I started participating in NaNoWriMo because I've been known to easily abandon hobbies and free time activities. It runs in the family -- my mother had an attic full of bolts of material, often purchased on sale, and scraps of velveteen and brocade that she planned to use someday for a Project. Mom's projects, like mine, were never small, and like me, Mom expected to start a project at expert status. As an illustration, the scrapbook for my wedding sits unfinished, and Richard and I just celebrated our tenth anniversary.
NaNo changed that for me -- primarily because it gave me a Big Audacious Goal. I could say "I'm going to write a 50,000 word book" to my friends and they'd say "OOOOH!" And then, having committed to the goal, I had to actually write it to save face. And then, at the end of the month, I had a book I had to take seriously and start learning how to edit -- that, as you know, has taken a while. And now I have the discipline to write over and over.
This year for NaNo, I'm going to start writing the "dirty commie gypsy elves" book that I'd conceptualized twenty-five or so years ago, which has neither gypsies or elves, nor are they dirty.
How do I start?
I've done this before -- I start with a loose outline of major plot events, which looks like this:
On the left-hand side at the top is the outline for the book. I have the chapters added, with six titled, and the first chapter with its subchapters named and visible. The cards in the middle are the synopses for each section. There are some commands at the right I will set up later.
That's what I will be doing for the next couple of days, so that my book has some time to percolate in my mind in October after I edit another book. Wheeeeeeee!
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