Okay,… I did crash and burn for the November National Writing Month event, but I think I have a handle on why. I was rushing to get into my second novel before completing the rewrite of the 1st,… and I was trying to do it in a different way than I’m comfortable with. I don’t think I really figured out why that didn’t work out well until recently. I’ve been coming up with new ideas that I really like for the new novel just this last week, so it really helped me to know that I do best when I outline my story first.
I think I use my outline to really dig into the possibilities of the story, and then flesh it out during the actual writing process. I work best this way as my writing, in actual practice, is done in fragments of time, sometimes separated with small, and sometimes large spans of time. Given this, the outline allows me to get my bearing again when returning to the story. To remember where I’m going and the ultimate direction I want to take the story. I don’t think my stories are extremely complex, but some components need to fit together, even if my audience won’t necessarily be engaged in the nuances.
So hopefully I won’t embarrass myself again, and will have some better progress in this Camp NaNoWriMo experience this April, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to continue to work on my new Novel, “Burts Bots,” but I’ll be backing it up a bit and will start with my outline first, then when done, will take up the novel where I left off. I’ll count all the words I write for the outline and add those for the novel beyond where I left off to get towards my 30,000 word count goal.
I liked the previous year’s Camp NaNoWriMo with it’s cabin mates that you can touch base with about your progress as it’s very motivating since others are participating in your writing experience with you, and you in theirs. If you are an aspiring writer yourself, and have an idea you want to work on, I’d invite you to get on board as it starts tomorrow. Check out the website at: http://campnanowrimo.org/
So wish me luck in camp. I hope to make some good progress and have some fun in my new story. Here’s the project at hand, and where I”m starting from.
2nd Novel: Burt’s Bots
Outline: 1,283 words
1st Draft Novel: 13,367 words