Monday, September 12, 2016

Getting Ready For Nanowrimo

For the past few years I have eagerly awaited the start of November because it is the month when I participate in Nanowrimo or NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. We as writers come together both online and in person to write, sharing our struggles and victories while we push toward the goal of writing fifty thousand word in just thirty days. I began participating because I thought that the approaching deadline would force me to simply sit down and finish a book I had been fighting with for over eight years.

Never Give Up waited patiently in the back of my mind and when I finally sat down and let it come out I began to learn so much. I learned about my characters, the setting and my true love of creating the story. I learned that I really did have the ability to do it if I was motivated and made myself stay determined. I also learned that my fear of only having one story inside and never being able to come up with anything else to share was completely unfounded.

I took the year following Never Give Up off but in 2013 I decided to try again. I was already on November 9th when I searched my files for anything to inspire me and I came across a short story I had written the previous year and decided to see if I could expand it into a full length novel. I made my word count and sent it in for verification a day before the deadline making it my second attempt and successful win. It sparked the desire to keep writing every year.

In 2013 I wrote Breathe which was another tremendous learning experience. It demonstrated to me that I may be the writer but the characters will do what they want and I will eventually bend to their will if I want the book to flow correctly. It taught me how to really listen to those in the story in order to share it properly. It was the skill I gained in listening that led to the 2014 writing of Welcome to Syn. That project started in June when I was driving home from a camping trip and a character possessed my mind telling me her entire story with such graphic and determined tone I had no choice but to sit down and write down the outline the moment I got home.

Last year in 2015 I had two different ideas I was tossing around for Nano but I settled on book one of a trilogy instead of writing the second book in the Syn series. I figured that this year I would just write book two of one series during the year and the other book two for Nano but as I sat down to look through my isn of projects I realized how much I needed to research for either choice and that there was a great deal of research that needed to be done on a dozen others. I separated those files and made lists of what I needed to look up for each book which is when it happened. All of the characters from all of those stories began speaking to me and presenting their case as to why I should tell their story this year. At the moment I have eight books speaking louder than the others and I must decide between all of them. This should be fun!

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