Y’all, NaNoWriMo is on its way. In less than a month, I will be participating in my first-ever real National Novel Writing Month. Typically, I’m in school right now and have been for the last seventeen years (between my education and educating others). The end of the year also usually means I’m elbow-deep into an anthology.
Well, I have neither of those responsibilities this year. Does that mean I can pull off 50,000 words in a single project? I have no idea. Probably not, but you know what? I’m going to try.
The way nano works is that authors are meant to start a brand-new project and get that first draft done in 50,000 words.
I’m not doing that.
I’m still working on my Wooing the Alpha project, which I already have 136,000 words in.
My goal for nano is to get as far as I can in this 210,000-word project. If I can accomplish this, I’ll have this baby done by January.
Let’s sidetrack for just a second and just say that writing 210,000 words in a year is near twice what I did last year.
2020 has been nutso.
Okay, now let’s talk Prep-tober.
October is the time to prep, prep, prep as much as possible to be ready to simply write in November. Here are my goals: establish a new routine, outline the rest of the story, and character website pages. I have several video and blog ideas to keep up with the non-writing prep as well.
This is my bujo spread for easy reference.
My new routine is packed with writing sprints and ways to refuel my creativity between—and of course, to complete necessary work. I want to track more, which has been fun so far this month. I want to be here more! And y’all, as always, I need to work out more than once a week. I’m so much more productive when I do.
I also have five more stories to prep before I’m done with this baby. Whoo!
Creating character profiles on my website is a great way to amp up my brainstorming and character development while adding to my author presence. It makes total sense to me. That’s why I’m focusing on stats, pictures, and synopses, which will be helpful for those back blurbs.
While I’m doing all of this craziness, and still writing, I want to find my cover photos, to build some test covers, brainstorm titles, practice vlogging daily, create teasers, relaunch my marketing platforms, and prepare my launch plan for this Wooing the Alpha series.
Nope, didn’t pile my plate too high at all!
Wish me luck, y’all, and tell me if you’re prepping this October and what you’re working on.
Want to watch me set up this spread and talk more in detail about my goals? Check out my video!
I have finally seen the light for quarterly reviews after a long time working with planning in chunks like this. Slowly, I’ve seen my habits change, and not simply the ones that I track weekly. Now, I’m seeing improvement in my yearly planning and ability to shift my perspective and work schedule to fit what I’m capable of instead of pushing past my breaking point, which inevitably ends with a broken limb.
Let’s see if all of my reflection makes sense.
If you’d like to watch me figure this shit out on video, check out my plan with me below!
What I overestimated:
-My editing pace for INFERNO. The writing took forever, why should I assume the editing would go any faster?
-Time to write a day. Camp NaNoWriMo kicked my ass. I didn’t expect a couple hours of writing a day to tap my well so completely.
-Patreon goals. I’ve been in the middle of transitioning this page for months. MONTHS. It keeps getting pushed aside as time runs thin.
What I underestimated:
-My story, INFERNO. Man, that beast is the longest book I’ve written, by about 20k words. I’m impressed by it, even if it has obliterated me for the time being.
-My writing goals. I met mine for the year before August. I never thought I’d meet it. Woohoo!
-School wipe out. After teaching four classes and holding an office hour three days a week, shopping after two of those days, coming home to make my husband lunch, and I sit down at my desk between two and three, and well, the day is almost over. I don’t have so much time to get things done like I wish I could. It’s put me behind.
My vision:
-Keep it simple. This is where I’ve grown. I have begun to simplify my life, focusing on personal projects one at a time instead of stacking them so immensely high.
-Freelance and work from home more. I’ve loved working on this cookbook with my client, Joyce, and I want to do more projects like this. They don’t eliminate my creative well, and I love creating something beautiful that my clients can be proud of.
-Realistic goals and plans. Rather a repetitive note to my first, but when the new year comes around and my heavy semester is over, I feel invisible and forget the time crunch I’d just gone through. Inevitably, I plan for it, but as things slip loose and I fall behind, those projects stack up again to a too-full plate.
