Three Key Things for You To Keep In Mind During NaNoWriMo

 

Dear writer,

It is now less than twenty-four hours until NaNoWriMo begins. So out of the goodness of my heart for my writer kin, I have written this post of advice for you, based off my nigh five years of experience in the field, before you're dropped into the arena that is November.

1. Stay hydrated, but don't

The more you drink, the more you're going to need more bathroom breaks, the less time spend writing. It also breaks the flow you have when you finalllyy fall into the groove of writing.
The less you drink, the more likely you are to become dehydrated and get nasty headaches, emotional instability, weariness, and confusion (basically, if you don't drink anything you're going to get the natural affects of NaNo much sooner). 

So yeah. Drink, but don't. 

2. Eat, but don't

If you eat, you're taking time away from writing. That's a no-no thing. You must spend every second writing. 
But eating is important. You won't have any energy without it. Also, you know, your stomach will start digesting itself after so long. Soo. 

3. Sleep, but (you guessed it) don't. 

Sleep is probably the biggest issue of all. You can rush to the bathroom and back pretty fast, and you can scarf food fast while doing a quick word count check, though both are a waste of time.
But sleep? You can't write in your sleep. You can't rush sleep, either. 
But without it, you're not going to be able to stay awake or focus. 

Caffeine is a good way around this. I recommend making a pot of coffee using Red Bull, Monster, and some all-natural (because we're very health conscious here) energy drinks instead of water, then plopping a full box of  Irish Breakfast, English Breakfast, and black Chi tea to steep in the coffee as it's brewed. If you're really running dry, try crushing a caffeine pill and mixing them in your cup. 

Sadly, you can only have so much caffeine before it gives you a heart attack, which will slow your writing process down.
To avoid that, I recommend selecting one day of the week to get four to eight hours of sleep in. And then, when you wake, write as fast as possible to make up for those four to eight hours of wasted writing time and down another pot of the frankiencoffee.

Now that I have graced you with my abundant wisdom, I shall bid you adieu. Best of luck with your soon to be near death experience. 

                -Edna Pellen

P.S. If you weren't already able to tell, this is satire. I will not be held responsible for any poor living habits you adopt during the month of November, or any other month for that matter, and the agonizing death that they may or may not bring.

Preptober Week 3: #6

 

If I had been a good girl and plotted my story to the point of knowing the end, this would be much easier. Hmm. 

Okay, I'm going to say a random line, and it'll be a NaNo challenge of mine to make it work with this prompt:

"You never know what to expect with spring."

(I kid you not this took me all day to come up with. I thoroughly regret making this prompt, or at least regret switching projects, as Roslyn would've probably been easier XD)

Alright everyone, that's the last prompt of the season. Many thanks to R.M. Archer for asking me to participate in this!  

Make sure you check out the other weeks on Scribes & Archers, The Rain-Drenched Writer, and Maple Quill Penning Magic.

Normally I don't ask for people to share things unless it's promoting an indie book or something of the sort, but please share and spread all of the prompts from this month, from the above blogs especially, if you've got a moment.

Are you using this prompt? Are you ready for NaNo? Are you as clueless about what you're doing with your story as I am with mine? I'd love to talk about it below.

- Edna Pellen

(P.S. Apologies for late replies to comments; my current device doesn't allow me to reply so I have to do it on another one, but I will reply!)

Preptober Week 3: #4 & #5

Hello!

 I apparently forgot to post yesterday (which is strange because I have a distinct memory of doing it), so we're doing yesterday and today's prompts together.

#4: 

This is another spoiler. Lots of spoilers concerning this story. But let's just say something goes wrong with a murder.

#5: 

                        

At last, one that isn't a spoiler! 

Ryan and Caroline find out their of the same religion. This brings him to trust her more, and her to trust him less because she finds it suspicious, like something a murderer who wants to gain trust would say.

Make sure you check out the other weeks on Scribes & Archers, The Rain-Drenched Writer, and Maple Quill Penning Magic.

Are you using this prompt? I'd love to hear how you plan on it below. 

- Edna Pellen

(P.S. Apologies for late replies to comments; my current device doesn't allow me to reply so I have to do it on another one, but I will reply!)

Preptober Week 3: #3

 

Ah, that my friends is a spoiler. 

I am plotting it though. It's a thing. That happens. When another thing happens. And that's all I can say on that (public updates on mysteries aren't very fun, are they?). 

Make sure you check out the other weeks on Scribes & Archers, The Rain-Drenched Writer, and Maple Quill Penning Magic.

Are you using this prompt? I'd love to hear how you plan on it below. 

