Preparing for NaNoWriMo // feat. my fave booktuber & several realizations

Hello fellow bookworms 💗 It’s me again! I actually didn’t post earlier this week, because of several reasons. One of them is that I was so very behind on blogwork and wanted to dedicate time to that. The other that I wasn’t feeling too well, which is also why I haven’t answered all the comments yet. Sorry guys! 😧 I will get to them all 💗 As I was so focused on learning about writing this week, I thought why not talk a bit about my progress with you? I hope this is interesting, even if you’re not a writer 😄

I’m actually surprised that I got really back into writing or at least doing something writing related again, as I’m usually really bad at keeping up with this. When it comes to writing I usually work in flashes like e.g. during NaNoWriMo and when real life hits again, I’m bad at doing this regularly 😕 However, as I’m currently on vacation from university I want to get as much writing done as I can before the new semester starts. Who actually inspired me to go down this road is Kat (Katytastic), who is my absolute favorite booktuber and also a fellow writer! 💕 I watched her first video about her new project and something about that gave me that extra push of motivation to work on my own project again, namely my sequel that I had yet to outline.

For some context on how I started off: NaNoWriMo was on the horizon so I decided to prepare because there is not a lot of time left, barely 4 weeks! However, my initial plan to completely outline the sequel to my WIP Intoxicated that I finished this April and then write it during November was very huge. It would take up a lot of time, because there is so much to do (as I’m very set on planning and figuring out my story beforehand) and that’s how I started my week. You’ll see that my goal and approach changed a lot during this week, as I discovered more things about the writing craft and what my project truly needed! 👍

This isn’t a real writing “vlog” as I don’t do any writing, but I was learning a lot about the writing craft and lately I have been getting even more motivated to learn more about writing. This could fill an entire separate post, but while struggling with university this year I realized how much I only learn for exams and not for myself in any area. That’s something I would love to change!

Learn more about my WIP Intoxicated!#

 

• Introducing my WIP
• NaNo Wrapup 2017
• Winter is Here Write Tag
• Camp NaNo Wrapup 2018
• Your WIP in Gifs Tag
• The Milestones Write Tag
  

Saturday & Sunday, September 22nd – 23rd 🖋

I started this week’s writing adventures with Outlining Your Novel by K.M Weiland first and foremost, because I think she gives the best writing advice – at least hers works best for me. Seeing as I’m currently ony my free month trial of Scribd I took advantage of the fact that they had it on there & made lots of notes on how she approaches the outlining stage. I highly recommend this book for all writers, it was very eye-opening and will hopefully became the foundation of my writing from now on.

It also helped me figure out what outlining truly has the potential to be. I thought I’d shortly explain here as I will be saying “I’ll outline this sequel” a lot of the time from now on. In her approach outlining is a lot about discovering what your book is about by giving yourself time for brainstorming and exploring many different possibilities – to then end up figuring out what works best for your story. This includes plot, character arcs and also important topics like theme, that make your story cohesive and resonant. Weiland herself often writes in a ‘stream of consciousness’ meaning that she talks to herself on paper, asks herself questions etc., which means that her outlines often take months. I don’t think I will write quite as much as her, but I like the idea of trying out different ideas and truly finding the heart of your story 😍

I think using her outline method will help me write a more clean draft in the future so I would highly recommend it to any of you who are also writers! My draft for Intoxicated was pretty messy as I was trying out different techniques for the first time and I’m only now seeing how much that is editing wise 😅

Monday, September 24th 🖋

If you look really hard you’ll see that the Scribd book I read on the weekend was actually a box set that included the Workbook to Outlining your Novel! I love a guided approach and generally when things are organized so I worked my way through the Workbook (in one sitting actually)! I highly recommend checking it out if you have read the previous book (and you really should read Outlining your Novel first as it goes more into detail what each section is about) and like to do some great excercises to help solidify what you learned before!

I wrote up all the questions in the evening, because I was suddenly very set on finishing the Workbook (filling 20 pages in word). I did so because I want to use them and don’t own the book, so I had to save them somehow! They are what I was originally going to work with during the next 4 weeks to help me outline my sequel so I could write it during NaNoWriMo (stay tuned for how that went) and generally feel accomplished.

Other notable events this day included Kat’s new writing video (she’s making a short series), which I loved because her first ideo was what got me so motivated to work on writing again!