There’s more, but this speaks to much of the whole of it. Minus my improved power blocking—it still needs work—increasing my self-care, working towards smaller and longer-term income opportunities, and of course, being more present in my family’s life.
The biggest note to myself after addressing how I’ve felt about my last quarter, and my year, is to trust myself more with my creative experiments. I’ve been struggling with “Tatiana’s Diary” and the story format, but I’m so close to being done that I simply need to push along to the end and finish the experiment before I make my judgements.
So, here’s hoping I learn my lessons by the time I get to my end-of-the-year review.
Do you review your goals? Let me know your process in the comments below.
Round two of the quarterly review. Let’s see if I learned anything between the two quarters or if we find some trends.
If you’d like to see my process more fully, watch me plan here:
I stuck with the same basic set up and questions.
What I overestimated. Welp, my time, again. I got more edits done for Time, but they’re going slower because I’m trying to combine two steps into one to save time overall, and that’s to edit the stories I like before moving on to read another submission. It’s kind of working.
What I’m learning from this transition is that I can start editing a story to discover how much work it will take, which makes it easier for me to solidly say yes or no to a specific story instead of ending up with so many maybes at the end of an open reading session. For the last few anthologies, I racked up WAY too many maybes, which meant more time spent reading and trying to decide than was necessary. We’re moving in the right direction at least.
I’m also behind on marketing and advertising. To be honest, I can barely keep up with what I’m doing now, so it keeps slipping to the back burner. However, I am hosting a live launch party this weekend, so…maybe there’s a little progress there.
My finance tracker went by the wayside. I used it for a month, kind of. Set it up for two, and forgot about it on the third. A big signal that it’s not working for me in the form I’m trying. I think I need to sit with my parents and get some budgeting advice. They both have two very different systems, so I can mutate what works for me.
And finally, nothing of a surprise here. I’m not that great at compositing art. I’m learning, but man, I have a long, long, long way to go.
What I underestimated. Again, this shouldn’t surprise anyone, but my ability to admit when I need a day off and the benefits taking a break can offer my overall productivity. It’s funny because I preach to others about taking breaks when they’re stressed over their work or life, but I really like working… Man, that sounds crazy, but it’s true. I love what I do, so I tend to pile myself with all the things that I want to do and need to do. I’m in need of some prioritizing, and what a perfect opportunity to do that, right?
I think I’ve come up with a compromise for myself. And it’s one of the notes I made to myself in the spread, which is to slow down and take more time on projects, which offers more time for marketing and ads, and helps to keep mistakes to a minimum. Less rush and more buzz. Um, no brainer?
I’m pretty sure that last quarter I mentioned this as well, but my creative potential is so much more than I allow myself. This comes back to that prioritizing idea. I’ve made writing every day a priority, so it’s getting done, and I. Am. Loving. It. Oh my shit, y’all. As of today, I’ve written 77,680 words. And although I’m sure some writers might scoff at this, it’s MASSIVE for me. I’m almost done with my newest book. After three months? Are you kidding me? It usually takes me close to a full year to write a novel. Now, there’s a lot of changes that’s allowed me to progress so much, but man… Man, that’s a big stepping-stone to my dream of writing multiple books a year.
Next is actually YouTube. I stumbled into #authortube, and I am really enjoying consuming and creating videos. I have a way to go as far as growing comfortable talking and filming myself, but it’s a new way to move forward in my industry, which keeps me from wanting to jump into another one to cure wanderlust, and I’m all for it.
If you’ve been following any of my video updates, I’ve been working freelance on a cookbook, and I totally underestimated my joy for this type of thing. I love food, the recipes are super new for me, and the photography is amazing. YAS!
My last note is to carve out more time for family. Next month will have buttloads of this, but I need to make it a more regular part of my day. This goes back to overestimating my time. It’s an all-around problem, and it hasn’t changed much. I must change this.
My current vision. Simplify popped up again. Yup. It’s getting better, but we’re still not there yet. Simplify your life, Alisha. Get it together. Do the things. Be an adult.
