PD Martin's Blog

November 1, 2014

NaNoWriMo…here I come again!

Filed under: Uncategorized — PD Martin @ 6:02 pm

Participant-2014-Square-ButtonThis will be my third year doing NaNoWriMo. In the past (I confess) I haven’t been able to make the 50,000 word goal. However, this year I’m much more confident that it’s possible. You see, I have a secret weapon…five write-ins on the five Sundays of November. Yup, 9am-5pm, every Sunday. I will have short breaks because it’s part of my NaNoWriMo Success course, so I need to run out and get the catering and coffee/tea. It’s important that my students and fellow NaNoWriMo writers are feeling well-fed and well-caffeinated J  But other than that, it’s bum on seat, full stop.

I’ve also got another secret weapon. It’s something I put together for my NaNoWriMo students and I’m loving it as much as they are! It’s my NaNoWriMo workbook, but really it’s a booklet/form I’ll be using for every single book I write from now on.

The first two pages cover title, POV, setting, relevant themes, the premise, the controlling idea and relevant research. And then I’ve got 25 pages on character development work (questionnaires, back stories, exercises to tap into characters’ emotions, pictures of what I envisage my main characters look like, etc.). And then I’ve got my plot pages, where I’ve worked out the plot of my novel.

So, that will be sitting right beside me while I write. I thought of the idea purely in the context of my NaNoWriMo course, but now I’m completely in love with my novel workbook and can see this is the way forward for me as well as my students .It doesn’t matter how much writing experience you have, a little bit of preparation can make a huge difference to the finished product.

So here I go…time to write!

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