- Edna Pellen

(P.S. Apologies for late replies to comments; my current device doesn't allow me to reply so I have to do it on another one, but I will reply!)

Preptober Week 3: #2

 

It began with a scamming resort that promised writers their dream come true and gave them a copyright nightmare. A hundred lawsuits and boycotts later, and the project was dead. No writer would touch it. 

That's what sparked the idea for Daniel Devo to make the same resort, but do it right.

That's what lead to the train. And the writers. And the murder.

One idea later, and Devo's got a murder on the name of his resort, and the mess of lawsuits and boycotts he worked so hard to avoid are just one train station away from bringing his resort down.

Make sure you check out the other weeks on Scribes & Archers, The Rain-Drenched Writer, and Maple Quill Penning Magic.

Are you using this prompt? I'd love to hear how you plan on it below. 

- Edna Pellen

Preptober Week 3: #1

 

Here's day one of week three of Preptober!

There will be a lot of this in my current story, but here's one that isn't totally spoiler-y.

With everyone on edge after several murders aboard the train they're all trapped on, Jen was sure the murderer was Miles. But then part of Miles' past is revealed, and he goes from the prime suspect to the least likely candidate in Jen's perspective. 

Make sure you check out the other weeks on Scribes & Archers, The Rain-Drenched Writer, and Maple Quill Penning Magic.

Are you using this prompt? I'd love to hear how you plan on it below. 

- Edna Pellen

Resources for Writers

Hey writer!


I've gathered some resources that might prove useful in your writing ventures!
What with November being right around the corner, and October being the month of preparation for it (known as "preptober"), I figured it was a good time to share these links so that you can have them on hand during NaNoWriMo without needing to go searching up randomness for hours on end just to find a few things to help you, thus interrupting the writing flow and hindering your journey to 50k words.

Without further adieu, here's the aforementioned resources:


1. Height Comparison

This is a site just for size comparison between two people, you have the option of male or female, and then type in whatever sizes.
This helped me figure out the sizes of two of my characters and adjust it accordingly; it's quite useful.

Here's the link

2. Strange (and likely questionable) Information

World Building Stack Exchange

When looking for information on the specifics of how a small woman and twenty or so lashes from your average whip would mix, I came across this website called "World  Building Stack Exchange". It has information on just about everything. From zero gravity flogging, to how to make disappearing bullets, to magic software systems, to vortex information, to underground fight club realism. 

Of course, you should always fact-check these things when you can, but this is a great place to start gathering information for a first draft, or even to gather things to make a check-list of points to study for a later draft

And if what you want to know isn't there, you can always start a new thread for the question (or you can be anti-social like me and go find your information about whipping elsewhere). 

NaNoWriMo Forms

If you don't fancy World Building Stack Exchange's forums, check out NaNoWriMo's 'Reference desk' forms. I personally prefer these forms, mainly because they're easy to carry a conversation on if you need more information and I'm familiar with the website. 

All you do to start a thread for your question there is start a thread at link provided, label it properly (example: "Whips and their effects") and give a description in the opening post (example: I'm writing a torture scene for my characters. The girl is about 5'5 and pretty frail. What kinds of whip should I use and how many lashes should I give for an outcome with permanent scarring, mild blood loss, and passing out, without causing any fatal or more serious then the aforementioned things?). 

Then the users of the website will give you the information they know. 

Once again, you should make sure to fact check any information they give (and maybe even ask for resources from the people offering information) for the final product. 

3. Remembering a Lost word

Have you ever been writing, and then came to a sudden halt when you couldn't remember a word? You know it's the perfect word for this sentence, but you just can't remember it. And even if you tried to substitute the word for a different one, you're distracted by not being able to remember the first word and your writing becomes out of focus?

If it hasn't happened yet, it likely will happen soon enough, especially during the frenzy of trying to reach 50,000 words in a month's time. 

Tip-Of-My-Tongue

For times such as those, the website Tip-Of-My-Tongue exists. All you do is enter in the things it requests concerning the word if you have them (like the meaning of the word, what letters it might contain, and words that it sound like), and then all the words that match the description will be shown in  list. 

Personally, I haven't made much use of this website; It seems to never have the words I'm searching for. So either I'm making up words and thinking they're real, or this website isn't perfect. 
But in case it helps save your sanity (if such a thing exists among writers), I've included it on this list.

4. World Building

World building is something that's vital for any high-fantasy or sci-fi writer. Coincidentally, it's something that a lot of writers struggle with. And that's because you're developing a whole world. It's awesome, but it can be difficult. Especially when you're trying to write an entire novel in one month. 