I also listed consuming more books. I love books, obviously, I write and publish them. It means I read a lot, but it’s not the same as simply reading for fun. At least a chapter a night or a day, or something. Damn it. This is doable. I’m going to make it doable. I also made a Book Bingo Board in my bullet journal to help motivate me.
Freelance more. This was a surprise. I like it. I want to do more. That’s pretty much it.
Finally, I’ve listed to find joy. I’ve loved writing so much, working freelance, and building my business. That’s what I need to make happen on a more realistic and sustainable scale. Also, I’ve loved having a show to watch with my husband every day. We need another one. If you have a suggestion, by the way, make it in the comments below.
Current pain points. Other than what I’ve already outlined above, and frankly, I know can babble on about this stuff for far longer than necessary, but here we are. I need to step up and use focused power blocks to get through work more efficiently. Ahem. Simplify.
I’m trying to juggle too many projects at once. SIMPLIFY.
I really need someone to delegate to, which of course requires money. Maybe some day.
Oh my shit. We have a giant increase in submissions. Like I think we’re hovering around 200 since April. Much love to Authors Publish Magazine for that shout out. I’ve been subscribed to them for a long time. Helpful resource.
And yeah, I need to decide on whether to finish my complete revamp of my Blood Phoenix covers now, or wait until all five books are written. The problem here is that people who have already bought the first three books wouldn’t have complete sets if I shift gears now.
However, some of the big marketing pushes I would like to get into, like Bookbub, won’t be as effective, aka lower ROI, until I do the revamp. My current plan is to do both, but that’s going against my goal of simplifying my life. I don’t know. I could use some advice before I dive into the marketing part of my WIP.
Quarter Three plans. Anyways, here’s how this transformed into my quarter three goals and project plans. It’s still jammed pack with stuff. Probably too much stuff, but I’ve given myself some relief in not trying to push to publish this new anthology, TIME, by the end of 2019. If it happens, cool. If not, that’s okay, too. The fall semester is way too busy for me to push myself like that, and I need to learn to accept that.
The take away. Less is more. Haha. Less distractions. More focus. Less busy work. More productivity. Less worry. More progress.
My motivation to keep writing is on track.
Overall, a successful quarter. Bring on the next.
What are your goals this quarter? Did you get everything you wanted done last quarter? Tell me about them in the comments below!
So, I’ve been on a planning kick lately, showing the intimate details of how I prepare myself for a big project, like a book. I’m going to be honest, the way I prep myself changes each time, and this go around, I might have gone a little crazy with notes and etc.
But here’s a bit of my rationale. I’m working with a series. While I have limited myself to five books for Ria’s BLOOD PHOENIX saga, I do have a slew of other characters, books, and stories within this world, so I need to start keeping track of little things that will connect and manifest throughout.
Now, this is a little wild for planning purposes, but I thought it was so much fun to peg down each of my characters by personality type, so here’s my list:
One of the interesting things I discovered from doing this is that Ria’s personality, although remaining the same amongst most of her previous lives, did change on a few. Even with reincarnation, culture and genetics played a role in how they behaved. Since Ria’s past lives impact Ria’s present quite dramatically, I hope can keep them separated enough to do them justice.
Another interesting note about personality types is that even with the same four-letter determinations, their personalities are not precisely the same. For instance, Ria, Mark, Colista, and Layla have the same categorization—INFP, but each of their descriptors are different: the Spunky Kid, the Lost Soul, the Waif, and the Nurturer, which comes not from the Myers-Briggs model but from the character archetypes of heroes, heroines, and villains, although honestly, none of these four are villains in the slightest.
But INFP clearly fits all four: poetic, kind, and altruistic people, always eager to help a good cause. They are the most idealistic, have strong personal values, seek order and peace, are creative, non-directive, and reserved with people.
Anyways, I could devolve into a rambling about personalities and the types of how each connects, but I’m not going to do that. I merely wanted to share how assigning base personality types helped me differentiate characters and keep them true to their original dispositions, even as they evolve as people.
