As NaNoWriMo progresses, I’ve been spiraling down into a pit of doubt and self-loathing.
This story is garbage!
My writing style is horrible!
Why would anyone want to read this?
But today, I found a gem that uplifted my spirits. I hope it helps you, too.
For all intents and purposes, I am now unemployed. While that brings me a ton of things to worry about, it does have an upside: I have tons of time for NaNoWriMo.
Today marks the start of National Novel Writing Month. I’m not here to defend or criticize the activity. Instead, I’m going to share about how I intend to keep myself writing everyday and meet the 50k goal by November 30.
Since I’m technically unemployed, I have a ton of free time. Without the proper mindset, I know I will just end up browsing Reddit all day and ultimately accomplish nothing.
Therefore, NaNoWriMo will be my day job. This will give me between 6-8 hours every day to write my story. Even if I write only 200-300 words per hour, that’ll be enough to reach the daily goal of 1,667 words.
Sometime in the future, I’ll probably write a full post on the Pomodoro Technique. For now, I’ll provide a brief overview.
The Pomodoro Technique basically entails an alternation between working and resting. The technique suggests working for 25 minutes then resting for 5 minutes. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
Personally, I try to stick to a 15-work/5-rest ratio because my attention span has been destroyed by the internet.
During October, I worked and completed an outline (more of a beat sheet) and I will be using that as a guideline for NaNoWriMo.
The great thing about a prepared outline or beat sheet is that I can jump around and write scenes out of order if I find myself blocked.
If you hadn’t noticed, I am an outliner. Pantsing is disgusting.
Last week, after fighting against the urge to toss out all of my archived shorts, I decided to edit and finalize my story, Strapped.
Strapped is a suspense-thriller–mostly suspense–that focuses on Jeremy Mills, a man who wakes up strapped to a bed. He’s held hostage by an insane man who calls himself Mr. Foot.
You can find it on Kindle as well as Smashwords. It’s FREE on Smashwords, but $0.99 on Kindle until they change the price to match the FREE.
Smashwords Link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/97997
Kindle Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005XQBF9G
If you enjoy it, please rate it! Otherwise, if you have criticisms, I’d love to hear them. I’m always looking for ways to improve my writing.
This year’s NaNoWriMo has me shaking in my boots. Around this time of the year, I question my abilities as a writer. Do I have what it takes to finish? Is this all just a delusional dream? Have I even the potential to be a good writer?
For one thing, I need to cut back on the grimy cliches. Like boot shaking.
There’s less than a month to go and I’m scared and nervous and intimidated and second-guessing and self-doubting and… Whoa. Take it one step at a time.
If you feel the same way going into NaNoWriMo, rest assured that you’re not alone. But with that said, you need to take a step back and break it down into smaller, more manageable steps. You don’t want to go crazy and give up, right?
Okay, then. What’s the first step in planning for your NaNoWriMo story? There are a ton of steps that can be “first,” but really it depends on the writer. You could start with…
You can start your story any way that you want. For me? I’m starting my NaNoWriMo story preparation with a concept.
One particular concept has been bouncing around in my mind for a long while now. This concept? Alchemy.
What do I mean by alchemy? The mixing of herbs and other organic materials — which have magical properties — in order to produce potions with magical effects. I call it “alchemy” because the story falls into the Fantasy genre. But if you boil it down, it’s really nothing more than simplified pharmacology.
This concept of alchemy has been clawing at the back of my brain ever since last year’s NaNoWriMo, but I’ve yet to build a satisfying story around it. After thinking on it for a while, I realized that I don’t want to take the traditional route of Fantasy where the system of magic is just a way to frame a story.
I want alchemy to be more than a supplementary plot device — I want it to be central to the plot.
Concepts can be a great place to start, but a concept will not stand on its own. In other words, every story needs some form of conflict. In order for my alchemy concept to work, I need to find the intersection between the concept itself and the possible areas of conflict that arise from the concept.
To do this, I analyzed my proposed system of alchemy — which is essentially nothing more than potion brewing — and looked for sources of conflict:
For this NaNoWriMo project, I’m going to go with the last choice. I’m sure there are other types of conflict available, but I stopped brainstorming because I love where this one goes.
Alchemy is a system of magic. From this system of magic, a number of potions can be made, and these potions could have a ton of different effects: invisibility, physical enhancement, mental enhancement, appearance shifting, etc.
This system is simple, but it is also easily abused. Can you imagine a world where everyone can pop an invisibility potion? What about steroid-like potions that make you 5x stronger? Love potions? Death potions? Like prescription drugs in modern society, alchemical potions can have awesome effects — but they can’t be freely available.
This means that alchemy will need to be heavily regulated. If alchemy is regulated, then those regulations need to be enforced. Therefore, there will need to be an organization that works to enforce those regulations.
When a product is in high demand (e.g., alchemical potions) and supply is artificially limited (e.g., regulations), then there is an inevitable result: black market.
And that’s how I arrived at my working concept: An alchemist who is hired by a black market supplier to produce illegal potions.
Keep in mind that this is just a concept statement. It is NOT a story. The story comes later when an actual, specific conflict has been defined with all the bells and whistles of plot points, pinch points, etc. For now, this is the concept and I’m very excited to see where it takes me.
Do you begin your stories by focusing on concept? If not, how do you start your stories?
For anyone who doesn’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month — between November 1 and 30, the goal is simply to write 50,000 words of a single story. You cannot begin writing your story prior to November 1, but planning and outlining and organizing the story is acceptable, even encouraged.
Larry Brooks over at StoryFix recommends spending the month of October to plan for November’s NaNoWriMo. His belief is that NaNoWriMo’s goal of 50,000 words shouldn’t be the final goal of it all. Instead, those 50,000 words should work towards something: a final story that can be tweaked and revised into something publishable.
I agree with him. While 50,000 words is impressive for someone who has never written as much, it would be even more impressive if those 50,000 words were meaningful at the end of November.
For the month of October, I will be planning and outlining my novel for this year’s NaNoWriMo. I’ll keep this blog updated when I hit notable milestones along the way. I’m just an unpublished author-wannabe, but if giving insight to my writing process ends up helping you out in some way, all the better.
Jeremy Mills wakes up and finds himself held hostage by an insane man who calls himself Mr. Foot.
Evelyn, a high school student, involves herself with the Devil's Club and unknowingly gets caught up in occult magic. Will she survive it?