That being said, it's a pretty good idea to develop your world before you go to write it as much as possible so you don't get stuck mid-goal (at least it is in my experience). 

Scribes and Archers blog and Pinterest board

R.M. Archer is a writer and blogger with tons of useful posts about world building that I'm sure you'll find help or inspiration in. Here is a link to World building related posts. 

Also, she has a post called Worldbuilding Resource Round-Up which is a collection of posts from various sites and blogs as well as links to tools and books for helping you world build. It's amazingly extensive. 

Lastly, also form R.M. Archer, is a pinterest board devoted to collecting information on world building. This includes her own blog posts in addition to links and advice from all over the place. 

(Warning: You may fall down the rabbit trail of reading posts and effectively using up all of your free time and end up not writing at all. Proceed with caution.) 

5. Character Name Generators 

Sometimes when you're panic-writing during NaNo, a new character has the audacity to show up uninvited and you sit there trying to come up with their name for a good thirty minutes.

Name-Generator.org

This character name generator is a really unique name generator. You have the option to fill in the information provided based off of your character, and it will give you a name based off of it. 
And even if you like your characters having really epic, near unreadable names, it's great to at least get inspiration for the name. 

RandomWordGenerator.com

Here is another character name generator that is similar to the first, but is less extensive. You still have the option to provide things like gender, what letter you want it to begin and/or end with, and how many syllables and/or words long you want it to be.

6. Random Prompt Generator

TheStoryHack.com prompt generator

One thing that I miss about NaNoWriMo's old website is their prompt generator. I'm not sure why, but they didn't keep it when they made the new website. 
However, some wonderful soul was gracious enough to make a prompt generator that works just as well (so far, at least). 

It has multiple generator options, including plot, random verb, noun, and adjective generators, theme, random word, story title, book title, character personality, random phrase, writing prompt, random question generators. 

Something to keep in mind when using a prompt is that it is just a prompt. It is meant to probe and prompt your brain into thinking something up and keeping your creativity coming. So if a prompt includes something like "a character catches on fire" but your characters are, somehow, fire proof, or if it says "write a short story using the words afghan, terrain, and cinder block" but you need inspiration for you novel and not a short story, change it up. You don't need to follow the exact prompt, it's just the inspiration for your story. 
So maybe your character doesn't catch on fire, but maybe a fire breaks out around something important (like a super secret log-cabin base) and sets their work back by burning it. 

Or if you're supposed to write a short story, just don't write a short story, but use the rest of the prompt to fuel inspiration for your novel. 

Long paragraph short: Remember that it's just a prompt, and you don't have to follow it word-for-word.

7. Getting Words Out Fast

Fighter's Block

You've very likely heard of the app/website known as Fighter's Block. If you haven't, allow me explain. 

Fighter's block is a app/website (I use the website) to help you get words out fast. You set your goal of words in the "<goal>" bar, select your fighter, and click "fight". 

Once in the "fight", you can hit 'pause' and adjust your setting (how hard the monster is, how fast it is, the background theme, etc). 

Then, you defeat the monster by reaching your word goal before the monster kills you. It's a pretty fun concept, but I admit I haven't personally used it beyond checking it out. I might this November, but knowing me I'd likely get side-tracked with killing the monster and thinking about the character instead of writing my actual story. 

A Word Crawl For the Motivationally Challenged

This word crawl is one that I use very often. It's designed so that you're given small amounts of words  (I think the biggest goal you're given at a time is near 700 and that the smallest is 10, but I'm not sure) that add up to 3,000. 
This crawl has helped me turn out a lot of words in a relatively small amount of time, and so I highly recommend it. If you were to do this crawl once a day, you'd finish the NaNoWriMo challenge in less than seventeen days.  

8. Non-distracting Writing Programs

I've heard writers talk about getting easily distracted by the writing programs they use. Here's a few alternatives to the more common writing programs that are designed to be more peaceful. 

ZenWriter

While I personally haven't used this application, I've heard great things about it. 
ZenWriter is designed to keep the atmosphere adjustable and peaceful while you write. It has a variety of backgrounds and music, you can add a typewriter sound affect for while you type, and it automatically saves your progress. 

Apparently, it doesn't give you the ability to italicize, underline, or make your words bold. 
I would say that this program is best used for writing your work in distracting settings, and then copying the work over to something such as Microsoft Word or Google Documents and go through adding the italics, bold, and underlined lettering later.