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So, I want to know what kind of categorization, notes, and tools do you use to develop and/or maintain your characters? Let me know in the comments below.
So, if you’ve had a chance to peek at my writing journal, you’ll know that I’ve recently invested more time on plotting elements of my novels and stories via plot embryos, the hero’s journey, and the three-act structure.
I have been a long-time pantser doing little planning other than major scenes that I knew I wanted somewhere relative to each other in a general arc, which is basically saying that I bullshitted my way through most of my writing.
Well, the last novel I wrote, THE GIRL WITH THE GLOWING HAIR, flowed out of me so much faster with a general guide for each of my chapters. I also developed them with a chart and the five-idea method from Rachael Stephen.
This worked so well that I implemented the plot embryos for my shorter works to gauge a general structure.
Then the year ended, and it was time to start my new BLOOD PHOENIX novel, INFERNO. And man, the embryo was a nice start, but I needed more to power through as many words as I really wanted to get through this year (~112,000 words), so I tried my hand at a three-act structure, and here’s what I came up with.
How I plotted BLOOD PHOENIX: INFERNO (some spoilers but no biggies).
Here is where I used the traditional Harmon’s Plot Embryo, below is a comparison of the my use of the tool. The blue bits are major spoilers.
After I let that marinate for a little while, I created a list of all the plot points I could think of for each act, not worrying about an order. Like this:
This is when I used the three-act structure in a stricter sense, putting those on my list into the act where they belong. At the bottom, I had notes that came from looking at the story arc again and again.
Finally, I made the project its own notebook, listing each act’s plot points down the side before shifting them into appropriate chapters with other details to help me not get stuck between, which is where I typically struggle the most with writer’s block.
So far, this method has allowed me to hammer out 16,000 words last month and another 4,000 this last week with the #100daychallenge or #100dayproject.
But this little book I’ve slapped together has some extras that help me remember character motivations, keep secondary threads going, plan out the past to understand how it affects the present, and after the halfway mark, I’ve started gathering notes for a Broken World guide after requests from readers to explain all of the connections and cross-overs and research that builds the series.
And that’s the process I’ve been using. I’ve found quite a spike in my productivity since I started plotting more and writing more consistently.
I hope you’ve found this helpful, and if you have any suggestions for plotting or writing research, leave them in the comments below so that I can add them to my list!
Also, join me on Instagram or my personal page as I document my journey writing 500 words a day for 100 days!
So, I’m trying something new. Well, mostly new. I’ve tried a quarterly review before and found them less than helpful, but I knew I needed to review the last three months in order to make all of that shit I’ve tracked mean something.
If you’d like to see my process more fully, watch me plan here:
Here’s my simplified attempt:
-What I overestimated
-What I underestimated
-My vision
-My current pain points
It was easy for me to break these categories down. I’ve always overestimated what I can accomplish, most notably my ability to multitask. This is a cycle I go through again and again. As an undergrad, I learned that multi-tasking isn’t actually a thing. We can only focus on one thing at a time in truth, so having Bob’s Burgers or Bones playing in the background is not just noise. It’s distracting me from getting my shit done.
I also learned that I’ve underestimated my ability to write and write consistently. This year, one of my main goals is to write every day. You know, minus a day or two given life happens. First, it was two-hundred-and-fifty words a day, which was hard for the first month. Come month two, my average increased daily. For March, I doubled it to five-hundred words a day. And guess what, the last two months made that rather easy. Most of the time, I reached six-hundred words or more. And man, did I learn something about practice and doing something every day consistently. Creativity became much easier to tap into with regular use.
Next, I wanted to compare my current vision for my life and business with my vision at the beginning of the year, which was to grow my business, publish more, and improve my environment at home. This is where my word for April came from: realign. The major note within this is to simplify. Creativity always meant big and elaborate projects to me, but the more I’ve tried to accomplish this, the more I fell flat on my face. In recent years, I’ve noticed that the simpler a project, the better it came out because I could focus on the important bits rather than juggling all of these ideas at once. I plan to remember and implement this for the next quarter—and year. Actually, this helped quite a bit with my last project through Transmundane Press, and it meant a successful and fully-funded Kickstarter campaign!
