And with the arrival of October, the age-old question appears once again: Are you a Panster or Prepper?
For those that are new to NaNo, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and is this amazing organization that has created a movement that is getting novels out of every type of person. The goal is to write 50k words in the month of November which equals about 1667 words per day. Most finished novels, depending on genre or type, end up being anywhere between 70k and 125k, but getting 50k out in one month really does two things:
- It gets you into the HABIT of writing every single day with a goal to work towards, something many find they have success with and others find is just too stressful.
- Even if your book is going to be longer than 50k, you’ve already gotten a good chunk taken care of. As discussed in a previous post from years ago, Stephen King said that you should write your first draft within 90 days of beginning it. It allows for all that creative energy to be pushed out vs. stepping away then coming back and not knowing where to start.
For those of us who are not pansters (people who just wing it when Nov 1. rolls around) #Preptober begins.
So how do YOU prep for NaNo? I will be going through the steps of how I prep because Lord knows if I don’t have a starting place, my anxiety will go into full swing and I’ll be staring at an empty screen come the second week of Nov.
I’m currently trying to finish up a WIP before NaNoWriMo 18′ – which is why it’s the second week of #Preptober and I’m just now getting around to writing this.
So for the first round, we will start light!
Exercise: Choose a Genre
Do you already have a basic idea of what you want to write? A plot? If you do, you are already ahead of the game! But for those who just found out about NaNoWriMo and want to write but aren’t sure of what to write, I’m going to ask you to take a deep look inside yourself.
Authors always suggest that you write something that you love and that you know about. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to have lived in the genre you are thinking about. It could mean it’s the genre or story type you LOVE to read.
For me, it’s Paranormal/Urban Fantasy. I absolutely love taking the weird and spooky and writing it in a modern day world. My favorite authors who definitely have inspired me are Kim Harrison, Laurel K. Hamilton, and Patricia Briggs. Between the three, I’ve probably read about 30 books in that genre.
Due to my comfortability in that area, I tend to lean towards it.
This year I am going to try something a little different. I have a huge love for Sarah J. Maas’ books and want to travel down the road of the Fae. I haven’t decided if it’ll be New Adult or Adult – however, I have a basic idea that I’m gonna go with.
So the question is: What genre are YOU most comfortable writing?
If while going along you have anything you want me to touch on, let me know and I’ll see what I can dig up 🙂 There are also some exercises from past articles under the Writing Corner.
Jamie Provencher 