Trying Outlines ... Again

Speaking of trying again, a few things you may not have previously known about me: 

• I don't write in chronological order. 
• I don't outline until I'm done with the book. 
• I don't write chapters at a time. 
• I don't know how long my books going to be until it's written.

I really shouldn't have ever said "don't" because . . .

I just finished a pretty extensive outline on my current wip that I'm only about 1/3 of the way through. This is a written-down-on-paper-with-enough-detail-I-don't-have-to-try-to-remember-everything-in-my-head outline. I tried this before once. The outline was more one wordish and I had no idea what I was thinking when I wrote it. I don't think it was supposed to be an outlined story.

From a pantser trying to write from an outline, I'm curious, have you tried going against your norm? Are you an outliner who's tried writing from the hip? Are you a pantser who's outlined your latest wip? How's it going?

Tuesday: Travel

I'm on the road again this week (Baltimore, MD), traveling with work. Work travel is a good thing and a bad thing, I think. Some of my buddies tell me I travel a lot.

Honestly, I don't travel as much as some of the people I work with, but it is enough for my kidlets to notice how often I'm gone. That part makes me sad, but sometimes you have a sacrifice a little for the experiences you gain out of it. Aside from the interesting people I finally get to meet for the day job, people I spend hours / days / weeks working with via phone & email, I've also had the opportunity to go to some really interesting places.

Over the course of the last 10 months I've been everywhere from California to New Jersey, Puerto Rico to Mexico. And from all these places, I've been able to gain some insight into the way things work in the regions, find inspirations in the locales. Everywhere I go I take my camera with me, you just never know when you'll need to snap a picture of something to take home as a reminder of somewhere inspiring.

With that in mind, I've decided that when I get home from this trip, I'm starting a new little snapshot book, of sorts. One that will contain all the random locations that I want to use eventually. A Settings Diary if you will. I'm hoping this will also help me with learning how to outline and finding another way to organize my thoughts.

My experience traveling with the day job has allowed me an opportunity to visit many places I wouldn't otherwise go and find inspirations where I would never have known it was.

WiP Wednesday: That's Gr-r-reat!

So here's the deal: a few weeks back, I got together with a couple other writer buddies and we formed an online crit group. Sweet, right? Yes. It is, actually. My crit buddies ROCK!

Anyway, thanks to the feedback I've received and much ongoing editing in my current wip, I've been able to add more depth and clarity to characters and definition to situations. I'm one of those writers where in my head, I see all this stuff happening, so sometimes I forget to write it down. If someone asks me about what happened in a particular scene, I can give very specific details, but I realized I wasn't including all of this when I needed to.

So while I have felt a bit like I have made no progress writing at all, I've actually written over 4,000 new words! I think that deserves a "GR-R-REAT" and some Frosted Flakes.

I'm still working through more revisions and I'll have the ms out to some betas to take a look at for me later this month, so hopefully that will let me leave it alone for a while.

With that in mind, I'm looking forward to NaNoWriMo and have slowly been trying to find a good strategy to outline the novel I have in my head. I am really trying to take what I learned from Brandon Sanderson a couple weeks ago to heart.

So now that I'm sending that off, I'm going to focus on outlining. I keep bringing this up, but it's because I don't do it! I don't know how! I don't know where to begin!

But I think as much time as I have been taking to think this novel through and consider all my options and try something new is going to be a great opportunity to expand my skills and see what I really can accomplish. Plus, it is doing a pretty good job of keeping me motivated and looking forward to November for reasons other than fabulous turkey dinners.

What new things are you considering trying to keep yourself going? How's it going?

Greatness: NaNoWriMo

This week's quote is one of my favorites. The reason? Well, other than the fact that it is pure genius and goes to show how wicked awesome Mark Twain was, it's just sound advice.

Surround yourself with great people and they will bring out the greatness in you. I've been really lucky to meet some great, supportive writer friends, both online and in person. They've been there to root for me, console me, offer encouragement and above all, remind me that I have greatness in me.

With this in mind, I've finally made a huge commitment, thanks to some encouragement from a few great people. It's a huge commitment to me, anyway. I have signed up for Nanowrimo this year.

For anyone who isn't familiar with this, Nanowrimo is National Novel Writing Month and the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel between 12:01 AM November 1 through Midnight November 30. That's roughly 1,667 words a day.

With the emphasis of this little game being purely on quantity, I'm hoping this will help me try a couple new writing techniques out. So the greatness we're looking for here? Some great numbers. It's all about the word count.

Here's my tentative game plan. Tell me what you think, 'kay? I'm all up for any suggestions to help me spit this novel out!

#1) Stop Pre-editing: Make myself lots of little notes about how it doesn't matter if my characters sound dopey right now or if I have them saving the world before the aliens who are supposed to destroy it arrive. (P.S. there are no aliens in my nanowrimo novel). Remind self of the following--Write, write, write through Thanksgiving. Rewriting will be its own Christmas gift. Hahaha!

#2) Outlining/Plotting: This is way harder for me than the pre-editing thing. I've never truly outlined before. I'm just a pantser when it comes to getting everything on paper. I'm trying to decide what might work better for me, the actual outlines or doing little plot cards. The principle is the same for me either way. Totally need help here from any outlining/plotting believers. Because, uh, November's just around the corner and I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO BEGIN!! So we'll have to see where this one goes.

Okay, kids, help me out if you can!

And if you're playing Nanowrimo this year, buddy me! My ID on Nanowrimo is windyaphayrath. (You know, because I'm totally creative like that!)