Here’s hoping it brings me continued success.
These categories created my current pain points, which center on money, time, and focus. Honestly, the biggest pain point was taxes. Boy, do I loathe them, but I hope the struggle this year will mean that next year will be easier. Overall, these points generated my next quarter’s goals: research marketing and advertising to start small and expand, limiting distractions, power blocking—which changed my weeks when it came to posting blogs for the press—and keeping a balance sheet as the year goes rather than fumbling at the end of year for my taxes.
Pretty simple, again, my overarching vision for this year and my life.
The list was helpful, but it spurred a letter-like list of notes to myself to reflect on why these things happened and real advice to keep me on track. If you can’t read my handwriting, it pretty much says what I have here with a little stronger language aimed at myself. Aka, do better damn it.
So, here’s my next ninety days’ goals and project plans. I’ve had to include a “leftovers” section due to my procrastination issues, but with the semester ending, and two other projects ending along with it, I should be able to tackle these before the summer.
What are your goals this quarter? Did you get everything you wanted done last quarter? Tell me about them in the comments below!
I wanted to share a flip through of my writing notebook.
If you’d like to watch my flip through instead, check out the video below:
So, I got this notebook for five dollars–well, my mom bought the notebook (thanks mom!)–and decided to keep writing spreads and notes in one place rather than throughout years of bullet journals.
First is my year’s projects at a glance:
Right now, I have all coral sticky notes for 2019. And already, I can tell you I’m behind on January in two places, but I should catch up with one by the end of the month.
This is the awesome thing about sticky notes, I can replace, adjust, and remove, etc., as I need. And I use this spread for that purpose–to visually revise after the year has started.
I got these next two spreads from Rachael Stephen‘s YouTube channel: The Harmon’s Plot Embryo and the Tragic Embryo. I find both of these helpful when brainstorming and the first stages of plotting. The tragic structure works better for short stories for me. I like happy-ish endings for novels and series, but I prefer to leave readers devastated at the end of something short.
Next, I begin the three-act structure notes from well-storied. I’ve only begun plotting and planning instead of a hundred percent pantsing since this has made it dramatically improved my speed in drafting and edited. Granted, I miss things in my outlines and have to shift for those pantsing moments.
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The next few spreads came from Boho Berry–a bullet journal YouTube personality–when she did her first round of NaNoWriMo. There’s probably some typos in here because, honestly, I take notes when I’m exhausted, and I copied them word for word. I’m all right with it.
These help for both planning and breaking through writer’s block, especially when I pair them with the Dungeons & Dragons alignments. Again, more typos with neutral. I know. I get tired. I’m not fixing it. We’ll all survive, right?
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I got another personality breakdown from Rachael Stephen since seeing them presented differently can jar ideas free.
My planning style hasn’t changed much over the course of 2018, and I don’t see much need for changing the majority of it at the moment. Although, I am excited to see if any of my projects require new additions to my monthlies and weekly spreads. If you’d like to see me talk through the process and watch me mark up my journal with pen and markers, please check out my companion video.
I do still plan to include artwork at the front of each month, even though I didn’t have time for November and December’s coloring pages. But, since my mom is buying me a color printer for Christmas, I’m going to make it easier on myself—and give myself more options—and print art that I like for my bullet journal, which I got between filming and posting, so here’s what I have for my January cover art. This is a piece by Jacquelin Deleon, which I printed on sticker paper and stuck in my journal. She shows off a lot of her beautiful art on YouTube. Check her out.
First, I have my monthly calendar. This is to record holidays and birthdays and other important dates should I need them. Often, it remains pretty blank, like it is here, but December was full with five birthdays, the holiday season, and finals. But I also like the new addition of a word or phrase for the month. This month, it’s brave creativity. I chose this to remind myself not only to write and create, but to take chances and not miss out on opportunities.