If I end up using this this Nano, I'll do it by marking my words like this:

/italic words/

*bold words*

-underlined words-

Then I'll copy it to Gdocs, and once Nano is over, I'll do to ctrl+f (which allows you to search the document) and type in the "*", "-", or the "/" to find the respective lettering type. Then I'll be able to easily add the proper inflection. 

(This same order for format is what I use for the Word Crawl for the Motivationally Challenged.)

That's all for now. May these links serve you well!

- Edna Pellen

Types of Outlines

 

Types of Outlines

Snowflake Method

This isn't actually an outline. I've heard it described as such before, but it's really more of a general novel-building method. 
I include it here, though, because I think it's something that's someone who is making their outline now could use. 

The basic idea of the method is adding on to small pieces as you go. You start off with a one-sentence-synopsis of your story. 
Then the next step, you write a full synopsis of everything major that happens in your story, up to the end. 
Then you fill out a thing about your characters to help develop them. 
The steps go on up to  step 10. Step 10 to write your novel. 

This method was designed by author Randall Ingermanson, and you can see his post about his method (which is of course much more in depth than this blurb) here. 

My Index Card outline 

I admit I was mildly offended to find that the link to the subway outline (next section) mentioned the exact same method I use as a step in its process, as I thought I was totally originally in my "creation" of it. But, there's nothing new under the sun, so really I shouldn't have been. 

Anyways. This method is my all time favorite one, at least for my current high fantasy, and it's super simple, which is really nice. 
Basically, get a bunch of index cards, write the name of the scene or a one-line explanation of the scene at the stop, and write a description of the scene below that. I recommend using a pen, as pencil lead is likely to wear off. 

Once you've got a big ol' stack, find a nice, empty room and spread it out on the floor. You can now put your scenes in any order you want, and easily add or take away scenes. 
If you find a scene isn't working and remove it, but then later find a way for it to work, you can easily reorder the cards to work it back in. 

It's basically story boarding, but with words instead of pictures.

(I use regularly sized index cards for this as they give me enough room to explain the scene in a size that's easy for me to read but also aren't so big that I can't carry them around. However, larger or smaller ones could also work. It just depends on how you want it.)

NaNoWriMo's Subway Outline

I cannot find a good way to explain how this outlining works. But, basically, it's a board with different colors of strings connecting events in your story. But it isn't a board and it isn't string and it's organized.
Each "stop" of the "subway" is a different scene, and there's different colored "threads" that all are directing you to the same goal, but the colors can get a little sidetracked and go off doing their own thing while one thread continues on.

Yeah, I probably didn't explain that well at all. You should probably just read it for yourself: subway outline

I put this in this order because you could use all three of these things to prepare you for NaNoWriMo. Start with snowflake, then with index cards, then with the subway, if you wanted to. 
You could really do any mix of them. Or you could do none of them. Whatever you'd like. 

I hope this helps you in your preparation for NaNo.

                    -Edna Pellen

My 2020 NaNo Goals

Greetings, writer!

I know I said in my Path to Publication post that I would be doing Roslyn for this NaNoWriMo. A few problems arose (mainly the fact that the first draft still isn't done), and now I've decided that it would be best if I worked on a different project during NaNoWriMo. 

This project is going to be a little out of my comfort zone, which is to say it will be as far from Roslyn as humanly possible. That's right, I'm writing something based in the real world. So weird. But on top of that, it's a murder mystery. 

The decision to be as opposite my norm as possible was intentional. I had a handful of story ideas I could of gone with, but this one really is the best choice as far as letting my fantasy-side take a break for a bit. The only problem is that, while I love the premise of this mystery and I know I'll have a blast, I'm at a total loss planning-wise. 

Which is okay; that's what Preptober is for, right?

Another great thing about doing this murder mystery is that I am actually following NaNo's rules for once! I know in my "Peek at Preptober" post I said this would be about my unconventional goals, but that's because that was written before I decided on letting Roslyn rest.

So quite to contradictory to that post, this project will actually be the first time I have ever followed the actual challenge of NaNoWriMo, the challenge of writing 50k words of a first draft in thirty days, in my four years of doing it. 

Still though, so that I may hold the badge of NaNo Rebel, I may be working on another story with my sister off and on. 

All this is to say, my NaNo goals this year are the original goals for the challenge; write a 50k first draft within thirty days. 

Not nearly as interesting as my Roslyn goals were, but it's better than nothing. 

I apologies if this post is rambly or repetitive, I'm now in the frenzy of preptober and am writing this last-minute.

Are you a NaNo rebel or traditionalist? Got any specific plans for this November as well as Preptober? I'd love to head from you below.

- Edna Pellen