Hello, writers. NaNoWriMo, the challenge to write 50,000 words in the month of November, loometh again. Any takers?
NaNoWriMo can be helpful in learning one’s process. That’s one of the things nobody can teach you about writing—how you get from the blank page to the publishable manuscript. Which is different from how I do it, or how the authors of your favorite how-to-write books do it.
Learning your process is a process.
I did NaNoWriMo one-and-a-half times—the second time being interrupted by family emergencies—and don’t think I’ll do it again. It’s not how I write. But I’m glad I did it. I learned a lot, and got an eventually-publishable manuscript out of it. I think everyone should do it once.
Things I’ve tried that turned out not to be my process, but might be yours:
-Writing a biography of each character.
-Answering fifty questions about each character.
-Planning everything out meticulously, scene-by-scene
-Planning nothing, and just winging it.
Things that are part of my process, and might or might not work for you:
-Drawing pictures of my characters.
-Mindmapping the plot and/or putting plot points up on the wall on index cards and moving them around.
-Writing 2000 words a day during the drafting stage, although sometimes those words are along the lines of He hurried up the stairs and why the hell did he do that? Does that make any sense at all? No it does not. This is drivel. This is getting you nowhere.
-Reworking the plot (with more mindmapping) after the third or fourth draft.
-Doing hundreds of drafts.
Here are a few tools of the trade that, over the years, I’ve learned I can’t do without:
-Binders! But full of manuscripts. I get ‘em for 25 cents at garage sales. I usually print out the third draft and put it in a binder. It’s the earliest draft suitable for other people to read, though still drastically different from the finished product.
-Different colored ballpoint pens. To save paper, I mark up the same manuscript in a different color with each draft.
-Different colored Sharpies. These are useful for plotting—index cards and mindmapping.
-Tape flags. When I get a stubborn plot point, a tape flag in the manuscript reminds me to keep coming back to it.
-Post-its. Self-explanatory, right? Post-its are just about the only (non-medical) invention of the last 50 years that we actually needed. (IMHO.)
What about you? What tools do you find indispensable to your process?
Tonight’s challenge is unrelated to the above.
A Callow Youth and his/her Stout Companion, having fled the dread least grebe and escaped the Bad-Ass Magician of Dwoggle, must cross the sea to reach the land where the long-lost Jewel of Togwogmag is hidden.
They reach the shore at night. The Callow Youth has never seen/smelled/tasted the ocean before. Describe their arrival at the quayside and his/her reaction to the place, but…
(and this is the challengey part)
…use no more than two adjectives and no more than one adverb.
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