Next is my master tasks list and monthly breakdown. Along the left, I have all of the projects I’m working on for January, pulled from my quarterly goals and plan. Within the boxes—business, author, and school/home—I give those actions that have specific dates their spot so that I can plan out the rest. Part of these are pulled from my editorial calendar on the next page, but only those posts that I need to draft for my own blog. I also decided to add my word count goals on each Sunday in my Author section to keep an additional reminder that I should be writing.
Finally, I’ve drawn out my editorial calendar. Notice, three calendars in a row. Seems redundant, but they all serve a different purpose. Hence, why I can’t use a regular planner. Too crowded. And talking about crowded, see how full this beast is? It’s going to stay that way for a while, too, as my business partner and I push to grow our business, which means more publications, more authors, and more marketing.
I used to keep track of all the videos and Instagram posts I wanted to complete as well, but I never got around to them. They took up too much time and space in my journal, so I nixed them this go around. Although one of my goals is to post more on Instagram, I don’t think this calendar is the right place for me to plan that out. I haven’t figured out what to include for this goal—or several of my others—but when I do, I promise to share.
I will be creating more plan with me blogs and videos for those who want to write more, read more, create more, self-publish, market plan, and the like.
How do you plan out your projects and busy lives? Leave me your ideas, tips and tricks, or questions below!
I’ve finally done it. I’ve finally set up for my next year in my bullet journal. Y’all, I’ve been working on this since early November, trying to decide what I did right and where I went wrong in 2018, and what was purely out of my control that I could create allowances for next year.
And if you’d rather hear me talk about my process and watch me speed through writing in my journal, feel free to jump over to YouTube instead.
So first, I have my Level 10 Life. I do this every year, and I like to gauge how my work has filtered out into the different parts of my life. I love making circles with my moxedori stencil. Filling in circles makes me happier than checking off boxes for some reason. You can see, I’ve been pretty consistent trying to raise each of the areas in my life.
And I use the stencil again on my next spread, making circles for my project trackers. I’ve split them between my writing goals and my editing goals for the year.
They’re lofty, but so were last year’s. Here’s a photo of what I accomplished.
I’ve got three of the projects plotted out already and will fill in the AIR progress in my 2018 bullet journal and the rest of CONDUITS, which is scheduled for January.
Next, I have my overall goals for 2019.
As you can see, those circles from the last page only take up a little bit of my overall yearly goals, but like the visualization of my creative works broken down that way. Writing and editing is the fun part of running a publishing press, but I have a lot of goals that require more grueling research and administrative tasks, which fill out the rest of this page.
On the second page, I’ve listed my personal goals, like learning how to composite art for graphic design and cover creation, which have been goals of mine for a long time. I’m getting better. I also have some nice fitness goals, which I’m super excited about. I’ve just gotten my husband a power tower for his birthday, and he’s teaching me how to do assisted pull ups at the moment. Man, my back is sore from that, but I can’t wait to do a full pull up on my own. I’m also looking forward to pushing myself through a 5k—and I’m almost there—which I never thought I’d say with genuine enthusiasm. Seriously, had you asked me seven years ago when I first started lifting those heavy-ass five-pound weights, if I’d ever enjoy running, I’d have laughed in your face. Spittle and all. But now…the change is interesting.
For the next couple of spreads, I’ve set up the pages to outline and brainstorm my writing projects for the year. I have the novels in their own traveler’s notebooks, which I can crack open and share if anyone’s interested in seeing the whole project planning process for writing, editing, publishing, and marketing, let me know. I’d be happy to share.
I even have two pages for next year’s shorts, so I can plan or drop notes as I think of them.
Finally, I have a spot for some online courses that my husband as been advising me to make. We’ll see how this goes. I have some fun ideas for it to span amongst all of the writing levels I encounter now (remedial writing to polished creative writing).
Okay, yes, I’m a dork, but I feel that planning out at least five years in advance for my business keeps me more on the ball. (And you should really see my writing plan, which is scheduled out to 2031. Yes. Really.)
