Happy Halloween!

First of all, I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween! It’s a cold and gloomy day here, which is perfect for Halloween when you think about it. I went to a very fun Halloween party on Saturday night. I was so happy to see a very dear friend for the first time in 4 1/2 years. I didn’t know anyone else there, but everyone was super nice. They were also absolutely hilarious! I don’t remember the last time I laughed so much–it felt great. I wish I had said more, though. I’m getting better about talking to people I don’t know, but it’s still not an easy thing for me to do. I had hoped to make a new friend or two the other night. Hopefully said friend will have another party sometime and invite me so I can try it again. 😉

NaNoWriMo starts TOMORROW! I’m not ready! It’s a good thing I still have about 12 hours to do last minute planning. I’ve decided to develop the characters as I go. It’s not like I’m creating new characters since I’m basing my novel on a ballad, so I at least have something to go on there. I can plan the story as I go, too, so all hope isn’t lost if I don’t finish planning by midnight. I just hope I can hit 50,000 words. If I finish the story before I get that many words, I can always go back and find things that I can elaborate on. I’m going to try and aim for 2,000 words per day, which is doable. I had to write 4,000 (or more) each day when I was freelancing last year, which sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. I’m also an experienced writer (just not where fiction is concerned), so I know some days I’ll have an easier time of it and go over the word count goal, and other days I’ll be struggling to get 2,000 words, if I do at all. It’s just part of the game.

Planning the story has been interesting. It feels like I’m just making random things up off the top of my head. That’s exactly what I’m doing, actually, but my point is that it seems like that should be more difficult. I know there will be holes that I’ll have to go back and fill in, etc., but one of the things that has kept me from writing is that it just seemed like the story planning should be a long, painstaking process. In just the few planning sessions I’ve done, I gotten a prologue and four chapters mapped out, and I’ve got a good start on the fifth chapter. All together, I’ve probably put about 2 hours into actual planning. That seems like a lot for such a short amount of time, and I know it can’t really be that easy. Nothing is ever that easy. Maybe it’s because I’ve been kicking this idea around for at least a year and a half?

By the way, when I say “planning,” I think it must be what most refer to as “outlining.” Basically, I’m just making notes about what I want to happen in each chapter, but it’s not in formal outline form. I gave that up as a bad habit when I got out of school. I actually got points taken off of an outline once in high school because it was “too detailed.” Isn’t developing your ideas before you put them on paper a good thing? I can’t work from just a few fragmented thoughts scribbled down on paper! I need details! Even my notes for my novel are written in mostly complete sentences.

More planning to do! It’s getting down to the wire now, but I think this will be an interesting experience.

Best Laid Plans

I had every intention of planning a novel this week, so of course it has not been a good week for it.

I don’t really remember Monday. This is probably for the best.

Tuesday was a long day of Halloween costume altering and seeing friends. It was fun, though. I always enjoy seeing this particular friend, it just doesn’t happen very often.

Wednesday involved lots of sleeping. Also for the best.

Thursday found me working a full day. Yes, this is no big deal to most, but the short days that go with working part time have spoiled me.

I’m working a full day again today, but mostly I’m just holding down the fort. It’s pretty dead around here, which was probably expected since they left me unsupervised. 😉 Some novel planning may just take place today. It would be a good idea since November starts next Thursday.

As far as my idea for NaNoWriMo goes, I’m leaning toward working on my pet idea that I had wanted to wait on. No time like the present, right? I already have some research done for it, and I have a rough idea for the story. It will be based on an old Scottish ballad, so the basic story is really already worked out for me. I do need to develop the characters some, work on adding to the story, etc., though. I’ve been partial to the story for a few years now, and it deserves to be a book of its own. I can’t find any evidence of a book based on the original story, which is hard to believe. There is one part I’m not really looking forward to writing because I have no idea how to do it, but that’s where having friends who are experienced writers comes in handy.

I may not be such a lazy writer for the next few weeks.

Novel Writing Month Approaches…

I decided that I’d try to do National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo) this year. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Really. I made this decision in mid-September, thinking that I had plenty of time to get some ideas put together, work on characters, and basically have everything ready by November 1 so I could just start writing the story.

Well, it would have worked. What’s the name of the blog, again? Yeah.

It’s about 10 days until start time, and I have no plot, no characters, nothing. I have had ideas, but not any that I really think I could work with. I’ve had a background idea simmering for a while now, but I wanted to save that for later–after I had a couple of smaller things that I’m less attached to under my belt. Then I could really do this project justice. However, it is getting down to the wire now, so I may need to just go with it. I have a notebook full of background research for this idea, so I really have been serious about it off and on since sometime in mid-2011. Something to ponder this week.

Is writing this agonizing for everyone? I’m such a perfectionist that I think it keeps me from actually getting started. Even though there are erasers, Wite Out, and backspace keys, I still don’t like to make mistakes. I know NaNoWriMo is about quantity over quality and just getting a story out on paper so you’ll have something to work with, but the nitpicky editor in me tends to overpower everything else. I need to get over that; it really hinders doing anything creative or spontaneous!

This might be interesting to say the least.