes me and make me want to write more! Watch out November, I might just finish a novel before you end!

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