It takes me a long time to plan these out, and I have boards and sheets, and LOTS of color coding that goes into the lists here, which are quite bare and minimal, even though it doesn’t seem like it.
Here, I’m listing my personal and author blog plan. Again, I have a lot of other paper that got me here, and a year-long plan of marketing set up in its own traveler’s notebook.
Next, I have really simple set-ups for books I plan to read this year. I only have eleven, which used to be what I would read in a couple weeks, but now, I read so much for both of my jobs that it’s impossible to read for pleasure a lot of the time. Or maybe I just feel guilty for not being productive. I don’t know.
And beside it, I have a minimal spread for my yearly word count tracker. I plan to list my goal verses actual word count, and keeping a running total.
Then, I have a brainstorm spread for my website and book rebrands. I launched a new site last year with my new logo and need to add a LOT to it. I also plan to give my press website a revamp, but not an overhaul like my author site.
Now, I’m into quarter planning before my January set-up. I used these pages last year and found them helpful—when I remembered to fill them out. After I got sick, it just seemed like another task that took time I could be spending catching up. Now that I am, it will be useful to keep me on track.
Here are my stats and sales pages along with my future log. I track a lot of sites and online presence since I’ve made my mom a website and built her a store as well. She designs and crafts stained glass pieces, and her beautiful work made it easy to build an attractive site. Surely, this isn’t a shameless plug to get you to look at her work. No. I wouldn’t do that for my mom… (here’s the link).
Finally, I have my quarter one goals and project plans to set-up for the months ahead.
You can see that the same projects pop up a lot, and this is how I really break down the steps and keep myself accountable. Motivation has little to do with it sometimes. It’s planning well and sticking the nose to the grindstone. And that’s what I’m off to do!
I will be creating more plan with me blogs and videos for those who want to write more, read more, create more, self-publish, market plan, and the like.
How do you plan out your projects and busy busy lives? Leave me your ideas, tips and tricks, or questions below!
I’m doing it again. Trying to write a complete project in a month. But this go around, my word-count goal is so much smaller than my last four attempts at a measly 20k.
Yes, I just put measly before 20k, but on average I aim for 40-50k in a NaNoWriMo session, and I’ve only hit that goal twice.
Finally, I’m getting to work with my LOVING RED characters again. This one will be a prequel, outlining both Kaia’s background with Dev—the bear and ex—and the circus incident with the Scarlet Queen, whose just appeared in Ria’s world. I am so excited to continue this story thread. If you don’t know anything about the LOVING RED gang, their storyline jumpstarted with Facebook roleplaying…which is why many of my characters have their own profile pages.
Anyways, I don’t so much want to talk about their story (but I’ve done that here, here, and here if you want to know more). Instead, I wanted to set y’all up for the NaNoWriMo advice and exercises I’m going to be throwing at you over the next few months.
Now is the time for planning…even though I may have outlined this story at the end of last year, it’s nice to review and remind myself what the hell I’ll be doing.
Originally, I used Harmon’s Plot Embryo to develop my ideas and create more symmetry in my stories. I tend to lean toward the cliff-hanger and don’t want to be a one-trick pony. My notes on that below, and an excellent YouTube post I took these notes from.
From this process, I teased out the major plot points and decided on an alternating point of view. Like in LOVING RED, I will use first person for Dev—as he is the character I created and played in roleplaying, and third person for Kaia, who was played by a close friend.
That let me create my current outline, which I’ll sneak peek right here.
For the rest of this month, I will be reading this over, working through details as best as I can, and will probably start the opening scene(s) before July hits. Yes, I know that’s cheating, but I’m doing this to get my first draft down, not to win anything. Besides, I play by my own rules!
And that’s it for now. I’m set up, finishing another story, hopefully giving myself a week break in between, and jumping in to this novelette.
Are you using the summer to complete some writing goals? Do you participate in NaNoWriMo? Let me know what you’re working on, what your goals are, how you plan to meet them, and if you want to hear about keeping on track, catching up, and adapting to real life as you craft.