Wednesday, September 26th 🖋

Look, it’s me hard at work! I also don’t drink my coffee black it’s for the aesthetic 😂

You’ll notice that I didn’t do anything on Tuesday, as I was on a day long workshop (which was actually quite helpful, as it dealt with time management)! But I was back the next day with more motivation to work on improving my writing craft! I cannot remember the last time I have been so passionate about learning about writing 😱 I started reading the K.M. Weiland’s online outlining series as a supplement for the books I read. I would recommend reading them first, as they go more in-depth and the Series is more about advanced skills, but it can still be helpful regardless! As you might have noticed I love K.M Weiland’s advice, she has truly helped me gain a lot of insight in the writing craft and made me realize what I needed to improve to take my WIP to the next level. Her website is definitely something you should check out 😍

I also finally figured out my main character’s arc, that I had been working on for a few weeks now. I learned the basics of character arcs here and now I was trying to figure out how to go from there as I was working on the sequel to my WIP and tried to consider the overall plotline. This post here really helped me with that! I’m amazed by how much I can still learn and also a bit intimidated as there is a lot of writing related things I still have not learned.

Thursday, September 27th 🖋

I only started doing anything at all in the afternoon as I was busy all morning and midday running chores for several things. I worked a bit more on getting though the online Outling Series from yesterday and actually managed to finish it!!! It was a very helpful supplement for the books I read and overall I feel like IO learned a lot this week, which makes me feel quite accomplished! 🎉

Then I made a big decision. I decided that I will be outlining the sequel during NaNo instead of aiming to write it. I had no idea how much stress I made for myself by insisting that I have to outline the sequel before November by all means, because I felt like I absolutely HAD to write something during NaNo. I felt like I had to at least start writing the sequel, as I had not yet edited my WIP and didn’t want to leave 2018 behind with only 20K written in April. That however, was not a very helpful approach/train of thought, as it counts way more to be stress free and to take time with my WIP instead of rushing it. I feared that by forcing myself to outline really fast the quality of the sequelcould suffer, so I decided to be a NaNo Rebel and outline in November, so I have more time now. This is way more realistic too, then expecting to figure out all the plot and character arcs in under 4 weeks.

Consequentely I updated the amazing colorful to_do List that I had written yesterday, as I still had a few things I wanted to get done before November. I also outline the NaNo inspired,  writing-related Post series in November that I want to do on the blog 😉 You’ll hopefully see a writing related Post each Friday/Saturday in November!

Friday, September 28th 🖋

You wouldn’t believe how much better I feel now that I’ve allowed myself to use NaNo to outline my book instead of trying to do that before to then be ready to write. I didn’t even realize how much stress I was making for myself, which is not something I really want to do. However, now I’m so much more excited for the upcoming months, as I look forward to outlining with K.M. Weiland’s method. That means lots of time for brainstorming, creativity and ideas that I get to explore and hopefully will make my next drafts a lot less messy.

Today I started off the day with making a NaNo Checklist in my journal that I will also be using as my daily tracker during November. I always keep a journal each NaNo to record daily word counts and other important things! (My bedside drawer is full of them from years ago, as I cannot bear to part with any of my past journals even if I don’t need them any longer) Generally, I find that sitting down with a cup of coffee and just planning my day or other important things has really improved my morning routine! If only I could get up early for once 😅

On Friday I was giving myself a little break as I now didn’t have as much work to do and stress over then before. Therefore, I was focusing on preparing fun stuff for NaNo, which was a welcome change! The brain can only absorb so much before it needs a real. If you look real close you can see my naNo checklist from above. Today, I was downloading wallpaper for my phone and laptop (and more motivational pictures) to get me in the mood in November and motivate me. I always do this every year as it makes me more productive somehow. I also desperately tracked down a word count tracker + calendar for this year which was surprisingly hard. The most resources I had especially for the word count tracker were from last year and the person had no uploaded a 2018 version, so I had to search elsewhere. I also signed up my novel for November so it’s official!! Lastly I was making a collage as a cover for my new WIP, which you will get introduced to at the beginning of November!!

IN CONCLUSION: I will be participating in NaNoWriMo in November, but I will got a bit rogue this year as I won’t be technically writing a first draft, but rather an outline (and with the way I’m doing this, it should be able to reach 50K) for my sequel to Intoxicated! The only thing yet left unresolved is when I will actually exit Untoxicated, as I have not yet done this (I was procrastinating a bit and waiting for the ‘right moment’) and won’t be able to edit a lot before NaNo … maybe after? Depends on how much my workload is the next semester.

Wanna be NaNo Friends? You can find me under the username Miss.Supernatural and add me as a buddy if you want to, I would love to keep up with everyone’s progress this November! 💗

Are you a writer? What are you working on? Is anybody joining NaNoWriMo? 💗