The unbearable unpreparedness of NaNo

It starts tomorrow, NaNoWriMo that is, so it’s a good job we’ve all done our best to plan and plot and generally prepare for it. You have right? I know I have…

Oh no…

Wait….

No. I’ve done bugger all in the preparing stakes. Oh, well now, this can’t end well…can it?

Well let’s not panic just yet. Let’s take a breath and have a look at how much preparation I’ve actually done, or not. Because, as usual, if my crap and nonsense can put some of you at ease, then I’ve done my good deed for the day…year…something.

I hate you all.

Last year, I spent most of October planning my story. I had character lists, plot points, things that I needed to remember to do early on to set up things later in the story, all kinds of things. I wrote them out in a special notebook while wearing my writing hat.

This year I haven’t even got around to stocking up on Percy Pigs which I needs for writing.

Am I completely unprepared? No, I cannot lie and say that I am pantsing it, but it’s bloody close. As you probably know, I’ve got the bare bones of a plot about a coastal town that is attacked by a huge school of killer squid. It’s going to be called, Deathalopod! I had the idea around Spring and have been collecting research material since then.

I’ve got squid books, magazines about surfing and diving, websites with first hand accounts of squid attacks and some utter bullshit from a man whose OTT macho antics have made him a shoe-in as my main character.

I’ve got an idea that the story is set during a surf contest so there’ll be plenty of people in the water. Our old friends,The Military, will be responsible for inadvertently causing the attacks with one of their crazy experiments. And, The Military, will help to solve the problem at the end. There will also be a female squid expert who our misogynistic hero will have to rely on to help him defeat the squid.

Preapared?

Does that sound like I know what I’m doing? Does it sound like I’ve got the plot down? It might, but I haven’t.

I have no idea how it all starts. I have no idea what my character names are. I have no idea how many extra characters I’ll need. I have no idea how many different ways of killing people with squid I can come up with to keep it interesting. I have no idea of what needs to happen to keep the plot flowing. I have no idea where these plot points should happen. I have no idea if there needs to be a secret bad guy working in secret behind the scenes. I have no idea how my hero is going to persuade, The Military, to let him use their secret weapon.

In short, I have no idea.

So while technically I’m not pantsing my NaNo this year, it certainly feels like I am. All of which leaves me with only one thing to do.

Prepare

Tonight, I shall be working through my plot. There will be lots of pacing and hat wearing. I’ll try to at least come up with some names for my lead characters, whoever they may be. I know I need the male and female leads and I know what they do, but what about secondary characters?

I’ll be happy if I can work out where the story begins and exactly how it should end. The middle bit I can work toward as I write. I’ll be especially pleased with myself if I can work out a handful of set pieces for each act so I have something to be working towards.

The details will be worked out at the end of each writing day. That way, I always start each day knowing exactly where I’m going.

In conclusion then, no, I don’t feel prepared at all. I have the vaguest of ideas and am sure that I’ll fail this year. But that just makes it more exciting, doesn’t it? Yes.

So good luck NaNoers or WriMos or what ever you want to call yourselves. Remember, there’s loads of us doing this, so don’t be shy if it starts to get too much. If you need help and support, you only need to ask. If you want to add me to your buddy list, just search for Mr Uku and you’ll find me.

Oh and one more thing:

I’ve decided to use Scrivener for Windows this year. I’m not sure if that’s a good idea or not, especially as the current beta runs out on November 7th.

With that in mind, I’d like to give you all my top NaNoWriMo tip.

Whatever bit of software you use to write your masterpiece with, BACK-UP. Don’t think it’ll never happen to you, cos it will. Save your work after every paragraph. If you’re using Scrivener, make sure auto-save is turned on.

At the end of each day, BACK-UP YOUR WORK. Don’t just save it, back it up on a separate disk if you can. And if you haven’t done so already, now is a really good time to get yourself a Dropbox account.

You’ll thank me for it. It’s free, it’s easy to use and if you only ever use it for NaNoWriMo it’ll be totally worth it should the worst happen.

Right, that’s it. Be gone, the lot of you and bring me my Percy Pigs, I’ve got some planning to do.

 

UPDATE

It has just been pointed out to me that there is a special NaNoWriMo trial of Scrivener. Versions are available for both Mac and Windows although if you’re using the Windows beta you will need to uninstall it before installing the NaNo version. You can get all the details and downloads from here – http://www.literatureandlatte.com/nanowrimo.php

Tagged as: nanowrimo, panic, pantsing, percy pig, preparation, squid