It’s Halloween. I’m tired, but I haven’t posted anything in a while, so I thought I’d mention my NaNo 2019 project, book 2:
I’ve already got a pretty good start on this thing. I took a week off in October and drove to my mom’s house to be alone (or at least sans children) and write. I spent two days plotting (that’s a first!) and tearing my hair out, but I managed to start.
I’m currently at 36,591 words. To give you an idea, book 1 is 127k. My goal is to get a completed rough draft of around 100k by the end of December.
My first drafts tend to be lean. I start with straight dialogue and work out from there. It’s good to have critique partners who can point out when I’ve got white room syndrome or need to dig down on those emotions, but I’m getting better at that through practice–it just doesn’t always show up in the first draft. I’ll do another post soon about my drafting process.
For NaNo, I just want to get as much done as possible. I’ve already got a pretty solid writing schedule, so it probably won’t increase my output by much, but it’s an excellent excuse to get out of the house and meet other local writers. If you haven’t checked out the NaNo activities in your area, I highly recommend it. Last year in Sacramento they had a lot of free workshops.
I will probably switch my blog schedule to biweekly. I was trying to get something posted every Monday, but when blogging cuts into novel-writing time, that’s not good. I want to get books 1-3 finished as quickly as possible.
Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.
