Boo! Did I scare you? Probably not. Do you know what is scary? National Novel Writing Month starts tomorrow. Thirty days of writing at least 1,667 words a day is upon me, and I couldn’t be more freaked out about it.
I’ve participated the last few years (and won!), so what makes this year so different? Too many projects! Last year, I had finished up the beta draft of Pieces of it All, and the manuscript was nowhere in sight as I had sent it off to the beta readers. I wrote 50K on The Road, which I will be rewriting again next year, I think. Over the next few months, I polished and released Pieces of it All. Since then, I wrote Caching In, due out 12/11/14, and two short stories. I also am working on a short story for an anthology. My plan is to write another book focuses on a character from Caching In. However, Caching In is due to Amazon by 12/1, so I need to be focused first on getting the final edits done on that. Edits first, NaNo second.
So, what’s my plan?
Well, I’m a pantser. What’s that, you ask? I write by the seat of my pants. I don’t go in with an outline, only an idea. This year, I tried something different – beats. Beats are a basic outline, but just a few lines about each chapter. My goal is to write 30 chapters of at least 1,667 each. My hope is by following this process, I can reach my 50K. I will not only be working on the book, but a short story, so my goal is 50K combined with these two. I may end up writing about a pet monkey who tap dances at the sound of Justin Timberlake, but dammit, I plan on getting those 50K words. I can edit that monkey out eventually.
I also will be subscribing to Mur Lafferty’s National Novel Writing Month mini podcasts. A little advice from Mur can get me writing. Check it out here: http://www.patreon.com/mightymur
Are you participating in #NaNoWriMo this year? What’s your process? How do you plan on finishing?
Happy writing!
And not to forget it’s HALLOWEEN! So please head over to Amazon and pick up my short Halloween romance, The Right Equation, for 99 cents!